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User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 213

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Why would one want to be uncivil?

Latest comment: 8 years ago132 comments27 people in discussion

Just a simple question to any editors who feel it applies to them, why would you want to be uncivil? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 04:13, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Good editors are sometimes uncivil after sustained attack from clueless contributors who do nothing to build content but who have majestic opinions—everyone is equal on the internet! The problem is that Wikipedia has no way to handle civil POV pushers, whether they are ensuring [insert nationality] is dominant, or pushing bling such as infoboxes. The pushers have won, but what they should have done was hold central discussions to make infoboxes compulsory. They chose another tactic. Johnuniq (talk) 06:14, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps, but why would someone want to be uncivil in such a situation? --Bob K31416 (talk) 06:19, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Frustration - if you feel someone is an ignorant jackass, the obvious thing is to say they are an ignorant jackass. -mattbuck (Talk) 06:37, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
They see it as the only way to protect the encyclopedia. As for ignorant jackass, some of us are capable of distinguishing between our personal opinion/perspective and fact. "You are an ignorant jackass" is quite different from "You are an ignorant jackass, in my view." ―Mandruss ☎ 06:45, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Many of the people who develop featured articles spend serious money buying references as well as serious time studying sources—that's before writing begins. They become very heavily involved in the topic and may be unable to avoid an emotional reaction when clueless passers-by open old wounds. Using expletives is seldom useful, but people are different, and not everyone can remain poker-faced when repeating the same argument for the twentieth time. One day articles may be written by AI bots, but until then the community should assume that writers are talented people with a wide range of backgrounds, and a wide range of emotional responses when under pointless attack. The community should step in and protect such writers—not give them a free-pass, but ensure that the drive-by editors move elsewhere because that would give the best result for the encyclopedia. Infoboxes are not mandatory, and the present tactic of driving off editors who prefer developing articles without them is highly unhelpful. Johnuniq (talk) 07:44, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
With respect, the protection of "such writers" is also quite at the heart of the problem. The ownership exhibited by article "stewards" is part of the problem. Categorizing people as "drive-by editors," assuming that such an editor's opinion is unworthy, is part of the problem. Mistaking long term and blatant incivility as "infobox problems" is part of the problem. Assuming that an FA contributor is more worthy of protection than an editor who "doesn't edit articles all that much" is part of the problem - especially when I'll stack up my personal library against the collection of an average FA editor. And your assuming that I think I won something.... is part of the problem. And I really do mean that when I say, "with respect," as for all my differences with what you've said to me / about me, I won't deny that I could have been a better person in my responses. While at the same time not accepting the excuses and nothing but insults I received from said editor who was "driven off." And my sincerest apologies if my response here seems improper. LaughingVulcan Grok Page! 04:36, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Incivility is the property of a community as much as the individual. People rarely escalate to extremes unless provoked by circumstance. But I think a big part of the escalation is badly written policy. For example, the case above made me complain at WP:POLEMIC that there are very different interpretations of that policy by different people. I've previously complained that WP:Civility has a lot of aspirational claptrap that greatly distracts from what the policy actually says. The problem is, when you have something like civility whose enforcement is so inherently vague and problematic, and then you pour on policies that read differently to different people, or which are too long and diffuse for anyone seriously to read through and learn at all, you have a situation where the moment that civility is called into question, people start feeling wronged because of inconsistent interpretations of what the policy is, and then they break other parts (at least in the eyes of some people) because they feel like it isn't being enforced anyway. I mean, picture how a baseball game would play out if they didn't have a foul line but let the umpire decide when a ball went too far to one side. Badly written policy weighed down with cruft and too-cute phrasing and diplomatic compromises where people with different intentions agree on intentionally vague text... it's a toxic legacy for everyone on the project. Wnt (talk) 10:30, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
  • No. I do not go around trying to add or remove infoboxes, and while I'm happy to offer opinions, I do not push my views. Also, I am not dismissing infoboxes—my only point is that there is no policy or guideline requiring their presence. Are infoboxes essential for machine-readable data? Or for time-challenged readers wanting a quick answer to a quiz question? Uniformity is desirable, but articles come in different shapes and sizes and complete uniformity is unachievable. That is particularly true given that articles are written by many people from very varied backgrounds. Johnuniq (talk) 12:06, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
There is absolutely no reason to be uncivil on Wikipedia. I can express everything that i need to while being civil. Anyone who makes excuses for being uncivil is simply making excuses for bad behavior. There is absolutely no need to be uncivil. Every editor can speak to the content itself, and not make accusations or insinuations about other editors. Every person can simply speak from their own self in the first person and leave out all snark and insults about others. But for this to work, it must be enforced to an extent that there is not the critical mass of hostility that currently pervades the project. In this atmosphere, someone speaking simply and directly is lost in a cacophony of yelling by others, and too often gets attacked and incited themselves. SageRad (talk) 12:15, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
The worse (and more pervasive) kind of uncivil behavior, though, is not simply "You're a jackass!" Simple statements like that are too obvious. The worse is continual low-level hostility and insinuations with low-level aggression and bullying. Manipulative bully behaviors are usually designed to be just under the radar, or under a threshold that is easily called out. That's the more harmful type of behavior, in my experience. To address this we need to improve enforcement through good group dynamics, and have people call out bad behavior like that. SageRad (talk) 12:31, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
The editor doth protesteth too much... SageRad, you yourself can be plenty combative towards other editors as exemplified by THIS easily found diff in which you more or less directly accused another editor of following a "propagandist agenda" in their editing. Don't be so smug about how you "can express everything that [you] need to while being civil." Incivility is in the eye of the beholder. I'm far more concerned about Civil POV pushing to affect content than I am about people who lose their stuff in the face of incessant provocation now and again. Carrite (talk) 14:54, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Look there you made your comment about me instead of about the actual topic. Your focus of your comment on me with insinuations toward my character is the very type of uncivil behavior about which i was speaking above. I'm not perfect and never claimedd to be. And... your diff is from less than a month after i began editing, while i was still struggling to remember to indent comments, to exemplify exactly what about me? Check out my next contribution in that thread and see whether i learned and remained civil. Anyway, i have developed greatly since that time, in regard to editing within Wikipedia. I'm not perfect, but it's really possible to discuss content and topics like this one without commenting on the other editor. It's possible to simply speak to the topic. If you must use examples, then make something up. SageRad (talk) 22:10, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
When a person says "me, me, me," the subject is them. What I am saying is: humility and humbleness are good things. Carrite (talk) 04:20, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
Not sure i get your point here. Speaking from first person is a good rule of thumb to avoid being uncivil. Speaking as simply as possible is a good rule. I've learned somewhat to leave out snark and extra commentary. One can say "Only an idiot would think that source X says Y. It obviously says Z." or one can say "Source X doesn't say Y, it says Z." To my read, the first is uncivil and the second is fine. I'm not perfect. I'm working on it continuously. The more people who work on it, the better off we will be. It can be a cycle either way -- a cycle of incivility, or a cycle of respect. SageRad (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


Is this is a genuine question? If so, is it intended to mean
"What are the real or perceived tactical advantages and psychological rewards of employing verbal and/or relational aggression in talk page discussions?"?
Is it true and relevant that intractable "incivility" problems tend to occur more where there is a "reward" system in the form of peer recognition of contributors (for instance in connection with FA, GA, DYK, etc.)? --Boson (talk) 16:15, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, the rude, vicious cyberbullies tend to win their way, by driving normal, neutral, educated users to leave their long-term skeleton crews of the specialist editors who had kept portions of Wikipedia up-to-date and improving, but are now fed up with other typical editors being driven away, as with Facebook bullies ruining social media. The proverbial "10,000 monkeys" at the keyboard cannot recreate the works of Shakespeare, but vicious apes can ruin the contents or format of 10 million pages. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:42, 29 September 2016 (UTC)


The bottom line is this: friction causes heat and sparks. Content writers tend to spend a lot of time, money, and effort doing what they do and when there are drive-bys who attempt to make everything pretty and uniform because the sacred Manual Of Style®™ says so, things can go south quickly. This doesn't even touch the scenario — at least as common — in which passionate person 1 comes into conflict with passionate person 2 about the content of an article. The OP phrases the matter wrongly when he asks why people would "want" to be uncivil. It is more like this: conflict is inevitable given the WP open editing model and "incivility" is in the eye of the beholder. Certainly the situation is inflamed by the fact that the vast majority of WP editing happens in isolation rather than in person, which leads to misunderstandings and an escalation of aggressiveness towards those with whom one disagrees. Moreover, Civility rules are, as Kelly Martin has noted, little more than a cudgel in the content and style wars. We don't need to obsess about these things, we don't need to throw money and effort at the impossible task of developing Artificial Intelligence aggression sensors. We need to all, humbly, try to do better in dealing with others while remembering our real purpose here — writing an encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 16:44, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

  • Three main answers:
1) some people like being uncivil to other people. That can be for any number of reasons. It is not what we are up to here, but some people just like it - consider it part of their style, whatever. You can't explain what people like.
2) Some people have very frail egos and will "cry uncivil" over things that aren't uncivil to many observers. In those cases nobody was uncivil and the question of "wanting to be uncivil" is off point; the relevant question is "why do some people want to perceive others as uncivil?" The subjectivity of "uncivil" is one reason why it is very, very hard for the community to deal with.
3) in a lot of cases, incivility happens although nobody involved wants to be uncivil. People are human - they crack under stress or have bad days.
There you go. Jytdog (talk) 18:25, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
1. The usual limitations of communication via keyboard and computer screen. 2. Hypercynicism and black-and-white worldviews, widespread off-wiki as well as on. Conclusion: Largely intractable. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:31, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
One other factor in perceived incivility: culture. WP is fairly unusual in the way it brings together editors from different cultures, some of whom do not have English as a first language. What may to one culture be a term of endearment can appear to be rude and offensive to another. I'm not suggesting we go down the PC route of emasculating the language, but both writers and readers need to take cognisance of the cultural norms of their correspondents. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
George Carlin did say that "fuck you" is about the nicest thing you could say to anybody. His obvious point was that it's not the words but the feeling behind them. That feeling is usually fairly objectively apparent in my opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:39, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Martin from Sheffield is correct, however, the disparity is not limited to non-native English speakers. At one page, an editor "accused" another of showing McCarthyism. The accused editor reacted immediately and very strongly to this. I actually had to look the term up, and even now I do not understand the strength of reaction. Just a US/UK thing, but we are both native English speakers. DrChrissy (talk) 22:47, 28 September 2016 (UTC)
Because one feels being Right is being more important than being honest in a still considerate and respectful manner. A genuinely congruent human being will, at times, feel the conflict between needing to be Right over the imperative of caring about others more than oneself. And sometimes fail that standard, or not recognize it at all. I have failed in that recently. I've seen others do that, too. Or, after Apocalypse Now, "...[I]t must be a temptation to be god, because there's a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil, and good does not always triumph. Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have one." LaughingVulcan Grok Page! 02:31, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
I think there are multiple definitions of incivility in play, and an amount of bait-and-switch in substituting freely between them.
Vulgarity is often characterised as incivility. Is it? The use of cuss words in informal speech varies dramatically between communities. Texans rarely cuss in business meetings, Brits do it all the time.
Bluntness is often characterised as incivility. Is it? If someone is knowingly repeating a false or refuted argument, are they guilty of terminological inexactitude, or ae they lying?
Irregular verbs: I am blunt, you are snarky, he is uncivil.
Are all complaints of incivility equal? Many of them appear to me to be of the form "X refuses to accept my counterfactual beliefs as having equal validity with empirically verified fact, UNCIVIL!!!!"
Is incivility the cause of a problem or its effect? Some cases appear to be the result of long-term polite (but uncivil in the sense of determinedly ignoring consensus) POV-pushing.
Looking at the cases most often mentioned, Giano is not, to my mind, uncivil, at least not ina problematic way: he just doesn't suffer fools gladly. His reaction to WP:RANDY types tends to be withering scorn. Routinely telling people to fuck off? That is a bad idea on numerous levels. Occasionally telling someone to STFU? Can't see the problem. Wikipedia is not kindergarten and we don't mandate parliamentary language. The test should be, are people actually trying to rub along and collaborate, are they at loggerheads but with the aim of arriving at neutral content, or are they just sniping at each other with no useful purpose?
Not that I have the slightest idea how to separate the various issues or indeed fix them, but it seems to me that lumping multiple different behavioural questions under a single term is probably not going to result in a resolution any time soon.
We could, if we chose, mandate pariamentary language. We could, if we chose, impose a restriction on a particular editor or interacting group of editors to use parliamentary language. It might be an interesting experiment. Guy (Help!) 10:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
That's all Brits, all of the time, is it? Not just when they are in business meetings with Texans? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:47, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
The Gentleman Administrator from the vicinity of Betelgeuse may indeed possess wisdom and has a unique perspective that the nominally smiling editor of the pointy-ears may try to remember using in more serious form for the future. The Admin of the two heads also brings forth a paradox that without naming specific users and examples the definition may indeed degenerate into whatever fits one's individual situation of (usually) feeling wronged and only rarely recognizing when one is wronging others. However, there is an inexact yet specific definition of what incivility on Wikipedia consists of, namely, "Incivility consists of personal attacks, rudeness and disrespectful comments." And it almost always goes hand in hand with a failure of etiquette. Etiquette is not just, "don't use four letter words. Don't point out others personal failings without love." It is, to quote the Emily Post Institute not only manners but, "[C]onsideration, respect, and honesty. These principles are the three qualities that stand behind all the manners we have."[1] link This is a major part of my responses above and how I'm trying to both change and evaluate for the future. LaughingVulcan Grok Page! 12:03, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
I heartily endorse this product or service. I have one caveat: it is perfectly possible to respect a person while ridiculing their beliefs, if those beliefs are absurd. I can completely understand, for example, why some people believe in homeopathy. Their belief does not change the fact that it is complete bollocks, belief in homeopathy is not a respectable position, at least not once one has read our article. But a point well made above is: content matters, editors' beliefs don't. We can, should and often do quietly move people away from areas where their beliefs will not allow them to accept consensus. Bible-thumping creationists have a short half life on articles relating to evolutionary biology and that is right and proper. Guy (Help!) 09:43, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
  • From the above discussion, it seems that for editors who are not malicious and encounter a difficult editor, they might become uncivil because they don't know of any way to easily deal with the problem editor in a civil manner. In that regard, is there any single essay that focuses on this problem by describing various methods for easily dealing with problem editors, which can be used instead of incivility from frustration? --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:29, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
--Here's an example of advice in such an essay – When you have consensus on your side, and an editor goes on and on with repititious unconvincing arguments, keep in mind that it is the article that you are working on, not trying to change the editor's beliefs. So if the editor isn't a threat to the article, you don't need to respond to the editor's remarks nor be uncivil. If you feel you need to respond, keep it civil and short and refer to previous discussions as appropriate. The phrasing, "That's already been discussed" can be used too. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Somewhat along the lines of Guy's comment above, i would like to understand better what various people categorize as "uncivil". Is it always uncivil to comment on another user's behavior? If someone seems to be extremely stubborn to the point of completely denying something like "Source X says Y" or are seeming to gish gallop and distract with their dialog while remaining obstinate on blocking or inserting a specific content, then is it ok to say "You seem to be very stubborn and your dialog seems to lack integrity and completion"? Is it ok to insist on dialog with integrity? To me, participating in a dialog but leaving very specific questions unanswered while changing and shifting the dialog seems uncivil to me. It seems like intentional disregard for integrity of dialog is like a disguised filibuster, essentially a prime example of "civil POV pushing". What i've encountered so often is someone in a dialog who seems to not really be there with good will and good faith, and who does not treat the dialog with the requisite respect to work through often complex questions, to tease apart the sub-questions, etc. That really does take a commitment to good dialog. Every tiny bit of insult or snark in a dialog can also throw everything off. Every single tiny insinuation and allegation can throw the dialog off, as a conscientious person who is assuming good faith will feel compelled to answer accusations. Those are the sorts of situations that throw me beyond a breaking point on occasion. SageRad (talk) 14:45, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
You really need to stop using that word "integrity", because you have used it so often as a synonym for ideological consonance and by now every single time you use it I automatically discount your point as being self-serving. You may not like that, but I am pretty sure I am not the only one who sees it this way.
All we require of people on Wikipedia is that they are honest. A True Believer does not lack integrity when they trot out endless anti-vaccine or climate denialist tropes. They are wrong, and they are almost always POV-pushing, but it's not a lack of integrity unless they know and understand that they are wrong and continue anyway. That only happens in very rare cases. Guy (Help!) 14:39, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for raising the questions, Bob K31416. I feel this discussion is critical for the well being of the encyclopedia. It's quite a complex bunch of questions. SageRad (talk) 16:32, 29 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Depends on context. As I've said in previous discussions 'play the ball not the man/woman/etc'. Personally, I've no problem with someone saying 'that article was a c*nt' to get to GA' but I don't think calling another editor a c*nt is acceptable. AnonNep (talk) 19:26, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

See here: "Personal attacks can paradoxically arise when we're actually trying to be nice. Suppose that someone has produced work that you think is well below the required standard. Then you can invoke personal issues instead of thrashing the work, our brains have evolved a tendency to do that to soften criticism and to steer people away from with collaborating with each other if that would lead to friction. This may have worked well in the Stone Age, but in today's society this yields bad results as usually you're not going to have your way with picking your collaborators. So, what one needs to do is to be as open as possible with discussing the content, if is seen to be thrash, then calling it thrash is justified (provided one can motivate why). If a person repeatedly is seen to be producing thrash, then going to AN/I to get a topic ban imposed should be the next step." Count Iblis (talk) 22:16, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

We must be forgiving. We are all human and we all crack under stress sometimes. We must also strive to be our best selves. If i am being uncivil at any time, i would appreciate someone else calling it out in a kind way. I try to do the same. Lord knows i am not always as civil as i could be, but i do work on it. If we are working toward being civil, this may be the best we can ask. We are human beings working collaboratively on a massive project to represent all of human knowledge. That is a huge and important undertaking. Currently only fools take Wikipedia to be the last word on any subject. It's a useful springboard to further reading, and it's generally a good sketch of most topics, but it does embody some NPOV issues. Nobody knows everything. We editors go further, declaring that we know nothing. We must use sources to determine what is verifiable. No one editor or group of editors has a right to control an article. Good dialog must occur to resolve different points of view. To hold good dialog, we must be civil. Otherwise it devolves into name-calling and tangled knots of accusations. SageRad (talk) 03:00, 30 September 2016 (UTC)


The comment wasn't aggressive towards anyone, so it's not uncivil, if that was your point. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:48, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

No, that was not the point. Please see South Park S19 Ep5 – Safe Space. South Park did an episode on what would happen to the small group of moderators (represented by Butters Stotch) who are willing to deal with difficult disputes if we would all demand our own safe space; a place free of uncivil comments. I've seen quite a few cases in which it would've been helpful if people just chilled out and realized that not every discussion that contains a couple of swearwords requires Jimbo's, Jesus' and Obama's attention. Blocking tends to make people less civil, not more. We have productive editors who use swearwords once in a while onwiki. In some cases they edit in areas of the encyclopedia that are known to cause heated discussion. I think it is easy to judge someone harshly based on a list of diffs where productive user X who makes many good edits in areas of the encyclopedia that can cause heated discussion used swearwords if that list has been carefully compiled by cherrypicking through thousands and thousands of relatively boring edits and presented without context (e.g. user X was being trolled by Y when he told Y to fuck off, in a content dispute with Z when he told Z that he should stfu etc.) and user X is known to use swearwords once in a while (couple a times a year maybe more with increasing wikistress). This can sometimes be solved without any long blocks or bans, by simply talking to the user (or asking someone to do it for you), perhaps mentoring or helping reduce wikistress or something; making people leave is not the only nor the most desirable solution. I am not claiming that all incivility can be "cured", but I do think that there is a real possibility of judging too harshly and quickly. And of course there is a trap: our idea that we ourselves are never incivil... (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:50, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, swear words aren't the main thing. General unfriendliness and condescension and plain meanness are more bothersome, and there are some editors who seem to exude a meanness in nearly every single comment. So while i understand your point above about how it's possible to make someone look bad on first glance given a dozen diff's with cursing, there are genuine problems with people who consistently exude a hostility or toxicity. And i'm not someone who demands a "safe space" but rather a general common decency, a tendency toward civility, would be enough. SageRad (talk) 00:11, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Agreed, but again this goes to wider societal-cultural issues. We are not going to make Wikipedia an island of common human respect relative to the rest of the world. Not when our doors are wide open to anybody. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:16, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Agreed, but in daily life i find most people to be much more civil than many people on Wikipedia. Even when talking about controversial topics. SageRad (talk) 00:29, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't interact with a representative cross section of society, do you? For the most part, I choose what crowds to mingle with and avoid people who are not somewhat like me. I don't go to biker bars, I don't engage in debates with strangers at the mall, and I certainly don't visit the relative slums of Detroit or Birmingham. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:41, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Quite so. One's intimate circle rarely challenges one's cherished beliefs, whereas Wikipedia does it all the time, pretty much by design. Guy (Help!) 23:01, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
In a sense, yes, i see this point about self-selection of dialogs, although i did specify that i can have civil dialogs with people across differences above. The friction in Wikipedia can be a good thing, a creative tension from which excellent content emerges, and may be an explanation of the commonality of incivility, though it is not a good reason to be uncivil; it means we must work hard to be civil and keep working on our ways of speaking with each other. SageRad (talk) 14:55, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Just a general comment. I hope we're not entering an age of diminished common decency, where being a badass on the Internet is considered cool. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:04, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

The anonymity of the Internet has always liberated people from normal societal standards of behavior. Unless you commit a serious crime like credible threats against a world leader or child porn, you can pretty much say whatever you want without consequences. Behave like that in RL and you generally get your ass kicked, lose your job, or something equally unpleasant. There is a deterrent to antisocial behavior, and that is an essential function of any society. Many, many people think it's cool to be free of those constraints. They can use the Internet as their daily dumping ground for the frustrations and resentments of modern life. If they wish they were a tough guy, they can play one on the Internet. Some of them choose Wikipedia as the place to do that. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:14, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Just a general comment. I feel that calling someone "an ignorant jackass", should result in an automatic one- or two-day block, or maybe a few days more. It would be a slap on the wrist, like a speeding ticket (which is punishment for an offense that somewhat increases the likely hood of others' premature death). 176.11.201.117 (talk) 17:27, 2 October 2016 (UTC)/176.11.201.117 (talk) 17:33, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Anyone who needs to know how offensive various terms are can now find out thanks to OFCOM, the UK's communicaitons regulator. Happy to be of service. Guy (Help!) 21:52, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
I think the report is now here. --Boson (talk) 12:35, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
I think one is uncivil to call attention to oneself. When one ceases to have an agenda—any agenda—one avoids or at least minimizes conflict at Wikipedia. An agenda is having a plan. An agenda is having a widely sweeping idea of how things should be. That is taking ownership of not just an article but of the project. You have essentially deluded yourself when you have reached the conclusion that this is your project. Under that delusion you are justified in being uncivil. It is as if someone has damaged your personal property when your agenda encounters a mere road bump. Bus stop (talk) 22:14, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
Everyone has an agenda, anyone who says they have no biases is delusional. Guy (Help!) 22:59, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
This is true, and I was not clear. Anyone who pursues an agenda is likely to run into trouble. Bus stop (talk) 23:24, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
It is ok to be passionate. It matters what one is passionate for. Wikipedia is a grand project. An alternate slogan could be Writing the Universe. Notice that this does not say Righting the Universe, per WP:RGW. Sometimes writing correctly according to NPOV does improve the content in a way that is good for the world. This is a good passion. If an editor's passion is completely within the policies of WP:V and they are WP:CIVIL and engage in good dialog about content, then passion is welcome, for it makes the best encyclopedia. If an agenda is counter to the policies, then it is a problem. There should be no ownership of articles or of the project in general, but only good application of the policies as a collective goal. SageRad (talk) 01:36, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
This is an interesting discussion, because the question is just vague enough to give answers that provide a wonderful insight into the varying nature of the human psyche. I especially like Jytdog's reply. In my own opinion, the question itself is a bit misguided. We will always encounter people who are uncivil, and ironically enough those are the same people who will usually cry "incivility" at the slightest provocation. In reality, this is a very human way of testing other humans, in order to root out weakness. That a person is uncivil to me, may call me names or issue personal attacks is no reflection of me whatsoever. Instead it's a reflection of themselves; the person they really are but want to hide from the world. The only reflection of me is how I respond to it, which is the reason for the test. The weak will give in to anger and respond in kind. The strong won't be affected by it. It's a tactic as old as combat/conflict itself. Zaereth (talk) 06:11, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
It is a good question because it asks squarely why anyone would be uncivil. I don't think it is "vague". I think the question asks those who are or have been uncivil why they are uncivil. It is a poll of those of us who have been uncivil as to why we at least sometimes choose incivility. The original question is "Just a simple question to any editors who feel it applies to them, why would you want to be uncivil?" (And the heading is clear enough: "Why would one want to be uncivil?") Bus stop (talk) 12:32, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment Being uncivil in a Wikipedia discussion is really just..."you're opinion is less valid than mine", or "I will bait you into crossing a line". It is a tactic as much as a reaction.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:05, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Civility is one of the pillars of Wikipedia

We appear to have lost sight that the 4th pillar of Wikipedia is Editors should treat each other with respect and civility. I would have thought that the pillars were non-negotiable. For instance, the second pillar is Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view; If this thread had been phrased "Why would one want to write with a POV?" I doubt there would have been a single voice in agreement that POV is (sometimes) permissible. Why is civility any different and why are there editors here arguing that this pillar should be ignored? DrChrissy (talk) 18:30, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

The purpose of Wikipedia is to build an encyclopedia. Building a safe space where anyone with an internet connection can join in is not Wikipedia's role. The problem is that the community has no procedure to block civil POV pushers and the generally clueless. That means unhelpful behavior can be repeated, and that may elicit incivility from those who have helped build the encyclopedia. Any solution needs to look at both sides of the equation—do not focus on the effect (expletives) without dealing with the cause (civil POV pushing or lack of competence). Johnuniq (talk) 23:33, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
Nobody said a "safe space" in the sense of some fragile "you offended me!" over-the-top level of civil... and on the other hand, what one person judges to be a "civil POV pusher" is to another person working toward NPOV. There are differences of perspective, genuine differences, among people. Those who think they're absolutely, clearly, no-question, for certain, I know it when i see it Right are a problem. Sometimes those and the ones who are uncivil thinking they're "saving" Wikipedia from "wogao" are sometimes one and the same. That's a problem. DrChrissy is right that civility is a pillar of Wikipedia. That's more than a nicety -- it's a necessity. (By the way, expletives are the least harmful aspect of incivility -- it's a deeper thing.) The ends don't justify the means -- and often it's not even as you see it. Sometimes it's your specific ends which don't justify the means. Sometimes it's the rush to judge those of different opinions as being "civil POV pushing" or "lack of competence" -- sometimes that simply means that someone has a different perspective on a topic, and they ought to have space to discuss it without being treated badly. SageRad (talk) 23:58, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
It's put-up time. Please link to a couple of discussions where incivility was nofailt properly handled. Because the purpose of Wikipedia is to build an encylopedia, there can be no rule specifying what block should be imposed for an expletive—the underlying issue is always the key point. Johnuniq (talk) 00:19, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Talk:Gamergate controversy has 40+ pages of editors trying to document a big scandal in the video game industry while unblocked power users accuse them all of being trolls and misogynists. 50.196.177.155 (talk) 21:41, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
What, you mean it's all about ethics in videogame journalism? Who knew? Guy (Help!) 09:26, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
I do not want to put specific dialogs here, to call attention to any specific user, but i see it all the time. I did not say anything about a "rule specifying what block should be imposed for an expletive" so maybe you were thinking of an above comment while responding to me. Civility is important, and it is the means to having good dialogs about the content. Without civility, good dialog is not possible. SageRad (talk) 00:27, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Having "good dialogs" is not the purpose of Wikipedia. It is not possible to have useful dialogs with POV pushers or those who lack competence. What is a worse problem—some bad words or repetition-to-death from POV pushers and those who lack competence? Why the focus on the former with no procedures to handle the latter? Johnuniq (talk) 00:41, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Maybe there's easier and more effective ways to handle repetition-to-death editors than incivility. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:11, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
maybe. big maybe and fairly useless maybe. (see my comments here in yet an earlier iteration of this endless discussion) bottom line is there is little we can do as POV-pushers are generally deaf to any feedback, however civil they are, and they are definitely deaf to nice requests to stop soapboxing, or to yield to consensus, etc, to which they generally respond with cries of "censorship" or "incivility". humans lose patience. Jytdog (talk) 02:37, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Here's a possibility from a previous message of mine in this discussion:[2]
When you have consensus on your side, and an editor goes on and on with repetitious unconvincing arguments, keep in mind that it is the article that you are working on, not trying to change the editor's beliefs. So if the editor isn't a threat to the article, you don't need to respond to the editor's remarks nor be uncivil. If you feel you need to respond, keep it civil and short and refer to previous discussions as appropriate. The phrasing, "That's already been discussed" can be used too.
--Bob K31416 (talk) 03:01, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Point of view pushing is advanced by incivility. An outburst is a violation of WP:CIVIL but an outburst serves to call attention to oneself and not coincidentally to one's point of view. Incivility is as much implicated in point of view pushing as so-called "civil POV pushing". The difference is one has the backing of standard English and normal behavior and the other veers off into self-expression at any cost. I favor limited speech under these circumstances. We know that the encyclopedia is read by a wide swath of the English-speaking world and comes up first in Google searches therefore everyone wants to get their "message" out. But in interpersonal dialogue there is no place for the boisterousness that we call incivility. I think that may be the reason this problem is the 4th pillar of Wikipedia. Bus stop (talk) 05:14, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks to DrChrissy for that quote: Editors should treat each other with respect and civility. Bus stop (talk) 05:23, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Having "good dialogs" is not the purpose of Wikipedia. ..... and i didn't say it was -- having good dialogs is key to creating good content. Although some people disagree. Some people think that they are correct and therefore those who disagree need to get yelled at until they leave. That's the other side of this coin. It's people who are so cocksure that they are Right with a capital "R" who are most willing to be mean and condescending to those who challenge their precious beliefs. That's the thing about this all, and this dialog right here has made it apparent in microcosm. This whole thing about "Civil POV Pushing" is really another way of saying "He won't admit i'm right and he keeps talking!" which is a position that generally is stated by someone who is sure they they themselves are right. I hope to show the absolute poverty of that argument. It's a completely relative argument. The other person probably would say the same damn thing about you! Yeah, i've been there, with 5 excellent reliable sources stating something very relevant to the article, with another editor telling me that it's not relevant to the article and therefore should not be in it -- and filibustering basically -- and the meanwhile accusing me of "civil POV pushing" when in fact from my point of view, it is them who is "civil POV pushing" and usually not even so very civil.... so this argument holds no water. It's a completely relative statement generally. It's generally a flim/flam bullying technique or else a delusion of the holder, and should carry no weight in this discussion about the need to be civil. We do sometimes need to break an endless cycle of "Yes!" "No!" "Yes!" "No!" and in those cases often go to an RfC which sometimes helps. But accusing others of "civil POV pushing" to justify your incivility is not a good enough reason. They may equally see you as a "civil POV pusher". SageRad (talk) 11:47, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
I think the bottom line is that we all know the difference between being fair and being abrasive. And there is no difference between incivility and civil POV pushing. That is because incivility is also a way of calling attention to oneself and ones point of view. Bus stop (talk) 13:11, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
If we all know the difference between being fair and being abrasive, then we all need to choose to be fair, and those who are abrasive need to be sanctioned then. But... what i'm saying is that this assessment of "civil POV pushing" is often a way of saying "He just won't admit that i am right, and give up!" which is a position of too much cocksure arrogance about your own rightness. Incivility is being mean whatever the motivation. SageRad (talk) 13:28, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
"civil POV pushing" is Orwellian. Bus stop (talk) 13:36, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
If you mean that the term is Orwellian in the sense of being doublespeak, then i agree. SageRad (talk) 13:39, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
Without pov pushing on either side, there can be a long intransigent discussion where each side is motivated by what they think is best for Wikipedia.
SageRad, Suppose you were in a long discussion where the other side had consensus, and they began to not respond to your messages, what would you do? --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:42, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
The problem here is that violations of WP:CIVIL represent POV pushing in and of themselves. I don't accept that people "just snap". That lashing out represents a calling of attention to oneself. And the calling of attention to oneself advertises one's "cause". Furthermore incivility also takes place at a lower but nevertheless harmful level. This is abrasiveness that causes divergent opinions to go away. Thus this unfriendly behavior is POV pushing. Civility should be enforced. It is a "pillar" of Wikipedia. Bus stop (talk) 14:23, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
No, the problem is that POV-pushing, and especially WP:IDHT, are not identified as the fundamental incivility that they are. Refusal to accept consensus is an act of passive-aggression. Both SageRad and DrChrissy, zealous advocates here for civility, have taken on this crusade only after their refusal to accept consensus resulted in sanctions against them. Both clearely resent these sanctions and reject their validity. That is the context, and it is really hard to view either as having clean hands here as a result. Guy (Help!) 17:03, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
So Guy - are your hands clean? Have you ever lied about an editor? Have you ever changed another editor's edits to change their meaning? I think you are here simply to derail this thread. DrChrissy (talk) 18:45, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
You are right that I am here to derail the thread, since the purpose of the thread appears to me to be POV-pushers tryign to pretend that being sanctioned for POV-pushing is somehow worse than POV-pushing. I am sure you have stopped beating your wife by now, though. Guy (Help!) 16:15, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
You are an admin. You are admitting to disruptive editing in this thread. I'm not married. DrChrissy (talk) 17:57, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
No, I am admitting to being here to stop you rewriting history to suit your internal worldview rather than what actually happened. You and Sage are both sanctioned POV-pushers. Your claims of "incivility" very often come down to implicit demands to have your POV-pushing go unchallenged. POV-pushing is uncivil, at its root, but the self-selected "civility police" studiously ignore that fact. The complaint you keep reiterating was addressed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive913 § Admin edits my post to deliberately change the meaning. I do not propose to go over that stale issue yet again, since anyone who cares can simply go and read the diffs. My personal view is that you would have a much happier time her eif you just steered clear of the drama boards. To reiterate a point I made earlier: faux politesse is not the same thing as civlity. I think you're a perfectly decent editor as long as you stick to writing about animals and stay away from the areas where your personal beliefs collide with policy. Maybe you should try that for a while, rather than trying to use claimed incivility as a smokescreen delegitimise the massive amount of pushback you have experienced during your failed attempts to advance a non-neutral POV. Guy (Help!) 08:29, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
And it is of course a slice of the choicest, richest irony cake that DrChrissy is fussing over a table in which he asserts the supposed misdemeanours of other editors (including me) such as "tag teaming". Yet WP:TAGTEAM tells us "Unsubstantiated accusations of tag teaming are ... " (wait for it) " ... uncivil". Alexbrn (talk) 12:04, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
The disconnect between that table and reality is a perfect example of the way Bringers of Truth™ see Wikipedia disputes in which they are involved. Anbsence of self-criticism, wrongteous indignation and conspiracist ideation all in one compact block. I suppose I should thank him. Guy (Help!) 16:39, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

First of all, there is an issue when some editors but not all declare that there is a consensus when there is not. Secondly, there is an issue when some editors but not all declare that someone is doing "civil POV pushing" when in fact they are simply speaking to the content. These are relative judgments. These are tricks used to force content sometimes. Sometimes, it really really really really is the case that someone really has a point, and they need it to be heard and responded to appropriately, either with agreement or disagreement, but to be heard before being dismissed.

I am not going to name names directly, but several people in this dialog here have been engaged in some of the worst "civil POV pushing" that i have seen, time and again, if you were to use their definition of the term. But they would claim otherwise because their perspective tells them otherwise.

We need to respect that different people have different perspectives and can see a matter of content differently. We need to not demonize this fact. We need to not define disagreement on content as "civil POV pushing" if someone won't just shut up when you want them to.

I'm saying it again, it's an arrogant, over-confident, bullying, cocksure way of being if you are ok declaring those who disagree with you as being wrong for speaking their thoughts.

We need to delve into the meaning of "consensus" and how it's determined. It's not determined by declaration by a couple of editors, you know, when there are reasonable arguments to the contrary. SageRad (talk) 21:07, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

A premise of my question was that the other side had consensus. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:33, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
Sage, we know you do not accept that there was ocnsensus and do not accept that you were POV-pushing. That is pretty much the point: that's why you ended up sanctioned. It is unfortunate that the penny still has not dropped. Have you read m:MPOV? And if so, did you read it as a commentary on your own behaviour rather than others', as all such essays are intended to be read? It's like the Bible: all parables are about the reader, not "them". Guy (Help!) 08:29, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
I disagree with your assessment of the situation, Guy. Your characterization of what happened in the past is incorrect. Your comment here pretty much speaks to the things i've been speaking about here. I would prefer to not engage with you on this topic if you can't keep it about the topic and not about me. I suggest you think about your own words here. SageRad (talk) 09:21, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Ok, i hear you Bob. Let's work with this. First i wonder how you are defining "consensus" here and who determined it here. Obviously it's not a consensus of all active editors because your question implies that i am not in agreement, as your question was SageRad, Suppose you were in a long discussion where the other side had consensus, and they began to not respond to your messages, what would you do? The framing of the question as there being "sides" is another sort of red flag for me. I do not like when there seems to be "sides" in the sense of teams, like it's a group sport. That seems like polarization that is unhealthy. Unfortunately, i see that too much as well.

Here is relevant policy:

When agreement cannot be reached through editing alone, the consensus-forming process becomes more explicit: editors open a section on the talk page and try to work out the dispute through discussion. Here editors try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense; they can also suggest alternative solutions or compromises that may satisfy all concerns. The result might be an agreement that does not satisfy anyone completely, but that all recognize as a reasonable solution. Consensus is an ongoing process on Wikipedia; it is often better to accept a less-than-perfect compromise – with the understanding that the page is gradually improving – than to try to fight to implement a particular preferred version immediately. The quality of articles with combative editors is, as a rule, far lower than that of articles where editors take a longer view.

When editors have a particularly difficult time reaching a consensus, several processes are available for consensus-building (third opinions, requests for comment), and even more extreme processes that will take authoritative steps to end the dispute (administrator intervention, formal mediation, and arbitration). Keep in mind, however, that administrators are primarily concerned with policy and editor behavior and will not decide content issues authoritatively. They may block editors for behaviors that interfere with the consensus process (such as edit-warring, abuse of multiple accounts, or a lack of civility). They may also make decisions about whether edits are or are not allowable under policy, but will not usually go beyond such actions.

First, i would take some time and consider whether i'm perhaps truly wrong here. Or perhaps that it's not important enough to take my time even if i still think i am right. If that doesn't resolve it for me, then i would perhaps call for an RfC or take it to a relevant noticeboard for more eyes (and hopefully non-involved eyes, although that tends to happen more in theory than in practice, but it helps).

What i've done lately, and it sometimes works, is to try to get the relevant points clarified, and ping the key people who seem to have the conflict. In fact i did such a thing recently here in trying to (1) defuse a perceived civility problem where one user objected to another user's edit summary -- and (2) to get further clarification from three parties who had made edits.

But to your question specifically, if i were in discussions with others who then stopped responding, i would generally wait a good amount of time. If their objections seemed truly genuine, i would try pinging them as well. I would not want to rush forward without getting consensus. If all other users stopped communication for several days, that would frankly be really strange. It hasn't happened, in my experience. But i do not try to exasperate or to "outlast" other editors. I seek simple, clear, genuine dialog with the sole purpose of working out the complexities of sources and content for the articles. SageRad (talk) 23:50, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

It looks like your response to my question is found in your last paragraph, which essentially says that you would stop. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
SageRad you have been WP:SHUNed when you would not Wikipedia:DROPTHESTICK; you have experienced it. Bob K, that is an option. Not an effective one, obviously, and not in a place like WP where people will continue to engage with a person who will not drop the stick. Jytdog (talk) 04:28, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Jytdog, If you were in a long discussion, would you continue to engage with a person who will not drop the stick? If so, why? --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:34, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
I have been in many. This seems to be theoretical to you, but it is very real. To answer, I try to engage for a long time and when it becomes clear the person will not deal with what everyone else is saying, I enact SHUN. Sometimes stating so, sometimes not. With your garden variety advocates who are just passing by, not responding works great. See Talk:Vaxxed and its archives where we have done that several times with drive-by editors. For folks like SageRad who are committed to The Truth they bring to WP ... others often keep responding far longer than I do. Have a look at Talk:Paleolithic_diet/Archive_6 for examples - you can wordsearch "shun" but to find them all you need to uncollapse some sections.
SHUN is tricky to implement because we all have an obligation to try to reach local consensus on things and to respond to good faith questions, and where to draw the line on what is "enough" is not simple.. but at some point enough is enough.
And of course, if the Civil POV pusher takes silence as consent and starts to actually edit the article per their preferred view, the whole discussion starts again. Jytdog (talk) 06:11, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Digression to individual editor

Jytdog and Guy's opinions on anything about me is from his perspective and is highly biased as he's been in opposition to me in ways that i do not think were good at all. Jytdog and Guy are not neutral observers by any stretch of the imagination regarding me, and it would be good if they would not make this about me but rather speak to the content of the discussion as i am doing. Failure to do that is one major cause of problems in dialogs, and is one of the main causes of breakdown of civility. I'm going to simply contest to the highest degree possible their assessment of things of the past, and not engage in dialog with those two here, seeing how it's going so far. SageRad (talk) 09:21, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Of course my view is fomr my perspective, but we also have a lengthy arbitration case with evidence and findings of fact. You choose to reject that as invalid, just as you choose to reject the sanctions against you. And that is your problem. Not that you have an opinion - everyone has - but that you are unshakeably convinced that you are right, to the point that you clearly perceive Wikipedia's failure to deliver your agenda as a lack of "integrity", a tword you have used a very large number of times in a way that always seems to me to be be synonymous with giving SageRad what he wants. You'd attract a good deal less crap if you could distinguish the difference between "I still think I am right" and "I am still right, therefore Wikipedia is broken beause it does not accept this obvious fact". Guy (Help!) 09:34, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
In the latest round of complaints above we hear all about the terrible things happening on Wikipedia, but with zero evidence. I think Hitchens's razor can be safely employed here and this grumbling can simply be dismissed. The reason people make it "about" SageRad is because it is about SageRad. Nothing else is ever brought in evidence: we just have complainer & vague unsupported complaints. Alexbrn (talk) 10:51, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, yes, but it's frustrating. I actually think that if Sage could flip the bit mentally to accept that he might be wrong about things, he'd become a much more valuable member of the community. e digs up some good sources and engages in thoghtful debate, it's just that he always does so from a perspective that is essentially evangelistic. This is a thing I recognise in myself, and I would love to help him understand the intellectual liberation of accepting you're wrong. It's the old Carl Sagan quote again:

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.

— Carl Sagan
If ever there was a rule for life, then that's it. Admitting you're wrong is tough. But once you've done it? You haven't lost anything. People respect you for it. You don't lose face on Wikipedia by accepting that you're wrong, in fact you gain credibility. However, refusal to even countenance the possibility that you are wrong, to the point where you assert that disagreement amounts to a lack of integrity, that is a serious problem.
It's kind of ironic that in pleading for civility, Sage in particular implicitly characterises everyone who disagrees with him (which is pretty much most of those involved in these disputes), as lacking integrity. I wish he'd stop using that word. It really grates., Guy (Help!) 11:50, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
How come a discussion about the subject of or the concept of incivility has to decline into a discussion of individual "faults"—perceived or otherwise? Is there no incivility at Wikipedia? Do people ever treat each other with disregard, disdain, dismissively? You may think I'm being exceptionally optimistic but I'm absolutely certain that there exists a higher level of functioning. We should strive for it for any number of reasons. Bus stop (talk) 11:52, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Because it was never about civility, any more than GamerGate was really about ethics in videogame journalism. Guy (Help!) 11:57, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Jytdog, In the case where not responding results in the editor making the edit on the article page, it would be reverted. An edit summary could be, "no consensus for this, see talk". --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:26, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes and in that situation that could a) cause the person to give up finally (unlikely); b) drive the person to start raising further arguments about their specific edit; or c) lead to an edit war the outcome of which would be either i) a block on the Civil POV pusher or ii) the page being locked. In the case of (c)ii everyone ends up right back where they were. Again you are treating this like it is a) theoretical and b) cut and dry, and it is neither. Jytdog (talk) 20:35, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Regarding your list, (a) would be fine (b) the way to treat that would be to continue not responding (c)i would be fine (c)ii I don't think the page would probably be locked if a single editor has violated 3rr, but it may happen. I think the most likely outcome is that the editor would stop before 3rr, but maybe not. These kind of situations don't have 100% predictable outcomes and one tries to find the best strategy, knowing that it may not be a perfect strategy.
Regarding your last sentence about theoretical and cut and dry, I didn't understand it. Could you explain? --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:48, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this discussion is about civility. Some other editors here are failing to assume good faith, and are attempting to turn this into attacks upon myself and another editor who have taken part in this discussion, thereby providing a case in point about exactly why civility needs to be enforced within Wikipedia.
I also believe, like Bob states, that there is a higher level of functioning possible. I've seen it. Unfortunately it's a minority of cases where there is any controversy, but i've seen it. It exists. People can discuss across differences, with respect. We can keep the discussion on the ideas, not on the people who are discussing. We can have good dialog. But it requires the discipline on everyone's part to do so, otherwise it quickly devolves as it has here. I'm not even going to respond to the accusations made against me by a couple of other editors with whom i've had very very bad experiences in the past, except to say take it with a huge grain of Himalayan salt. SageRad (talk) 19:21, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

It is of relevance that WP:POVPUSH (part of an essay) states Calling someone a "POV-pusher" is uncivil and pejorative,... DrChrissy (talk) 20:50, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Labeling someone a "POV pusher" (civil or not) attaches the behavior to the person, whereas a person may change, or may be seen to push a POV in one topic area, but otherwise be a good editor in other topic areas. There seems to be utility in classifying some editors in this way, when the behavior is ongoing and problematic to the project. On the other hand, it is quite important to distinguish between POV pushing and working toward a more NPOV article. Herein the relativity of perspectives is important. What one person may see as "POV pushing" may to other editors be decent editing toward NPOV. The judgment cannot be made by one or a few editors, but must be something approaching a consensus among other editors that the editor in question is being problematic. Lastly, the essay you quote above continues as follows:

It is generally not necessary to characterize edits as POV-pushing in order to challenge them. The term 'POV-pushing' is primarily used in regard to the presentation of a particular point of view in an article and generally does not apply to talk page discussions. Editing a POV in an article that corresponds with one's own personal beliefs is not necessarily POV-pushing.

This says several things. First, you can challenge edits without labeling the editor as a POV pusher. Only if it's persistent and problematic is some meta-level action useful. Secondly, the label does not apply to talk page discussions, but only edits and pushing for article content. Thirdly, it's not wrong to have a point of view but only to push that POV against the sourcing rules of Wikipedia. If you have a point of view and work within sourcing rules, and are civil, and you are not filibustering, then it ought to be allowed and even honored as one of the beauties of Wikipedia, a place where people of different perspectives work together to determine a consensus content. It's actually important to have people of different points of view editing articles where there are different ways of seeing the subject matter. SageRad (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
WP:SPADE. You are both POV-pushers. You are both topic banned because of your POV-pushing. Having a POV is normal, refusing to accept consensus and trying to hammer your POV into articles is not. It's fine to call this POV-pushing, because that is the canonical definition of the term. The difference between an editor with a POV and a POV-pusher is pretty much exemplified by your comments here. Guy (Help!) 23:15, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Could you please explain to me how you see my comments here as showing me to be a POV pusher? I fail to see how discussing civility and the relativity of points of view, and the Wikipedia policies can pigeon-hole one as a POV pusher. Secondly, not every person convicted of a crime has committed the crime in question. Sometimes the justice system fails and convicts innocent people. Thirdly, people do change through time. I have learned a great deal about the policies of Wikipedia regarding sourcing and neutral point of view. There is a normal learning curve for an editor, and so people must be given the potential to change. It continues a cycle when one cannot have a good dialog about civility as we would like to have here. And, to top it off, i will admit that i've made my share of uncivil comments. It's not something i'm proud of, and i have made an effort to change that behavior. Similarly, i admit that i have made my share of poor edits, as i learned about sourcing rules and the reasoning behind them. On the other hand, i think i've contributed in bringing some articles closer to NPOV with good edits. I am proud of that. SageRad (talk) 23:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
Arbcom all but attached that label to you here. What is your point—that POV pushers can never be called out? What was all that stuff about bullying at civility? Anyone with an internet connection and a desire to right great wrongs can contribute to Wikipedia, so obviously there will be unsuitable editors, and arguing with them forever will not deflect them from their mission. Johnuniq (talk) 23:20, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
E/C JzG Perhaps you would like to present an example of where you believe I have been guilty of POV pushing. I have asked for this before, but none have been forthcoming. How can I learn if I don't know what I am doing wrong.DrChrissy (talk) 23:24, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
@JzG: I am still waiting for evidence as to why you believe that I am a POV pusher. Note to other readers: At this point, the usual tactic is for one of JzG's friends to either close the thread, citing some obscure reason for its closure, or to simply archive it. Let's see what happens this time. DrChrissy (talk) 22:53, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Uh, you do realize you only get topic banned for pushing a POV, correct? For instance [3]. You had your topic ban extended because you were putting nothing but negative material into the article, using fringe sources, and cherry picking particular parts of good sources to give an impression contrary to the actual conclusions of the sources. That's POV pushing by definition. Capeo (talk) 23:48, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Of course I can not comment on this in detail because of my topic ban. Contrary to what you have stated above, there are numerous reasons a topic ban might occur, not only POV pushing. DrChrissy (talk) 23:56, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, no, you're not going to able to comment on areas where you were caught pushing a POV because you got topic banned from them. Note: arbs saying you weren't editing neutrally is the same thing as saying you're pushing a POV. You asked for evidence so I posted one example of it. Not for you to comment on, but to allow any other editors who may be buying your claim that you haven't blatantly pushed a POV to see the reality of the situation. Capeo (talk) 00:16, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
For those interested in following this, click on the link supplied by Capeo and see exactly how many editors claimed I was POV-pushing and look at the identity of that one editor. I'm beginning to think this might be harassment. DrChrissy (talk) 19:27, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Are you accusing me of harassment? I'd love for you to present some evidence of that. I don't think I've even had any interactions with you, since that link above, outside of these whinefests that keep popping up on Jimbo's page. Capeo (talk) 21:41, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
So why would those interactions on Jimbo's NOT count as harassment? DrChrissy (talk) 18:31, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Like many things on WP, you have no grasp of the harassment policy either. You come to Jimbo's page to pontificate you open yourself to everyone else's pontificating as well. I've even barely responded to you here and you bring up "harassment"? Why? Because some past evidence I provided in an ARCA got your topic ban broadened? Please, try to be more petty if that's possible. I'll say again, taking a page out of your book, if you think I've broken some policy then bring the evidence. Otherwise you're just making false claims and personal attacks. I'd love to see evidence that I'm somehow harassing someone that I have no interaction with. Capeo (talk) 00:32, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Please make up your mind. Either you have interacted with me or you have not. Which is it? DrChrissy (talk) 18:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
That wait will never end as long as every time it's exlained you stick your fingers in your ears and shoult "LAA LAA LAA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" then pretend the question was never answered. You have at least two topic bans. At some point you might like to start giving some consideration tot he possibility that not all your edits are exemplary. Guy (Help!) 22:17, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
"Everyone has an agenda, anyone who says they have no biases is delusional. Guy (Help!) 22:59, 2 October 2016 (UTC)" This thread is not about me, it is not about you: it is about incivility in general. So, I will leave it there, recognising that your time is needed in defending 2 further complaints about your behaviour in the threads below this one. DrChrissy (talk) 22:35, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
You did notice that both of those are baseless asseritons of rouge admin abuse, didn't you? Especially the editor who has spent years trying to get a heavily spammed site removed fomr the blacklist so that, by is own admission, he can use it to promote his fringe ideology? Guy (Help!) 08:13, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
As i said above, not all convicted of a crime have committed that crime. There can be bias in the justice system. Secondly, the "stuff about bullying" was highly related to this discussion about civility. It's about treating each other as well as possible so we can work together with different points of view. Bullying is part and parcel of lack of civility. SageRad (talk) 23:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
You're making the mistake of assuming that every point of view is inherently as valid as any other. They're not. WP follows mainstream sources. When someone is pushing a fringe viewpoint there doesn't need to be continuous consideration of a viewpoint that has already been dismissed. Capeo (talk) 00:31, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
No, i'm not making that mistake. You're making the mistake of thinking that i think all points of view are equally valid. SageRad (talk) 12:59, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Just to be clear, I absolutely do not think that you believe all points of view to be equally valid. I have never seen you say or do anything on Wikipedia that gives the slightest hint of this. You have always made it absolutely clear that you consider any point of view that disagrees with yours to be inherently and unquestionably invalid. Guy (Help!) 00:26, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I accept that may be your assessment as a witness, while i also sense a hostility in it, but you would not be the best impartial witness about me, JzG, due to our being in conflict a number of times. But i do declare that here's how i think it really is, somewhere in between "Every point of view is equally valid!" and "I am right about everything, and that's obvious, how could anyone dare question me!"
On some things, i do hold a strong point of view, often from a lot of reading and/or experience, but that's still open to changing from exposure to other evidence. On other things, i don't have a strong point of view, and sometimes i can truly see what causes people to hold various different points of view, and sometimes multiple points of view are truly valid. Not all points of view, but more than one point of view. There really are many ways of looking at some things. Sometimes there are also different modes of looking that result in different points of view. Or different criteria or values.
An example might be the Paleo diet, which may be in some senses a "fad diet" and may be ridiculed and scorned by some sources, but in some other ways may be useful and promote good health for others, and there are sources (including scientific peer-reviewed ones) to that effect as well. In that case, i think the more harmful position is the one that sees it as simplistically only a "fad diet" with a scorn that is scathing, whereas being able to see that it really does have different meanings and effects to different people can help to improve the article.
I know you work in the global warming topic, JzG, and there of course i fully agree with your point of view (it's real and it's human-caused). That's a case where there are multiple points of view and of course they're not all equally valid. The denialism position must be described but encapsulated as not supported by science (as well as partially created by corporate denialism funding).
I have had my point of view modified or enriched by working within Wikipedia, through the rich dialog. I've changed my mind on some things as well, given more evidence or insight. I've admitted to being wrong sometimes, or seen a more nuanced way of seeing it. Points of view are often not changed easily (especially those based on much experience or evidence) but in my case they can change. Do these comments help to bridge our divide? SageRad (talk) 10:24, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
In fact, here's one specific and recent example where i learned something, and admit it. It's in the race and intelligence field and it has to do with sourcing and the current state of the literature on the topic. From my point of view, which agrees largely with Richard Nisbett, the correlations between racial groups and IQ test results is real, but is largely explainable by social factors -- both differences of resources and experiences, as well as the way that IQ and similar testing measures "intelligence" in a culturally specific way. I also assumed that the scientific literature had a fair consensus on this point. However, from my work at that article, based on exposure to more review articles on the topic, i realized that the scientific literature actually does not seem to have consensus about this. It's rather split. That's surprising to me, and it doesn't change my actual beliefs on this topic based on experience, evidence, and thinking, but it does change my reckoning of the scientific literature on this topic. Is that adequate to show you that my point of view is not set in stone, but does change from dialog and exposure to new evidence? BTW sorry for wall of text, there is really a lot to say on this. SageRad (talk) 10:31, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
For those in this discussion, please note that it is not a matter of an individual's personal views but rather that edits are made to an article so that the article has a neutral point of view. I think that the editing environment of Wikipedia would be better off if editors kept their personal views about an article topic to themselves, didn't accuse others of having improper personal views about the article topic, and focused on whether edits are consistent with Wikipedia policy and guidelines. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:23, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Definitely, WP:NPOV applies to articles but not to talk pages, although policy is also clear that talk pages are WP:NOTFORUM. But i think there are times when good discussion can include points of view in relation to NPOV, as i recently saw in this discussion from user Snow_Rise (pinging because mentioning here) in a way that i think helps the dialog to work toward an NPOV article. I definitely agree about being civil and not accusing other editors of having improper views, but instead speaking their own views as relevant without aspersions, and commenting on content in relation to sources and policies. SageRad (talk) 14:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I looked at Snow's first message there and it seemed to be OK. Simply put, views about an edit of an article are OK, but views about the topic of the article are not. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:58, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

FishEaters and JZG

Latest comment: 8 years ago45 comments13 people in discussion

How interesting that I came here to post what I'm about to post, only to find that the last person to post has a complaint about JZG. What I have to say involves him as well. After discovering what I found with regard to the subject of what I'm about to post, all I can say is that JZG is a problem.

Now, for my post. I posted the below to both the Blacklist and Whitelist pages, with a few variations. Here goes:

FishEaters.com and Chabad.org

Through a comment made on a blog, I came to learn about the (unwarranted, IMO) blacklisting of a traditional Catholic website called FishEaters, located at www.FishEaters.com That site's owner was accused of having been a "linkspammer" after having added links to that site back in 2004 or 2005, before there were any rules in place about adding links to one's own site. The site owner was also accused of adding "too many" links, but after asking for clarification of the rules and about what constitutes "too many links," received none. An editor named "Dominick," who seems to have had it in for traditional Catholics, edit warred against the site owner. Another editor, named JZG, who later became an admin, sided with Dominick and, immediately after becoming an admin, had the site blacklisted. The FishEaters site owner explains how she saw what happened on this page: fisheaters.com/wikipedia2.html.

It seems that any time she or anyone else attempted or attemps to have the site whitelisted, JZG immediately enters into the conversation, repeats his same arguments which are based on misunderstandings or falsehoods and, if you ask me, bigotry. He then down-votes the idea, and that's that since other Admins seem to automatically defer to his "take" on things. In other words, FishEaters is blacklisted for bogus reasons, and can't get whitelisted because the person who blacklisted maintains his bogus reasons.

I request a total re-evaluation of this site's blacklisting based on the site itself, without reference to JZG's input, as he apparently has an anti-Catholic attitude (see the wikipedia2.html page mentioned above, which links to pages here on which JZG refers to Catholics as "papists") and a personal animus against the site owner, whom he wrongly perceives as using Wikipedia to promote her site rather than simply adding links to relevant entries to give Wikipedia visitors more information on the entries in question. Note the links on wikipedia2.html, too, to material posted here that expresses the idea that, in essence, JZG never changes his mind, never revises opinions based on new information, and that he demonstrates a pretty nasty attitude toward people he sees, rightly or wrongly, as being on his "bad side."

The same wikipedia2.html page talks about how the FishEaters site -- which is the largest, second oldest, and very respected traditional Catholic website on the internet, one that is used in RCIA classes, in parish bulletins, is referenced in books and periodicals, which has a discussion forum with almost 6,000 members, and which is not a monograph, but a non-profit charity registered in the State of Indiana -- is disallowed a single link from the entry "Traditionalist Catholicism," which is all the site owner asked for when requesting white listing -- all while chabad.org is allowed over 700 links. The blog post in which I read about all this linked to Google returns for the search terms "site:en.wikipedia.org chabad.org" which now gives 4,870 links in return.

I find it extremely odd and a sign of possible anti-Catholic bigotry that FishEaters was blacklisted for having had "too many" links, and now can't even have one link from the entry "Traditionalist Catholicism" while chabad.org can have almost 5,000 links from often totally irrelevant entries (they at least used to even have a link from the entry "Waldorf Salad," according to that wikipedia2.html page).

I will post this as well on the Blacklist page, but post it here, too, because I think it only fair that if a Catholic site is blacklisted for having "too many links," and if that site isn't whitelisted given that the blacklisting was due to FishEaters having had "too many links," which stemmed directly from a lack of response to requests for clarification, made by the site owner, as to Wikipedia policy, and from what seems to be anti-Catholic bigotry coupled with a single Admin (JZG) -- one who calls Catholics "papists" -- being totally unwilling to honestly evaluate what actually happened with the blacklisting of the FishEaters website, then chabad.org should be blacklisted as well.

I will also try to get this information to Jim Wales and the Board of Trustees.

Desired action:

A) Whitelist FishEaters.com so that at least a link can be added from the Traditionalist Catholicism entry. Consideration of this should be carried out without the input of JZG who clearly has a serious animus against the site, is apparently bigoted against Catholics, and is, shall we say, inordinately stubborn, being extremely unwilling to reconsider his past decisions, even if they were made based on faulty premises and incomplete information. Given the reasons for the original blacklisting, the lack of clear linking policy at the time in question (over a decade ago!), and the lack of response to the blacklisted website owner's repeated requests for clarification and help, a general whitelisting would be more just.

OR

B) If FishEaters.com isn't whitelisted, then chabad should be blacklisted as well given that the reason given for blacklisting FishEaters.com was that there were "too many links" to it from Wikipedia, even though those links were on perfectly relevant entries and were nowhere near in number -- as in "in a completely different numerical universe" -- of the almost 5,000 links chabad.org has now.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

End comments made

Jimbo, what Wikipedia has done to the FishEaters site, how that can affect the site in terms of Google algorithms and how other Wiki media use Wikepedia's blacklists, the bigotry shown toward Catholicism by JZG, the incredible double standards in place for Catholic sites relative to Jewish ones, and the complete lack of real recourse given how the "Wiki system" works -- a system by which, the aggrieved makes a complaint, Admins turn to other Admins to find out what's going on, and then the Admin who caused all the problems in the first place shows up and calls the shots so that nothing changes --- well, it sucks. I'm going to take this as far as I can go. I'm really ticked off that some rogue, bigoted Admin can get so bent on screwing over a site that he shows up every single time someone asks that the site be whitelited and does nothing but repeat the same untruths he used to blacklist the site in the first place -- and he gets away with it. I want for the FishEaters site to be evaluated on its own merits, without the input of the nasty JZG who always seems to have the final word. It's pretty disgusting. Schoemann (talk) 08:07, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

  • The Fisheaters site, on it's "about us" page, says this - "The purpose of this site is to bring souls to the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church -- the Church headed by Christ and built on the rock of St. Peter, the Church against which the gates of Hell will never prevail. Fish Eaters strives to do this by showing Protestants the errors of Protestantism....". On which planet is that website ever going to be a reliable, neutral source for an encyclopedia? It's not, is it? Meanwhile, chabad.org appears to be a far more professional information site, written - as far as I can see - pretty neutrally. The two aren't comparable. Black Kite (talk) 09:13, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I was pretty surprised by JzG's inherent rudeness and meanspirited nature myself, and I encountered it just within hours of joining Wikipedia and writing my first article. And it was amazing to see a whole webpage filed with profane comments about him (and many examples & quotes of his own use of profanity within his discussions here at Wikipedia!) when I searched his JzG username on Google. Just my luck to encounter such a low example of humanity so soon after joining. Try googling JzG and see the Encyclopedia Dramatica webpage ... you will be shocked! Folks with integrity should really disapprove. As for your grievances, which are frankly much more noteworthy than mine, I would encourage you to use the contact info / recommendations / phone numbers that Jimbo Wales suggests on his User page to follow up your concerns. How disappointing that corrupt admins like JzG go unchallenged, apparently for years. Good luck! Tosresearcher (talk) 08:56, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Don't take what Encyclopedia Dramatica says as gospel, it is not meant to be taken that seriously. You are in no position to judge how "corrupt" an admin "has been for years" after only a few days of editing here anyway. Also, how do you think your attack-laden post reflects on you? Your advice is also terrible, I suggest you gain a little more experience before telling other editors what to do.--Atlan (talk) 09:49, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
It's been raised at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist by Schoemann. Doug Weller talk 15:28, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
@Tosresearcher - I advise you to redact your personal attack on JzG, or you will be soon researching Wikipedia's TOS as a blocked user. Carrite (talk) 15:33, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Just as an FYI, the adding of Chabad.org to articles was the subject of many RFC and an RFQ/Arbcom case years ago. Many of the links were added just to spam Wikipedia by several Chabad editors who were working to promote Chabad. I would be OK with removal of some of the Chabad.org links that have no Jewish/Chabad value. In other words, a link to a recipe doesn't need to be on Chabad.org, etc. 🔯 Sir Joseph 🍸(talk) 15:30, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
    • Thanks for that Sir Joseph. Yes, we have too many links to Chabab.org which have simply been spammed, I recall when that was going on. I don't think it should be blacklisted but some of those links should go. I'm also bothered by a strongly pro-Catholic editor asking that someone he perceives as anti-Catholic be barred from a discussion. Doug Weller talk 15:52, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
      • It isn't JZG's anti-Catholicism that's the problem; it's how he allows that to affect how he edits and administrates Wikipedia. It's either his anti-Catholicism or the fact that he self-admittedly never changes his mind -- i.e., that he's stubborn as hell. If the FishEaters site was blacklisted for having "too many links" -- even after the site-owner repeatedly sought clarification as to how many links are "too many" -- then chabad.org should be likewise blacklisted. Or Fisheaters should be whitelisted. One of the two "has" to happen or it'll remain far too obvious that Wikipedia has a pro-Jewish, anti-Catholic slant.
      • To Black Kite: obviously chabad.org has the goal of spreading Lubavitcher thought. Get real. They're not selling used cars there; they're promoting Hassidism and Noahidism. That's how it goes with religious sites. If people want to know what traditional Catholics think about this or that, they're not going to go to a Chabad, Muslim, or Lutheran site (all perfectly kosher to link to) or to cocacola.com Schoemann (talk) 00:52, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
If people want to find out what "traditionalist Catholics" think about something then they can go to a reliable independent source, such as one of the many books on the history of the Catholic church. The personal website of a True Believer, who, incidentally, added hundreds of links mostly on things that had nothing whatsoever to do with that fringe Catholic sect, is not needed. Guy (Help!) 22:07, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

What, really? Again? The site owner of fisheaters was engaged in absolutely unambiguous link spamming, and it was blacklisted at Meta as a result. Here's the original link: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2006-05#fisheaters.com.2C_kensmen.com

Yes, really, May 2006. Nor is this the first time that this editor has demanded the site be removed.

The benefit of Wikipedia to these sites is clear, the converse, not so much. Guy (Help!) 21:56, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

        • "Hundreds of links mostly on things that had nothing whatsoever to do with" topics relevant to what you're wrongfully considering a "fringe" website? Which topics would those be? Which links? I'm not seeing anything close to what you're talking about in the url you provided. I see links to pages about sacramentals, Easter, Lent, etc. -- all traditional Catholic subjects, and nowhere near "hundreds of them." You are incorrect, either lying or ignorant. You're saying that traditional Catholicism is a "fringe" thing? Do you know anything about traditional Catholicism? Anything about Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio? About the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter of the Institute of Christ the King, another priestly fraternity, both of which offer all of the traditional sacramental rites in everyday parishes across the globe? You simply don't know what you're talking about, Guy. You really don't. And you're letting your lack of knowledge and bigotry influence how you see traditional Catholicism and the website in question, which is why I request someone other than you will look at all of this anew, without being influenced by your invective. (Someone who refers to Catholics as "papists" is using slurs, which is a sign of bigotry.) Schoemann (talk) 21:03, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes, hundreds of links. That evidence was discussed in the original blacklisting. Yes, mainly to subjects to which it was not relevant. You appear to be an insider in this bubble world, so you won't appreciate, as outsiders do, that having an opinion on something does make that opinion significant to an article about the subject. And yes, fringe, within the Catholic church, and your refusal to acknowledge that very much shows your agenda.
You mention Chabad.org, implying that I am part of some nefarious cabal that protects chabadists and attacks fisheaters. That's bullshit, plain and simple. In Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Chabad movement/Workshop I stated that the number of links to chabad.org is out of all proportion to its significance. The chabad editors are absolutely not a group I support or protect. Ever read WP:NOTTHEM? Or indeed WP:OTHERSTUFF?
You accuse me, repeatedly, of being anti-Catholic. You know less than nothing about this. Did your quote mining show you where I was when Habemus Papam was announced? I was in a catholic church surrounded by my catholic friends at my catholic god-daughter's first communion. I have attended many catholic services, and am on good terms with the local Benedictine (catholic) monastery, in whose abbey I sing regularly. Would you like me to recite the credo in Latin for you? I can do that from memory, and especially the important bit: et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam. Yes, I do find it annoying that militant catholic editors insist that the church of Rome is the only true catholic church - and any member of the orthodox churches especially will tell you in detail why they are wrong about that :-) Yesterday I was singing a Catholic mass by Ildebrando Pizzetti, a mass in Latin by Frank Martin and a work written by the catholic Thomas Tallis, presented for centuries as having been written for Elizabeth I but quite likely to have been composed for Mary Tudor - which is a great deal more plausible since it is a setting of spem in alium, in Latin, whereas after the re-establishment of protestantism the church was pretty suspicious of Latin settings. Incidentally there is a wonderful pair of pieces from this period comprising Phillipe de Monte's super flumina Babylonis, sent to Tallis' friend and co-religionist William Byrd, who replied with quomodo cantabimus; a paired edition by Sally Dunkley is well worth looking out, she was at the concert where one of my choirs sang this. Look up the nuances of that musical conversation, that puts Tallis' catholicism and use of the Latin into very clear perspective. For balance, I also sing music by noted 18th Century Lutherans (not just the man from Eisenach), French and Italian catholics, Anglicans, Buddhists and even the occasional atheist. It always amuses me that Reagan's inauguration featured a fanfare to the proletariat written by a homosexual Jewish Communist atheist.
It is really hard to be a singer at any level of seriousness and maintain animosity towards any religious tradition. So, as other have counselled, you should stop making those accusations, because they make you look bad, not me.
This website was blacklisted for spamming, an absolutely classic case of WP:REFSPAM. You have been trying for years to get that undone. Your contribuutions to Wikipedia amount to fewer than 150 edits in all namespaces, and over ten percent of those are directly requesting use of this site. Yu have insufficient experience of Wikipedia to properly understand the policy reasons for blacklisting, and you have a clear and obvious agenda which you are not checking at the door. Guy (Help!) 09:17, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
@Schoemann: so you don't believe that this link was spammed (with link hijacking, RfC's being posted, RfC's in response to RfC's)? --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:55, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

There's no right way to administer a general-purpose blacklist

The theory behind the blacklist is that it was supposed to be limited to spam that was an ongoing challenge. It was supposed to make admin's lives easier by keeping them from having to clean up spam links continuously. It is clear that this theory, as in any "limited" exception to freedom of expression in any arena, is unreliable. It is particularly unreliable when Wikipedia works with some institutions to place "Wikipedians in residence" or accepts free subscriptions which are repaid in links made, while it targets others for complete eradication.

We can argue about what a certain admin is like, about a certain link and whether the objection is really spam or something else entirely, but it is a waste of time - the very time that having an automated blacklist was supposed to save! We should simply abolish the blacklist and go back to a primitive condition of editors policing spam directly. Or at the very least, the blacklist must be limited to a short fixed duration and only re-listed if spam continues each and every time. This involves an overhead of work, yes - but so does recrimination. The difference is, the work in spotting spammer reappearances is a community labor in which people work together, whereas the work in politicking over which links to ban is a divisive battle. Wnt (talk) 11:10, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Hell no. You are out of your mind. The blacklist is full of sites that have zero value for WP and those sites need to stay there. If some advocacy organization like chabad gets on there because advocates are spamming it into WP, then hey, let's deal with exceptions with their site when it might actually contribute some value to the mission. But (picking two current nominees) healthwhoop.com? hongkongescort.com? You are out of your mind Wnt. No value to WP, never will have value to WP, just spam. Dog shit on our sidewalk. Jytdog (talk) 19:48, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Alright, I looked at those sites. I looked at the first article I saw on Healthwhoop and it had a few pictures of ecchymosis of body parts other than the eye, which our article does not. Editing, yes, I'd prefer to pick a different reference. But, if someone edits the article to include a link to those images, they have improved the article until such time as someone with a more perfect idea actually gets off his ass and does it. Therefore, there is no reason to blacklist unless maybe you're under a sustained spam attack and you want a tactical breather. Now hongkongescorts.com, oh yeah, that's despicable, in someplace without the peculiar notions of personal freedom that the Chinese enjoy it would doubtless be seized and censored by the government like backpage.com or rentboy.com. But as a Wikipedia editor I should be neutral on that. What I do see is that it quotes a price for escorts in Hong Kong: "HK$ 2,000 for one hour • HK$ 3,800 for two hours • HK$ 5,600 for three hours • Special offers for overnight". So if you're writing an article on escorts in Hong Kong, or around the world, that's a legitimate piece of data we can use. Again, I say smash the machine and put the people in charge. Wnt (talk) 23:50, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
Healthwhoop is a site that should never be used as a reference for Wikipedia, because it does not come close to meeting our guidelines. Whether it goers on the blacklist or on the reference bot revert list is of no real interest to me, as long as it's not used as a source. Guy (Help!) 08:19, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Sigh... I've never even heard of this reference bot revert thing. If you put too many machines in charge don't be surprised if the people start wondering why they're wasting their time in Skynet's kingdom. Yeah, it's an unsatisfactory reference, but it's better than unsourced, and it seems somewhat tolerable as an external link for viewing some extra images. Anyway, I'm not sure if by suggesting a reference revert as an alternative you're agreeing that it could be used as an EL and therefore should not be blacklisted. Wnt (talk) 16:06, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
No, a crap reference is worse than unsourced, because a bad statement with a crap source is less ikely to be challenged than a bad unsourced statement. Guy (Help!) 00:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
This editor has accused me of being anti-Catholic. Feel free to provide any credible evidence of that.
The site in question promotes "traditionalist Catholicism", which rejects Vatican II. Most Catholics do not support that doctrine. It's fringe even among Catholics, but that's not relevant because that's not why it was blacklisted. As the OP knows perfectly well, it was blacklisted because the site owner was bulk adding links, aka link spamming. Guy (Help!) 22:03, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
The site does not reject Vatican II. You're totally incorrect. You can read the "About this Site" page and get straight on that very quickly. And the attempt here is to get the site linked to from the single entry "Traditionalist Catholicism" which is about the sort of Catholicism you consider "fringe" but which isn't actually given that there are priestly fraternities such as the FSSP and ICK who practice traditional Catholicism while fully in communion with Rome. Schoemann (talk) 21:03, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
The site promotes "traditionalist catholicism", which rejects Vatican II. Whether the site rejects Vatican II is irrelevant to that. And yes, it is fringe aong catholics, just as the movement in the Anglican communion that rejects women priests is fringe. All of which philosophical debate is rendered irrelevant by the fact that this site was massively spammed by its owner. Guy (Help!) 00:20, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I didn't even bother to take a position on your particular case. You're in a fight on board a ship; I want that ship blown out of the water. Wnt (talk) 23:50, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
@Wnt: this is something that is on the list for a long, long time, and similarly long ignored - even when developers see that the current system is crude (see a comment by Brion in 2010: T16719). That it works in a bad way is not a reason to remove it altogether (currently, there is no friggin' other way to mitigate spammers in an effective way). --Dirk Beetstra T C 07:45, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Wnt, feel free to propose a better alternative. If it includes removing the ability to blacklist links, then you'd better be prapred to spend every waking moment removing links to sites selling knockoff designer goods, white supremacists, sneaky redirects (you'll have to check every single link to sites like bit.ly to make sure they are legit, and keep checking them to make sure they don't change). I think the blacklist title should change, but that's all I would change. Guy (Help!) 08:16, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
Just as an example, be prepared to cleanup and block 15 editors like this every day .. and these are easy to recognise as spammers, as JzG says, the malicious redirects, and editors who insist that they need to be linked without content merit, are a bigger problem. --Dirk Beetstra T C 09:11, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
This is full on crazy. @Beetstra: will have the current numbers of links being added per day, but in the days before the spam blacklist was a thing, editors did spam patrol in the same way they do/did vandal patrols and it was a losing battle. I remember we used to liaise with Danny Wool, Jimmy's assistant in the earlier days of Wikipedia, and at that time, we were normally seeing upto 10,000 URLs being added on a daily basis (excluding URLs within reference tags). I don't know what that would be today, now we're creating less new pages and now that references are a bit less likely to be bare URLs, but it wasn't viable trying to monitor links being added on a diff by diff basis years ago and I cannot fathom out how you would even begin to monitor and police the process today. Nick (talk) 15:26, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
It seems like you have a trivially easy alternative: put each link in an edit filter that flags for users to check each suspect link addition instead of simply denying it. I even accepted above that you might still deny or blacklist the suspect edits that are being massively spammed at that time, provided you expire the filter on a frequent basis and have a heads-up to see if the spam is still happening. If you wanted a very modest reform to start, you could even disallow the suspect edits when made by very new users (there are even nastier options but I'd much rather not go there). Note I'm talking published, public edit filters, since the blacklist is public now. If links are checked, the spam potential is low and you shouldn't get the 10,000 URLs a day because there's not a motive for it.
But the 10,000 figure is a lot scarier sounding than it really is. Wikipedia:Statistics says Wikipedia gets 10 edits per second. In less than 20 minutes, editors have done that many edits. Now to be sure, wasting 20 minutes of each day's work on spam eradication would be very bad, but it's not exactly apocalyptic. Wikipedia can survive some missteps while getting rid of the blacklist mechanism.
There is a lot of daylight between the idea of taking short-term action to stop thousands of spam link additions a day versus blacklisting sites to keep someone from adding them to one page because you think they may have a sectarian philosophy, or blacklisting sites indefinitely without looking to see whether they are still trying to spam us. Wnt (talk) 15:59, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
put each link in an edit filter that flags for users to check each suspect link addition instead of simply denying it. which needs editors to look at material we already know to be problematic, just so you can get your own way of trashing the black list. I do hope you're particularly skilled in telling people how to remove trojans and malware they'll inevitably get from checking links individually. Nick (talk) 21:47, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
@Nick: we're talking hundreds of links a minute (I am running the only viable alternative we have at the moment: the linkwatchers, User:XLinkBot, and User:COIBot). If we are not even capable of removing the crap that is already there, and keeping up with the crap that is being added (many are fine, but there is still a lot of crap that needs attention in ). Like it or not, having your links on Wikipedia does pay your bills - you may not be indexed by Google or other major search engines (at least those that follow nofollow), knowing that Wikipedia is high on the result list, makes it a good chance that people will find your link on the Wikipedia page and result in incoming traffic for your site. Even if you are not-for-profit, it is always welcome to have your organisation/cause known on Wikipedia.
@Wnt and Nick: I have suggested something like that (can't find where, bugzilla/phabricator or meta, probably): take a copy of the AbuseFilter, strip it from the code that 'interprets' the restrictions, and replace it with a piece of code that does only one thing: check a regex against the added/removed external links (and add some restrictions akin page protection). It then becomes very lightweight and hence not overloading the servers even with thousands of rules, and you can have a whole set of control about what happens (just warn, block, etc. etc.). I think that is also quite close to the suggestion that Brion had in 2010. Using the current AbuseFilter for this does not work, we tried it to be an alternative for XLinkBot, but it died on a handful of regexes. Forget about using it as a replacement for the blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:26, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Had a look, the numbers (globally, can't split out per Wiki): LiWa3 is watching 631 edits per minute in 'content namespaces' (708 per minute all namespaces), 65 of those edits add external links - in those 65 edits per minute 224 external links (per minute) are added. --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:33, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I really like the idea of an AbuseFilter approach, with different options for different URLs - outright blocking for those we know to be problematic, by virtue of malware, illegal content, copyright issues etc, to tagging for review those URLs we're less certain about - the one or two links needing to be checked because of sectarian issues, as Wnt referenced above. The good thing about an AbuseFilter approach is it also raises the possibility of autoconfirmed or extended confirmed users (or a new user permission entirely) having the ability to add URLs but not new accounts and/or IP editors. It removes the one size fits all approach of the current blacklist, but doesn't resort to every URL having to be checked edit by edit. It could be the current blacklist, but better. Nick (talk) 08:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
It would also remove the need of XLinkBot - often problematic links could have a filter set to 'warn and log', which is arguably less 'bitey' than outright revert (though, there also is already a Captcha to solve). Moreover, the reason for the block could be recorded on the specific 'LinkFilter', which makes it easier to understand the how and why for each link. Also, having a per-LinkFilter log would show whether 'the problem' has stopped and whether we could consider to re-allow the link again instead of whitelistings. There are many possible benefits to this ... --Dirk Beetstra T C 08:51, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm wary of a lot of these suggestions, though I don't want to be so reactionary as to dismiss them sight unseen. I certainly don't want machines enforcing more policy over good faith editors, especially since accusations like "illegal content" and "copyright issues" are frequently unjustified and in any case the harm of having an individual editor post an external link to them is greatly exaggerated. Routine mechanical checks of outgoing links for malware could be a useful adjunct, not only to defend people who review links, but all Wikipedia readers. It might recheck every link on a page every hundred times it is accessed (note that does not require recording individual reading preferences). Technically Wikipedia would not even strictly need to do its own anti-virus scan (though probably it ought to); it could simply search the links against lists of infected sites or on sites like Google that give a "this site may harm your computer" heads up. However, that too is potentially prone to error or abuse, and so we can't be too trusting even with this. Wnt (talk) 12:49, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, since you're the one who thinks the current system is broken, the onus is rathe ron you to demonstrate that you have a viable alternative. Spend some time at the spam blacklist talk page for a start. Guy (Help!) 13:29, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Is it Worldwide Bash Guy On Jimbotalk Day or something? But that aside, I don't see how this works in practice. I just don't. It's nice to think we could have an experienced human lovingly hand-review every edit, but well, there are an awful lot of edits and not so many experienced humans as that. And they're all volunteers, so they may or may not be around at any given time. Given that, we really need some automated help. And we can use that. If someone, for example, blanks an article and replaces it with profanity repeated fifty times, we can reasonably tell a bot that this is not a constructive edit and to revert it. The same is true of many of these spam links that wind up blacklisted. They are often either selling something, partisan, or trying to drive traffic to themselves without providing much if anything of value. This means both that people have an incentive to spam them, and that they serve us no value as educational material or references. In other cases (redirectors/link shorteners were mentioned earlier), the potential for abuse is so high and the potential benefit so low that it's not worth it. Volunteer time itself is a scarce and valuable resource, and I think it could be spent in much better ways than evaluating if this instance of a link spammed a couple hundred times might just be the one time it's really okay. If someone thinks that it's needed in that particular case, they can go ask for a whitelist entry for the particular resource they need to use. Generally reasonable requests of that nature are granted, especially to editors in good standing who can make a decent case. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. And an editor with fewer than 150 edits, a fair chunk of which are arguments dating back years over links to this one site, is unlikely to be the one to persuade. Guy (Help!) 23:49, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested...

I temporarily undeleted my original summary at User:JzG/Fisheaters. I've been an admin since January 2006, and this predates my RfA. It actually predates my change of username to JzG. I would suggest that the difference between this page and the inflated rhetoric above is pretty striking. Guy (Help!) 00:03, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

To avoid future discussions like this, and to counter the argument 'but it is # years ago, the spammers are long gone', it would be good to have a page in line with WP:LTA, documenting a couple of these 'long term spamming' cases. Also because you deleted this page, I had to dig for half an hour to find back this deleted page, the RfC on the original spammer, the response RfC posted by the original spammer, and the editors that requested this to be unlisted. --Dirk Beetstra T C 03:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Feel free to move it to a subpage and refactor, Dirk. I deleted it because I honestly thought they had gone away, and because I think pages like that are an open sore when you're a rebuffed abuser, leading to further long term abuse. Guy (Help!) 12:14, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I'll consider some more extensive tagging .. as on top here. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:18, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
By the way, despite common believe, spammers hardly ever go away .. it pays their bills. --Dirk Beetstra T C 12:25, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I know commercial spammers don't go away, this is not down to profit, though, it's proselytising. They want your soul, not your cash. Guy (Help!) 14:53, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
So you see that they are all the same. --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:05, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Hurricane Matthew at east Florida: update

Latest comment: 8 years ago13 comments7 people in discussion
(continuation of archived thread...)

As of 11am EDT, 6 Oct 2016, the strong Hurricane Matthew is still headed NW, max winds 140 mph (230 km/h), onto the Florida Atlantic coastline (across the state from WMF offices near Tampa), with expected landfall late Thursday overnight ca. 2am, north of Palm Beach County, FL. That's near the Mar-a-Lago $multi-million, ocean-front estate of Donald Trump. See live NHC forecast map:

The current winds exceed 2005 Hurricane Katrina landfall, but central pressure not yet as severe, 940 mb (28 inHg) compared to Katrina 902 mb. If typical, the region would lose electric power at nightfall tonight, 6~9pm EDT (>22:00 UTC), but might be restored to most areas within 1~3 days. Again, so far WMF offices would seem at safe distance west. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:44, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the weather forecast. This was just what I was looking for on Jimbo's talk page.--Atlan (talk) 17:03, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
What will happen after Tuesday? Will it enter the Gulf of Mexico? Count Iblis (talk) 21:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
The prior 5-day forecast (on initial map), as a supposed u-turn loop at South Carolina, back down to Florida, to remain in the Atlantic, was a typical excessive forecast which was completely wrong, and instead Hurricane Matthew stayed off-coast of Florida, 20–50 miles away (32–80 km) battering coastal towns, but later joining an easterly cold front, it made landfall into South Carolina and dumped rain into North Carolina, Virginia, and the Delmarva Peninsula, with flooding rains of 8–14 inches (200–360 mm) in 2 days. There 18 36 people died, after killing ~900 previously in Haiti.

As Albert Einstein had cleverly predicted over 60 years ago, the weather cannot be forecast reliably, for more than a few days ahead, due to the "butterfly effect" because smaller changes in steering currents can shift wind patterns hundreds of miles (500 km) a few days later, as happened with Hurricane Matthew flooding North Carolina to Delaware, rather than looping back to Florida as predicted. Beyond the death toll, dams broke in the flooding, boats washed inland, and high winds blew trees down onto power lines, with loss of electric power to more than 2 million people in U.S. regions. Pre-planned electric crews traveled from neighboring states to chainsaw the broken tree limbs (many water oaks) and reconnect electric service within a few days, rather than weeks. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:55/05:17, 10 October 2016, +deaths 14:47, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

You somehow missed a post while restoring this thread from the archive. How odd. I have fixed it for you.--Atlan (talk) 05:54, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

  • Today is a nice day in Alabama, not too hot. Pool season is probably over after this weekend. We had rosemary bread and scrambled eggs for breakfast; the chickens are doing well. Drmies (talk) 14:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
Glad to hear it. Hannah sends her best, and Grandpa... well, you know Grandpa! As usual he's damning us all to hell for one thing or another! Am forwarding a stack of Bella's honey pancakes by post. Not much news here. Pruddy's youngest got ate by the hogs last week, but you know that brood -- always something! Sorry to hear about Cousin Elly. Best, Herostratus (talk) 03:23, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, those hogs do sound dangerous. Do you think they could pose a threat to the electric power of any WMF offices across the United States? Perhaps ask Grandpa, when he's not in one of his moods. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:08, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikid77, you do know the WMF hasn't been based in Florida for nine years and the last vestiges of the Tampa server cluster were shut down in 2014? ‑ Iridescent 08:42, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, I've been gone most of the past 2 years, so I was wondering the status (of Florida offices, not of the snarkasm). -Wikid77 (talk) 14:47, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Don't tell him where they currently are, there may be weather there too! pablo 09:18, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
OMG I'm tired of weather. I just want to LIVE. Drmies (talk) 16:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, I knew Wikimedia UK was based in London, but I see the Wikimedia Foundation has offices in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. So forget the weather: there are major *earthquakes* there!! -Wikid77 (talk) 12:44, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Breitbart's infogalactic

Latest comment: 8 years ago51 comments19 people in discussion

Just a notice about a new giant fork, which was announced at Infogalactic Launches as Alternative to Biased Wikipedia, see also http://infogalactic.com/ .

It is a giant fork in that it claims to have 5,000,000 articles copied from Wikipedia, and I believe that's true. The articles all seem to be copied from different dates in 2016, e.g. Donald Trump was from January, but the much newer Donald Trump Access Hollywood controversy isn't available. The redirect List of RHPs in PA works, except for a complicated "click here map", Trump University was copied from about June, another article was copied from April. The terms of use seem to be copied almost verbatim. Some links that say "more photos at Commons" connect to Wikimedia Commons. But overall a pretty good copy, except the speed in getting articles is very, very slow.

I have no objection to such a giant fork, in fact I always wanted to know how one would work. I'm sure they will work out many of the kinks in a few months. I even signed up to be an editor over there (as User:Smallpikl). You have to request to be an editor and they have to approve. Though it said that one section was optional when it wasn't, the request account page only requests for user name and email (so they can let you know if you've been accepted - I still haven't been). The optional section that isn't optional required a 50 words or more "description of yourself."

Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Just got approved and made my first edit! Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:29, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
not much on it yet, but one blog suggested someone could be the sole editor of their bio. I'm sure that will remove bias. Doug Weller talk 18:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Special:ActiveUsers. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:18, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Ah, this is fascinating... Conservapedia 2.0 — or, more properly, AltRightPedia... "The website has expanded upon Wikipedia’s “five pillars” concept with their own seven canons: 1. Infogalactic does not define reality. 2. Infogalactic is written from an objective point of view. 3. Infogalactic is free content. 4. No griefing. 5. Play nice and play fair. 6. Rules are guidelines for users, not chew toys for lawyers. 7. Facts are facts."
Creating the fork is easy, maintenance is the hard part. "The single biggest problem with Wikipedia isn’t Jimmy Wales or its outmoded 1995 technology, but the fact that it is patrolled by 532 left-wing thought police who aggressively force their biased perspective on the rest of the world," they say. Hmmmm, no bias there! Carrite (talk) 20:24, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
And, of course, the money article here is their take on Gamergate controvery, which might even be the point behind this entire exercise. Carrite (talk) 20:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I'd say the money is "A number of corporations and services have indicated an interest in being able to monitor corporate pages of interest to them in order to prevent false, malicious, or misleading information being spread about their organizations and clients. A limited number of pro admin seats are available."[4] Doug Weller talk 20:34, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
While I am duty bound to point out that compared with Breitbart, Genghis Khan was a dangerous liberal, I still feel that {{user:ubx/LeftWingThoughtPolice}} beckons... Guy (Help!) 22:49, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Conservapedia 2.0. I wish them joy of it, if they want our wingnuts they are welcome to them. Guy (Help!) 22:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
....but the fact that it is patrolled by 532 left-wing thought police who aggressively force their biased perspective on the rest of the world This is the point so many of us are making here Jimbo! But we're on your side. And we're being bullied by the gangs. Problem is that the world is beginning to understand that many controversial Wikipedia articles on big societal issues are not based on reliable sources, but rather reliable enforcers, who monitor specific articles of societal importance, like the demons they are, pushing their own biased agendas. The gangs need to busted up Jimbo, before it's too late! We keep telling you, but you keep ignoring what you obviously know. Do you need evidence of who they are Jimbo? Will you act if I provide it here, to save your baby?Charlotte135 (talk) 03:11, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Ha ha! If your point genuinely is that Wikipedia is run by "532 left-wing thought police" then any residual doubts I have aout your topic ban are gone! As far as Breitbart is concerned, Margaret Thatcher was practically a Communist, and the post-truth politics of the American Right are about as far removed from the mision of Wikipedia as it's possible to get. Guy (Help!) 12:14, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
What makes you an authority on the American Right?--MONGO 05:10, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
And we care about this because? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:12, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Because it is an transiently interesting wp fork? LaughingVulcan Grok Page! 12:02, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
One interesting nugget from their main page, "The primary requirements are for the information contributed to be true, relevant, and verifiable, rather than cited from a so-called “published reliable source”, since experience has proven how reliance upon the latter can be easily gamed by editors and administators alike. There is no culture of notability, ideology, or deletionism at Infogalactic." It will be interesting to see how they think objective facts will be derived without standards that aim to confirm their factuality. And, being brand new, of course they shouldn't have a culture of anything yet - in time I predict they will develop cultures of groupthink and ideological purity, but I could be wrong. Or it will become about as useful as H2G2 or the 1911 Britannica except for the bits they copied that are untampered and timelessly relevant. LaughingVulcan Grok Page! 12:02, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, of course they know THE TRUTH when they see it. They are better than so-called experts (which are, after all, mostly state-sponsored pampered lefty academics in their useless ivory towers) in every area of human knowledge. They don't need to find THE TRUTH, the only need to broadcast it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:25, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
The best thing is you get cool titles. Ordinary editors are Galaxians, ordinary Admins Starlords, and you can pay to be an Admin without blocking powers, making you a Corelord "also known as pro admins, are corporate professionals who have purchased the ability to oversee the editing of pages related to their industry at Infogalactic." - I've mentioned this above but didn't quite realise how much Infogalactic was going to have corporate masters. I don't understand their statement "Since no human being on the planet is neutral, objectivity is the most for which we can reasonably strive". No one's neutral so it's easy to achieve objectivity? Doug Weller talk 12:42, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
For me, the money quote is "Our design philosophy is based on the idea that only the user has the right to define what his reality is" - when exactly did post-modernism go into total overdrive and made the jump from left to right? I wonder if I can redefine my reality to exclude some aspects of gravity to shed half of my weight or avoid the unpleasant deceleration at the end of a fall... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:06, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
"Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)" ' Alan Sokal. Guy (Help!) 14:41, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Userbox

 This user is one of the 532 left-wing thought police who aggressively force their biased perspective on the rest of the world.


{{User:JzG/ThoughtPolice}} Enjoy. Guy (Help!) 12:18, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Least you admit it. Excuse me I have to go hop in my high carbon footprint hemi powered pick-up with the boys so wez can go out cussin and drinking and grabbin some fur while we use our shotguns to blast holes in some solar panels.--MONGO 05:16, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
It needs a link to the press release. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:31, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Done. Guy (Help!) 13:08, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't think we will do much for our reputation if we childishly mock like this people who criticize Wikipedia. -- Ed (Edgar181) 13:15, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
'Wikipedia is run by left wing thought police' is not 'criticism'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:46, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Oh, sure it is! It is unhinged criticism, but it's still criticism... Carrite (talk) 15:59, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
More like drunken heckling, really. Guy (Help!) 20:28, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
How very dare you. My mockery is backed by all the gravitas of adulthood. I draw to the hon. gentleman's attention the words of the emininent scientist Professor Brian Cox: "The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!" Setting up a fork of Wikipedia because you find neutrality ideologically unacceptable is not criticism. Guy (Help!) 13:55, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
It is clearly criticism. That criticism may not be of any concern to us, but childishly mocking it will only serve to elevate it: if the concern is that some political views are not tolerated here, treating that concern with derision just proves the point. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:02, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
I would say that "some political views are not tolerated here" is a feature, not a bug. We don't want Nazi trolls. But more often, the views we "don't tolerate" (i.e. don't coddle) are not political, but factual. Evolution is a fact. Anthropogenic climate change is a fact "to the degree that withholding provisional assent would be perverse" (with apologies to Stephen Jay Gould. The theory of relativity (either version) is scientific fact, confirmed to a degree of certainty much beyond what we accept to send someone to prison, or, in more primitive societies, to the executioner. And so on. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:13, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree that there are "factual views" that shouldn't be incorporated into Wikipedia content. But that's not what is at issue. And it's not Nazi trolls that are being mocked here. -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:19, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure you and I agree on the what I tried to say. My point is that while we do not tolerate all political views, many who claim that their "political views" are not tolerated are misguided because what we don't tolerate are their non-factual pseudo-factual views. "I'm oppressed by gravity" is not a valid political complaint. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:34, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
I am sure there is a distinction between Nazi trolls and GamerGate-supporting climate change deniers, and that it is a pure accident of history that at this popint in the current US Presidential election that distinction has ceased to be discernible to the dispassionate onlooker. No doubt come November 9 all this will blow over.
"Because you'll be in jail" - sorry, couldn't resist... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:40, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Are any of Wikipedia's critics that we are discussing here complaining that that they are being oppressed by gravity? -- Ed (Edgar181) 14:40, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Actually they are more like the Black Knight than Dennis the peasant. Guy (Help!) 14:42, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Is that not the admin count? Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:44, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
A conspiracy of mind control, perhaps. Well, we just need a new policy that admins have to wear the tin-foil head gear when online. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:55, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Seems the factremoving thoughtpolice is there already: [5] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:30, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
  • At last, a Safe Space encyclopedia! "...a supporter of Hillary Clinton will see a different version of the current Donald Trump page than a Donald Trump supporter will, as both users will see the version of the page that was most recently edited by editors with perspective ratings similar to his own." No danger of being exposed to new ideas, or reading anything that disagrees with your preconceived POV. JohnCD (talk) 17:18, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Holy hell, that's scary. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:14, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Note what happens with the page history - compare this with this. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:24, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I call the attention of the userbox creator who is the semi-half-cousin of Ix to the most unequal and unfair slavishness to the quoted version press release of the other organization. Clearly what is necessary here is a contextual userbox, such that our self-identified right wing may also proudly display this box. I demand that we have a balanced coverage of this issue by including the option to substitute the text "right wing" instead of "left wing," so that our single and lone token right-wing editor might also enjoy the full ability to enjoy the rights of your userboxhood, sir. Furthermore, we might need to have a decidedly neutral option in this selfsame userbox, just to be sure we are not under-representing the minority point of view on this most serious and grave issue! LaughingVulcan Grok Page! 02:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose the principle per Ed (Edgar181). But I don't think it would violate any policy to create such a userbox in user space and allow it to be linked from other user space. So it matters not what the community thinks about the box provided it's not listed at Wikipedia:Userboxes#Gallery. Via "What links here", such an approach provides a convenient list of users who believe mockery is a valid form of argument. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:49, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Huh? It's a joke userbox, like {{User:JzG/charlatans}} - nobody's suggesting it be used other than by those whose of us who find the entire idea of Breitbart and a bunch of other misogynists "fixing" our "bias" hilariously ironic. Guy (Help!) 09:26, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Well clearly I'm not the only one in this thread who doesn't think the joke is particularly funny, let alone constructive. If I'm too serious, it's only because Wikipedia has trained me well. There's always some experienced editor around to slap a close or a NOTFORUM warning on any good-natured banter that exceeds two comments, since it (gasp!) distracts from building the encyclopedia for a few minutes. I would much prefer it otherwise, since I'm a big fan of quality humor and understand how it could increase mutual trust and grease the gears in an environment that sorely needs that. That said, sarcastic one-liner mockery is not funny to my ear, and I never liked Don Rickles' stand-up routines. My opinions. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:01, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Me, I am English. I find the Breitbart article to be unintentionally hilarious. The rest of the world looks on in utter bewilderment as the American right veers off into the far distance, to the point that Reagan would by now probably be rejected as too liberal. Guy (Help!) 10:22, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Agreed, and I'm an American. Too old to move to Spain. Too scared to laugh. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:36, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I clicked on a link to a random article there and got this one. Looking through the page history indicates there's only one revision, from over a year ago (ie well before Infogalatic ever launched), and it's a revert by ClueBot NG (which exists on WP but not on Infogalactic). [6] DupDet reveals over 1,000 match candidates for the two pages. [7] Seems like just another WP partisan knockoff. Everymorning (talk) 17:23, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
  • "Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
A Midsummer Nights Dream
--Bob K31416 (talk) 18:47, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
It's down now. [8] Perhaps its founder (Vox Day) got embarrassed and decided to try to "undo" the entire project? Everymorning (talk) 21:00, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Arbcom case you might be interested in

Latest comment: 8 years ago15 comments7 people in discussion

Hi Jimbo, just in case you've not seen this, there was a recently-closed Arbcom case you might be interested in: [9]

I'm notifying you because every now and then people complain about civility on your talk page, and this was by and large a civility-only arbitration case. Banedon (talk) 05:49, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

You're also notifying him because you like to kick perceived enemies when they're down. Much more uncivil than rude words, but par for the course around here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 11:19, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
You interpret things wrongly then. I was actually thinking of writing a response to Ks0stm's notification on WT:ITN that I'm going to start reading TRM's posts again and reset our relationship the same way Obama was going to reset US-Iran relations. You can see a hint of that when I removed his ITN credit on my talk page [10] by qualifying it with "at least until the end of the Arbcom case", and the Arbcom case is done.
However, if you want to interpret this as kicking perceived enemies while they're down, I'm not going to try to change your mind. Banedon (talk) 11:58, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. Informative. Just looking at a few links, it's striking how similar other user's response are to some of my response to similar behavior by some. "Will do – but TRM, really, do you always have to get in a dig or insult every time you communicate with me? I didn't start this exchange that way – I sought to be conciliatory." from here is something i have said in so many words a thousand times to a few other editors. And his response begins with "Bollocks..." followed by more digs. Some people seem not to be able to speak in a good way to others. Maybe it's a psychological condition. Maybe it's a disposition. However i It makes the environment toxic. SageRad (talk) 13:08, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
How about speculating about someone's psychological condition behind their back when you've never interacted with them? I presume that is an example of civility? I am very close to removing you from this site, and will do so if you casually smear someone like that again, whether or not you preface it with the word "maybe" and "some people" (that's very Trumpian of you). Rudeness is a problem; passive-aggressive smears hiding behind pretend civility are much more corrosive. --Floquenbeam (talk) 13:59, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
On reconsideration, i struck some text. However, it was an honest wondering. I really do wonder why some people so habitually write in ways that are toxic to healthy dialog when the same thoughts could be more powerfully expressed in a neutral tone that would not distract from the main point. SageRad (talk) 21:53, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

I note that the plaintiff editor had to go through an extraordinary amount of skillful effort to seek relief from the situation, and that the vast majority of editors are not capable of doing that. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:31, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh indeed, it was like landing a 20lb fish on a 5lb line. A very skilful bit of work. Some of us have sympathy for the fish, though. Guy (Help!) 19:02, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
He seems to have turned out OK with optimism for his future on Wikipedia. [11] --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:09, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
He shows more class than most of the badge-collectors. This is unsurprising. Hence many of us feel the fish should have been left in the lake. Guy (Help!) 23:02, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
It is ironic that the only person who comes out of this case looking good is the one who was (seriously) sanctioned. That's Wikipedia for you. Black Kite (talk) 23:25, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
The real irony is that if Arbcom had indeffed George Ho and awarded TRM a barnstar, I would have notified Jimbo anyway for the same reasons as present (in fact what I originally wrote could have been posted unchanged), but some people will still complain about my "refusal to drop the stick" and "attempting to get Jimbo to overrule Arbcom" and whatnot. I doubt I'll say more about the case - it's unlikely to change anyone's minds, and will only make people angrier. Banedon (talk) 00:46, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
He shows more class than most of the badge-collectors. - Your perspective and opinion, Guy. And I note that one can be threatened with indeff for saying something (indirectly) negative about TRM here, but the positive is fair game. Both comments about the editor, not the actions or the content. Slanted much? ―Mandruss ☎ 03:54, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Yep, he sure doesn't come out looking good to me either. SageRad (talk) 08:50, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

I think it's worth noting that when he resigned as a sysop, another editor wrote, "I hope you'll stay around," and he responded, "I will indeed. And I will be a reformed character."[12] --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:23, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Editing News #3—2016

Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Read this in another language • Subscription list for this multilingual newsletter • Subscribe or unsubscribe on the English Wikipedia

 
Did you know?

Did you know that you can easily re-arrange columns and rows in the visual editor?

 

Select a cell in the column or row that you want to move. Click the arrow at the start of that row or column to open the dropdown menu (shown). Choose either "Move before" or "Move after" to move the column, or "Move above" or "Move below" to move the row.

You can read and help translate the user guide, which has more information about how to use the visual editor.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor Team has mainly worked on a new wikitext editor. They have also released some small features and the new map editing tool. Their workboard is available in Phabricator. You can find links to the list of work finished each week at mw:VisualEditor/Weekly triage meetings. Their current priorities are fixing bugs, releasing the 2017 wikitext editor as a beta feature, and improving language support.

Recent changes

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Future changes

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The team is working on a modern wikitext editor. The 2017 wikitext editor will look like the visual editor and be able to use the citoid service and other modern tools. This new editing system may become available as a Beta Feature on desktop devices in October 2016. You can read about this project in a general status update on the Wikimedia mailing list.

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nl.wiki

Latest comment: 8 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

Hi, I've been editing mostly at nl.wiki since 2002 and have now been nominated for a block. First time I think. And it's ok. I don't mind that much, but I think you should know the reason. A Dutch fraternity got into the news rather badly lately, including a criminal investigation about a serious incident during hazing, resulting in brain injury. Some users at nl.wiki -including moderators- have managed to keep any mention of what everybody knows in Holland already, off the fraternity's page. I tried putting on a NPOV tag. It lived a minute or two and was reverted too. I mentioned the word censorship and now I'll probably be blocked. The problem I have here is that Wiki will easily be smeared with the same muck that sticks to the fraternity.

Anyway: thank you for 14 years of fun. I still think you did humanity a great service, but yes I have seen nl.wiki degrade. Jcwf (talk) 04:08, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Content dispute, in which you got blocked for repeatedly accusing editors that don't agree with you of censorship and whitewashing. The rest of what you say is nonsense. Although I do believe the block came much faster than what is usual here on enwiki. I don't edit the Dutch wiki so I'm not well versed in their blocking policy and threshold for what is considered blockable. At any rate, complaining here about is entirely pointless.--Atlan (talk) 09:37, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
Just to say the following:
NL:WP has been a very harsh enviroment to be in. New users are often talked down too by some admins. Jcwf has never been in trouble, always valued for his work. But now he chose the wrong subject, and wording. The blok has been disputed, but most of the friends back each other up.
I'm not saying that he was right. But the way he was treated in the first place wasn't deserved either. It was not complete nonsense. Rodejong 17:10, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
The nonsense parts are his outlandish claims, like alluding to some kind of conspiracy to keep negative information about the fraternity off wiki, and saying Wikipedia is now tainted because he didn't get his way. This is a simple content dispute, with an active discussion going on on the talk page about how to approach the subject.--Atlan (talk) 17:27, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
What a nonsense!! "Jcwf has never been in trouble, always valued for his work." (underlining by Robotje) I won't get into details because we should not import problems from other wiki's and I think this whole topic about Jcwf on the nl.wiki beter be closed because en.wiki should not be abused for importing his problems there in the en.wiki. - Robotje (talk) 18:23, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 October 2016

Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 19:28, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Dylan

Latest comment: 8 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

I'm sure everybody's heard by now that Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Please forgive me if you don't get the relevance of this to Jimmy's talk page. But with lyrics as challenging and as far reaching as Dylan's, I think we have much to learn from him that applies to at least a couple of the topics above.

I'll just add one song that I remember really hitting me, right in the face. With God on our Side. The verse on WWI, especially seemed to summarize, just in the first 4 lines, everything I'd learned in school about WWI. The conclusion implied now seems to be the general consensus among historians.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:11, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, and i would add "We always did see the same thing, we just saw it from different points of view..." from Tangled Up in Blue. Very relevant to dialog among people with different POV and accepting this while being civil. SageRad (talk) 18:18, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
Well, let's just hope that next year the committee sees the light and awards a Nobel Prize in Literature to the editors of Wikipedia. We all still have a hope to share the Nobel Prize after all, or at least, we ought to... :) Wnt (talk) 20:52, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

My favorite Dylan line is: "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the topic ban" or is it "in the revert"? Anyway it explains why some issues take years to be properly covered in Wikipedia: that wind keeps blowin' facts totally out of articles (and out of talk-pages) until the reverts can be overcome. Wait, that's a different song: "We shall overcome some day"... -Wikid77 (talk) 21:07, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

As for the explanation for World War I, this is perhaps best understood by viewing a recently leaked Pentagon training document here. Though it could use a more straightforward wording, something like: "As the wealthy get wealthier and the poor get poorer, the poor have to be raked into piles like autumn leaves or occupied Palestinians so that the land and resources they were sitting on become available to the wealthy. Eventually they end up living in their own feces, underground catacombs, overcrowded shacks. Eventually someone among them turns to crime or radical ideas, and then the military has a choice: leave the criminals to rule the rest of them, or pursue ever higher levels of civilian casualties and reductions in civil liberty. It is an inevitable law of nature that eventually conflict will lead to the systematic eradication of this poor population in various pointless conflicts until its reduced numbers better match such reduced resources to which they may still be permitted access." Wnt (talk) 21:11, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for being a great Founder!

Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  Founder Award
This is just for being a Founder who created a very great research site! Thank You! Awsomegamer75795 (talk) 02:47, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia's commitment to accessibility for color blind users

Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I have recently tried to convert color schemes in several tables to make them accessible for color blind users using the color schemes outlined at

Unfortunately my edits have met with resistance so I started an RFC at Talk:Motion picture rating system#RfC: Should the comparison table in the article use a color scheme accessible to color-blind users?. Despite promoting the RFC at WP:WPACCESS the RFC has not attracted much of a response (one impartial editor after being open a week). Needless to say I am disappointed at the lack of engagement on this issue and would like to know how to promote further engagement on the issue. I am not here to drag Jimbo Wales into this specific debate, but I would like to know how strong his views are on making Wikipedia accessible to color blind users. Does he see the issue as an incidental consideration when designing articles or central to the primary goals of Wikipedia i.e. would my time be better spent on other areas or is this something I should push the community on? Betty Logan (talk) 10:49, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

You might wish to invite participants in Wikipedia:WikiProject Accessibility and Wikipedia:WikiProject Color.
—Wavelength (talk) 18:51, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I have auto-scrolled the overwide category-link (above) for accessibility on handheld devices, such as mobile phones, by div-section: <div style="width:auto; overflow:scroll">. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:07, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Corcoran and the Syllogism

Latest comment: 8 years ago12 comments9 people in discussion

I note with interest that John Corcoran (Professor of Philosophy, University at Buffalo) who is a respected ‘logician, philosopher, mathematician, and historian of logic’ has noted that Wikipedia’s article on the Syllogism has ‘dozens if not scores of errors’. This is on his Academia page, and his Facebook page (private). His first comment on the part which says 'The work of Bolzano has grossly been overlooked, among other reasons due to the intellectual environment in Bohemia at the time, which was then part of the Austrian empire'. He writes

Please read the above sentence aloud. What is wrong with it?
Q1: Is ‘grossly’ the right word here? How can something be grossly overlooked? And is this one of those places where no adverb would do the job needed?
Q2: If the author insists on puffing the sentence ‘The work of Bolzano has been overlooked’ with an adverb, where should it go?
Isn’t there a rule against splitting ‘has been’ with certain kinds of adverb?
Q3: Why is it desirable to have ‘The work of Bolzano’ instead of ‘Bolzano’s work’?
Q4: Isn’t there something wrong in the word order of ‘among other reasons due to the intellectual environment in Bohemia at the time’? Would this be an improvement? ‘due to, among other reasons to the intellectual environment in Bohemia at the time, among other reasons’? Doesn’t the present word order make ‘due to the intellectual environment in Bohemia at the time’ modify ‘reasons’?
Q5: What is the relative clause doing at the end of the sentence? Isn’t ‘which was then part of the Austrian empire’ a non sequitur?
Q6: Shouldn’t ‘has been’ be ‘had been’? Bolzano’s has been discussed intensely for the last 50 years.

I PMd John pointing out that any old nonsense could be added to Wikipedia – in this case by an anonymous IP and that he was at liberty to remove it. I suggested he probably shouldn't bother, given that some other nonsense would be added back later. Wikipedia has had 15 years to get a simple article on the Syllogism right, and no sign so far. Surely he has better things to do.

Was I right? Peter Damian (talk) 13:28, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Fixed. Many pages can be copy-edited as a fix-it for wording, and then the overall quality will remain high for years to come. This lasting fix-it solution has even been confirmed in heavily viewed pop-culture pages, which are edited many times per day, but other editors check the newer changes, and the overall text has remained clean for years. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:11, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
No comment on the rest of it, but regarding Q5 ‘which was then part of the Austrian empire’ isn't necessarily a non sequitur; if the government in Vienna was involved in dictating the terms of censorship, or of setting the academic curriculum, then the changing relationship between Bohemia and Austria would have a direct impact on the academic environment. (A modern-day equivalent would be "in Latvia, which was then part of the Soviet Union, the work of historians who did not adhere to the Marxist view of progress was not taught".) ‑ Iridescent 13:46, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Q4 seems to contain a mistake. Would this be an improvement? No. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 13:52, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Exam questions

Sorry for the purpose of my comment being completely unclear.

1. Is there any point in experts like Corcoran editing Wikipedia, when errors will be reintroduced so quickly?
2. How is it that crowdsourcing, which is meant to be superior to the 'one way' traditional method of sourcing knowledge, has not produced a worthwhile article on this subject in 15 years?
3. How could the system be improved to achieve better results?

Peter Damian (talk) 15:27, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

2. Judging by that sentence at least, the article is certainly worthwhile. The reader has been given an overall picture, whether the prose is perfect or not. The serious researcher is not going to stop at the short and not altogether reliable Wikipedia blurb; he's going to go on to the sources. Wikipedia is sort of like a street in this regard - yeah, maybe some people go there to hang out, but it's not altogether satisfying for the purpose. The real point is that you go somewhere on it. I've often compared Wikipedia directly to search engines - to me its role is basically similar to that of a Google. Like a search for a text string, the article structure and prose simply helps you to find the reference you want.
1. It depends on how you measure entropy. If you're asking whether it helps to proofread an article very carefully and make all the text exactly right, knowing that someone will muck it up again, well, the answer is sort of - after all, some of your improvements will remain a long time. But if you're asking whether it helps to add a new section with sources about an important aspect of the story that other editors don't know about, the answer there is almost certainly yes. They shouldn't take out something like that, at least not unless the "oh this article is just too long and complicated and informative and useful to tolerate" school of deletionists is standing by. If you are trying to extract every last error and impose perfect order, entropy is against you. If you are adding in new kinds of information, then entropy is for you. Wnt (talk) 16:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia is still the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Even John Corcoran (author) can edit if they want to. – wbm1058 (talk) 17:28, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Correct. If you dispute that veiw then Wikipedia is the wrong place for you, and you should move to Citizendium. Guy (Help!) 22:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Snarkiness, meet Biting Incivility... Carrite (talk) 03:19, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
... meet fame-whoring drama queen ;p AnonNep (talk) 13:37, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Just a thought and to open a discussion

Latest comment: 8 years ago62 comments35 people in discussion

Would it be appropriate for Wikipedia to run geotargeted (to the US) neutral "get out the vote" banners at the time of the US election? Just to focus on whether or not it would be appropriate for us as a community, note that it would be perfectly legal for us as a 501(c)(3) charity as long as it is not suggesting to people which candidate to vote for.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:57, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Stay out of anything that has to do with politics. It could be the thin end of the wedge. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.--Aspro (talk) 14:08, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't see how. We successfully campaign against SOPA/PIPA - and that involved taking sides. This would not be political in that same way.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:15, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't think this is a particularly good idea. It probably violates WP:NPOV; reality has a well-known liberal bias. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 14:12, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't see how it could violate NPOV. It is true that regular Wikipedia readers are less likely to be supporters of Donald Trump. But telling everyone, neutrally, that they should vote - on the premise that we think that people who read the encyclopedia are generally more informed and should therefore help make the decision - is neutral.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:20, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, forgot the sarcasm tags. :P Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 14:22, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Heh. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - Encouraging people to vote is a generally acceptable civic gesture, only economists (of certain stripes) would fault you for it.
Still, it would be an effort taken on faith that it is effective, unless someone intends to interview a suitable sample of voters and non-voters.
So the community question is whether the intention signaled by a "get out the vote" banner would reflect negatively on Wikipedia as an institution. I venture to estimate that that risk is vanishingly small.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 14:40, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I do not support this proposal. I recognize that we were involved in SOPA/PIPA and that was political, but I'd prefer to have a soft rule "stay out of politics as much as possible". Absolute rules such as no tolerance owns almost always lead to idiotic situations so I try to avoid supporting absolute rules as much as possible. If our soft rule is to stay out as much as possible then when we do identify a situation such as SOPA/PIPA which is so central to the continued existence of this project that it deserved an exception to the soft rule. While I'm sure people will argue that the upcoming US presidential vote is important and it is, I don't see it as central to the mission of Wikimedia so I'd prefer that we remain as separated from politics as possible.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:29, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I think that's a respectable position. I hope others disagree, but I respect what you are saying. There is for sure a valid question here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:33, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
If WP (and in particular the English language part) aims to be truly international then this could set an unfortunate precedent. There are some countries in the world where voting/not voting is very much a political act. If there is only one candidate (or possibly only one for whom votes will be counted), then not voting is the only opposition. There have been elections in which violence has been meted out at polling stations - would WP encourage people there to vote? In countries with a functioning democracy "get out and vote" is a positive message, I just don't think it is a message WP needs or should promulgate. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I agree with JW that it may not violate any of our tenants – just think we should stay away from the whole idea. Anyway, I have now said my piece and won't comment further. Because for sure - why should this idea not it be discussed in order to archive a happy consensus. --Aspro (talk) 14:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
If someone violates their tenants, that means something very different than violating their tenets. Sorry for being pedantic, this just made me laugh. Gnome de plume (talk) 15:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

"Get out the vote" drives are very often biased in some way, even when they are not suggesting to people which candidate to vote for. Democrats try to get out the vote among a demographic that will favor their candidates (inner cities, college campuses, etc.), Republicans try to get out the vote among a demographic that will favor their candidates. If Wikipedia, whose readership is "less likely to be supporters of Donald Trump" as you say, tries to get out the vote, it will be for all practical purposes, campaigning for Hillary Clinton. Deli nk (talk) 14:37, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Why the heck would we stay clear of politics, when we are so terribly complicit and complacent with political agenda pushing of the most controversial and important societal topics? I say that's a great idea Jimbo!Charlotte135 (talk) 14:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I think that it is not the best of ideas, because it is making an exception for the USA. For example, Wikipedia did not urge people to get out and vote in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 or the Colombian peace agreement referendum, 2016 although they were both very important.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 15:38, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
What Ianmacm said; if we do this for the US, why not the UK, Canada, Nigeria, India, Ireland, Australia or any other significant English-speaking country? I also fail to see the point; if there genuinely is anyone in the US who isn't already aware there's an election happening, they're hardly someone who I trust to make informed decisions about anything. ‑ Iridescent 15:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Just for information, Australia has Compulsory voting with a fine of $170 for not doing so. I'm not sure a logo/icon on Wikipedia would be any more of a motivating factor. DrChrissy (talk) 19:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Astonishingly enough, I'm aware of that; for someone who complains about civility as often as you do, you do have quite the tendency to talk down to everyone you encounter. As I'm also aware, Australians would nonetheless be rightly aggrieved if Wikipedia were to explicitly claim that US elections are more important than their own. ‑ Iridescent 19:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
WoW! Where did AGF suddenly go? My comment was to the general readership and not intended to be talking down to anyone. And I agree with the point you are making. DrChrissy (talk) 19:42, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
I'm going to push back on the claim that we are so terribly complicit and complacent with political agenda pushing of the most controversial and important societal topics but my view may depend on semantics. An odd complication of the Wikipedia concept "anyone can edit", allowing almost anyone to edit and call themselves an editor, and the lack of paid editorial staff, means that the term "we" is problematic. If editor X is a paid political shill, pushes some partisan talking point, and other editors respond by removing the excesses and improving the wording of the subject matter, would it be accurate to say that we Wikipedia are complicit because we allow anyone to edit? I would say no. While we don't have a formal distinction (with the possible exception of labeling some editors as SPA or editors with a COI) I think most people understand that a statement about what we (Wikipedia) permit or support, we are talking about the responsible editors not those who are pushing the agenda.
To use a similar but maybe clearer example, How would you respond if someone asked if Wikipedia permits copyright violations? Technically, one might say yes, because I can point you to 100 instances of copyright violations probably in the last 24 hours. (Copypatrol if you really want the examples). Yet every single one of those copyright issues will be removed if it turns out to be a copyright violation and most in fairly short order, so I think it is fair to say that Wikipedia does not support copyright violations. Similarly, I don't think it's fair to say that Wikipedia is both complicit and complacent with political agenda pushing — I think it's fair it to say that such agenda pushing occurs continuously while responsible editors work to remove it is much as possible. I think on balance we do a decent job although we are far short of perfect.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:25, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Unless we're also prepared to do this for elections other countries see as significant (or even restricted to other countries with significant proportions of English speakers), I can't see this. If we do decide to do this, we'd then have a hard time telling people "Well, the US is important enough to do this for, but sorry, your country is not." I think that would get spammy in a hurry (which would pretty much blow the effectiveness of the campaign anyway), so I can't support it, well-intentioned though the idea is. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:08, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Agree. It's ok if we take a stance when interests fundamental to the Wikipedia community are at stake, but for general political elections it would be overkill. Unless we take Trump serious enough to be a threat to life and liberty everywhere... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:13, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • What if we can make it appear only for readers in the US? Do we have that technology? It would remove one (valid) counterargument. Wikipedia is about the democratization of knowledge, so we could also be for the democratization of...well, democracy. But voter registration deadlines in a dozen or more US states are today, and registration is usually as big a thing as actually voting, as the US viewers know (and as frequently needs to be explained to folks of countries who just receive a card in the mail, no "registration" required). Drmies (talk) 16:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Hell yes. Everyone who has a vote, should use it. Even if they support Trump. The worst enemy of demoracy is not tyranny but apathy. Guy (Help!) 17:09, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 
Ben Shahn, Register to Vote, Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) poster, 1946

I had asked on this page if anybody objected to me putting the Ben Shahn poster on Jimbo's user page, and got no objections as far as I remember. This was in July I think. I then put it on Jimbo's user page and it was quickly reverted. No use getting upset about it so I left it that way. I've just put it back, and I do see Jimmy's comments above as being his personal support for having it there, since he seems to want to go further beyond that. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

At this point though, I don't see a real need to go beyond that, other than to say to those folks who agree that registration is important "feel free to add this to your own user page." The registration deadlines, and the current early voting are one part of my neutrality on Jimmy's proposal. I'll be very direct here on the rest. I suspect the Jimmy is outraged by recent political developments as many folks are. But I wouldn't worry about the outcome now. One candidate seems to be totally falling apart. In fact his whole party seems to be totally falling apart. Going beyond posting the Shahn poster might just be a meaningless gesture at this point. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I do not support the encyclopedia's taking a position one way or the other on whether or not our readers ought to vote in political contests. Many people, including Wikipedians, find voting objectionable as immoral, a waste of time, or even an irrational exercise (see e.g., Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter). Having the encyclopedia take an editorial position in favor of general participation in a particular government's operation is an implicit endorsement of that government and/or a particular form of government. I say this as a Wikipedian and as someone who will appear on the ballot as a candidate for elective office in my legislative district next month. DickClarkMises (talk) 18:02, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

MeatBall:VotingIsEvil. --ESP (talk) 18:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Support in a broader context. Creating only a one-time US-specific "get out the vote" banner might seem questionable. A routine feature of the Main Page to have a small banner for each ongoing election should not. (some people rightly object to the Olympics, but we still run an ITN item about it) I should emphasize that this would be a part of the Main Page content, possibly WP:ITN, not a Foundation-placed banner, because among other things we would need a crowdsourced procedure to fairly catch every election in the world. (There might be a procedure for disqualifying/not listing show elections that are internationally disbelieved, or not, people's choice) But I like the idea of having something iconic and graphical rather than just a plain ITN item because by keeping it small you could run it longer, and with absentee voting already available in the U.S. you might want to run it longer, though then again, maybe not this long. There's also a question of whether close of voter registration should get a similar banner and how long. Something can be done, it can be neutral, it can fit in with ITN, but ... people have to agree on it. That's the sticky part. Wnt (talk) 18:46, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose. For two main reasons. First, this reflect the centrality the USA and USA related topics still mantain into the Wikipedia community, and this is something very bad and should be fought, not encouraged, as it reflects into the contents of the enciclopaedia. Wikipedia occasionally took political positions, but just when them directly involved Wikipedia itself and its right to keep existing. There are about 200 nations in the world that run very important elections about every week, why Wikipedia should not run geotargeted neutral banner for each of them, and should do for the USA presidential elections?
Second, exhort to vote is taking a side, it is a biased stand. All the countries that provide to their citizens the right to vote, also provide them the right to not vote, with no exceptions. This choice could be seen as questionable by many, but is perfectly legal, fair and moral in a democracy, and it has concequences that the citizens has the right to seek. I don't see any reason why Wikipedia should take part against the right of the people (but just the ones from USA) to not "get out the vote"; and I don't see any reason why Wikipedia should inform or remember the people (but just the ones from USA) that some elections are about to happen.
In the end, let's say that this banner would be something good for the USA as a country. Why Wikipedia should care about it? The banner would be also good for Wikipedia as an enciclopaedia? Why? And why Wikipedia in English language does not care about the elections that involve the English people? I'm sorry for being rough but this proposal (and the page where it's discussing) it seem totally absurd to me. --Phyrexian ɸ 21:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
Fact check: See Compulsory voting --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:58, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Off topic. Thank you, you're right, I was not aware about most of this. However the USA are not among those countries, and most of them allow the citizens to not vote in some way. It's indicative that the very few countries that enforce the compulsory vote are either nations smaller than many US cities or ruled by fascist dictatorships. I suggest Wikipedia should not put banners for the North Korea "elections". --Phyrexian ɸ 19:45, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Phyrexian said it perfectly above. It's US-centric, and avoiding this by doing so for every national election would be a mess. What about referendums? Local/municipal elections? And yes, asking people to vote is certainly not neutral, even if no side is explicitly mentioned. Greenman (talk) 21:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
  • support my involvement in WP is due to my wanting people to have good information about things that matter; a sense of civic responsibility. Voting matters, and it is a nonpartisan good thing to remind people in the US to fulfill their obligations to vote, and vote informed. Jytdog (talk) 00:24, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Support, because I find unpersuasive arguments along the lines "but we'd have to do it for every Anglophone country!" I am not aware of any infrastructure issues restricting Wikipedia from doing so. Mihirpmehta (talk • contribs) 00:40, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
  • It appears very early on that consensus is split and vocally so. To my mind the SOPA/PIPA was focused on legalisation that would affect WP directly and so our involvement was justified back then. Whilst I personally don't like the JW's new proposal, I recognize that the way that WP has grown has been by debating difficult issues. Can an editor whom has studied philosophy, put together a truth table or some such, which lists all the pro's & con's. English WP is read around the world, so such a banner that only appears on US servers will (to my mind) separates and divides WP - and then what next? I am terribly unhappy about this but agree that it should be discussed. --Aspro (talk) 01:14, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
snark worthy of greg kohs. hm. Jytdog (talk) 01:51, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
It's kind of a shame that this proposal arises on the day which, for something like 12 of the states, is the last day on which people can register to vote.  —jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 02:21, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Wikipedia is not a good venue for reminding people to vote, brush their teeth, look both ways before crossing the street, maintain a diversified portfolio, get enough sleep, be kind to small animals, or whatever anodyne good things one cares to list. Nor do we need the burden of adjudicating what is a nonpartisan "good thing" and what is partisan. We are not obliged to provide useful information about important things to people in every form (e.g., we are neither a how-to guide nor a calendar). Choess (talk) 05:28, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
But wait, people now need to "Look all-4-ways before crossing the street" because milennials think you have no right being in the street unless they "friended" you before you got there, or you txted them before crossing (and yes, I was recently nearly flattened by a guy, speeding around the 3rd corner, who claimed I had no right to be in the street, but braked long enough there to "live tweet" how wrong I was as a pedestrian to be walking in the path of a speeding car, as if I didn't know how to use the new "street app" now). Consequently, I sawed 50 limbs off a large bush at an abandoned street corner, so drivers could look all 4 ways. -Wikid77 (talk) 02:50, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
This article might be of interest. --Bob K31416 (talk) 09:29, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
I found the wiktionary entry far more informative this time. Wnt (talk) 12:44, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Limited Support - As a neutral provider of information, Wikipedia should not advocate any behaviors not directly related to its purpose. (SOPA and PIPA were different - those directly affected the Internet in a way that would be ultimately detrimental to Wikipedia's mission and coincidentally the whole Internet.) Here, neutrality is also that it is perfect acceptable to advocate that people don't vote when in this cycle we're spoon-fed an exceptionally stupid two party choice between the moron and the crook. (Bonus: Switch which candidate gets each label every other day and you'll find reasons that both labels apply to both U.S. Presidential candidates! Fun!) So why limited support? Here. Help me out with editing and polishing it! LaughingVulcan Grok Page! 12:43, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: Whilst LaughingVulcan (above) may have said in jest that : “ we're spoon-fed an exceptionally stupid two party choice between the moron and the crook” the point is that political systems often evolve and improve/degrade over time. WP is very influential now and to adopt such a policy may well add to the current, growing political stagnation. A good historical example is that China once developed a very sophisticated civil service. The exams for students to enter were very tough. The result was though, that China became moribund, and lost its ability to innovate. They had achieved so much, like fine bone-china, gun powder, rockets, fine silk cloth, fine and exquisite ivory carvings, etc. They lost all that technological superiority in just a few generations. In my first post above, I commented that The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We should (I strongly think) go out of our way to avoid advising people as to what they should do. Let them make up their own minds -in this age of greater awareness- where many-eyes make all problems shallow. --Aspro (talk) 13:47, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
I am not sure I share your attribution of China's technological stagnation to the development of a civil service. Mao certainly had something to do with it. Guy (Help!) 14:50, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
  • "A substantive body of evidence indicates that the environment in which we make decisions can fundamentally alter them. For example, what we think others are doing, how voting makes us feel about ourselves, and what we need to do to vote all affect whether or not we participate on Election Day. So instead of simply telling Americans to vote, the science suggests we need to think about the context in which citizens decide to cast their ballots."[21]
Seems like useful info so I mentioned it, although I'm not sure how it would apply here. The rest of the article is interesting too.
BTW, there's also a Wikipedia article Get out the vote. And also in the amazing Wikipedia there is an article Vote early and vote often. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:11, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment: Would like JW to comment soon. I suspect that he threw this proposal in to see how robust the WP community has become. He created this child, which has now developed a wisdom of the crowd type of mentality, ( based largely on JW's (and his friends) credo or remit to provided easy access to knowledge for the benefit of all and can do so freely via volunteer editors). There is no way I am going to be patronising when pointing out to JW, that many editors are much older than he ( and with tongue in cheek – more worldly wise), as we value the fact, that as young man, whom became financially successful in life, at an early age, both founded and established a tool to aid this world becoming a better place – rather than splash out on buying an executive jet. No doubt, he now wants to do more, by getting politically involved, in the hope of sorting out the many injustices that exist. I humbly submit though, that WP is not the vehicle for this and that JW will gain more support by be appearing truly non partisan by not involving WP as a power leverage tool. Power tends to corrupt but willing cooperation by the informed masses (hoi polloi) always wins out in the long run. Others above, have mentioned that the wording of banners can be influenced by SPA's. At the moment, we can just about cope and keep on-top of them... but active WP accounts fluctuate and in the future we may not be able to. There are just, far too many unknowns, for this type of banner... Would like JW to comment though, because he didn't like the idea that we should donate our unwanted pen-drives so that they could be dropped on North Korea – loaded with WP pages, but wanted to leave it up to the experts instead. Are those experts educational physiologist or politically motivated with a different agenda to our remit?--Aspro (talk) 13:06, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
  • One the things I really like very much about WP is that it has no borders and nothing inside it has a "national" perspective. Many of the single Projects have, instead, something very similar to WP:WORLDVIEW. Even if behind this there isn't necessarily a reflection about the progressive loss of meaning of the concept of a national state itself (see European states devolving themselves into EU, or trying to), still I believe that this is because we wouldn't ever accept that knowledge should be submitted to national differentiation: "E=mc2" is the same in any country, so it makes no difference to WP what happens to states, we have to correctly write about relativity whatever our nationality or citizenship. The consideration of a national state (or a federation, as well) as a "necessary" context is deeply questionable in this sense, everything here works fine without any due reverence to any single state in particular. So it simply isn't our business to demand our users and our readers a certain behaviour (while the opposite behaviour, abstention, is an esplicitely recognized right in some Countries). I can see no difference in asking for this only to a georeferenced audience: even when locally, it would always be Wikipedia asking for it, and Wikipedia is one. Moreover, we don't discriminate anarchist users or other users who don't believe [any more] in the concept of the national state or citizenship; WP is their WP too, as long as they are here for editing. That's all we need from users, we need them working in coherence with our few principles and produce free knowledge, whatever they think about states, representativeness, social duties and similar concepts. Matter of fact, a similar stand would also be discriminatory.
    So, I would always understand a call for a discussion about - say - what the eventual approval of an act, a given one, would mean to us in the sense of how it would affect our work: it.wiki's black-out of 5 years ago came from there, there was an act under approval that would have put our users and our content at risk, and we did all what we could. In Europe we are very much involved in the debate about Freedom of Panorama, and other copyright issues, and we are urging the Authorities to make a certain choice, sometimes creating it from nothing and breaking the current silence of the law: we are very clearly taking a "political" stand in this case. We are there with our faces, our personal names and with Wikipedia's name, with its grey ball in full evidence. This is politics. But this is about our work, this is spending the name of Wikipedia for something that very directly has to do with what we do here. I just can't see anything wrong with that. Unless one of the candidates has already stated that if elected he/she would fight against Wikipedia, arrest Wikipedians, abolish the public domain (uhm...), forbid the CC licenses, or anything related, we don't have a true interest in who will be elected and how. It might be the best for the Union if any voter casts his vote, but the best for WP is not necessarily the best for the state, for one state (for one Union of states), and vice-versa.
    In the same spirit, what happens in the USA directly affects many other Countries, mine too, so I have a direct interest from abroad in this election: let me tell you that I personally agree that the next POTUS should [at least] be elected with a vaste popular participation. This is what I hope for USA and for most of the Western World. So I think I understand how much you feel it important to act in this direction. But I'm sorry WP cannot be helpful. --g (talk) 09:48, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Would have been nice for Brexit or a revote

There has been much news that the Brexit vote did not include enough people, and hence the calls for a revote. Back when the late, popular Texas Governor Ann Richards ("a woman's place is in the Dome") was running for re-election, few believed she would be defeated, and many people failed to vote as George W. Bush became Governor and went on to stop the 2000 Florida recount to take the U.S. Presidency (because "not enough time to recount" as the U.S. Supreme Court did not know[?] the hanging-chad card ballots had been digitally encoded ("dimpled" or "one corner hanging") into a computer database for rapid statewide re-re-recount within hours). Perhaps some get-out-the-vote reminders would be a good thing. Meanwhile create "List of shocking elections where people failed to vote". -Wikid77 (talk) 15:25, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

If you're proposing a get out the vote reminder because you believe it would have changed the results of a vote, that demonstrates a good reason why we should not have such a reminder. It's not Wikipedia's business deciding that some side in an election should be the one that wins, and reminding people to vote in order to change the result of that election. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:06, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
It may not have included enough people, but the voter turnout was high, compared to general elections and other UK referendums (all 2). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:25, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
@Ken Arromdee: There is nothing wrong with Wikipedia changing a vote. Wikipedia is supposed to make information available, and that information may have an effect. We simply have faith that if we are neutral and the public at large reads what we make available, that change will represent, overall, an improvement in education, and that the effect (political or otherwise) of having a more educated population will be positive on average. Notifying the people of the world that there are elections going on is simply delivering a fact, a very basic fact but one that potentially has a consequence. I doubt it often will, but in the case of that Florida debacle one has the feeling that one hiccup or stumble could have changed the outcome, so Wikipedia might have also. Wnt (talk) 12:43, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
It is possible to be non-neutral simply by selectively being neutral: Try to figure out what candidate is helped by reminding people to vote, and choosing to remind or not remind depending on whether you think that in that particular neighborhood the reminder helps or hurts your candidate. That's what you did here; you concluded that reminding people on Wikipedia to vote helps your candidate, so you decided that a reminder is good. If you had concluded that reminding people on Wikipedia to vote helped the other candidate, you would have skipped it. That is not being "neutral". That is being partisan in the guise of being neutral. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:10, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
@Ken Arromdee: You're injecting some honesty here, but not enough honesty. The broader issue, as you point out, is that increased turnout is generally believed to help Democrats, and as it so happens I do oppose Trump. However, the increased turnout doesn't help Democrats by some mysterious, biased, partisan mechanism; it helps them because they are right - because they stand up more for the ordinary person rather than planning inheritance and corporate tax cuts to be offset by a 16% value-added tax that mostly hits ordinary people for necessities of life. Unfortunately, the ordinary people are too busy trying to juggle overwork and child care and the ordinary daily crises of the lower class, and so they don't remember to get out to vote quite as much as they ought, and so yes, if not reminded on the day, they might forget, which has a small statistical impact. Does that mean that it is wrong to mention there's an election? No! No more than it is wrong to have an article on global warming that reveals that it's not actually a liberal conspiracy -- even though that may change their vote. (Though needless to say there will be some who argue that also) Giving people knowledge should not be viewed as a partisan activity; it's what Wikipedia is for. Knowledge of environmental issues, knowledge of social issues, and yes, knowledge there's a vote going on all have their impact, but that impact is justifiable. I suggested giving notifications of elections around the world because I believe that not just in next month's U.S. election, but in every election in every country, reminding more people that the election exists will have an overall beneficial impact, no matter whether they intend to vote for one candidate or another or a third or have a demonstration against the whole thing; it should be their knowledge, then it's their choice. Wnt (talk) 16:01, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
Your entire line of reasoning depends on an assumption that we, as Wikipedia editors, have no right to make here. You're saying "it's okay to skew the vote towards my candidate because any such skewing happens because my candidate is obviously the correct one." Deciding this is so prone to motivated reasoning that I have no reason to believe you; I'm pretty sure that if people's voting patterns didn't happen to support your side, you wouldn't be saying this.
And encouraging people to vote is not "giving people knowledge". Saying "go out and vote" imparts no nontrivial facts. It's like discovering that Clinton supporters like chocolate ice cream and posting to a chocolate ice cream forum telling people to vote.
I'll also point out that Trump is actually aiming at lower class people. Nobody making $100000 a year worries about losing their job to illegal immigrants. Minimum wage workers do. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:41, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Above I did not suggest "encouraging people to vote", precisely. What I actually want (and should have detailed further) is a line in the DYK section that says something like "Upcoming elections" followed by a series of flags and dates. Each flag and date, needless to say, links to an article about the upcoming election in that country. I want to make the information available, but it is true I don't want to have some longwinded message out of the Wikipedia fundraising school of histrionic banners. Wnt (talk) 01:58, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Socialist Workers Party (UK) (Possible British far-left (Trotskyist) infiltration of Wikipedia)

Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Alright, I am a British theoretical political scientist by (self-) education, who also know "a bit" about law, jurisprudence, history, languages, linguistics and religions ... and the basic workings of PCs. Anyway, about the article on the Socialist Workers Party (UK) ... for goodness' sake, this is pure fiction and pure nonsense! The SWP are not even a registered political party here in the United Kingdom with the Electoral Commission (UK) [22]! I think the people who say that they are, regardless [23], I think, speaks far more about open far-left Trotskyist infiltration, HERE, inside of Wikipedia, using Wikipedia as a pro-Trotskyism "Socialist" advocacy platform! Perhaps the rules of Wikipedia should be amended, to specifically "proscribe" and exclude Trots, from being able to effectively "infiltrate" Wikipedia under their own doctrine of Entryism, similar to what the British Labour Party did with Militant back in the 1980s! Ridiculous! This sort of upper-middle-class-style messing-about needs to be stopped! -- 87.102.116.36 (talk) 17:24, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Have you discussed this at Talk:Socialist Workers Party (UK) (that would appear to be the appropriate place) or elsewhere? --Boson (talk) 20:13, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

On the situation in the Azerbaijani part of Wikipedia

Latest comment: 8 years ago37 comments7 people in discussion

Jimmy Wales, we are waiting for you to do something while you are waiting for Lowercase sigmabot III to delet what we have written ([24], [25], [26],[27], [28], [29]). Are you really unable to solve such a minor problem despite the fact that you are a creator of Wikipedia? Do you really have no rights? Does Meta have all the authority? I want you to answer one question: are you gonna do anything about the AzWiki issue or are you not? If you are not going to do anything, please state it openly, so that we stop asking you to help. Idin Mammadof (talk), editor of DMOZ 07:55, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I am unable to act unilaterally here, nor am I convinced that the situation is as you have described it. I can tell you that simply reposting over and over doesn't move things forward. If you want to do something productive, I recommend that you get other editors - even those who disagree with you - to come and talk to me.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:57, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Lowercase sigmabot III does not delete discussions, it archives them based on its settings. (Yes, this is obvious for many Wikipedians. But the distinction may be lost to a newbie stumbling across this discussion for the first time.) Maybe now that Mr. Wales has responded this can be the last time I copy and paste those sentences? LaughingVulcan Grok Page! 11:51, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Jimmy Wales, there is evidence: [30], [31]. You will still want proof? Aydinsalis (talk) 15:48, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
Did you not read *anything* he said above? He cannot act here beyond whatever he may have already done, and your refusal to get this is actually a bit of an issue here on en.wp. Just because he founded Wikipedia does not mean he runs it as his own fiefdom. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 12:25, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
He has responded, and said that he doesn't want this to be reposted over and over. @Aydinsalis: If you keep doing this, you're going to wind up at the Administrator's noticeboard. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:04, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
He has also responded, and said "I am unable to act unilaterally here, nor am I convinced that the situation is as you have described it", "If you want to do something productive, I recommend that you get other editors - even those who disagree with you - to come and talk to me". @ThePlatypusofDoom: why are you worried? Aydinsalis (talk) 17:43, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aydinsalis: Jimbo didn't say to spam his talk page even more. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 17:45, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
@ThePlatypusofDoom: in order to defend our rights, he did not give us another place. This is not abuse. Aydinsalis (talk) 18:11, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aydinsalis: But blatantly ignoring what he said with regards to him not wanting to get involved is. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 22:17, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
@Jéské Couriano:I suffer from the violation of the rules. That's why I write here and write every day. I can not do anything else. Jimmy does nothing. It appears that he has no power. He's a doll, mocking us and our people. Aydinsalis (talk) 09:02, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
I believe in context the word you are looking for is 'figurehead' rather than 'doll'. 'Puppet leader' would probably work too. The reality is Jimbo's influence extends to asking/smacking a few heads at the WMF to look into it. If the WMF have said they wont do anything, there is not much else Jimbo can do. You have a decent level of English, certainly good enough to get by here, perhaps if the climate at AzWiki is so bad you could migrate over to here? I am sure plenty of editors would welcome a native speaker to expand on the areas we lack. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:17, 13 October 2016 (UTC)
I really didn't come here to be mocked. Wikipedia foundation have prepared a pocket of suggestions a long time ago. I would like to investigate this issue. This is the main issue. Aydinsalis (talk) 13:22, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aydinsalis: Sure, just don't spam Jimbo's talk page while you investigate, though. You should probably just take this to meta. (and yes, I know that you've done that before) ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 16:12, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
@ThePlatypusofDoom: what we expect of everyone working here? How long to wait and what to expect?! Aydinsalis (talk) 18:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

@Aydinsalis: Just get off Jimbo's talk page, plain and simple. It might take months on Meta, but complaining here isn't going to help. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 23:52, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

@ThePlatypusofDoom: Correspondence lasted for years. The result is this: "Meta-Wiki is not an Arbitration Commitee, Stewards are not arbitrators. We can't do anything here." How long to wait and what to expect?! Aydinsalis (talk) 03:55, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aydinsalis: I don't know, but you've waited for a long time here when we clearly gave you an answer, Jimbo won't help. So try somewhere else. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 12:29, 15 October 2016 (UTC)
@ThePlatypusofDoom: So try somewhere else?! I do not know what you're talking about. I have no comment. Why they sent you here? The whole world sees that, Jimmy Wales disappeared. Does not answer the questions. This is a great shame. Aydinsalis (talk) 07:08, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aydinsalis: He has answered the questions. You're just refusing to accept the answer. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 07:20, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
@Jéské Couriano: or viewpoint long after the consensus of the community has decided that moving on to other topics would be more productive... But there was no consensus? Jimmy Wales is hiding, consensus is it? The whole world sees that, Jimmy Wales disappeared. Does not answer the questions. This is a great shame. Aydinsalis (talk) 11:55, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aydinsalis: Jimbo did answer the question. He said "I am unable to act unilaterally here, nor am I convinced that the situation is as you have described it. I can tell you that simply reposting over and over doesn't move things forward. If you want to do something productive, I recommend that you get other editors - even those who disagree with you - to come and talk to me". So, try somewhere else. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 12:45, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
@ThePlatypusofDoom: We have used all possible means. He wants us to do, is that we have done 6 months ago. No one believes in him. He's a liar! First, he wrote: "For everyone else: the Foundation has been looking into the situation in Azeri Wikipedia for some time. It's messy and complex...". Now he writes that: "I am unable to act unilaterally here, nor am I convinced that the situation is as you have described it. I can tell you that simply reposting over and over doesn't move things forward."?! Aydinsalis (talk) 18:47, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aydinsalis: Stop posting on this page. That's the best option right now, as complaining over and over again is annoying. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:54, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
@ThePlatypusofDoom: He knows how bad the situation is. Why did not he do anything? Aydinsalis (talk) 18:55, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Because he has no real power, besides influence and being 1/10th of the Board of Trustees. He also has far more influence in enwiki than in azwiki. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:58, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Can you read WP:IDHT? ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:58, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
I answered above (WP:IDHT), I repeat once again: or viewpoint long after the consensus of the community has decided that moving on to other topics would be more productive... But there was no consensus! Aydinsalis (talk) 19:25, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
This was a genuine consensus, - Wikipedia foundation have prepared a pocket of suggestions a long time ago. Aydinsalis (talk) 19:36, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Okay, take it up with the then. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 19:52, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
WMF (Maggie Dennis) advised us to do so: You need to demonstrate issues to the community at Meta. I am not able to assist directly. Meta (MarcoAurelio) advised us to do so: "Meta-Wiki is not an Arbitration Commitee, Stewards are not arbitrators. We can't do anything here." Aydinsalis (talk) 20:07, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aydinsalis: Seriously. Stop asking the same question that has been answered ad nauseam, and accept the answer that has been given. The way things are going, you're going to end up blocked. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 22:57, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
@Jéské Couriano: Here (WP:DEADHORSE) it is stated: "There comes a point in every debate where the debate itself has come to a natural end. You may have won the debate, you may have lost the debate, or you may have found yourself in a draw. At this point you should drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass". But the debate is not over. Jimbo Wales invites us to debate again ("If you want to do something productive, I recommend that you get other editors - even those who disagree with you - to come and talk to me"). But we did it. 6 months ago. He can make a decision. He is to report on this issue. Aydinsalis (talk) 08:11, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aydinsalis: But that's the thing, he said that this isn't something he can interfere in and you're refusing to listen to that. Every single time someone has tried to cite an essay or policy, you've attempted to pettifog around it and demand Jimbo do something that he has explicitly noted he will not do. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 01:05, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, I just asked one of the administrator to explain two of his last blocks here, as you suggested. Though, I doubt that he will react. I've already provided you with a translation of a piece that he used as a justification for those blocks and I'm ready to provide them again, if he responds. --Мурад 97 (talk) 12:26, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Clinton vandalism

Latest comment: 8 years ago26 comments10 people in discussion

As you may have heard, someone vandalized Hillary Clinton on Thursday by replacing its contents with a pornographic image. The person claims to be Meepsheep of Encyclopedia Dramatica and GNAA infamy. [32] Now the page has, of course, been fixed, but the content of the page is now all over the internet, even in reliable sources like CNN. Do you think there's a better way we can handle these situations in the future, given that such situations are extremely bad for Wikipedia's reputation? Everymorning (talk) 17:36, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it's pretty easy. Flagged revisions would solve this completely while still allowing anyone to participate in updating the page.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:12, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Here's what I don't understand. Not only is the vandalistic edit not in the page history anymore, but the page's protection log shows that it was semi-protected on Thursday and had been since this June. Therefore I'd think that new users like whoever the vandal was wouldn't be able to edit through semi protection anyway. Everymorning (talk) 20:41, 16 October 2016 (UTC)
Even if an article is semi-protected, if an unprotected template is used on that page an IP could cause an image to appear on the article by adding it to the template. I think that was what happened in this case. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:45, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't think this should be of much concern beyond the people who do the actual vandal-fighting. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia anyone can edit, and this is just a visualization of that fact. Flagged revisions wouldn't actually stop a good vandal who understands template code - he can change or create a template far from the public eye that splices in some amusing image or text in a way that never gets a raised eyebrow, and make the change on the article in a way that nobody is really going to look twice at, provided it has some kind of timing built in. But beyond that, I feel like trying to remove visible vandalism like this in order to improve Wikipedia's "reputation" is just like the archetypal restaurant waiter who picks the fly out of your soup when you complain. It is merely the tip of an iceberg, a sign that Wikipedia is not written by gods but by men. (And women, though I suspect not this time!) The solution is simply not to put on airs - Wikipedia is what it is, and that is a good thing, but it is a rough and tumble kind of thing that isn't perfect and shouldn't be expected to be.
P.S. I'm not sure, but I think Template:NYTtopic was the actual site of the vandalism. I think the admins could benefit from having a special button to "purge every page that uses this template that has been cached within the past hour" (first giving a count of how many that is) couldn't they? Wnt (talk) 01:54, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
You are just wrong, I'm sorry. Flagged revisions used on templates and other critical pages would solve the problem entirely. And you are wrong about the need for efforts to eliminate vandalism being anything remotely like a waiter removing fly from soup. That analogy just doesn't even begin to make sense. Wikipedia is a good thing, but we are not being as good as we can be with this kind of irresponsible attitude towards quality. Obviously we should not "put on airs" - but refusing to put on airs is no excuse for not doing obvious things that are easy and will help.
The arguments against using flagged revisions (which have never been very good to start with as the successful use of the feature in other languages shows) are not at all compelling in relation to templates.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:01, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Some people feel the same about mandatory registration. Swings and roundabouts. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:39, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
(ec) How would you do that? WP:flagged revisions lists a lot of proposed ideas, of which only the Pending Changes is active. If you put Pending Changes on every template, it becomes very difficult to edit basic infoboxes - who is going to read them and check those edits? But if you don't put it on every single template wiki wide, then what is the difference between that and the protection mechanism used now? We know there will be gaps just as there are now.
I don't think I'm advocating an "irresponsible" attitude toward quality, exactly. I even suggested a way above to limit the impact of a stunt like this, if admins had a quick way to flush all the affected cached pages at once. The problem is, I see Pending Changes of the type you suggest as having a long-term negative effect on article quality because good edits get rejected by chance or people don't get excited to fix things because they don't see it go live and don't know if it ever will. Whereas vandalizing a few hundred pages for a few minutes with a photo of a woman's butt is really nothing more than amusing - it doesn't spread misinformation, it doesn't POV-push, it's not a libel, it's not out of date or inaccurate, it's just silly. (This is what I meant by the fly in the soup analogy - this visible vandalism is showy, but what we really object to are the invisible little bits the fly carried to the soup from its last stop in the restroom. The visibility of the fly is a service to the customer more than anything, because it lets him know what else is present) Even if we could stop vandals from having this sort of cheap fun, they'd only think of some other game to play, probably one we enjoy less. Wnt (talk) 10:51, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
Pending changes is active and could be used easily. And I don't think the fears you have are very compelling - certainly it is worth an empirical test. "There will be gaps" is not an excuse for failing to close as many critical ones as possible. And it simply isn't the case that it would "become difficult to edit basic infoboxes" - you don't need to change the template itself to do that, and the volume of changes to infobox templates is quite small - if there were some problem with a backlog, the Foundation could hire people to work on it. It simply isn't acceptable to throw up our hands and pretend that nothing can be done.
Your idea is not good enough and would require far more resources to implement.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:42, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
It's true that many infoboxes use parameters within the article and don't need revision that often, but I've also seen some where article content is put in the template itself. And that is definitely how it is done with a majority of navboxes like Template:History of China. True, the history of China doesn't change much, but there are many, many discographies that people will want to update every time a new song comes out. In Hillary Clinton we have Template:Hillary Clinton, Template:Hillary Clinton series, Template:Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album 1990s; two of these are only semi-protected even after the admins finished locking everything up in response to this story, because they really do change. Wnt (talk) 15:02, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
The Hillary Clinton article itself is only semi-protected, so it's reasonable that some of its more narrowly-used templates might only be semi-protected as well. wbm1058 (talk) 15:34, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

Need to organize for flagged revisions

The horrors of hacked templates, with invalid parameters and garbled wp:wikitables (or prank images), have upset copy-editing for entire days, because the related warning categories often get flooded with hundreds or "10,000" pages which, even when fixed, take hours/days to unlink and declutter the maintenance categories. Talk about demoralizing: it will make our wp:wikignomes want to give-up, expecting to fix 200 pages per day, but see a maintenance category flooded with an extra 300-500 or 10,000 not-actually-hacked pages, unable to locate the real hacked pages because a hacked template has been propagated into hundreds or thousands of tranclusion pages (which stay in the tracking category for hours/days).

We need to organize editors, to check and approve/deny pending changes, but meanwhile beware how a hacked navbox template (more likely than any other templates) can flood a tracking category with hundreds of pages, to obscure the list of real hacked pages to fix. We must organize full-circle, like a sports team to play both offense+defense, to empower "anyone to edit" but test templates before they go live into hundreds of pages. Otherwise, entire days of wikignomes can be derailed by botched navbox templates. And if wikignomes are demoralized enough times by flooded categories, then they will go elsewhere to edit. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:46, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you completely. One of the points I'm making is that pending changes is available to us today, and it simply requires a decision to use it. I would recommend that we start using it in exactly the kind of "priority cases" that you mention.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:44, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
It looks like the priority cases are templates that are used in many articles. One could ease into the implementation of flagged revisions by setting a threshold for their use on a template according to how many articles are affected by the template. Then lower the threshold appropriately over time, which increases the number of templates where flagged revisions are used. Maybe a bot could do that. Also, a bot might be of help in assessing flagged revisions. BTW, aren't there already anti-vandalism bots that would help assess flagged revisions? --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:13, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
The preferred solution here is template protection. This protection level should be used almost exclusively on high-risk templates and modules. Template protection replaces full protection on pages that are merely protected due to high transclusion rates, rather than content disputes. Template:NYTtopic was template-protected on October 13. It's transcluded onto 641 pages. There are currently 186 template editors and Category:Wikipedia template-protected edit requests does not have a problem with chronic backlogs. I believe we've outgrown ad hoc protection, as, for example Wikipedia:List of indefinitely protected pages is obviously out of date, and poorly maintained. It's time to take a more generalizable and systematic approach to this. Category:Wikipedia protected templates automatically maintains our inventory of protected templates. It's nice to see that Wikipedia:Database reports/Templates transcluded on the most pages was updated by BernsteinBot on September 6, 2016 – the first bot-generated update of that report since September 8, 2013. It would be nice to have a sortable column identifying the protection level of each template in this list. The list should not be limited to the first 3000 entries; it should extend to show all templates transcluded on 500 pages or more. That would cover templates like {{NYTtopic}}. It would be nice to see this list updated more frequently, at least once per month if not weekly. It would be nice to see paid staff helping with things like this. Quality-control of content is highly dependent on Very Important Volunteers like MZMcBride. – wbm1058 (talk) 15:21, 17 October 2016 (UTC)
@Wikid77: You should specify the categories you find to be most affected so we're sure we're on the same page here, but it occurs to me that some software development by editors should be able to fix this problem. Unfortunately, I don't think Lua can crawl categories any more, but user Javascripts should be able to go through these lists and automatically identify templates that are more common in the listed pages than in Wikipedia as a whole, and present recent revisions from those overrepresented templates for user evaluation. The same script could also mass-purge the pages after a fix has been done to put a halt to the ongoing effect. If WMF won't develop these tools, users can. Wnt (talk) 13:33, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Any of several maintenance categories can become flooded by a hacked template transcluded into hundreds of pages. Recently, the category CAT:DUPARG has been flooded whenever a user updates a navbox to have 2 sets of parameter "group3=" or "list2=" as duplicate parameters, among 2,000 prior pages. But meanwhile, I have been clearing categories of 900 older pages as fast as I can, so there will be fewer unfixed pages obscured by a hacked template triggering hundreds of pages to clutter a tracking category. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:33, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Wow. I see there are some tools built and required for even the basic procedures. Certainly just looking at Lochtegate and trying to see where some cite template has a duplicate date in it --- there is no way to do that without some kind of automation -- even if it's not in a template. Wnt (talk) 00:22, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
Ah, the good old days, when volunteers identified a problem and fixed it rather than waiting for the professional bureaucracy to implement it in some quarterly engineering action plan. Money changes everything... Carrite (talk) 16:21, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Yes, but Lila Tretikov left us with a workable, yet S-L-O-W, process to implement major new wishlist features, as with the current numerical-sorting of categories, such as "Years in poetry" listing "980s in poetry" before year "1966 in poetry". -Wikid77 (talk) 18:33, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
Template vandalism has happened before, with Ed Miliband's article, also picking up media coverage in May 2015.[33] This is a well known loophole for getting around semi-protection and it means that all high profile templates should be protected in a way that allows them to be edited only by trusted editors.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 04:25, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

To flag or to semi-protect templates

Because a semi-protected template cannot be updated by an IP address user, I am thinking those common navbox errors should be handled better by flagged-revision access. Thereby, an IP user could trial-update a rock band's pending navbox (for new hit songs+album, as fan of the band), but a trusted user would be needed to approve the pending-change navbox. Recall, I studied over 15,000 edits to calculate IP edits are ~20% of all edits, and hence blocking IP edits by semi-protected templates would reduce updates as only 80% of current access. So, flagged revisions would seem better than semi-protection of many navbox templates (which tend to cause the most common hacked-template errors). -Wikid77 (talk) 14:08, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Why are we so intent on defending the "right" of IPs to edit??? Requiring people to register so that their edit history can be scrutinized is Security 101. Nevermind the fact that the vast majority of trolling and defamatory editing comes from IP trolls and vandals... You wanna be an editor at WP? REGISTER. Carrite (talk) 14:59, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
While I think this approach may be too strong for normal edits in the article space, it is pretty compelling when we are talking about editing templates. I'd go further, of course, than just registering - I'd say register and get autoconfirmed. And even that, I'd argue for pending changes to be set at an even higher threshold for templates that can be incredibly disruptive if vandalized.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:39, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
I still think the merits of flagged revisions are overrated, especially in regard to templates. First, you have to figure out where you're going to recruit the editor to check the revision - otherwise, you could be waiting three months for the next person to come along and edit the template and see if there's a pending revision. Next, there's the question of how the revising editor checks it - at best, he previews it with one article it is transcluded into and says OK. He's probably NOT opening up the templates and modules you linked in the template to see if they do one thing on Friday and another on Election Day, whether they check to see if the article is Donald or Hillary, or what content from yet another template they transclude when that's the case. And you aren't considering the counter-move, which is that a highly regarded reviewer can quickly check hundreds of edits, saying yes or no to each one normally ... and then have one that he passes unread because he took fifty bucks for it on a freelancing website, or made a deal with a friend of like politics, or has an arrangement with a sock puppet. Once you consider that if this is your line of defense it will be attacked, I think the merit drops well below zero. Wnt (talk) 17:51, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
  • A list of pending-changes got cleared so fast I could hardly approve any: As shown by trial periods of pending-changes, perhaps the greater danger is users who approve pending-changes too quickly. When I was working the list of pending updates, on most days, I could rarely find any pending which other editors had not cleared sooner. This might be an activity which attracts wp:wikignomes who thrive on checking and clearing the pending edits. Consequently, I am not worried about enough users anxious to help approve each "new day" of Wikipedia updates, as an irresistible activity for many users. Consider how editors view the challenge, versus tedious fixing of awkward typoes or garbled template parameters, which only a few editors have extensively fixed during the prior 3 years. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:28, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Arbitration dissolution and resuming control... for me.

Latest comment: 8 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Jimmy, I'm accused of accusations of my account. Can you please remove it, and also, dissolve the arbitration group? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/Johnwest1999/Archive

--Tacoloco1 (talk) 00:59, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

OP is obviously a Johnwest1999 sock.--Atlan (talk) 08:55, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

WP:BLP violations at Damien Walter

Latest comment: 8 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion

Damien Walter

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Damien Walter

User:Neptune's Trident inserted the WP:Category Gay writers it says there, This category lists notable writers who publicly identify, or who have been reliably identified, as homosexual men.) in his article creation without including a WP:RS support and then it was again inserted by User:Dcirovic another experienced editor and again inserted by User:2601:1c0:4401:f360:e136:8f9e:9acf:27bb, twice that editor inserted the disputed content, again here User:2601:1c0:4401:f360:e136:8f9e:9acf:27bb and then yet again inserted another by another experienced editor (User:Amaury) here. To stop it all the article had to be locked protected with the stated reason of violations of WP:BLP policy and was then quickly nominated for deletion and is looking like snow closing delete. How can it be that the subject was clearly screaming libelous content, begging for deletion and yet these experienced editors all violated a core wikipedia policy repeatedly, and how can this be improved? Could it not be fair to living people to protect all such pages with pending protection Jimmy, especially when clearly very experienced editors here are apparently failing to understand or simply ignoring WP:BLP? Govindaharihari (talk) 15:18, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Jimbo might be interested in the legal threat report to ANI. What's also not mentioned are the reports of the subject to both AIV and UAA. I've seen this so many times for so long. I've got to say it frustrates the hell out of me. So predictable. Thankfully, most admins when they hear about this kind of thing aren't DOLTs and aren't hasty to block, but I do see too great a reliance on passing it to OTRS or the legal team. Pending protection, by the way, would not solve any problems here. -- zzuuzz (talk) 19:45, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Appreciate the response user:zzuuzz , although I agree with your frustration, I think It would add an increased level of awareness to users re-adding disputed content in such a situation if pending protection was enabled. My attempts to discuss with the other users named in the report have so far been less than fruitful. Govindaharihari (talk) 19:55, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
I view protection to be completely unhelpful in situations like this, where experienced editors are making the mistakes. On the other hand, IPs blanking pages is very often really helpful. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:00, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Well said zzuuzz. Govindaharihari (talk) 20:10, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
The primary violator of wikipedia:policy and guidelines, the creator of the article User:Neptune's Trident when notified of the wp:afd discussion has failed to comment there at all, they have also failed to comment here and simply deleted my notification to him of this discussion. It was my understanding that editors should respond to good faith requests to discuss their contributions Govindaharihari (talk) 20:57, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
Interested parties (Mr Walter in particular) may wish to view Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/J.C. Maçek III (writer). Further, the more curious editors might question why this non-notable critic currently turns up over 200 times in article references. World's Lamest Critic (talk) 22:35, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
It is possible some, even all of these editors acted in good faith. Wikipedia suffers a lot of vandalism where people simply replace whole pages with some nonsense or an ideological statement. When a volunteer editor sees User:DamienWalter show up at the article with the same name and puts up a delete template with the comment "Page created maliciously" ,[34] there are at least three possibilities: he could be the subject, angry at how the story fairly portrays him; he could be the subject, angry at an unfair portrayal; or he could be a vandal, probably someone hostile to Walter, who has snapped up the name on Wikipedia and is using it to delete the article about Walter because he doesn't like him. Obviously it would have been best for editors to check over the article carefully, but if people had to do that every time there is an act of page-blanking vandalism, the vandals would win the war and delete all the pages they want! So sometimes they make snap judgments. And once Walter has been reverted two or three times in the page history, it seems extremely likely to the next editor that he is a vandal, and so he parades in right after the others. It's volunteer work; it's not perfect. It would have been better to make a more specific complaint in the delete box so that people would know what to look for. Even so, of course, Wikipedians owe him an apology for the mistake. Wnt (talk) 23:03, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

External databases

Latest comment: 8 years ago15 comments6 people in discussion

A rather rambling recent discussion at Wikidata:Wikidata:Project chat#Bot generated data bought up two fairly basic questions about the relationship of Wikidata/Wikipedia with specialized external databases that hold information on galaxies, rainfall, species, and so on.

First, if two highly respectable sources, such as the Smithsonian Institution and the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature disagree, as they do on the scientific names of domestic animals, should Wikidata select the version the editors prefer, or should it present both views? That is, should Wikidata aim to present only the truth as we see it, or to present an overview of what reputable sources say, including disputed data?

Second, the Swedish lsjbot caused a stir by generating millions of articles on species and locations, with some inaccuracies. The process was one-shot, with no mechanism to update articles to show corrections to the information. But it would be technically feasible, using carefully selected data sources, to periodically refresh Wikidata from reputable external databases, then to use this data to periodically refresh tables or text fragments to be embedded in Wikipedia articles. A Wikipedia article would include a mix of editor-written text and automatically-updated text or tables generated from a recent extract of the external database(s), perhaps inserted by a template like {{Wikidata|lastcensus}}. The benefits for information like municipal census figures or election results seem obvious, but taken to the extreme it would make Wikipedia an aggregation of data from external sources that may or may not be annotated by our editors.

Comments? Aymatth2 (talk) 15:14, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I think that editorial judgment is possible. So I'm not so sure the choice is as stark as "present only the truth as we see it" versus presenting both equally. There might be good editorial reasons to favor one system over the other, but I can't think of any good reason to outright omit the information from the other. I am not an expert here, I'm just saying that I don't see there is any a priori reason to prejudge the decision that is made.
I do like the idea of automated updates to data. One thing I would love to see in our articles about publicly traded businesses is "live market cap" - updating that by editing wikitext by hand is silly. But technologically it would not be very hard for a template-like syntax to automagically return the live correct number.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:37, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
When I am writing an article and find two conflicting views I usually put the most plausible in the text with a footnote giving the alternative view
He was born in 1756.[2][a]
...
a. Another source says he was born in 1754.[3]
It is harder to do that with Wikidata, which would have two different attributes, like Smithsonian-name and ICZN-name. There may be a way to get the editorial effect though. Automated updates seem controversial. I like the idea, but maybe others watching this page will comment. Aymatth2 (talk) 17:20, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
If Wikipedia had an article "List of major cities by walkability score" (see "Walkability"), and if various sources provided different scores based on different algorithms, then the article could have a sortable wikitable with different columns for different sources and for different years. (I have not yet attempted to produce that article, but other editors are welcome to do so.)
—Wavelength (talk) 20:17, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
My search for an article with data from different sources led me to the article "Life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions of energy sources".
—Wavelength (talk) 02:32, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
See also "List of historical sources for pink and blue as gender signifiers".
—Wavelength (talk) 02:49, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
I often find sources that disagree. The Smithsonian vs. ICZN disagreement is whether the wild goat is Capra hircus aegagrus, a sub-species of goat (Capra hircus), or whether it should be named like a separate species Capra aegagrus. Bow ties have been pulled off and spectacle frames bent during debates over issues like this. On greenhouse gas emissions, I imagine the academics are fighting over measurements, calculations and interpretations. I am not sure what the copyright status would be on walkability scores, which are a bit more than mere facts, but assuming there is no issue, a sortable table to compare the score would be much more useful than excluding all sources of scores that we dislike. On gender, the color of the first child's clothes often has a dominant effect on the next child's clothes, a point the article misses. Aymatth2 (talk) 11:55, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
This proposal contains some embedded "WP:Recentism" in that it supposes we want to get rid of the 2010 census data the moment 2020 comes in. Now to be sure, recentism is rampant on Wikipedia already and the editors might do that, but it's really a shame to get rid of old data instead of accumulating it. The catch being that if we give figures for the census all the way back to 550 A.D., it might be hard to fit in the lede. Hmmm. Maybe what we really want here is a Golden Deluxe Reference, by which I mean, we have a special page (here or on another project) that not only cites a single source or a list of related sources but also provides an extract from them. However, the automaticness of that extraction is also an issue - with a human, we expect a page history to show who changed what when, and similarly, if the Census Bureau puts their data in a different format we can't accept the extract going blank with no backup file when the machine next churns its wheels. This one is worth thinking about further. Wnt (talk) 11:20, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
"WP:Recentism" is something we can address. For the census, we could simply have a property in "Smallsville" for "last-census-year", and then have a separate entry for "Smallsville 2010 census", which we would retain after creating "Smallsville 2020 census". If the census format changed and we had trouble pulling in the 2020 census data, the 2010 census would keep displaying until we fixed the problem. Then we decide how much historical data to display.
Using a combination of periodically refreshing Wikidata from external sources, then pulling that data into an article display, or pulling in data from the external source at display time, we could aggregate a huge amount of information with no editor involvement. We could generate an article on a municipality, for example, with a full infobox with map to the right, descriptive text saying when it was founded, what the nearest larger towns are, what the terrain and vegetation coverage is like, average elevation, monthly average temperature and rainfall, population as of 2010 by age and sex, income, literacy etc., results of the last election and present elected officials, today's weather etc. Nothing very exciting, no historical incidents or descriptions of scenic beauty, but probably most of what a reader wants to know about the place.
Taken to the extreme, the effect could be that Wikipedia would show 90% or more data derived from other sources, 10% or less data supplied by editors. That seems a major shift. Aymatth2 (talk) 12:03, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

We already have templates to auto-insert population figures for smaller towns (as templates copied from German WP, based on similar developed by Dutch Wikipedia perhaps 10 years ago). As I recall, the populations for larger cities were hand-updated with yearly estimates, based on several various sources, rather than auto-inserted from the region lists of all town populations. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:06, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

User:Wnt is absolutely correct that our references can valuably contain an extract of the source. Determining whether a source supports a statement currently take several steps:

  1. find the source
  2. try to ascertain which part is supposed to support the statement
  3. determine if it actually does

Now the first two parts are purely mechanical and a waste of time, by providing a quote the potentially difficult (if you wish, human) part is all that is needed.
This is why it is such a shame to see productive editors like Richard Arthur Norton attacked for short quotes under a mistaken belief that that they constitute copyright violations. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:17, 22 October 2016 (UTC).

  • I think this is straying into a different issue. Short quotes can violate copyright if they contain the essence of a creative work, which would not usually be the case but could be. Data cannot be copyright protected. "Smallsville 2010 census: Male = 52%" cannot be copyright protected. The idea here is to import data into Wikidata, e.g. "Smallsville 2010 census – Male-percent=52. This can then be exported, wrapped in text and displayed in all the language-specific Wikipedias. By using Wikidata as a staging ground, or by pulling data direct from source databases at run time, we can make the same data available to all Wikipedias.
@Wikid77: How do the templates to auto-insert population figures work? I have not come across them, although I think I may have seen something like that for sports league scores. What countries do they cover? Do they stage the data via Wikidata? Is there any sort of bureaucracy to ensure that they are rerun to refresh? That could be one of the main problems: the bot/template developer drifts off and there is nobody to maintain it. Aymatth2 (talk) 00:16, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
"List of countries by income equality" uses various sources, various formulas, and various years.
—Wavelength (talk) 01:09, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Nation population templates

@Aymatth2: On English WP, there are 47 auto-insert population templates begun in 2008-2011, which are accessed by town-infobox templates, to extract a town's population count from #switch lists of groups of 200 to 600 town codes or names, as stored in each population template. Some of those templates are copycat adaptations from the same templates on German WP (dewiki), so all enwiki needs to do is copy template #switch lists, which typically needs only 2 hours to update each major nation's town populations, as based on the tedious hand-updates of lists done by editors on German WP. Hence, the updates, here, can be perhaps 10,000x times faster than hand-edits (and proofread) of those 30,000(?) related town pages.

The nations on enwiki include: Austria, Belgium, Germany, South Africa, Switzerland, New Zealand, Turkey, and Cape Verde. Most population templates are named with prefix "Template:Metadata_" (see: Special:PrefixIndex/ Template:Metadata). Many use town code-numbers, but New Zealand "Template:NZ population data" uses region or town names (not numbers). The population templates are quite extensive, and so South Africa town pages only use perhaps half of the population-template data listed for the related towns. Beyond counts of inhabitants, some templates also list current town surface areas or other data. So far, enwiki is 10x lagging behind dewiki, which has over 550 population templates (of 900 town area/data templates), compared to only 47 templates on enwiki. I copied the initial Austria population templates from dewiki and integrated the Austrian-towns infobox in Sept 2011. Oddly, Wikidata is not involved with these valuable population counts (copied from nation census sites) and updated each year by various users, so we could transform most of WP perhaps within a month to copy this auto-inserted population data into town pages, for another 50 nations (France, Spain, Brazil, Portugal...), with no delays from Wikidata. We could start consensus discussions, in parallel, while creating the related nation population-templates and test sandboxes by the time consensus was reached on the exact use of the town data. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:33, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

That seems useful, but I was hoping for much more. Extract the data from the sources mechanically, put the data from each source into Wikidata where all the wikis can use it, have language-specific templates display the data from Wikidata regardless of the origin. So {{wikidata|latestcensus}} would insert a table into the article holding the most recent information Wikidata holds (if any) for that community's census. The display would depend on what information is gathered in the census for that country. Is Wikidata a source of delays? This seems to be exactly what Wikidata is for. Where is the best place to explore and expand this concept? Aymatth2 (talk) 11:02, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Again meta:2016 Community Wishlist Survey, 7-20 Nov

Latest comment: 8 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion

With the 2016 survey (meta:2016 Community Wishlist Survey) in mid-November, I had forgotten the contentious 2016 U.S. Presidential election will occur on 8 Nov 2016, during the same time period as the Wishlist Survey. Now we're within 3 weeks from planning Wikipedia features (or major fixes) for 2017. As noted last year, the month of November tends to be very busy, so it would be good to start collecting ideas now, for the 2-week proposal period, November 7-20, 2016. Just a another reminder. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:18, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

For example, some possible feature changes:
  • Accept next-line edit-conflicts, to allow changes to adjacent lines (no longer insist an unchanged line separate 2 edits).
  • Auto-merge some edit-conflicts, such as 2 replies posted after the same line, perhaps in LIFO order, where the last user's comment follows the original-posted comment. Perhaps show top note: "Edit auto-merged after edit-conflict" as a warning.
  • Allow paragraph-edit, as a mode where each paragraph has an "[e]" edit-link, rather than just limit access by section-header titles.
  • Increase the wp:wikitext parser "wp:expansion depth limit" from 40 to 60 or 80 levels.
Those are a few features which would be nice to have. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:06, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
I suggest we ask the Americans to delay that election, to avoid the clash. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:18, 22 October 2016 (UTC).
I guess Wikipedians will just have to focus keenly on the survey, but the U.S. election is predicted to be a clear victory, not the dreadful 2000 Florida recount, where the U.S. Supreme Court (Supreme Crooks) stopped the recount with Bush ahead, while claiming "not enough time" to recount the state of Florida (by well-known procedures) because the Court had already used 5 days[!] to recount their 9 votes, apparently unaware the disputed ballots had been hand-encoded into computer databases to allow statewide Florida recounts within hours. Anyway, the 2-week window (7-20 Nov), to submit Wikipedia wishlist suggestions, will pass quickly unless we start planning ideas soon. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:00, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Beware feature popularity vs. possibility

In ranking the Top 10 features of last year's 2015 survey (meta:2015 Community Wishlist Survey), there was an unfortunate loophole: features considered unworkable (as not "possible") still consumed some Top 10 spots, such as wanting cross-wiki user-talk pages (very difficult to cross-update). Consequently, some easier features were beyond the Top Ten, such as #11, reduction of edit-conflicts. This year it is important not to "vote" on impossible features as among the Top 10 (as if "would be nice to have" in a fantasy world). -Wikid77 (talk) 12:39, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Of course, it can be unclear for users to understand what features would be "impossible" (or very difficult) for the wp:developers to implement, such as cross-wiki notices being easier than cross-wiki user-talk pages. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:17, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Remarkable story

Latest comment: 8 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

There's some "news" about Alexandra Land, e.g.

reporting a secret Nazi weather station discovered by the Russians. But then

  • The Inquisitr (No idea if this is an RS) reports that this "news" has been on AL's Wikipedia page for some time.

See

I'd love to hear the full story.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:57, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

This happens more often than you think. For example, editors began adding a series of citations about Planet Nine inducing solar obliquity in mid-July [35] but it is news to the Mail [36] and other outlets this week. In that case the reason is that Wikipedians know who the expert scientists are and read the preprints on Arxiv, while media outlets wait for them to get their paper accepted and presented to the Astronomical Society. There may be some who would put down such informal means of sourcing, but I think it is exciting and productive for Wikipedia to have people tracking the field directly. Wnt (talk) 09:13, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
This is ho-hum to those who are familiar with the WWII period. Both sides were hungry for weather information and established (or tried to establish) observing stations in remote places. The Germans set up weather stations in Greenland and even succeeded in establishing an automated weather station in Newfoundland (present-day Canada). The Mail being the Mail, they of course prattle on about how the base was "mysterious" and may have been part a search for ancient artefacts. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:42, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Physics paper co-authored by software

Latest comment: 8 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

A physics paper co-authored by software has been accepted for a "scientific conference".

—Wavelength (talk) 02:31, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Clinton coterie

Latest comment: 8 years ago17 comments8 people in discussion

More eyes are urgently needed at Talk:Clinton Foundation and at Talk:Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016, a massive disservice is being done to Wikipedia by allowing these editors to flout Wikipedia policy with impunity. The election season is almost over; Clinton has won the election for all intents and purposes, can we get back to making an encyclopedia? I would suggest that someone bring Volunteer Marek to AE or to ANEW for his (latest) violation of 1RR diff, diff, suppressing a systemic bias tag which is not to be deleted (even once) until consensus is reached. He's done so twice. In short, Jimbo, are you out there? Is there a COI at WMF concerning Clinton's campaign? Thanks for your attention to this matter. SashiRolls (talk) 18:55, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Yawn. EdJohnson protected the page already. Also, this isn't the appropriate venue. Finally, the tag is ridiculous, it's basically a WP:IJUSTDON'TLIKEIT badge of shame because an editor couldn't get consensus for their edits.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:18, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Actually, no, at least 4 editors have agreed that the tag was warranted in a very short amount of time. Indeed, the page protection, done without restoring the tag is telling. Would appreciate confirmation that WMF does not want any information that could be perceived as negative to Clinton to appear on Wikipedia. As a courtesy, I would like to make EdJohnston aware of this discussion, since you've mentioned him here.SashiRolls (talk) 19:21, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
A tag such as that needs to be substantiated and needs consensus. Several other editors have noted that the tag is ridiculous and that it's just sour grapes on your part because when you tried to insert highly POV language into it, you were reverted. As User:Johnuniq pointed out on the talk page [37] IF YOUR EDITS had been allowed to stand in the article, THEN maybe a systemic bias tag would be appropriate. Also it's false about these "4 editors".
Finally, if you really think that an admin protecting a page is "confirmation that WMF does not want any information that could be perceived as negative to Clinton to appear on Wikipedia" you really don't know how Wikipedia or WMF work, and you're also presenting first hand evidence of your conspiracy theory minded mindset. Unfortunately some of us have to deal with that kind of WP:TENDENTIOUSness on regular basis.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:28, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Oh, and I love the section title you've chosen. It couldn't be that you're making bad, POV, edits, nooooo. It must be that some evil group, a "coterie", is conspiring against you.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:30, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

In the interest of full disclosure, I would note that I have never edited the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign page, and (I believe) I commented on the talk page for the first time today. Also, it is worth noting that ANEW & AE are no help... (cf. Volunteer Marek here and Snooganssnoogans here.) These links are provided for whoever wants to look into or write about this problem in the interest of improving Wikipedia by eliminating the currently overwhelming perception of systemic bias. SashiRolls (talk) 19:48, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Where is this "overwhelming perception of systemic bias"? On some internet forum you hang out at? Now, back to the real world... Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:15, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps here? :) . Count Iblis (talk) 01:02, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Ah, the ever reliable IW test. If Alex Jones says it, then you may safely assume it to be false until compelling evidence is provided to the contrary. Guy (Help!) 08:42, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
You forgot to demand that Jimbo ban everyone who disagrees with you. That's de rigeur for people coming to Jimbo's talk page to complain about not getting their way. I assure you Jimbo always swiftly grants these requests. --47.138.165.200 (talk) 03:30, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

rofl, that's a new one! ^^ ha! Meanwhile, at the "encyclopedia that anyone can edit", some pages are more editable than others. And the Clinton Foundation article is not editable at all, élection oblige. (Well OK, it's only for five days that nobody can edit the Clinton foundation page, I shouldn't exaggerate.) I gather WP:WIKISPEAK is also de rigueur on Jimbo's page, right? SashiRolls (talk) 06:32, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Protection is a normal part of Wikipedia, the article can still be edited, all you have to do is gain consensus for a change and use {{editprotected}}. Guy (Help!) 08:40, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply. The consensus does seem to be emerging: those wishing to add the well documented material on Haiti from mainstream sources are in the majority, so perhaps I'll spend the (significant) time trying again now that the page has been protected. Perhaps I should assume this was done due to the 1RR violations from the two editors mentioned above rather than to hide the systemic bias tag from casual readers. (I do worry nonetheless that I might fall afoul of WP:NCR in so doing though so I'll need to make a vat of coffee first).  :/ I followed a link on your user page to infogalactic.com... which is a curiouser and curiouser mirror of Wikipedia indeed! SashiRolls (talk) 15:51, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
If you are here for the partisan stuffing of Wikipedia articles, maybe it would be a good idea if you gave up on that and headed over to Infogalactic to do your volunteer work there. I'm sure they'd love to have some help. Carrite (talk) 15:22, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
I think this is the tag that was supposed to be used... Herostratus (talk) 20:21, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
Just got my copy of Common Knowledge: An Ethnography of Wikipedia, and am very happy to have invested in it. I remember some months ago having to haul a gorilla off one of the candidate's pages daily before those spinning that page finally gave in and admitted that the comparison was inapt. Looking forward to writing it all up! SashiRolls (talk) 22:20, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
Hoho, that's back again? The cartoons comparing George W. Bush and a chimp were always satisfying, but for eight years we've largely had to go without because comparing Obama to a chimp would be racist...[38] Wnt (talk) 00:35, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Latest comment: 8 years ago8 comments6 people in discussion

Hi, Just thought you might like this drawn to your attention: "Paid Wikipedia-fiddling on wheels" - The Register catches a car painted up to advertise a paid Wikipedia editing service. 😣 — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:33, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think I'd consider the Register to be a reliable source when it comes to reporting on Wikipedia. The bio company is obviously pretty sleazy. The Register's conclusion that it is Wikipedia's fault is amoral, akin to "If people get away with (insert any immoral activity here), then it just shows that (insert a third party here) is to blame". Smallbones(smalltalk) 19:02, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
Unless they photoshopped the picture, the firm , "London Biography Company", must be real. That they should be so brazen is startling, even if it is the ?Register that calls it to attention. DGG ( talk ) 21:11, 25 October 2016 (UTC) ,
The Biography Company produces books, websites, newspaper columns and Wikipedia entries. Uhm. I fancy a Wikipedia article about me too. Think I may just make them a call... Also, we have their address and location, what we need now is a bot to look out for and high-light the IPS their using for contributions (but not until I have my own WP article – OK).--Aspro (talk) 00:49, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
No sane marketing director would want their company to have a Wikipedia article. If it did happen, they might hire a specialist company to monitor the article and try to keep it short, neutral and factual. Celebs are sometimes dumb enough to want an article. Good luck to them! Aymatth2 (talk) 01:29, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
There is at least one website that tries to guess if somebody wrote articles on Wikipedia. I have no idea how reliable these are, but the bio company shows up. You can even see a pattern in possible clients, editing and formatting styles, and maybe even something else. Just to check out how good the the guessing website is, I tried out one PR company that is banned here. Sure enough 14,000 articles show up, including a few that seem to overlap with the bio company. The funniest set of edits from the PR company was on one of the funniest politicians of the current campaign (not one of the current candidates).
In short, with common sense and using some easily available tools, we can watch these folks and get an idea what they are doing. It doesn't look like helpful or benign editing to me. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:31, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
Can you give me some specifics here? I'd like to know your process.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:11, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
In order to avoid anything like WP:OUTING, I'll send a very general intro via email in about an hour. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:37, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Articles Bias/Women

Latest comment: 8 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

Two articles I read today make me think of Wikipedia and this page. This one[39] asserts some interesting things about Wikipedia and some forms of bias over-time (and praises Wikipedia discussions!). This one asserts that there is a masculine and feminine way to express ourselves even in writing.[40] The female in us uses shorter words? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:30, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

So Winston Churchill was female? You learn something new every day, I guess. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 00:35, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
The Washington Post article is interesting, but I'm not sure they're right in giving credit to Wikipedia rules. Oh, to be sure, the rules have their place in the total picture, but they gloss right over the worst thing about the "Facebook chatter" they contrast us to, which is that on Facebook the extreme comments get likes. Honestly, I don't think that Wikipedia is "fixing one of the Internet's biggest flaws" at all - I think what it actually is is a throwback to the good old Web we used to have in 2000! We don't have likes, we just have people talking to each other. That means that instead of intentionally selecting out the most 'viral' memes, we are still simply talking to each other. I think that revisions like Flow, things with 'infinite scrolling' and self-bumping threads, would have destroyed that advantage, and left us sounding the same as all the other harpies on the web nowadays. It's Wikipedia's crowdsourcing, or more specifically the stubborn and unshakeable inertia that plagues all anarchistic societies, that in this case has turned out to be our salvation. Wnt (talk) 20:03, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
"The article started out right-leaning, but became left-leaning after a series of edits that removed sentences describing the country as being full of “turbans and terrorists,” and added a discussion of the nation’s political future." (WaPo). That´s just sad. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:18, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
"...where people can have mostly sane, mostly productive conversations that mostly converge to a version of the truth."[41] That mostly sums it up and is mostly humorous, when one considers whether the glass is mostly full or partly empty. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:18, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Re: Just a thought and to open a discussion

Latest comment: 8 years ago18 comments10 people in discussion

[42] Would it be appropriate for Wikipedia to run geotargeted (to the US) neutral "get out the vote" banners at the time of the US election? Just to focus on whether or not it would be appropriate for us as a community, note that it would be perfectly legal for us as a 501(c)(3) charity as long as it is not suggesting to people which candidate to vote for.

  Whack!
You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know you did something silly.

No Jimbo, you made a speech at the 2016 Democrat convention.[43] Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, who are the Democrats 2016 nominees for president and VP later had a "session" on Quora.[44][45] which you are an investor in.[46] Emily Goldstein (talk) 09:13, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

That argument seems utterly irrelevant. Jimbo suggested an action as a community, which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to have gotten much support (I blame the Republicans' fondness for voter suppression and low turnouts). Virtually everyone weighing in on this matter, for or against, has some political opinion or association. Frankly, it seems like you're crossing into "WP:opposition research", trying to come up with personal data about a contributor rather than discussing the idea itself - you might want to try a slice of that trout yourself. I think that the geotargeting is a bad idea - Wikipedia should serve the same knowledge to all - but I think that we could have one line in the ITN template for upcoming elections that links (via clickable national flags) to articles on each nation's imminent elections. Wnt (talk) 13:26, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
I disagree with the previous respondent on the matter of casting aspersions over the OP. However, it's probably fair to note that Jimbo has two remaining ties here that at least potentially give him special influence: his founder bit and his Chair Emeritus status. As for the latter, I'm not sure it means anything more than being a former chair - have other former chairs had this status conferred on them? Is it an official designation endorsed by the WMF or a self-given epithet? In any case, (1) I can see where Emily is coming from, (2) I believe that encouraging voter turnout would be A Good Thing(tm) and in the spirit of IAR if nothing else, and (3) I looked at the previous lengthy discussion and saw that there was no clear consensus in favour of the motion. Samsara 16:30, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

There's absolutely nothing wrong with en:WP putting up a banner on Nov. 8 geotargetted to the US. In the previous discussion there were many "but we don't do other stuff" arguments. I don't consider those to be real arguments - folks who want or don't want to do other stuff should just have those discussions elsewhere and make their decisions about those specific issues separately. If there are people who think any vote is "a vote for the establishment" or similar theoretical considerations - they should feel free not to vote, but as a practical matter a "Please vote in today's election" lets people know that they have a real choice to make. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:59, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

  • We need to keep Wikipedia apolitical on its face, pro-knowledge, pro-facts, pro-rationalism, and pro-enlightenment under the surface. Building a world filled with intelligent human beings is subversive, braying about the latest political cause or cheerleading for getting out the vote is not. Carrite (talk) 06:24, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
"Braying"? "Please vote in today's election" is a simple apolitical request. I'll suggest a two line banner "November 8, Time to Vote; U.S. Federal Election". I'd say "you're braying like a donkey," but you might take that as being political. Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:44, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
There's an equivocation here of impartial and apolitical. In a flattering light, with a favourable wind, and a bit of a squint, "Please vote in today's election" might be considered the former; it is not, however, anywhere remotely within crying distance of the latter. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 13:33, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
I think it is hard to be pro-knowledge, pro-rationalism, and pro-enlightenment without also thinking that it would be a good thing for our readers (who will tend to be all those things much more often than those who don't read us) go out and vote. Words like "braying" and "cheerleading" don't seem to be particularly helpful in terms of thinking about this issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:03, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
It is, however, possible to be pro-knowledge, pro-rationalism, pro-enlightenment; to think that it would be good for our readers to go out and vote; and still think that it would be wrong for us to use this platform to explicitly encourage them to do so. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 13:33, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
Living in the UK, I have drafted and deleted this post multiple times for fear it may cause untoward responses. I hope it does not. I have a concern that placing some sort of "please vote" just before the US elections will not help the view that many hold that WP-Eng is US-centric and US controlled, and not sincerely considered to be a global project. I wonder how people would be reacting to this if the question of placing a banner was raised after the US elections. DrChrissy (talk) 17:05, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for your thoughtful remark and for your thoughtful concern - it is a valid one, and one that I share.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:33, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
When they say 'geotargeted' they mean the banner will show up for people in the US only. This doesn't eliminate the perception that it is US-centric, but it does minimise it to the people who are aware of it. Of course the real problem is that at this stage it is just as likely to encourage Trump supporters as Clinton. And no one wants Trump supporters to actually vote. We all saw what happened with Brexit. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:58, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
"We all saw what happened with Brexit" - yes, democracy triumphed over bureaucracy for a change; though what relevance that has to Trump/Clinton is beyond me, unless you are indulging in a bit of retrospective politicking. :-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 18:08, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Apparently not. Short-selling bureaucracy is almost always a sucker bet. Wnt (talk) 13:21, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
In a sense, democracy triumphed in that case, but I think it would be hard to argue, Martin, that the world would be worse off if the kinds of people who like to get informed about the issues by reading the details voted more often. You might be of the view that Brexit was a good idea and that well-informed people should have been for it, of course. (Not many will agree with you, but that's actually irrelevant to both your point and mine.) I am always much happier with the result of any democratic vote if I believe the electorate is well-informed, even if I personally do not agree with their decision. I do have grave concerns about the outcomes of democratic votes when the people have been lied to and the issues muddled with mindless fear-mongering. This is not unique to the US presidential election, nor to the Brexit vote - it is possible (and common) in all democratic societies.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:33, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
As I see it three things are needed: (1) get the voters out (and yes we should "want[s] Trump supporters to actually vote"); (2) ensure the voters are better informed; (3) ensure the media are reliable as a source of information (I take it as a given that the political parties are biased). Back in the '70s and '80s when I had more free time I was actively involved in politics issue (1) was a point all three main parties agreed upon. Tellers tend to be fairly friendly to each other and pass the time between recording voters in continuous chatter! Issue (2) is a harder nut to crack. I could name places where "tribal voting" is such an issue that Caligula's horse would be elected if it wore the right rosette. Maybe I'm getting old and cynical though, after all I voted in the first Euro-referendum, and both sides were being "economical with the truth" over that one also. So the get back to the grist: "no one wants Trump supporters to actually vote" is plain wrong, morally and literally. Linking it to Brexit as if both were evils that could be avoided if we stopped people whom we disagreed with from voting is simply anti-democratic. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:55, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I would have thought such geotargetting would only increase perceptions of WP being US-centric in populations outside the US. Would we want to see headlines such as "Wikipedia sends a message that can only be read in the US"? Has geotargetting ever been done before by WP-Eng? This really should not be happening unless it is the start of a process that is continued for all general elections in which WP-Eng can be read, something I think would cause major headaches. DrChrissy (talk) 18:17, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Geotargeting seems to be done on a regular basis, though not for elections AFAIK. In one case I asked for an announcement for folks in Pennsylvania to take photos of each municipality in the state (less than 400 to go out of 2565 munis!) Geotargetting is not exact, we got a few folks from Maryland asking what was going on. But the banners are easily dismissed and even more easily ignored, so I don't think anybody should get upset by seeing one of these.
As far as "no one wants Trump supporters to actually vote." Wrong - though they don't share my views, it would be wonderful if there was a huge turnout, say 80% of registered voters rather than 60%. This would let people know that we actually have gotten the government that we've chosen, given limited choices. Of course all elections offer limited choices, so perhaps we can then focus on the changing the system of presenting the choices in the election. Or perhaps we could focus on changing our individual choices to be more realistic. This is not entirely theoretical. Perhaps after the election one party might say "We got a record turnout of our base and still couldn't win. Maybe it's time to broaden our base." All-in-all a large turnout is good for everyone. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:38, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposal: Adding election info to "In the news"

I think of myself as favoring the general idea, but I would oppose both geotargeting and "Please vote". There is no need to give commands to readers, and there is no need to play games where different readers are introduced to different ideas. It wouldn't do me any harm at all to know if there's an election upcoming in Nepal or Bolivia; I'd feel miffed to be left out by some machine, and that's even not being an absentee voter from one of those countries. All I want is something like:

In the news

 
Yoav Gallant
Ongoing:
Upcoming elections:                

On this day...

Note this is a visual mockup only - the flags each need a specific link set to a relevant article about the country's upcoming elections, and the Portal:Politics link isn't really very useful either, and I didn't actually check what non-US countries have elections soon so those are totally random flags, but you should get the idea. We can have this - not just now, but ongoing. In fact, at this point my best hope to get this through I think is to wait until AFTER the political warriors have retreated to try to make this proposal, to benefit some other country which, hopefully, has a chance to pick a better leader than the U.S. will. Wnt (talk) 20:13, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Basic endorsement Elections are inescapably upcoming major news, so it makes sense to include them in that section in the weeks immediately preceding. There would then be a need to determine eligibility, e.g. an election in Moldova (3 million people) or San Marino (32k and one of the oldest democracies) vs. one in Uttar Pradesh (200 million) or California (37 million). Samsara 07:03, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
@Wnt: I think displaying ongoing elections in general in that way is an excellent idea. --Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 08:48, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
In my mind I've been going back and forth regarding this approach. On the one hand, it has the purpose of getting out the vote, which doesn't seem appropriate for Wikipedia. On the other hand it is informative in a general way because it is displaying a type of upcoming notable event, viz. elections. If one argues for it on the basis of the latter, then why should it be limited to elections as the only type of upcoming notable events to be displayed, if that's the case? Some examples of other types of notable upcoming events at various times in the future are religious holidays, sporting events, etc. Also, by the same logic as encouraging people to vote, we could encourage people to observe their religious holidays, support their sports teams at upcoming sporting events, etc., which also doesn't seem appropriate. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:41, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I also like user|Wnt's idea of a flag. This is informative and totally neutral. I think the many comments in this thread about whether a "go and vote" statement would be neutral or not is indicative that many would perceive it not to be a neutral statement, and so should be dropped. As for which countries elections should be flagged up, our Country article states there are 206 sovereign states. Given that many countries have several years between general elections, this does not seem like an overly arduous task for those sufficiently motivated to keep this up to date. If it is problematic, we could fall back on covering only English speaking countries on the basis this is WP-Eng. DrChrissy (talk) 16:44, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
A good idea, but so is what Jimbo has suggested. No reason we can't have both. It's just elementary civics, not "braying" or whatever. Coretheapple (talk) 20:23, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
The geolocate seems like an indecent liberty to be taking with the reader. If we do that, the next thing you know we'll be serving up versions of our articles with "PBUH" after Muhammad if they call in from the Middle East, or leaving out disturbing feature articles about human centipedes if they call in from a school. If there's one thing we should have learned from the past 15 years of tech being pushed at us, it's that dumb is beautiful. I don't think people appreciate what a privilege it is - one soon to be sorely missed - to go into a market and have a price on the rack that doesn't change depending on who looks at it. You really think you can order a can of cola out in public for $1 where the facial recognition software can spot you, and get a whole bottle for 68 cents inside when the machine knows you're a sucker? It's like that. Wikipedia isn't a sleazy for-profit site that is spying on your preferences and selling them and trying to tailor what it covers to match your prejudices - it serves one text to everyone, one truth to everyone that people have to bicker over as people, and it's up to you the reader to adjust your preferences or your URL if you want some other truth. Wnt (talk) 20:32, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
I don't go along with the "next thing you know" line of argument because things don't happen unless we want them to happen. We are not zombies or automatons. It's not as if a Supreme Court ruling has been handed down, creating binding precedent. It's just a simple civic act. Strikes me as innocent. Coretheapple (talk) 20:40, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Agree. Why not encourage voting? After all, the more people voting, the lower the (reported) percentage for Trump and Clinton will be, despite all the work Wikipedia has put into protecting the Clinton coterie. SashiRolls (talk) 20:43, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
E/C Core, please could you clarify whether you favour this "simple civic act" to be a one-off for the US election, or whether it would continue for other countries subsequent to the US election? DrChrissy (talk) 20:46, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
If it was up to me, I'd do it for every country in the English-speaking world during national elections. Coretheapple (talk) 21:55, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for that Core. How do you (and others) feel about referenda? DrChrissy (talk) 23:28, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
We could also have a banner saying "turn your computer off! save the planet!" every time a Goldstein whacks a big brother with a virtual trout. but that would lower productivity :) SashiRolls (talk) 23:11, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
@Coretheapple: I still disagree about these two issues. First, as a reader I'd like to be reminded when elections are coming up, but that is even more true about elections in other countries than in my own. I mean, I know when the election in the U.S. is - the others, I just get news articles after the fact that Ivory Coast is rewriting its constitution, etc. Often as individuals we'll ignore those stories, but if we decide to join the discussion -- in advance, before our mass media mentions it -- we might bring in facts that people in those countries probably haven't heard from their media, just as folks from quite a wide range of more sensible countries could educate Americans about health care policy. That kind of scholarship and cooperative international pursuit of the truth is Wikipedia's golden opportunity, instead of some traditional GOTV campaign. And the other thing is simply I see no point in a verbose command that people vote. If you put up a country's flag and mention the word "election", people will be reminded. What is the point of getting on your high horse and telling them to vote? They already know they ought to vote. They might benefit from a reminder, and they very well might benefit from the article the reminder links to, but they won't benefit from having somebody preach at them. Wnt (talk) 00:09, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
@Wnt:Can you please articulate the harm this proposal would do? I'm talking about the original one thrown out for discussion. Apart from "slippery slope," is there anything else? Coretheapple (talk) 15:59, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Well, it really is a matter of the "slippery slope" to me - nearly everyone who goes on any slippery slope says they're not going to fall down, but they usually do, and afterward they'll make fun of you for ever believing it wasn't about getting to the bottom, and tell you to accept you lost with grace. I'd go so far as to say that geolocating visitors for any reason is already a slippery slope that should not have been started down in the first place. Yeah, I know, what if someone wants a meetup in their area? What if someone wants to serve a GOTV message? What if someone wants to get paid to run those stuffy notices out of the "official notices" section of the newspaper, or decide whether letting Syrians read an article about encryption violates export restrictions? I think this is one step further in the wrong direction. Wnt (talk) 19:19, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I already get notices on occasion concerning wiki-conferences in my area. Doesn't bother me. I assume these are not sent to everyone, just to accounts in a certain area. Coretheapple (talk) 19:32, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
P.S. if it's any consolation my "better idea" isn't getting any better of a reception at Wikipedia talk:In the news, alas. Wnt (talk) 19:35, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, we should have a "get out and vote" message, we did something similarly US-centric with SOPA, why not the presidential election? Surely it's more important than SOPA would have been. Everymorning (talk) 21:51, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Please could you explain what was done in this instance. By the way, coming from the UK, I had to look up what SOPA was! DrChrissy (talk) 21:56, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Unless I am mistaken, we had a banner up to oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act. I do not see this as US-centric. WP-Eng follows US copyright laws and given that the bill was to make copyright considerably more complex on WP, I see that banner as being WP-Centric and absolutely OK. Another editor gave us the example of a geotargetted request for images of a particular area. That sounds like a perfectly sensible way of using the technology. I would request the same if I wanted photos of Somerset where I live. I can not pretend that I understand why a "Get out and vote" statement would be pro/anti Clinton/Trump, but clearly, other editors do perceive this as a problem. If this is the case, then I feel a WP statement would be dabbling in external politics and should be avoided for the time being. I think the one thing many of us would agree on globally is that this US election has been extremely polarising. Given the heat that is being generated both on and off-Wiki, my feeling is that no decision on banners or statements etc. should be made until the US election has finished. We can then discuss this with more objective mind-sets. DrChrissy (talk) 23:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I think you've got it right when you wrote, "Given the heat that is being generated both on and off-Wiki, my feeling is that no decision on banners or statements etc. should be made until the US election has finished. We can then discuss this with more objective mind-sets." --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:28, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
That is one of the less thought-out statements I've read recently. You don't establish fire procedures after the burn has ravaged your town, you do it before. Samsara 23:56, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I don't follow - what is the fire that is going to ravage WP-Eng if we do not put up a banner saying "go out and vote" in the next 7? days? DrChrissy (talk) 00:01, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
My comment addresses the logic content of the statement, no decision [...] should be made until [after]. Samsara 00:06, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict)That message [23:56] inadvertently supports waiting. Also, note the number of elections that have taken place since the inception of Wikipedia that haven't had vote banners in Wikipedia. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:10, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
WP:CCC. Samsara 00:14, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Did you mean that this suggestion for a vote banner has come up in previous years and didn't get consensus? Maybe you have a link? Anyhow, I wasn't thinking that there was a consensus against a vote banner in previous years, only that not having a vote banner on Wikipedia has not caused any problem AFAIK regarding "the burn has ravaged your town". (This burn phrase reminds me of the term "truthful hyperbole".) --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Why won't wikipedia do geo-targeted "Merry Christmas"-banners? 174.22.247.50 (talk) 01:53, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Because that endorses a particular religion, whereas "go out and vote" is neutral. Guy (Help!) 10:16, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Not really. Most people in the United States celebrate Christmas in some form, not all connecting it to religion, but rather saying, for example, that it is family-time or tradition of some sort. At the same time, there are people who do not vote for religious reasons. A banner encouraging people to vote endorses those religious convictions that are not opposed to voting while lobbying against other religions and telling their followers that they should convert - which is a case that could be made, but honesty would have one say that it is a religious stance or statement. 174.22.247.50 (talk) 11:32, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
That is a ridiculous argument. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:21, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Note [47] and take one of these [48]. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Geotargeted Christmas messages would be an illustration of a very steep slippery slope. I mean, if you do those, then you're considered biased unless you do others for Holi and Eid, etc. Then you do a geotargeted greeting for a Hindu holiday (only) throughout India, including its portion of Kashmir... what could possibly go wrong?
Let's be clear: looking at the user's IP to make assumptions about him - any assumptions - is a really bad thing. It isn't always as obvious as it would become in Kashmir, but it's always taking an indecent liberty with the user. If people want to go to a meetup, they should set preferences - maybe they actually intend to be in another city next year. Making these snap judgments on IPs is a new phenomenon which shares an underlying cause of unease with older fallacies like racism. Wnt (talk) 21:17, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Would a banner have an effect on WP-Eng readers?

Assuming that "Get out and vote" is neutral, do people think that such a banner on WP-Eng would have that effect on voters in the US elections? My own view is that in the UK, it would have negligible effect on increasing voter numbers. Just my opinion. DrChrissy (talk) 17:01, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

It would have a positive effect on readers and editors of Wikipedia. How much? I'll guess +10% of these folks in the battleground states. In states where the outcome is pretty much known, it's a lot harder to motivate people. The U.S. electoral college really messes this up. In any case, these folks will likely be younger and more educated than the average voter. And, of course, more likely to be connected to the internet. Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:10, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
I believe you're perpetuating a dangerous fallacy that results in elections not having the outcome desired by the electorate when you use the phrase, states where the outcome is pretty much known. Samsara 17:44, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure what fallacy you're referring to, but I'm referring to things like http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/ where they put Clinton's chance of winning California's 55 electoral votes as greater than 99.9%, but in Oklahoma Trump's chance of winning their 7 electoral votes is greater than 99.9% chance. (Hover the arrow over the states on the map to see these predictions). Only in the so called battleground states do you see chances of winning something like 50.5% to 49.5% (FLA). I don't think that Californians or Oklahomans would disagree with these predictions or disagree with the resulting allocation of electoral votes. They will get what they want given the limitations of the US election system. I'm not arguing here that the election should be based exclusively on the popular vote, but that obviously could come up with different results. In any case, the effect of a banner would almost certain be greater in Florida than in California or Oklahoma. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:43, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Using WikiLeaks as a source

Latest comment: 8 years ago23 comments9 people in discussion

As you might know, the U.S. media has been busily quoting, for weeks/months, from WeakiLeaks (whatever) as a whatever source which the whoever "campaign has neither confirmed nor denied the authenticity" of the emails. I had hoped this would remain a U.S. media-bias problem of can't-find-enough-interesting-in-what the candidates are saying about government tasks, so quote from the stolen documents promoted as "authentic" by WakiLeaks instead of reporting actual comments by candidates; however, I see WP has the page "Podesta emails" (re John Podesta, Democratic campaign official), which relies on contents from the purported stolen, non-authenticated documents. So instead of the term "primary sources" should we use the term "crimary sources" (per alleged cybercrimes or criminal activities) as what-the-huh text presented as officially stolen ramblings promoted by an organization whose leader is on the run as an alleged child-molester fugitive? Note: One person quoted in emails has said the information (purported as "real email") contains comments which were false about the related issues. So, what to do with "crimary sources"? -Wikid77 (talk) 23:29, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikileaks wouldn't be a valid source regardless - we don't cite wikis. However, if I'm not mistaken, we have in the past cited news agencies who report on the contents of material obtained this way (See also: the Edward Snowden revelations, the Wikileaks diplomatic cable release, Deep Throat.). —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 23:53, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Just as a side observation, Wikileaks is not a wiki, and the leaked documents are not open to public editing, so while there are legitimate reasons to point out that Wikileaks is or can be challenging as a source, this isn't actually a good reason.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:51, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict)From Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#Questionable_sources, "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts, or with no editorial oversight."
From Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources_that_are_usually_not_reliable, "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest."
As far as I know, Wikileaks does not check the authenticity of material that they release, so they aren't a reliable source per Wikipedia policy, if that's what you're asking. On the other hand, if a reliable source publishes material released by Wikileaks as authentic, then the material will have come from a reliable source.--Bob K31416 (talk) 00:01, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Who is the accused child molestor you blame for the stolen emails? You couldn't mean him...? Wnt (talk) 09:23, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
As for the emails, I think that it is important to link and quote primary sources when they are discussed in reliable sources. We cannot use them unsupported to make claims against people, but we should provide readers with a convenient link to the source document at issue. Any paraphrase editors might make leads to POV issues over how to "spin" the content, and it's just better to show the reader the thing itself. Wnt (talk) 09:27, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
BLP would generally prevent linking to primary sources in this situation even when covered by a reliable secondary source due to various issues. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:46, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
I think that is a misinterpretation. BLP does not attempt to suppress notable allegations. I think it is a more responsible and measured to simply direct the reader to the document in question than to pontificate about it in prose. Certainly the Wikileaks emails, when read, seem like a whole lot of nothing, no matter how the media reports about them bluster. There is something about reading a leaked document that encourages one to put himself in the person's place rather than just seizing on a few words a hostile commentator wants to mention. Wnt (talk) 09:50, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps I was not clear. In a BLP we would generally (there are exceptions) not link to a primary source that contained problematic information about a living person. We would link to a secondary reliable source that commented/covered it. An obvious example: Primary source titled 'WNT eats babies' contains defamatory content stating you eat babies, but also contains details on your tax evasion. Reliable secondary source uses primary documents to write story on your tax evasion. We would link/reference the secondary source only due to the primary source being unreliable and containing information that is extremely problematic. This is why we do not link or reference blogs, self-published sources etc in BLP's. We dont put them in external links except where they are primary for the subject themselves, etc etc. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:05, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Given Wikileaks' well documented ideological commitment to destroying Clinton, it should not be used as a primary source. Guy (Help!) 10:15, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
In this vein, the NY Times is being challenged as an unreliable source on Cheryl Mills page. But then, so is CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, Zero Hedge, etc. On the other hand, the Daily Beast (owned by IAC (company) is such a good source that it can be copied verbatim into Wikipedia without reprimand since Chelsea Clinton is on the board... cf. here) SashiRolls (talk) 13:55, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
That is something that should be taken to RSN. Its not that the material was originally on wikileaks that is the problem in this case, its that news coverage of current events is considered a primary source. In Mills case, its a mixture of current coverage (the leaks) about a historical event (the content of the emails). Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:40, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into it, and your answer, which I'll puzzle over. It's a reasonably unclear question to me, in-jokes are dangerous, because you never have the context. I'll follow your advice, the story is from March, there is no deadline. And for me the story is mostly Haiti on English Wikipedia, not Cheryl Mills. ( her Krèyol/French/English/Latin page ).SashiRolls (talk) 22:18, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
First, I don't think that citing Wikileaks is like citing "WNT eats babies" to provide a primary reference on some tax return. Wikileaks basically provides the leaks, with pretty minimal commentary. But the more important issue is that even if a truly loathsome site is the source of information that secondary news sources go on to describe, we should still reference it. I mean, if the KKK claims they have Donald Trump's federal tax return, and the rest of the news media goes on to discuss what they read at that site, then we link to the freaking KKK. There is never a better source than the horse's mouth, no matter what kind of a mouth that horse has. You can deplore the site or the perspective all you want, but scholarship isn't about agreeing with your source, but having it and reading it. I would argue "WELLKNOWN" covers this, and whether it did or not it is the right thing to do. Wnt (talk) 16:17, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
I was using an extreme example in order to get you to understand why we explicitly do not do what you are suggesting we do. "There is never a better source than the horse's mouth" is not a wikipedia policy and in fact goes against almost all our sourcing policies excepting where someone is making an uncontentious statement about themselves. And note the 'uncontentious' bit there, subjects of biographies cannot even be trusted to always tell the truth. David Irving would have you believe he is not a holocaust denier or anti-semite. Our article explicitly states otherwise. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:34, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
It is true that BLP says "Never use self-published sources... as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject". But using them as a source of material about a person is different from citing them so readers can find the original claim being discussed in other sources. In other words, if I write a blog about Donald Trump, don't cite it at the end of any new sentence or phrase. If I write that blog and the New York Times and the Washington Post start quoting and analyzing it, then you should cite it so readers have direct access, in a sentence that is backed up properly by those responsible secondary sources. You're not using it then to provide material (except perhaps to expand a quote), but simply to improve the quality of citations present in the article.
Never am I so adamant about letting the subject have his say than with articles about people like David Irving. When Wikipedia paints someone as a villain, they should have a right to be heard, to put up their defense so to speak, by means of having their own statements about themselves relayed to the reader. Often they convict themselves out of their own mouth; sometimes when that happens the 'ethical' people will turn up to defend them from their own words even though they still stand by them! But I'm against that too. Whenever there is a trial or any issue for debate, and that issue is noteworthy enough for us to cover the dispute, then neither side deserves to be treated as a "fringe" so unmentionable and unimportant that we don't even allow people to know what they had to say. We are not here to decide who was right in every controversy around the world; we are here to let the reader know what the controversy was, and that involves letting them understand what one side said and the other side said. Wnt (talk) 21:05, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Using leaked pages to judge website not people

I am wondering if the extensive volume of various leaked pages could be used to help judge a WeakiLeeks organization, as judged in secondary sources, for the purported contents of pages without mentioning unauthenticated page details about the wp:BLP victims claimed in those pages. For example in U.S. law, a party could offer, "We did not steal the car, but just drove it around the world to show what was given to us by anonymous sources"; however that situation could constitute "theft by receiving" as still an unlawful activity and does not authorize them to use stolen property. In the U.S., even some stolen items purchased at a pawnshop could still be a case of theft by receiving, and does not absolve them of guilt, especially if the payment was less than current value of items. Hence, the website could be judged for cybercrimes without mentioning page details about the wp:BLP victims. If they announce they have a stolen "car" or secret emails or proprietary formula, then that statement, together with the owner declaring materials were not given for leaked use could be the evidence to support judgment against the website or perpetrator for using stolen property, or conspiracy to commit those acts. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:09, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

In short no. In long - you need to read the WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NOR and you will find your question answered. Also would you stop using 'weakileeks' it looks petty and moronic. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:39, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
I thought it obvious in using 'weakileeks' to avoid other names (HINT-HINT). Now, as for reading wp:RS to find question answered, well if I read 5 million WP pages I wouldn't even get an explanation of "theft by receiving" though well-known for over 20 years. There are huge holes in WP's coverage of topics. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:04, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
A redirect to fence (criminal) might be a quick fix. Not sure that applies to recycling the spoils of Watergate or Yahoo Mail-type break-ins, though. SashiRolls (talk) 20:08, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
Your comment is hard to understand, but the way I see it, there is never anything inherently wrong with passing on information when we have made no promise to keep it a secret. You can be justifiably afraid that, despite the right of the matter, some goon will sue over copyright or some even weirder doctrine, but that has to be based on some kind of legal warning by those deeply in the know. Even for lawyers, there is no reliable way to predict in advance whether it will YouTube that is illegal and Napster that is legal or the other way around, and the legality of any modern news source like Gawker depends solely on the amount of money laid up against it, but still, lawyers are not as unreliable as ad hoc arguments. And so far they have mostly not been telling Wikipedia or any other part of the press to be afraid-very-afraid. Wnt (talk) 16:27, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Well, I find YouTube videos of professional performances being yanked down all the time, not sure how long they are viewed before deleted. So, there are clearly legal limits in force. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:04, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
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