User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 229

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Archive 227

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Latest update on EU Copyright Directive

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

The Wikimedia Foundation has written a clear explanation of what is wrong with the proposal. I urge everyone in the community to get educated on this, and to educate and discuss it with other community members who may not have yet studied the issue fully.

Wikipedia is not, and has never been, about self-preservation only for ourselves. We are advocates of free culture, of free expression, of an open Internet. That this impacts us (and it does) is only part of the story. The more important thing is that it is a direct strike against the culture we come from, the culture we believe in. I urge people not to think too narrowly with views like "This only applies in the EU, so probably the WMF can ignore it" - such a view fails to comprehend how interconnected things are and fails to take into account a long view of what we need in order to flourish.

Remember - reusability is crucial to our goals. For us to pretend that copyright laws in one country are the only thing that matters to us is deeply mistaken.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:11, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

The EU Copyright Directive is coming up for a committee vote on June 20 or 21 and a parliamentary vote either in early July or late September.

Jimbo, the "Latest update" you linked to is a year old... Perhaps the WMF could publish an update about the latest iteration of the proposed law? For maximum impact, this could be something that [A] has the official endorsement of the WMF has Jimbo's signature on the bottom.

Cory Doctorow just published (full disclosure: with a small amount of input from me) an analysis on the Electronic Frontier Foundation website:

The EU's Copyright Proposal is Extremely Bad News for Everyone, Even (Especially!) Wikipedia --Guy Macon (talk) 00:33, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

We also need to remember the commercial angle. The EU users will be forced to pay for censorship robots. Some of the "better" manufacturers of these will have "cleverer" AIs that "rarely" block things inappropriately, allowing forums to operate "almost" as if it were a free country, so long as they don't talk about the wrong things. And all that innovation, of course, will be patented, and so there will be only a few, or maybe just one, company to buy it from. And that company is going to plow half its profits back into lobbying to make its software mandatory wherever it isn't mandatory.

I am not sure where the EU pretensions of "human rights" disappeared to, but the mere possibility of a simple vote leading to such dire consequences will surely embolden every oppressor with a big computer and a plan to sell censorship services of any kind. Freedom of expression is the most fundamental of human rights, and in its absence, no other moral standard can make sense until it is reestablished; specifically, there is no conceivable rationale on which to condemn terrorist attacks against the censors. Wnt (talk) 10:46, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion on banner about this issue on English Wikipedia in EU countries

There is currently a discussion on English Wikipedia Village pump here about if a banner should appear to highlight this issue and take action. John Cummings (talk) 09:39, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Trump's record low approval, dishonesty, indictments, and resignations

Latest comment: 6 years ago31 comments10 people in discussion

@Slatersteven: you asked me for proof that Donald Trump editors act in concert to keep all four of his most embarrassing presidential records from the introduction of his article.

Here you are.

One of those records alone as the worst out of 45 presidents would be profoundly notable and clearly noteworthy for including in the introduction for any US President when they are such outliers. But all four? Exponentially less likely to be omitted by any responsible commitment to accuracy.

This, Jimbo, is why you must overcome your revulsion to acting under emotion, and seize the brass ring of the great leaders. Whether it be for a banner or a normal article introduction with normal standards of noteworthiness, if your leadership is lacking then the encyclopedia, by definition, suffers your neglect. EllenCT (talk) 07:09, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Recall Jimbo has been insulted, even off-site, when he tried to shepherd articles to fair coverage. More below. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:41, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

As you will see from many of the replies the issue is often that these are not in fact true. For a start there is not a record number of indictments made against his administration. Also the question you also was "included in the introduction", not the article.Slatersteven (talk) 07:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Which presidential administration has had more criminal indictments than Trump's? EllenCT (talk) 14:08, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

13 federal employees were convicted under the Clinton administration, how many under Trump?Slatersteven (talk) 14:19, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

There have been 17 indicted and plea-bargaining Trump administration officials in his first year and a half. EllenCT (talk) 16:24, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Ellen, I'm disappointed to see that you are still claiming this, after I pointed out that it is simply not true. There has been ONE indicted and plea-bargaining Trump administration official. Count him, one. There have been three other indicted or plea-bargaining people who were part of his campaign. The other people indicted by Mueller (one American, one Dutch, a bunch of Russians) were neither administration officials nor connected to the campaign. --MelanieN (talk) 00:09, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN: do you have any reliable sources in support of your claims? [1] does not comport. EllenCT (talk) 22:32, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, this is the last time I am going to say this. You ignored it the first three or four times I said it. In the first place, the source you quote nowhere says what you claim about record numbers. In the second place, the indictments and plea bargains it lists ARE NOT TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS. Your source counts the 13 Russians among the indicted. Please show me your Reliable Source saying that those Russians are all Trump administration officials. That was rhetorical; they aren't, of course. Count up the 17 yourself, and see how many were Trump administration officials. The answer: one. --MelanieN (talk) 22:46, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Have there (ohh and indicted and "pleas bargained" are not the same thing) CONVICTIONS: 4 (Papadopoulos, Flynn, Pinedo, Gates) INDICTED: 1 (as far as I can find, Paul Manafort), So who did I miss?Slatersteven (talk) 16:30, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I will add that many of the edds who opposed this (and this [[2]] mare not exactly pro Trump. If they are I suggest you provide evidence of their making edits to make Trump look good. Ohh and as one other user pointed out, we have not done this before when any other serving (or living) politician (of any nation) has achieved one (or more) of these milestones.Slatersteven (talk) 07:43, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Jimbo has noted he avoids Trump issues and can't respond: Remember, when Jimbo has tried to shepherd other articles daily into fair coverage per wp:RS reliable sources, then the progress was slow, and opponents even posted false insults onto other websites, increasing the danger that Wikipedia's reputation would be scarred with outsiders believing contrived insults as if Wikipedia were slanted by management (not). Meanwhile, the U.S. news media, echoed by the foreign press, have given intense coverage to Trump issues, whether good or bad, and hence numerous WP articles link those sources to paint a detailed coverage of Trump's low opinion polls but also praise for his protection of war memorials or cemetery monuments which various protestors have attacked, while majority polls have confirmed Americans want gravesite memorials protected. While some WP articles might be slanted, the information is being linked in hundreds of related articles. Also, remember the public was not deceived by WP pages so much, but by thousands of faked ads posted on social media, as paid by propaganda groups, and major websites have reformed their advert policies to deter fake spam from influencing government events: "Fool us a million times, shame on you; fool us million+1 shame on us". As I noted before, the U.S. founding fathers intended the Presidential runner-up to be Vice President, head the Senate, break tie votes, and replace the President upon impeachment and removal. More needs to be linked in WP as to how a more popular runner-up for U.S. president no longer becomes vice president. People need to know the original genius design of the top U.S. election was ruined. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:41, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Let's then do a few trial RFC and polls on a similar hot button Trump-related topics. We first do an RFC where everyone is allowed to participate. And then we do a poll where we ask the same question, but we select the people randomly from the pool of editors who did not take part in the RFC. That should give us some indication of overrepresentation of Trump supporters in RFCs. Count Iblis (talk) 10:50, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I hate to comment here on this topic, but that was a doomed RFC from the beginning. EllenCT was conflating multiple statements which were controversial, of questionable accuracy in their presented form, and of questionable importance, and asking to put all of them into a very crowded lead section. Individual proposals might have gotten some support, I'm not surprised the proposal to add them all failed miserably.
Wikipedia editors aren't going to support poorly-written, inaccurate content just to make Trump look bad, no matter how bad he actually is. If you consider that bias, well, I doubt my response is allowed here. power~enwiki (π, ν) 16:36, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. Also, EllenCT, what is with the constant repeating of "most indictments" when we've got Ronny "investigation, indictment, or conviction of over 138 administration officials" Reagan? Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:43, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I see you somehow managed to turn "the mueller investigation is moving fast on indictments" to "record number of adminstration officials indicted"?? Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:47, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

How many indictments did the Reagan administration have after 1.5 years? EllenCT (talk) 12:58, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I read the above discussion, & it decided me to make this edit and this edit -- despite the fact some may think I'm have a conflict of interest in the matter. (And yes, I do have opinions about it; you are welcome to go to Daily Kos & read them.) However, the more serious issue I have is that disagreement over him & the articles relating to him are blinding Wikipedians to the importance of trying to reach a consensus. And there are ways to do this: we've been writing this encyclopedia for over 15 years, & have figured out a few of them. Some people smarter than me have even written essays about how to do it. However, we're letting a freaking short-fingered vulgarian cause us to forget them & instead fight over what some freaking articles say about him. If we continue to fight over winning battles like this instead of seeking consensus, we'll be forced to find a disinterested & neutral party to arbitrate these conflicts, when I honestly & sincerely doubt there is anyone on Earth who doesn't have an opinion or vested interest in making him sound either like a great man worthy of the Nobel Prize or like Adolf Hitler arisen from the dead. In which case, we may end up dividing our community over someone who just isn't worth it. -- llywrch (talk) 23:32, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Ellen, please give it a rest. You proposed adding this material here on June 2. There was extensive discussion, with most people saying variations of: these things are already in the article but they do not belong in the lede. So on June 4 you launched an RFC on the same subject, here. After 10 straight “oppose” comments it was snow-closed on June 5. So here you are, on June 6, WP:Forum shopping, still hoping someone might agree with you. I very much appreciate Ilywrch’s comments about trying to reach consensus, but in this case consensus WAS reached: namely, not to put these things in the lede. The only reason this current thread exists is Ellen’s refusal to accept the consensus. She now seems to be claiming that the refusal to accept her suggestion proves that everyone is “acting in concert to keep embarrassing material out of the article”. Sorry, but that is just not supported by the discussion - or the state of the article. I have been WP:INVOLVED at that article for a long time. I can tell you that there are strong differences of opinion and frequent disagreements about what to include or not. There are some people who always seem to come down on one side or the other with regard to Trump. There are also many people who cannot be classified, but call an issue on its merits. A quick scan of the article finds plenty of coverage of “embarrassing material”, placed there by consensus - including all the things (well, three out of four) that you want us to add! In this case there was virtual unanimity that these things do not belong in the lede, per WP:LEDE. Bottom line, this was not about how people feel about Trump; this was about how people feel about WP:LEDE.--MelanieN (talk) 00:04, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

To add my two peneth to this. The reason (at least in this instance) we could not come to an agreement was "I WANT THIS!". We should not have to defend ourselves form accusations of being a Trump lover just for not agreeing to include something not supported by sources (Now I will do a bit of aspersion casting, the information that in desired to be included is so trivial (and in some cases flat out wrong) that it almost looms like a deliberate attempt to undermine the credibly of both the articles and the project, in much the same way the same trick has been used with some new organisations).Slatersteven (talk) 09:38, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

The RFC wasn't closed by an admin. Either or both of you are welcome to make a new one if you think you can do better. I'm not interested in splitting hairs as to whether three or four low records of major determinants of leader success are omitted from the introduction of a US President. EllenCT (talk) 13:03, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN: to which specific part of ["per"] WP:LEDE do you refer? Do you really see anything there to support your preferred level of noteworthiness of presidential record holders on matters of such import? Would you be more comfortable if there were separate noteworthiness standards for Trump, since he holds so many low records? EllenCT (talk) 12:58, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

As we have all said many, many times, the lede is supposed to be a summary of its most important contents. The things you want to add are not the most important things about Trump’s biography. Also note that the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources. Reliable sources do not agree with you that these things are so vital to his story. You are convinced that these "low records" are incredibly important. You have failed to convince anyone else. Let it go. --MelanieN (talk) 13:22, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@MelanieN: on what grounds do you claim that the low records among all 45 presidents are not most important or are not more important than most of the statements in the article's introduction? EllenCT (talk) 22:33, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, I'm just going to say this and then I'm done: Ellen, you have pursued this quest of yours so persistently that you are beginning to approach disruption. You have been so unreasonably persistent - not listening to what other people are saying, refusing to accept consensus, asking the same questions over and over, taking it from one forum to another - that I actually looked at your history to see if you might be a troll. Others may be wondering the same thing, so let me make it clear: You aren’t a troll. You have been here for several years. Your participation is spotty but you have made thousands of constructive edits. You have never been blocked. You came back to Wikipedia a week ago, after a several-month break, and in that week you have focused entirely (one might say obsessively) on your attempt to add these things to the lede. You have not been deterred by people pointing out that several of your assertions are already in the article and that one of them (#3) is simply untrue. Your main argument is simply to assert, over and over, your opinion that these things are incredibly important and must be in the lede. Look, you are a respected editor here. You are not a troll. Please stop acting like one. --MelanieN (talk) 22:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I know we disagree about whether foreign nationals convicted as assisting in the election of a candidate qualify as officials, but I am not interested in splitting hairs as to whether there are three or four low records among the 45 presidents. EllenCT (talk) 04:54, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually, (of course this talk is all presumptuous) I think it's a bit different. EllenCT edits in areas where there are hordes of disruptive editors and civil POV pushers and other unsavory characters. She is in general quite knowledgeable but very direct about stating her views and responding to others. In this case, I thought that she jumped to a conclusion -- that specific text should be added and added in the lead -- before engaging to improve the worst POV offenses within the article itself. This was not a constructive approach, and her suggestion was not entirely rejected but when she jumped to a black and white RfC, everthing was closer to a "no" than a "yes". So that was not a good approach in my opinion. On the other hand, she received undeserved pile-on and a few gratuitous, snide remarks that should have been rebuked by the community of constructive editors. Especially since she has a history of constructive editing and was new to this topic area.

If the same tough criticism were leveled at all of the editors who openly pursue non-RS, UNDUE, and SYNTH pro-Trump content, that might smooth the way for better gradual improvement of the article. It's unfortunate to see folks jump down EllenCT's throat while looking the other way at long-time civil POV editing and outright rejection of our editing standards in many instances.

Ellen's not a troll. But there have been trolls on these politics articles, and I don't see the community eager to rebuke them, despite the enormously destructive effect they've had on these articles. I've seen EllenCT have to deal with some of the worst editing ever on other articles and topics. Maybe she's just a tough customer who was afraid that this was a replay of past dust-ups. I did not support her proposals, but I do hope she'll stick around the politics articles and contribute well-sourced content at a finer level of granularity. SPECIFICO talk 23:40, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words. EllenCT (talk) 04:54, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I am by no means a Trump supporter (If you want a list of what I don't like about him, ask me on my talk page, but be prepared for a rant about several other politicians), but come on. Look at the timeline:

1976: Manafort worked for the President Ford Committee.
1978-1980: Manafort worked for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee.
1980: Associate Director of the Presidential Personnel Office at Reagan's White House.
1996: Adviser to the Bob Dole presidential campaign.
1998: Adviser to the George H. W. Bush presidential campaign.
December 2004 to February 2010: Adviser to the Ukrainian presidential campaign of Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions.
June 2016: Manafort hired as campaign manager for the Trump campaign.
August 15 2016: NYT reports $12.7 million in undisclosed cash payments to Manafort from the Party of Regions.
August 17, 2016: Trump minimizes Manafort's role.
August 19 2016: Trump fires Manafort.
October 2017: Manafort indicted at the request of Mueller for his consulting work on the Viktor Yanukovych campaign.
3 days ago: Mueller accuses Manafort of attempted witness tampering.

Looking at the timeline, in what way is the Manafort indictment one of Trump's "most embarrassing presidential records"?

This was decided by RfC at Talk:Donald Trump#RFC on record low approval, dishonesty, indictments, and resignations. It would be inappropriate for Jimbo to override the community decision on this (and about as likely to happen as I am of being elected pope). --Guy Macon (talk) 14:56, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Guy, now we're making progress. RE: The Manafort indictments, Could you name 5 "more embarrassing presidential records" of Trump's? SPECIFICO talk 22:38, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: who in the community thinks it is reasonable to try to influence you by manufacturing arguments from some theoretical sense of (certainly undeserved, if not least-deserved) propriety opposed to all reasonable approaches to accuracy? Why do you let them? EllenCT (talk) 22:36, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

How about a far less controversial EU Copyright law proposal?

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I would like to formally ask Jimbo to raise the following questions at the next WMF meeting.

Should we publish a new statement, endorsed by both Jimbo and the WMF, to clarify our position on the EU Copyright law, seeing as how the proposed law has some changes from what was commented on last year?

Should we put up some sort of banner, targeted as much as possible to countries in the EU?

If yes to the above, what should it say? Can we get it done before the 20th when they do the preliminary vote? Can we do it before they have the main vote? Should we have it in multiple languages and display it on multiple language Wikipedias, Wictionaries, etc?

Should we join in the blackout that the EFF is trying to organize, with the same "click here to access Wikipedia" scheme we used with SOPA (because many people every day have urgent needs to look things up on Wikipedia)?

Note that I am not at this time proposing that we actually do any of the above. I am only proposing that someone at the WMF say "hey, a bunch of Wikipedia editors want us to discuss this. How about it?" --Guy Macon (talk) 07:41, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm interested in bringing this to wide attention in the community

Latest comment: 6 years ago28 comments12 people in discussion

This tweet leads you to information about an upcoming vote in the European Parliament which is very important.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:50, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Jimbo Wales why are they choosing to police this now?--5 albert square (talk) 15:06, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Pressure from the as-ever overreaching copyright lobby, I would say.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:14, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

[ec]

Especially troubling for Wikipedia is the proposed link tax which allows large media corporations to charge Wikipedia licensing fees for posting links through a new type of copyright. It would also require that we install software (presumably written by the copyright owners) to monitor edits and censor them if the computer program detects copyrighted content. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:48, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd say that's going outwith what can be policed. I can't see it being passed because I would imagine that is going to be near enough impossible for websites to police especially the likes of Facebook, Twitter etc. It's going to present a nightmare for the Commons admins!--5 albert square (talk) 16:23, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

I am being told that it is very likely to pass unless a lot of noise is made quite quickly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:30, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Copyright monopsonists. Europeans click here: https://saveyourinternet.eu EllenCT (talk) 16:57, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

This really couldn't be more urgent as far as WP is concerned. Let's just consider the filtering proposal. Under this rule:

Sites that make material available to the public are required to filter according to rightsholder-supplied lists of copyrighted content

Even if they do filter, they are still liable if infringing material is uploaded and made available

If you believe that you have been unfairly blocked, your only remedy is to contest the block with the host, who is under no obligation to consider your petition

There are no penalties for falsely claiming copyright on material -- I could upload all of Wikipedia to a Wordpress blocklist and no one could quote Wikipedia until Wordpress could be convinced to remove my claims over all that text, and Wikimedia and the individual contributors would have no basis to punish me for my copyfraud

There was a counterproposal that is MUCH more reasonable and solves the rightsholders' stated problem: they claim that they are unable to convince platforms to remove infringing material when the copyright rests with the creator, not the publisher (e.g. Tor Books can't get Amazon to remove infringing copies of my books because I'm the rightsholder, not them); under this counterproposal, publishers would have standing to seek removal unless creators specifically objected to it

There is a notional exception for Wikipedia that carves out nonprofit, freely available collaborative encyclopedias. This does get WP a lot of latitude, but Article 13 still has grossly adverse effects on WP's downstream users -- anyone who mirrors or quotes WP relies on the safe harbours that Article 13 removes. Think also of all the material on EU hosts that is linked to from Wikipedia References sections -- all of that could disappear through fraud or sloppiness, making the whole project (and the whole internet) more brittle

We have until June 20 before the committee votes, and then it will go to plenary, either during July 4 week or in late September (depending on whether it makes it in before the summer recess). I and EFF am really interested in helping to organise a European online blackout to contact MEPs on this, and we need an anchor. If EU Wikipedia sites blacked out for a day to alert Europeans to this foolishness in our Parliament, it would be enormously powerful and could stem the tide. Doctorow (talk) 19:44, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

@Doctorow: do you have a link to/about the more reasonable counterproposal? Also a link documenting that rightholders' stated problem that the filtering proposal would supposedly address is as you state? Mike Linksvayer (talk) 17:08, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

@Mike Linksvayer: the counter-proposal to the link tax, the so-called presumption rule, was proposed to the Council by Estonia when it was heading the presidency end of last year. You can find the full text of it starting on page 14 of this document (option B). Here's some commentary from Julia Reda on the option. Doctorow (talk) 14:13, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I proposed WP:VPPR#Banner in EU countries explaining dangerous European Parliament copyright proposal and linking to SaveYourInternet.eu for site-wide banners. EllenCT (talk) 23:21, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

The blackout is necessary, but we need to have a solid article to direct readers to. I am no expert on the EU and some people here seem quite knowledgeable, so could you please get something started, especially in regard to basic context of what article 13 is, why the "revision", how much this kind of EU process actually means to member states, whether any of these claims would be recognized via copyright treaties anywhere else, etc. etc. etc.? We need a Feature Article on this in two weeks and at the moment I don't know how to write a stub on it. Wnt (talk) 02:20, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I've created Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. It's fairly difficult to find "neutral" sources here, and I'm not even sure how the EU makes legislation. Hopefully the magic of collaboration will improve it. power~enwiki (π, ν) 06:16, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Comment: Controlling and suppressing what could be said and/or published, by a few low IQ corrupt, and overreaching legislators, is tyranny, and is a recipe for disaster in the long run. Look at Tommy Robinson's scandal in the UK, as one example. The optics and ethics are extremely bad. Explorium (talk) 05:19, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Reality and negativity coincide, imo, on this and other similar attacks by establishment control freaks. Sheep get fleeced, and I see nothing but an enormous herd of sheep in Europe these days surrounded by professional political wolves and smooth talking, self serving NGOs. I'd suggest trying to get 1,000 people physically out to a protest somewhere and if/when, imo, you can't do that, just chalk this one up as another loss to reality. When it comes to what actually could be done, about this, absolutely nothing; not enough time. To fight off future attacks, you (someone) need(s) to start up a new political party. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:13, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Re: "an enormous herd of sheep [...] surrounded by professional political wolves and smooth talking, self serving NGOs", as I have said before, I am convinced that the ability of politicians and political organizations to deceive us far exceeds our ability to detect deception. To that I would add that the vast majority of people thunk that they are somehow immune, that the politicians on their side are pure and good, and that only those on the other side are deceived. And Wikipedia suffers because of this fundamental fallacy. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:46, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

You can help!

Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market needs to be expanded. Please jump in an expand the article. I am offering double the usual pay... --Guy Macon (talk) 22:15, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Maybe it's time for a WMF dictatorship

A proposal for a banner has been snowed under an instant blizzard of Oppose votes that turned up after it was listed in the centralized discussion index. But what all the proponents agree is they need some lawyer or somebody to figure out what the proposal means, while even the opponents sometimes say WMF can just do it. Maybe it's time for WMF to just do it. I mean, if the proposal goes through, they're going to have to hack away half the contributing users, and they won't be doing that by democracy. Either that or install a passel of EU-mandated AI censorware keeping people from citing sources, and that won't be done by democracy either, I can assure you. Democracy is vanishing so rapidly on a worldwide basis it isn't even clear that it has a future as a philosophy. At least if WMF took dictatorial action to preserve a human right rather than the other alternative, it wouldn't be wrong. Wnt (talk) 01:09, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, look at it this way, now we have a list of everyone who needs a teachable moment. There is no deadline. If the copyright law changes go through, then Wikisource could be in trouble.

Hey, Jimbo, there's a board meeting coming up. Why not ask the board and staff (in that order) for authority to place the banner on all EU projects? EllenCT (talk) 02:01, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: please see ^ EllenCT (talk) 07:11, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think dictatorship is ever the answer. The answer is broad education. I think we need to make sure that Cory Doctorow's statement up above is given very wide distribution within the community. With awareness of the seriousness of the issue, I am confident that the right answer (whatever that may be) will follow quickly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:36, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, if you were to vocally ask for help on the Foundation and chapters' mailing lists, for example, I'm sure you would have no problem garnering the necessary support. But since it should be cross-language, isn't the Board the preferred source of authority? EllenCT (talk) 16:26, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

"Broad education" is absolutely the answer/best approach for dealing with this issue and most other issues of societal importance, I'd maybe even try to make it a specific objective, i.e. "Broad Education" is an/the objective.

So, now that a specific target (objective) has been identified by Jimbo, in a simple 2 word phrase,

A: spreading/sharing the identification of the objective and

B: designing ways to accomplish the objective are the 2 next steps, perhaps. Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:28, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Article outlining the threats of the law to Wikimedia projects

Cory @Doctorow: has written an article for Electronic Frontier Foundation that outline the threats posed by the law to Wikimedia projects and what can be done to oppose it:

The EU's Copyright Proposal is Extremely Bad News for Everyone, Even (Especially!) Wikipedia.

John Cummings (talk) 20:17, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

- Which is generally on the mark, but overstated in one place. "…thanks to sloppy drafting, they have failed [to exempt Wikipedia]: the exemption is limited to "noncommercial activity". Every file on Wikipedia is licensed for commercial use." Yes, but that doesn't put Wikipedia itself at legal risk (nor any of the other WMF projects, all of which are non-commercial), it puts reusers at legal risk. - Jmabel | Talk 05:11, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Do you know that distributing a file for commercial reuse will be considered a "noncommercial activity", or are you just hoping that the goons with the mandatory censorship robots they want to sell you will be reasonable? Wnt (talk) 10:37, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

"Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through." -- Jonathan Swift, 1707

--Guy Macon (talk) 18:13, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion on banner about this issue on English Wikipedia in EU countries

There is currently a discussion on English Wikipedia Village pump here about if a banner should appear to highlight this issue and take action. John Cummings (talk) 09:39, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

US Distribution of 2016 Cable Royalty Funds

Latest comment: 6 years ago21 comments6 people in discussion

Returning section from archives for further discussion. EllenCT (talk) 12:12, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales and Doctorow: here; please see this Federal Register announcement and its corresponding docket. If you really believe in free culture, then why not start a petition drive to provide some of the royalty distribution to Wikipedians, open source software creators, and other authors of free works who make cable television more than it would otherwise be? EllenCT (talk) 07:11, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Because that doesn't make any sense at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:47, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Are there part(s) you don't understand, or do you disagree that distributing royalties to those who chose to work for free on projects which improved the commercial content for which royalties were collected will not improve incentives for free content creation? EllenCT (talk) 14:10, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Well we are doing it for free now. I doubt it would make any real substantive difference to the quality of editing.Slatersteven (talk) 14:22, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

This is one of those bigger picture issues, matching rewards to effort; to take a stand and refusing, for once, to let the volunteers go uncompensated on principle. EllenCT (talk) 16:30, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, we should absolutely demand money for working for free. What do they think - that we are working for free without expecting to get paid for it? This word… I do not think it means what you think it means.--GRuban (talk) 16:31, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Ahh the principle (or morality) may be one thing, but That was not your point. As to your new point. Whilst it may well be true it might encourage more editing on pages that will generate you revenue I do not think it will improve the quality of such edits. It is likely that the high traffic (and thus high revenue) articles will just have random edits made to generate enough activity to earn a reward whilst the low traffic articles will get ignored.Slatersteven (talk) 16:43, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense at all in the same sense (pun intended) than suicide doesn't make sense for a healthy person. Yes, it can be rationalized, but still doesn't make sense...and the "suicide" is actually a pretty good metaphor. Maybe we all, including me, need to think ideas through, at least a little bit, before suggesting them to others. Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:38, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

If you believe it's a good metaphor, perhaps you can explain the analogy on which it's purportedly based? EllenCT (talk) 22:30, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

The analogy might be to pay someone to marry someone. It changes the whole nature of the relationship. The payment blows up any semblance of freely giving/charity. Any successful capitalistic venture will attract "discount" competitors and other degradations of the concept and product....only by staying above the monetary Pavlovian rewards can the quality of Wikipedia stay as high as it is. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:48, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

I think you have found the direction to truth, but I'm not sure how many steps you've taken in that direction. If volunteers are paid because someone such as myself would forgo the reward, isn't that more like a wedding gift? EllenCT (talk) 05:06, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Jimbo, would you have any objections to any Wikipedian requesting royalties for all Wikipedians from the CRB on that docket on the grounds that cable television would be substantially less commercially valuable without the free and easy availability of Wikipedia? @Doctorow: are you willing to write a five paragraph letter as such a petition? EllenCT (talk) 12:12, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

This seems out of order, by which I mean literally out of order. First Wikipedia needs to create a free TV channel anyone can watch online, which contain spoken content from our articles. Next we need to convince some local broadcasters to disseminate our free content, because it doesn't cost them anything and they might get royalty payments from cable companies anyway. It might compete with infomercial content for the unused airtime, in the sense that a channel with more content worth watching gets more views and might sell its infomercials for more money, especially if it goes back and forth from one to the other. Also, cutting the total amount of airtime available for infomercials might create some market scarcity, again rewarding the broadcasters (as a whole) for using Wikipedia content. (That assumes they collude in defiance of antitrust laws ... who doesn't nowadays?) Then if that goes well WMF can set up some (highly legally independent for purposes of liability) affiliates to broadcast itself if it wants a direct share, though that might involve the highly distasteful implication that someone in WMF-controlled terrain is censoring down to FCC standards. And finally, the WMF watches the royalty money roll in, at least in theory. But before all, I suppose, is the issue that educational content from Wikipedia ought to get a station a higher proportion of royalty funds from cable companies than running an infomercial, something I doubt but would be within the specifics of the "negotiated settlement", if you can track those down. You have to change those specifics for the rest to make sense - otherwise they'll all fill out their schedules with spam and get paid like they were broadcasting real programs 24/7. (That too is a censorious distinction, but since forcing people to pay royalties or respect copyright at all is censorship, it is hard to feel the objection) Wnt (talk) 14:54, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Wnt: you are saying that in order for the resources used to produce television to be recognized as such, the people providing them must also provide a television resource? How does that follow? If I make the best ink, do I need to write books to prove it to you? EllenCT (talk) 22:29, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, if you want to get paid for writing books... Wnt (talk) 00:47, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I want to get paid for teaching people how to make the best ink to write books, while I try to get my friends to write new books about what should go in the next editions. Because my friends who make television freely admit how much my friends who write books help them, and because pretty much everyone thinks my fascination with ink is odd, and because living well is the best revenge, I'm going to make all my friends rich because they deserve it. And my friends who write books likely deserve it as much as my friends who make television. And I deserve it more than they do because I'm the only one begging them to sign the checks, whether they use my ink or not, but I'd never ask for what I know I deserve because people would complain it's too much. I can think of worse problems to have. EllenCT (talk) 05:03, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

So then do not write it on a free content server, write it on one of those platform that charge people to view.Slatersteven (talk) 10:36, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

If Cory or Jimbo don't want to, who does want to make Wikipedians other than I rich beyond the dreams of avarice in five paragraphs or less? @Cshirky: what's the best way to say no? EllenCT (talk) 07:09, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

@Lessig: fam? EllenCT (talk) 07:46, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Geez. I'll write one then. When I get around to it. Hmpf. EllenCT (talk) 17:47, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Haven't been here for a while

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

How come?

It wasn't one incident, but quite a few, building up around Admins (& their mates network). I'm a former Librarian & 'get' referencing but trudging through the site-centric bullshit gets tiring after a while. While I like the system, I'd love an active independent circuit breaker, with some non-partisan sanity. (Yeah, I get the various Admin boards that work, occasionally, if you like wading knee-deep through glue.)

Also, in the age of #MeToo, memories of another woman hounded off-site for raising the gender gap, & what she was put through after trying to act on it, are still raw.

Anyway, commiserations on not getting a well earned gong from QEII.

Hope you & yours are well,

Me AnonNep (talk) 21:27, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Pardon my cynicism, but whenever I hear something like "another woman hounded off-site for raising the gender gap" with zero specifics that would allow me to look at this persons edits, I strongly suspect that "kicked off for refusing to follow the rules while trying to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS" would be a more accurate description. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:55, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for helping make Wikipedia!

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Without this website, information wouldn't be easily accessable like what we have now. Thanks to this, people can easily be educated on topics they don't know about. You are an important person in our modern culture because of this.

Pyraminxsolver (talk) 01:08, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Important question about new EU privacy laws

Latest comment: 6 years ago13 comments9 people in discussion

Jimbo - see this article. The actual Commission site is here. My question to you is how will this effect the project, particularly if a BLP requests, then demands, that their article be removed from Wikipedia? The start date for enforcement was 25 May 2018, so what are your thoughts? ^{Atsme📞📧} 04:04, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Now this I agree is a real danger and issue I am having difficulty seeing a good reason for.Slatersteven (talk) 08:53, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

In theory, a Wikipedia article about someone is not based on any private information -- it is all supposed to be verifiable from sources that are not merely public, but published reliably.

In practice, well, it looks like Wikipedia is going to have to sever all ties with the EU next week anyway. Wnt (talk) 11:27, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

The GDPR is certainly causing headaches within Europe and beyond. Lawyers have profited handsomely from its implementation, and some I assume will profit handsomely from its litigation. Grabbing pizza! (cuz I hate popcorn)

— JFG ^talk 12:44, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 229#How about a far less controversial EU Copyright law proposal? --Guy Macon (talk) 13:25, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

That's yet another eurocratic law, not passed yet. GDPR is real and already impactful. Full disclosure: I've worked on making a pretty big international project compatible with GDPR; this discussion alone consumed more resources than the actual implementation of the project ex-GDPR. Full disclosure II: IANAL; although I was well paid, lawyers were paid higher and longer. — JFG ^talk 21:07, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it is real - and I'm seeing disclaimers on internet sources such as Forbes, which goes into great detail. ^{Atsme📞📧} 21:29, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

In practice... for example, a few years back, when the latest in line to the title Duke of Manchester (who was, incidentally, active on sites critical of Wikipedia), wanted to have his Wikipedia article deleted. It was. Why? I can't tell you - I genuinely don't know. But there are obviously lines that shouldn't have been crossed, long before now, the average editor hasn't heard about, that led to that deletion. The 'rules' for editors were not transparent before, even less so now. (Personally I'm ok with the deletion request & action on that article. Not with the secrecy, but as in, who else but the subject, fairly, has the right/information to request a confidential BLP delete?) AnonNep (talk) 19:36, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

There is leeway for journalism just as there was with the DPA - but AFAIKS the relevant article of GDPR (85) is down to each individual country to sort out the law. I might be missing something, clearly. Black Kite (talk) 23:21, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

We're about to find out...it's possible the law may apply only to the harvesting/disclosure of personal information (name, address, phone #, friends, other contacts, etc.) for marketing purposes (like the Facebook fiasco, retailers, banks, etc.) but there appears to be a few loopholes that allow litigation to slip through regarding prior convictions (The Right To Be Forgotten), and so forth. All we can do at this point is leave it with the WMF legal team to advise - and I think that's already in the works. ^{Atsme📞📧} 23:38, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

To give you an example, I received a letter from my daughter's school about an educational trip she was going on, asking me (and her) to sign allowing her personal data (name, address, DOB, passport# etc.) to be used for the purposes of the trip (i.e. booking the ferry tickets, hotel and so on). Upon looking at the relevant parts of the GDPR that does appear to be correct in that there needs to be explicit, not tacit, approval for each use of the data where it is being used/processed outside the school (but not internally, for which they already have permission through the forms we signed when she started there). Black Kite (talk) 23:46, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

While I'm very supportive of user privacy, I'm not a fan of GDPR in its current form. I don't know how it is for people elsewhere, but in Europe anyway, we are being subjected to a deluge of clickboxes to agree to things. I suspect some people are just saying no to most of them, some people (like me) are saying yes to most of them, and almost all those people aren't actually reading what they are clicking. I had to personally spend a full day working to make WikiTribune compliant and like most people doing this without an army of lawyers, I just hope that I got it mostly right.

For Wikipedia, most of what is covered by GDPR is already what we do. We don't have third party cookies for example, and never had them... this is a benefit of the no-advertising funding model for Wikipedia that seems wiser than ever now...--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:42, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

"MediaWiki and data protection - where do we stand regarding GDPR" by Markus Glaser at Wikimedia Hackathon Barcelona 18 – 20 May 2018. "On May 25th, 2018, the new European data protection regulation GDPR will become effective. It also has several requirements for software collecting any kind of personal data. MediaWiki collects this kind of data in user tables, edit history and action logs. In this workshop, we will go through the requirements of GDPR and see if and how MediaWiki complies with them."

Besides this recent video presentation there is now a discussion in german on commons about GDPR and photo uploads at commons:Commons:Forum#DSGVO_... Auswirkungen_auf_Wikimedia_Commons, KUG_und_Co.. --Atlasowa (talk) 23:12, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

New user can't stay logged in

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hey Jimbo, I have a problem. When I log into Wikipedia, it logs me back out again, not soon after, even when I tick the 'Keep me logged in for 365 days' box. I am using my Kindle Paperwhite to edit articles here and the Kindle Paperwhite's web browser can only have one tab open at a time and has no copy/cut-and-paste option for if I had to leave the page to log in. Thanks, Theperson50. Theperson50 (talk) 21:14, 13 June 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theperson50 (talk • contribs) 21:10, 13 June 2018 (UTC) Sorry I accidentally forgot about the four tidles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theperson50 (talk • contribs) 21:16, 13 June 2018 (UTC) again sorry…:) Theperson50 (talk) 21:41, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I know nothing of this device, but this article claims you can cut and paste. Clearing cookies will definitely clear your login information. If you need better help I recommend WP:Reference desk/Computing. Wnt (talk) 02:37, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Net neutrality or zeroality?

Latest comment: 6 years ago21 comments6 people in discussion

Is anyone else having trouble using internet in the U.S. today? I'm on AT&T mobility (or "morbidity" as 1 post per hour), on a clear day. I guess I'll be checking "Talk:Net neutrality" for recent results of ISP lockouts. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:05, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

None of the bad things that everyone predicts a lack of having the US government control the Internet will cause happened prior to Obama's FCC passing the net neutrality law (OK, a couple of small problems, easily fixed under existing regulations...) and none of the bad things that everyone predicted would happen when Trump's FCC repealed the net neutrality law have happened. Please don't automatically blame your local outages on the fact that we didn't let the US government control the Internet. (Why the US? New Zealand has a fine government. Let them control everything)

I am sure that Jimbo appreciates the assumption that he can wave his hands and make AT&T mobile internet work. Alas, he assigned that power to Arbcom several years ago, and now limits himself to lesser miracles like walking on water and turning water into ~~beer~~ wine. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:23, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, I appreciate how Jimbo warned this day might come. Anyway, thanks for the pep talk, but unfortunately my phone doesn't respond well to the internet nor pep talks. The phone web response has been dismal for over 13 hours (AT&T Mobility in southeast U.S.), so I have resorted to using the computer to post here this evening. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:16, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that Jimbo's influence is so diminished, if however atrophied, that he couldn't immediately rectify the wrongs against which he chooses to speak out if he were merely more vocal? EllenCT (talk) 17:50, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not suggesting it. I am asserting it. Furthermore, Jimbo doesn't necessarily speak for the WMF, and the WMF doesn't necessarily speak for the Wikipedia community. Sometimes we pretty much all agree, as was the case with SOPA. Sometimes the community is deeply divided. I have a strong anti-government-regulation POV, and every time this comes up for any kind of discussion, about half the editors agree with me and about half disagree with me. Reasonable, educated and smart people on both sides disagree in good faith about this. We have had some very productive discussions about the various issues involved. We don't need someone bloviating about how they didn't get their way politically, and so that must be the reason why ~~they are getting so many telemarketing calls~~ ...err... ~~those damn kids wont stay off their lawn~~ ...Oh, wait, I remember... their internet isn't working today. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:07, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

AT&T wireless Customer here - been using it all day without issues. Tests to my self-hosted speed test are still showing what they usually do both to my colocated box, and home. SQL ^{Query me!} 23:24, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for testing, and I'm hoping any lockouts today are just conversion delays while dropping net-neutrality software or bizarre whole-day slowdowns, as 1-in-500 coincidence. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:06, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Okay, 2 days later, and the AT&T slowdowns or lockouts were only during the first day (11 June 2018), and now internet speed is back to the typical 2-second response time. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:35, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

You know it is odd, but as I recall no law ever has an intimidate effect.Slatersteven (talk) 09:14, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

I am assuming that you meant "immediate"... As I recall, no law, candidate, or anything else political has ever turned out to as bad as as the detractors predicted or as good as the proponents predicted. If it turns out to be the best thing since sliced bread the proponents say that they were right all the time and the detractors say that something unrelated accounts for the (surely temporary) success. Likewise, if it turns out to be a dumpster fire, the opponents say that they were right all the time and the proponents say that something unrelated accounts for the (surely temporary) failure. For a great example of this, look at the arguments and predictions made before, during, and after Prohibition in the United States. This was a classic case of reasonable, educated and smart people on both sides disagreeing in good faith about what was best, mixed in with some real nutjobs who decided to try to get their way with hatchets (and they never stopped fighting!). --Guy Macon (talk) 10:28, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

I am not sure that is a particularly valid point given the current state of US politics. Whilst it is true that very few laws turn our quite as bad as the most extreme predictions many laws do in fact end up having far more negative knock on effects then benefits (prohibition being a good example, I doubt anyone could have predicted what did happen, or the real long term damage it did to American society by promoting the Mafia). In the case of Net neutrality it may well be that the worst case doomsday sensations of Netflix being taken down and you having to pay £1,000,000,000 to watch "that TV show everyone is talking about" I suspect that the real impact (and yes I think it will be a net negative for us) will be something largely unforeseen (to go back to prohibition, a rise in the use of illegal streaming services through the dark web, as costs for legal services marginally rise).Slatersteven (talk) 10:58, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

All quite plausible predictions -- neither side on this issue are idiots or fools -- but the other side has predictions as well; they predict that giving the US government a much larger ability to control the Internet will lead to the same situation we have with the highly-regulated cable industry. Also plausible, but also just a prediction that might not happen. In the end you have to ask yourself the question; why would anyone want to give Trump (or Obama, or whoever is next) control over the Internet? Why would you want the federal agency that decided that Bono from the rock band U2 was breaking the law by for saying "fucking brilliant" during an awards show the same power over the Internet? The same agency that imposed a $550,000 fine because Janet Jackson showed a nipple shield for about half a second during the superbowl? Why would you give control over the Internet to a government that spent $1.7 billion to build a health care website that didn't work? To the government that brought us the TSA?

TSA Dollars spent: $70 billion
TSA Screeners hired: 45,000
TSA Failure to detect mock weapons and bombs: 96%.
Travelers who have filed complaints against the agency regarding theft of their property: 70,000.
Unnecessary deaths caused by people deciding to drive instead of fly: roughly 500 per year.
TSA Terrorists caught: 0

And we want to give the same people who did the above control over the Internet? To protect us from some oft-predicted disaster that has never actually happened? I would rather take my chances with freedom. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:19, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: By God that is the most brilliant way I've seen this spoken, and I've seen it spoken a lot. That said ... we still have to actually have competition, or what happens? Wnt (talk) 13:21, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Private prisons.Slatersteven (talk) 10:58, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

A bit like comparing Apples to Fish, don't you think? Besides the fact that we don't have good data on which is "better" (and a lot of disagreement about what "better" means)[3] and a lot of people who make a lot of money from one or the other just plain making stuff up, the basic concept I am talking about requires that different suppliers of a service are free to compete and that the customers are free to choose between them. Once you have the government deciding who goes to prison, which prison they go to and how long they stay, you are then faces with a choice of a prison guard union who supposedly run the public prisons the way the government tells them to or a for-profit monopoly corporation who supposedly run the private prisons the way the government tells them to. Not even close to being the same thing as the Internet. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:33, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Did a bit more research. In the areas that matter to me, looks like private sucks worse than public.[4] --Guy Macon (talk) 11:37, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

No more then saying that Net Neutrality might be like the TSA. Sometimes Public gets things wrong, Sometimes Private does. The difference is that I can vote against the status quo, I can kick out the cronyocrat incumbent. If I only have one ISP provider in my area I have no choice.Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

But you don't have only one ISP in your area, do you? It is statistically unlikely that you do. Here is why:[5] If anyone has more recent figures, please post them. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:46, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I do not, but according to that table 10% of Americans do. [6], of course this talk about broadband. But is not the the point about NN, the idea that you will get a slower service, and you cannot change to a faster one if you only have one option. If they start to throttle speeds many Americans cannot just up sticks and go to another provider.Slatersteven (talk) 12:53, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

OK, clearly you are more interested in pushing your POV than you are in examining the actual facts. You just quoted an article that clearly stated "The analysis excluded satellite services, which are available nearly everywhere in the US but typically suffer from high latency and low data caps. Cellular service is also excluded as the data focuses on home or 'fixed' Internet connections." This is your typical net-neutrality bullshit. Pretend that satellite internet connections don't exist. Pretend that cellular internet connections don't exist. Pretend that dialup no longer exists. Only count broadband (and move the definition of "broadband" higher if the numbers don't suit you.) All to hide the glaringly obvious fact that the Obama-era net neutrality regulations are a solution that won't work, addressing a problem that doesn't exist, and ignoring the very real dangers of giving one nation so much control over the worldwide Internet. Your side lost this political battle. Deal with it. I am done responding to you on this topic. Feel free to have the last word. --Guy Macon (talk)

It looks like that table of provider "competition" is now obsolete, because AT&T and Time Warner are now one company. The same article says that the neutrality repeal was "finally finalized" just on the 11th, and that now Comcast and Fox are considering a merger, and that companies like YouTube and Netflix are afraid they can't serve content to subscribers. I'd like to know how YouTube, which has been around for two decades serving videos, now is at risk that people can't watch them! Wnt (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, if the video diplay speed drags to 500x slower, then YouTube videos could become nearly "unwatchable". Compare the speed of 1-post-per-hour versus 2-second response: 60*60/2= 1800x slower. In some remote regions, the internet speed has been nearly 1-page-per-hour, as 1,800x slower than in mid-size towns. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:35, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Nathan Larson, pedophile politician

Latest comment: 6 years ago17 comments8 people in discussion

Jimbo, I don't think you will remember this, but a few years ago I asked you about an editor and information about suicide methods on WikiBooks. That editor was User:Leucosticte and they were copying material from a wiki maintained by a guy named Nathan Larson. You've probably seen in the news that there is a guy by the same name who is running for office in Virginia. We have an article about him at Nathan Larson (political candidate). Reliable sources say he is a pedophile and a holocaust denier. Apparently he also used the internet handle "Leucosticte". I don't know if it is the same person (although it really does seem improbable that it isn't), but this doesn't seem like the kind of guy we want editing Wikipedia. Is there any way to ban him? Nasal Ant Horn (talk) 14:57, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Erm... have you taken a peek at User:Leucosticte? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 15:04, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

wHOOA THERE, but too much like outing for my tastes.Slatersteven (talk) 15:08, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Um, that source you've linked to The Independent does mention "Hitler", and "holocaust denier", but says of Larson: "He has called himself a paedophile, has argued to decriminalise incest, and self-identified as a white supremacist". Martinevans123 (talk) 15:16, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

"One candidate who is still running include Nathan Larson, who is running in Virginia’s 10th congressional district as an independent. Larson previously served 16 months in prison for an apparent plot to kill either former president George W Bush or former president Barack Obama. He has called himself a paedophile, has argued to decriminalise incest, and self-identified as a white supremacist.", but the Holocaust denier is one Arthur Jones, so the OP made an accusation based upon a faulty reading of a source. This is exactly why we should not out users.Slatersteven (talk) 15:19, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Still awaiting any evidence that Larson is a user here, let alone that he's been "outed". His article already makes his views pretty clear. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:35, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

That is my point, we do not know he is an ed here (or that the account mentioned and Larson are linked). But trying to infer a user is someone is trying to out them (just incompetently) and is against policy.

To illustrate I am going to accuse users slatersteven of being a former member of the SS (the same initials, see seee!) So far this violated our civility rules, now if I go onto say "and David Irvin likes the SS so they must be the same, can someone prove this to me" that is an half arsed attempt at outing (via fishing) (to make this clear none of this is true, I am in fact Mr Adenoid Henkle, and was on holiday though the period 1939-45, and have three blokes who will swear they were playing poker with me). Which does of course illustrate another reason why this is wrong, how does someone prove they are not the well known Mr Randolph Hoss, no I did not know Gorbals? Can you prove you were not on the Grassy Knoll?Slatersteven (talk) 15:43, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I'll check my grassy knoll records, thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:48, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: I don't know for sure if they are the same person, but it certainly looks like it to me. Jimbo probably has access to more information than I do, so maybe he knows. Anyway, if they are the same person, I think we'd both agree that we don't want them editing here and someone needs to investigate this more thoroughly. Nasal Ant Horn (talk) 18:25, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

And I also wonder if User:PDsq9RwMRYxjY4Aj is Nathan Larson editing his own article. Nasal Ant Horn (talk) 18:27, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Many of us often wonder things like that, I guess. Not easy though, to actually do anything about such fanciful whims. But I now see the Nathan Larson (political candidate) has been nominated for deletion by User:Power~enwiki, which might solve some of your problem, perhaps. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:00, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah. There are layers upon layers of problems here, and notability (which is very questionable unless you take the view that anybody described in two newspaper articles is always notable) is the first one to deal with. power~enwiki (π, ν) 22:03, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Apparently notable enough for someone to create an account here which is an anagram of Nathan Larson (nasal ant horn) who spends their entire Wikipedia career talking about him.--Atlan (talk) 01:04, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Article topics need not make sense. They only need to be written about in reliable sources. And sometimes you need a troll to speak the truth -- the whole world saw the tragedy of Katie Pladl that began with her being charged with the "crime" of consenting to sex with her own father. [7] A society willing to file that charge is surely no saner than Larson. Wnt (talk) 02:33, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

"I don't know if it is the same person (although it really does seem improbable that it isn't), but this doesn't seem like the kind of guy we want editing Wikipedia. Is there any way to ban him?" Banning a single editor for reasons other than his/her current editing behavior is difficult to do. Even if we could remove a few editors based on their views, that would only make a small change to the total number of anonymous editors who hold similar views. So, if we would want to get rid of almost all editors who have such politically incorrect views, then we cannot allow Wikipedia to be edited by the public anymore. Wikipedia must then be edited by professional editors, they'll could be hired by the WMF, they'll then be subject to extensive background checks. Count Iblis (talk) 11:42, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Count Iblis: Nonetheless User:Leucosticte is banned on exactly such a basis -- see the userpage. My opposition to that policy, and to the overall idea that Wikipedia should be biased by "the kind of guys we want editing it", is a matter of record. Whether the remainder of your logic follows is the topic of ongoing testing. Wnt (talk) 13:07, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, people do get banned when they are found out, this makes the Puritans happy. But they need to realize that this doesn't do any good except for allowing them to pretend that the people with politically incorrect views do not exist. A bit like Ahmadinejad claiming that there are no gay people in Iran. Count Iblis (talk) 14:03, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Tether and bitcoin price manipulation

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Thanks for your comments a couple of weeks ago at the blockchain convention about cryptocurrencies being a bubble. There's lots of news about bitcoin and tether today. See, e.g (NYT) Bitcoin’s Price Was Artificially Inflated Last Year, Researchers Say, Bloomberg - Tether Used to Manipulate Price of Bitcoin During 2017 Peak: New Study, and (Academic Paper) Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered?. Bitcoin price is near 2018 lows (post Nov. 2017 lows). Should be an intersting day, but I'll miss most of it due to other commitments. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:29, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! This is something that I like to keep an eye on and I had missed these news stories.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:35, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

London Mayor Sadiq Khan

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Sadiq Khan's article in the Telegraph for Why we need to close Wikipedia's gender page gap Sadiq Khan Mayor of London .He has personally organised a Edit o thon .He writes That's why, during this year’s London Tech Week, which starts today, I have set up an ‘Edit-a-thon’ at Bloomberg’s office in the capital to try and help redress the balance.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 22:13, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good as long as they fulfil our notability policy. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 11:34, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

12 June - "Today, we will be adding ... " Perminder Mann .. Farrah Storr .. Emem Rita Usanga ... Maud Palmer is also without a Wikipedia page". -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 13:20, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I spoke briefly at the event, although unfortunately Sadiq Khan had to cancel at the last minute. They had organized for 4 schools to send about 20-25 students each (my estimate by looking at the crowd) and gave them some training on how to edit Wikipedia, and encouraged them to add new pages for women of London who didn't have articles. They had worked with Wikimedia (I think Wikimedia UK, but I wasn't directly involved other than a ceremonial appearance) to do the training and to select articles. It was a lovely event and the young students seemed quite happy to be there.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:40, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Ever-increasing internet censorship in Britain -- what does it mean for Wikipedia readers and editors?

Latest comment: 6 years ago33 comments11 people in discussion

Do you have a "reasonable excuse" to view a page with this image?

Britain's spy government keeps turning the screws, and soon their subjects face 15 years in prison for viewing "far-right propaganda" or "bomb-making instructions". [8] We have some fairly decent resources on past political movements and chemistry. There is apparently a "reasonable excuse defence" possible (we don't have an article about what that is, I don't think), but they are talking about exceptions for academics and journalists. If I interpret what I'm reading correctly, a chemist can read about RDX fairly freely; a kid reading the article might or might not be OK if he comes from the right social class and is taking courses to be a science major, but probably not if he's a poor Muslim who just wants to look up something they talked about on the news. Am I mistaken? Does the WMF have a plan or a hope here? Wnt (talk) 13:32, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Only a handful of people die as a result of terror attacks per year, while the number of premature deaths as a result of illnesses caused by poor lifestyle choices is of the order of half a million per year. If the government is willing to introduce coercive measures to deal with the terror problem, then why aren't they considering similar options to deal with the much larger healthcare problems? Why not ban unhealthy foods, given that this contributes to the hundreds of thousands of premature deaths, heart attacks and strokes, costing society billions per year? Count Iblis (talk) 14:14, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Count Iblis, terrorism is a direct threat to political power, something we should all be concerned about, we don't want to be coerced by terrorists, poor health isn't a threat in the same way. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 14:26, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

For the same reason murder is more serious then suicide, should be protected from others doing something to me, not me doing something to me. Ohh and buy the way we do have laws about unhealthy lifestyles.Slatersteven (talk) 15:15, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

We don't want to be coerced by terrorists, sure. We don't want the Ayatollah throwing you in jail for writing a book about Muhammad and we don't want the U.S. tracking you down for publishing copies of their formerly secret documents on Wikileaks and we don't want Theresa May going after you for reading Wikipedia. All are terrorist actions of equal political legitimacy, but only the latter is directly in our bailiwick where we should determine what its effect is. Wnt (talk) 14:50, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

But there is hardly any terrorism in Britain. People are not dying on the streets due to terrorism, they are collapsing due to heart attacks and strokes. It's not that we shouldn't be concerned about the potential of a larger terror problem arising and taking appropriate measures to deal with hypothetical threats, but we're already spending billions of pounds containing the potential problems quite well. But we're falling way short of addressing the health care problem. It's here that action to influence choices the public make, are called for because more than 80% of the healthcare costs are caused by poor lifestyle choices. So, instead of trying to make laws to force the public to not download information on terror related stuff, what's really needed now is to exert a lot more pressure to get people to eat more vegetables, eat less fast foods, and exercise a lot more. This could be done by giving people who stick to healthy lifestyles a tax break or discount on their health insurance premium. Count Iblis (talk) 14:15, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I suggest you try and tell the parents of the victims of the Manchester terrorist attack no one is dying over here due to terrorism.Slatersteven (talk) 15:45, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

And what if we were to randomly select 10,000 people from Britain and ask all of them about recent deaths in their family, the age of the deceased persons and the cause of death? How many strokes and heart attacks would be in that list compared to terrorism? And almost all these strokes and heart attacks are preventable, see here: "Heart attacks and strokes are almost unknown amongst the Tsimané thanks to a high carbohydrate, low protein diet and active lifestyle, say researchers.... The study published in the Lancet medical journal and being presented at the American College of Cardiology conference shows that an 80-year-old Tsimané man has the vascular age of an American in his mid-50s." I do sometimes wonder why terrorists even bother to launch attacks, killing a handful of people, if the population is eating itself to death anyway. Count Iblis (talk) 16:24, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I doubt we could even try to hunt wild boar in this county. Ohh and the average life expectancy of the Tsimané is 50.Slatersteven (talk) 17:00, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Reasonable excuse is for a jury to determine. This doesn't look like a very significant broadening of existing law. If you have a cached version of a relevant page you've already been covered by the offence for the last 18 years. It's just being extended to repeatedly viewing non-cached information - in practice, "practical assistance". And the RDX page is hardly a self-contained how-to. The IRTL offers some background reading on this subject. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 14:51, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I would add that I really do think that the argument "but a teenager in London wont be able to find out how to make RDX" is a bit far off the mark (and that is what we are talking about, instructions not overview articles). Why would he want to know how to make it, does such a person even exist? Ironical I do in fact disagree with this kind of attack on free speech (being the kind of sad git who did used to look up just this kind of information during RPG sessions). But I really do not think that the OP's Orwellian vision if even close to what will happen. The police are not going to raid peoples homes because they viewed a page about RDX, or even IED's (any more then they do now). What they will do is watch certain kinds of sites. Whilst I do not think such actions will in fact reduce major terrorism I cannot accept that this is some major curtailment of peoples ability to find legitimate and useful information. At worst you will have to read a proper book on the subject (if you have a genuine reason for wanting to know such information), just like we used to in the "good old days".Slatersteven (talk) 15:39, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: Your response makes it sound like the law simply prevents the teenager from finding out about RDX without reading a book ... which would be bad enough. But it does no such thing. Instead, it allows the BAE black box mandatorily watching the teenager's careless reading to silently record a strike against him, and when it reaches three strikes, he can be abruptly hauled off, thrown in jail, and marked as a terrorist. Perhaps he and the other thralls of the British throne are supposed to take a message from that, but if so, that message is "It's not safe to read Wikipedia". Indeed, it appears it is not safe for them to read at all! Wnt (talk) 16:41, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

What, are you being serious? You really think that there is some secret BAE (do you know what BAE is?) are monitoring every internet action? And no I did not say anything about not being able to find out about RDX, I said "find out how to make RDX". This is about looking at instruction manuals.Slatersteven (talk) 16:49, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Ha, that's hilarious. Total bollocks, of course, but still amusing. What the Guardian article fails to point out correctly is that the offence is aimed at those who view such material for the purposes of terrorism. If our jails were full of people that had Googled "how to make a bomb", we'd have a bigger percentage of the population in jail than ... well ... America, who are the world leaders here. Black Kite (talk) 17:24, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Black Kite: See ‘Black boxes’ to monitor all internet and phone data, from June 12 2012. This was part of the "Snooper's Charter". The boxes far predate that bill, however -- they are indeed part of a conspiracy, the sinister "Internet Watch Foundation" which normalized their use (with BAE as a major member since 2005 [9]) allegedly to stop "child porn". From the 1990s people like me have been telling people like you that this was all a scheme to put you in jail for believing the wrong politics or looking at the wrong web site. Now we can say "I told you so", and you still don't believe us. Wnt (talk) 17:39, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Well we are not in jail yet.Slatersteven (talk) 17:48, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

No, you're right, I don't. We know all about the IWF after the album cover image shambles a few years ago (which was sorted out quite quickly), and I can tell you that practically zero percent of the British population would disagree with blocking child porn. But if you think that the UK is going to put people in jail for "believing the wrong politics", you've been reading too many conspiracy theory websites. Black Kite (talk) 18:06, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

That article you quoted in the guardian specifically states that the law applies to the dissemination and viewing of terrorist or extremist web content - in other words, pages published by or frequently read by terrorists and not frequently read by regular folk. The article §doesn’t seem to suggest that any jury will be asked to consider whether or not a defendant is guilty as a result of having viewed freely and openly available encyclopedic content. It’s not so much a question of how far the law is being extended, but a question of how far you intend to stretch your imagination when considering the implications of the law reductio ad absurdum. I suppose there’s an outside chance someone might have a go at using Wikipedia as a means of disseminating information which would put a country’s security at risk. Is this what you are talking about? Edaham (talk) 15:51, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

The helpful response by User:zzuuzz leads to [10] and [11]. Where others are concerned, I would like to take certain reassurances here, but I am skeptical; I am not at all pleased by the bland acceptance that former Wikipedia readers "might have to read a book" instead.

The first part of the bill criminalizes anyone who "expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation, and (b) in doing so is reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organisation." I don't actually know whether the old NSDAP is a proscribed organization, but I used the example image above because it expresses a sentiment that many of us here can agree with -- that Stalinism was a brutal philosophy and the 1930s Russian government needed to be feared. Does believing that make us Nazi supporters? If we don't hasten to add some disclaimer "but the Nazis did terrible things..." does that make it a crime in Britain? How does this affect the person who edits the article and adds the image, let alone uploads it?

It only goes downhill from there. It makes it criminal to publish an image of an article of clothing, or anything else, if it creates a reasonable suspicion that the publisher is a member. Note that this is, very literally, a statement that the writer is guilty unless proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. I mean, read the bill text for yourself and tell me if that's an exaggeration! Go ahead and read Uniforms and insignia of the Schutzstaffel and tell me if there couldn't be a reasonable suspicion (by who? With what preconceptions???) that the person writing the article and adding those images, or who uploaded the images, could have Nazi sympathies. The Nazis themselves couldn't have had much worse standards for freedom of expression.

I should note that zzuuzz is absolutely wrong about the claim that the same record must be viewed over and over again. The language is "on three or more different occasions the person views by means of the internet a document or record containing information of that kind" with the explicit statement that "It does not matter for the purposes of subsection (1)(c) whether it is the same document or record that is viewed on each occasion or whether a different document or record is viewed" One consequence of this is that Wikipedia could be tapped as filler material for an indictment if someone goes to a single jihadist link being watched, and prosecutors somehow obtain their viewing history or figure out from articles they edited some other stuff they can call "extremist" or "useful" to extremism here. The poor British will be prosecuted by tin gods who know everything they've ever looked at in their entire lives and can present each and every piece in the most unsympathetic way, proudly braying in triumph, "PROVE US WRONG!" Wnt (talk) 16:31, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

What? No the law does not mean that if you oppose something a prescribed organisations opposes you support them, it means if you say you support them you support them.

And no the law does not mean they are guilty, they still have to be tried (which means they still have to prove you are "a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation".

But I think I begin to get the picture now about what this is really all about.Slatersteven (talk) 16:44, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

In the Guardian article, Amber Rudd says "Asked by an audience member if she understood how end-to-end encryption actually worked, she said: “It’s so easy to be patronised in this business. We will do our best to understand it. We will take advice from other people. But I do feel that there is a sea of criticism for any of us who try and legislate in new areas, who will automatically be sneered at and laughed at for not getting it right. I don’t need to understand how encryption works to understand how it’s helping the criminals,” she went on. “I will engage with the security services to find the best way to combat that.”" In plain language, she means "I don't have enough technical knowledge to be able to understand that unless you banned Tor (anonymity network), VPNs, Proxy servers, Transport Layer Security and all encrypted messaging apps, none of this would actually work."--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:16, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Or maybe ""I have enough technical knowledge to be able to understand that unless you banned Tor (anonymity network), VPNs, Proxy servers, Transport Layer Security and all encrypted messaging apps this might not work, just no enough to know how hhis would actually be achieved. So i will speak with people who do", We expect to much of politicians.Slatersteven (talk) 17:31, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Why would you think she does not plan to ban any one of those things? China is the world leader here, but she ought to be able to find someone with the technical competence to copy them. Wnt (talk) 17:42, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Amber Rudd is no longer Home Secretary, she resigned in April 2018 and was replaced by Sajid Javid. Her comments are part of the long tradition of UK politicians expressing concerns about the Internet and its misuse by Islamist radicals. For example, in order to carry out the Manchester Arena bombing, Salman Abedi must have been able to find the recipe for Acetone peroxide somewhere. It's possible that he found it on the Internet, or he may have been given it while in Libya.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:49, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Ahh but how do you know that she is not now "SECECT HOMELAND INTERNET ARRESTING TEENAGERS FOR LOOKING AT WEBSITES SECRETARY"? aHH PROVE SHE IS NOT.17:53, 14 June 2018 (UTC)Slatersteven (talk)

First they came for the Paedophiles, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Paedophiles. Then they came for the Terrorists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Terrorist. Then they came for the Racists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Racist. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Oh when ohh when will we learn the lessons of history.Slatersteven (talk) 18:12, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

nobody seems to have raised the point, so i’ll go ahead: why should Wikipedia/WMF give a damn about Britain? There’s plenty of other totalitarian countries (I live in one) which already take a far dimmer view of information harmful to the state and do far more to suppress it. I haven’t seen a committee come together to discuss alignment, or the lack thereof, with Xi Jinping Thought. If Britain wants to start processing people for thought crimes, it can cheerefully do so in a world where Wikipedia continues to compile and summarize freely available information. Edaham (talk) 21:55, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

The Chinese government knows that in order to make thought police restrictions on the Internet work, it is necessary to ban all forms of proxy and encrypted connections.[12] No Western government has ever tried to do this, and would (hopefully) run into difficulties if it did.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:52, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

@Ianmacm: This article from the Guardian says not only that Theresa May is trying to intimidate firms like Telegram into giving up access to their users' messages, but that the 'power to demand the removal of encryption applied to messages' has already been in her hands since the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act. Now as it happens our article cites this that says that they cannot force foreign companies to hand over the keys, but the Encryption ban proposal in the United Kingdom dates back to 2015. I remember for years people saying that the Chinese could "easily circumvent" censorship with "HTTP tunnels" ... then one month they stopped saying that. Why would Britain be any different? Wnt (talk) 13:05, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Wnt, what is Wikimedia Foundation saying/doing about this Orwellian bullshit? Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:46, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

This isn't this US (where there's an often unexplainable thing called the 'justice system'). This is the Westminster system (in the UK & much of the Commonwealth) where neither prosecuting nor defending attorneys seek safety in the U.S. Constitution. We're talking UK law changes in the UK. Could they be draconian? Are you in trouble? Yes, if you keep Googling while trying to build a bomb that you've discussed where & when you want to detonate. I mean, if Wikipedia was information central wouldn't Office be fighting lawsuits to keep links from the article The Anarchist Cookbook to the source? I understand the concern. Not the Bro Panic. AnonNep (talk) 20:37, 16 June 2018 (UTC)\

I don't disagree, but I think the WMF should be front and centre ( center:)) with a position on this matter, and if they are, what is their position? and if they are not, why not? Re: USA "justice system", just assume every bit of USA terminology, is an oxymoron and you can't, imo, go wrong. Then, it becomes understandable, if never explainable, and maybe that's the objective ? "Constructive confusion" can be incredibly useful for manipulative people and manipulative teams of people. It can be a great partner for propaganda....when the population target starts critically thinking about the propaganda, just throw in some constructive confusion to distract them. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:10, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't deny there is big trouble in the U.S. -- for example, the prosecution of Paul Manafort includes some "foreign agent" charges which are selectively and terroristically applied, and which seem well capable of being used on editors from Gibraltarpedia, for example, should they ever get too close to the Trump administration, or the Clinton administration, or any other in any future decade. But the fact that Britain is shortly changing its law for the worse would suggest some protest ought to be registered, even as people around the world might wisely batten down for a Hobbesian war of all against all (under a moralizing wrapper). Wnt (talk) 22:32, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Manafort acted as an agent for foreign powers, he's open about that (he eventually filed a FARA registration) but claims he only did it in Europe - however he is is jail right now because he was contacting witnesses to remind them of the "only in Europe" story, and they know it to be a lie, so they went to Mueller and shopped him for suborning perjury. They would have had no reason to report his messages if the "only in Europe" story were true. It's not an offence to be a foreign agent, it's an offence to be one and not register. That's what he apparently did. Terrorism my arse. Guy (Help!) 22:46, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Nathan Larson, pedophile politician and Wikipedia editor

Latest comment: 6 years ago14 comments8 people in discussion

WMFOffice has locked the starter of this thread as a sock of a globally banned user. Galobtter (pingó mió) 03:19, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Jimbo, a few days ago I was asking you about Nathan Larson (political candidate) and his history as a Wikipedia editor. Despite the many. many points of correspondence between Nathan Larson and User:Leucosticte, editors were unable to confirm they were the same person. I understand why you wouldn't want to connect a person and an account without proof, but I don't think there was any harm in asking the obvious question. Luckily, Haaretz has now published a story entitled "This Hitler-loving Proud Pedophile Was Too Much of a Troll for Wikipedia, but Not for a Congressional Run". I hope someone updates the article with this information. Thanks for your help. Nasal Ant Horn (talk) 22:17, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps you could also enlighten us about the "slew of different usernames – all of which were eventually banned."? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:20, 16 June 2018 (UTC) p.s. are you really Omer Benjakob?

I don't know how many a "slew" is but there are several mentioned in the Haaretz story. I assume that User:Tannehilltop was another because the account is globally locked now, but what do I know? I just hope someone looks more carefully at IPs from Warrenton, VA like User:2601:5cd:c000:21e3:e52f:27f3:4ff3:8918. Nasal Ant Horn (talk) 22:40, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Note that the US has one of the most draconian laws against child abuse of the Western world. So, if he is a free man there, there is no reason why he shouldn't be allowed to edit here except, of course, if his editing behavior here is so bad that he should be banned on that ground. Count Iblis (talk) 22:36, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Really? He is also a white supremacist and an unrepentant rapist. Do either of those make any difference, Count Iblis? Is there anyone who you feel would not be welcome to edit here, and if so, why not? Nasal Ant Horn (talk) 22:42, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Anyone should be welcome to edit here unless editing record here proves that they are not able to edit here. Alleged crimes are for law enforcement and the legal system to handle. You have to ask why we would not allow someone to edit here on grounds such as "he's an unrepentant rapist", if he's not on the sex offender's list, and he could become a schoolteacher. Count Iblis (talk) 23:33, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

(ec) The article links [13] (note I lack confidence in Wikipedia "behavioral sockpuppetry" conclusions, and I am not asserting these are in fact that person, only that I read the article linked this list). It also puffs up some big nothings like this edit, and his opening of a topic about "censorship of the debate about censorship" (which was promptly removed). It also says he was the "first person banned from RationalWiki" and links [14]. Personally, I don't get what the big deal is -- there are people who want you thrown in jail for using encryption, or joking about a bomb on 4chan, or downloading papers off Sci-Hub, or claiming political asylum (even with good reason), or publishing a leaked document, or failing to censor an offer of prostitution ... what makes a Nazi or a pedophile activist so special nowadays by comparison? They seem no worse than anybody else, now -- they're all out to get you. [after the ec I see someone mentions a rape claim, but note the lack of any charge; I'll assume for now this started as some kind of trolling] Wnt (talk) 22:45, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Why are you commenting here if you haven't even bothered to read the Wikipedia article at the very least? Let me quote it for you - "He admitted to raping his ex-wife, who was transgender and committed suicide after the birth of their daughter". Nasal Ant Horn (talk) 22:56, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

One might ask the same of you, since your username is an anagram of Nathan Larson and pretty much your only history on Wikipedia is bitching about Larson on this page. Guy (Help!) 23:09, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Is that a problem, Guy? I'm sure I'm not the only person whose username is an anagram of Nathan Larson. Nasal Ant Horn (talk) 23:59, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

User:Ann Sonar lath, oh no.... Johnbod (talk) 00:14, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Sigh. I'm the one who always thinks WP:BLP is a bunch of overblown nonsense when everyone else is making a hullaballoo about it (e.g. santorum (neologism) ... yet whenever I actually think it's being violated in a meaningful way, nobody else on Wikipedia gives a damn. But for the record, that statement in the article cites the Huffington Post saying Asked whether there was a “grain of truth” in his essay about father-daughter incest and another about raping his ex-wife repeatedly, he said yes, offering that plenty of women have rape fantasies. and the New York Daily News saying He bragged online of choking and raping his ex-wife, who has since committed suicide. Babe.net previously wrote about Larson’s disturbing online posts. To my eye babe.net makes no such claim. Basically, I think we have a bunch of reporters -- and Wikipedians -- talking each other up to ever more lurid levels of exaggeration about the troll, because there's a general sense of license. But reality is usually pretty mundane, he's not going to win an election, with 50+ alleged sockpuppets and a WMF block on him he's not getting back on here editing, there is simply nowhere this can go except round and round in a blaze of hyperbole. And I don't think we have the sourcing to claim that an admission of rape was made in a way that is "presented as true", to quote BLP, according to the sources. Wnt (talk) 02:58, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Mildly, the OP has been blocked as a sock of a globally locked account, and there may be diminishing returns in continuing to discuss their views. Any objection to this being hatted per WP:DNFTT? -- Euryalus (talk) 03:03, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The Surreal Barnstar

Dear Mr.Wales,

Thank you for everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING.

Sincerely, F.S. Fabiosmayra (talk) 10:17, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

No active discussion on this page? Well, would you ever...

Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion

Just an observation that I've never see this before, as a registered editor, or occasional IP before that. No discussion is a suggestion of active editors lost. Active editors lost leads to the obvious question of 'why'? Wikipedia won't survive if it continues.#JustSaying AnonNep (talk) 16:53, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Statistics for the last 2 years are quite stable so I wouldn't worry too much if I were you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:44, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

It's not the Project, Jimbo. It's your talk page. What happened to the free-wheeling, happy-go-lucky days of exponential growth? Or is that still now and we're all just abiding or whatever? EllenCT (talk) 06:28, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Badly drawn scale if you want to demonstrate anything interesting. look at all time. Things are noisy sometimes, quiet sometimes.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:38, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

On the odd chance that anybody cares about the page views of this page, they could include this graph right on this page - maybe even in the header. Now why was there a peak in interest here on March 25, 2018? No clue. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:25, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Daily page views for this talk page over the last 3 years

Detailed traffic statistics

Yes. Then there was the fallout from 2015. (Same ref - 'All' stats) https://stats.wikimedia.org/v2/#/en.wikipedia.org/contributing/editors/normal%7Cline%7CAll~1980010100~2018061800%7C~total AnonNep (talk) 20:58, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

No news is good news and everybody I know goes to Wikipedia when they want information about any person or thing...its truly an amazing event in world history..much more interesting and eclectic and creative ( in terms of talk page discussions ) than any other event coming out of the internet, imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:38, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

More important than The Daily Otter?[15] :) --Guy Macon (talk) 22:19, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, no...not that important. Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:17, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually the 2018 FIFA World Cup has just started, with England among others playing today. That probably accounts for much of it (not being there). Johnbod (talk) 02:25, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

A Wikipedia that edits itself

Latest comment: 6 years ago26 comments8 people in discussion

https://www.cnet.com/news/an-ibm-computer-debates-humans-and-wins-in-a-new-nuanced-competition/

"We saw computers beat humans at chess in 1997, beat humans at Jeopardy in 2011 and vanquish the world's best human players of the ancient game of Go in 2017. On Monday, a computer edged out a victory over people in a far more nuanced competition: debate."

"To formulate its argument, it had at its disposal a collection of 300 million news articles and scholarly papers, previously indexed for quick search results. But it had to find the information, package it persuasively, listen to its opponents' arguments and formulate a rebuttal."

It seems to me that with AI systems having such good language skills and comprehension, it should also be possible to get to an autonomous, self-editing Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 16:34, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Huh. I'll believe it when I see it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:51, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

After listening to the IBM Debater quote sources and artfully inject opinion masquerading as fact, I started suspecting a bunch of persistent editors to be experimental IBM training bots. Awesome times we live in…

— JFG ^talk 17:29, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

All I want for us is the collection of 300 million news articles and scholarly papers. The content basically writes itself, with minimal assistance, once someone, or something, sees it who is willing to edit. Wnt (talk) 17:46, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

The New York Times article about it notes that, in the future, there could be AI writing Wikipedia articles (our dear automated bots notwithstanding, not that they do write articles). I hope that never comes to pass. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 17:51, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

We can hope, but we will be crushed by artificial consciousness, or rather some of "us" will co-evolve with "them". — JFG ^talk 18:15, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Huzzah for the technological singularity? I, for one, welcome our new cyborg overlords. —Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 19:03, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

AI takeover could perhaps happen a lot sooner, long before AI systems get the intellect to match humans. Today's best AI systems struggle to outperform insects in simple tasks such as letting a robot navigate, making sure it reaches a target while avoiding obstacles. So, there is huge amount of improvement possible for AI systems before they would even come close to human level intellect. And note that the vast majority of animals thrive without needing to have large brains. To me this suggests that in a few decades we may well get to the point where almost all tasks we perform are automated. The relevant critical point is when part of the economy that doesn't depend on humans can grow. You'll then have groups of factories where only machines work, that are self reproducing. The smartest machines that you need for that don't need to have the intellect of humans. We would have created a machine biology and brains may not be the most important part here, just like it isn't in Nature. Humans may not survive this machine takeover, as it would be a sort of a cancer that takes over our technological society and ends up destroying it. This cancer problem caused by the takeover of relatively dumb machines may explain the Fermi paradox. Count Iblis (talk) 21:12, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Around 1981 a pretty smart guy told me "the brain is a computer".. and used that old expression "garbage in, garbage out" to explain why some people act the way they do. But I don't think computers will ever be able to incorporate genuine feelings, emotion or spiritual aspects of humanity. Having said that, psychopaths apparently watch other people carefully to learn and try to duplicate physical expressions of emotions and are so good at it they fool other people sometimes, so robots could definitely become as good at emotional pretenses as psychopaths. I'd have to do a thought experiment to see whether I think computers could come close to eventually producing a Wikipedia...but maybe it depends upon whether or not genuine emotional feelings and emotional interaction/cooperation are integral and necessary aspects of the quality of what we produce or not? Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:14, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

See Chinese room. Now there is a thought experiment that makes you think... --Guy Macon (talk) 15:06, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Guy! Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:05, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: For what little it's worth, my opinion is that precognition is essential to the operation of conscious thought. As a result, it would be impossible to simulate the conscious mind in a Chinese room unless you have a machine that you can put one of the cards with Chinese characters into and have them output for use at some earlier time. If you do have such a machine, you can take the card that comes out of it, look at the character, and put this input back into it later on, and the sequence of characters you see come out of it will be neither calculable by any means, nor randomized by any means, but will be genuinely acausal. Such a machine's output, even if incomprehensible, should readily be recognized as conscious free will. Wnt (talk) 20:28, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

So humans lack conscious thought? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:05, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that people are experiencing such causality violations at a short-range scale, and occasionally (pretty much pathologically) these occur at larger scales. Wnt (talk) 12:07, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

^{[Citation Needed]} --Guy Macon (talk) 15:50, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Or perhaps consciousness = computation and computation is more fundamental than the physical world. Take e.g. the ideas proposed by Max Tegmark about a mathematical multiverse. So, there exists a "program Wnt" as an element of such a mathematical multiverse that was in the exact computational state that corresponds to executing the actions that Wnt executed when he wrote what he wrote above. This gave rise to all the perceptions Wnt had about being alive in a universe that is consistent with living in a physical world that has certain properties. But that physical world does not really exist, or could be said to be relative w.r.t. whatever computational state of some algorithm one is considering. Count Iblis (talk) 01:35, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Count Iblis: How far does this "program" extend? Does it cover the state of the neurons in the hippocampus for memory, in the eyes for vision, in the fingers for typing? If a large number of atoms are simulated, where does the simulation find its boundary? It would seem like such a "mathematical multiverse" should be identical with a physical multiverse. Now, you can say some regions of the physical multiverse (Sirius B, maybe) don't need to be simulated because they are separated by a spacelike interval; however, the state that the program is in might only be interpreted by comparing quantum entanglement, for example, with distant regions, which means that the simulated and physical worlds can't be the same indefinitely if there is a distance limit.

My suggestion is that there is more than one potential mathematical solution for a specific limited region of time and space. Either you remember that there is about to be an accident with your shopping cart so you stand back and park it where, a half minute later, a kid is going to run straight smack into it (i.e. yesterday...), or you don't and so it isn't there so there's nothing to remember. I don't know how one outcome or the other is determined. Wnt (talk) 12:07, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

There exists a set of all programs including ones that are extremely detailed. However, since for you in any given subjective state, the details that you are not aware of, don't matter, you should identify yourself with the entire subset of all programs that render your conscious experience. When you make a new observation, then that adds a few bits of information causing the subset the programs to split into rendering copies of you that made different observations. So, we get a branching structure yielding different conscious experiences. One can consider the possibility that all conscious experiences of all possible entities are part of the same branching structure. So, when you were a baby you were identical to a much larger set of copies than you are now. Some of these copies could even be babies who were born many centuries in the past or the future. The split only happened when you became aware that you were living in the 20th century. For any given two persons, you can always find a time sufficiently far back in their histories that they would not be aware of their differences. And because we start becoming alive as an almost empty program that isn't aware of anything, that same start is also the start of everything else, including some bot running here at Wikipedia or some creature that lived on some planet in some far away galaxy, billions of years ago. Count Iblis (talk) 19:36, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Many people thought that computers would never be able to beat humans a chess -- until they did. Or take on the best Jeopardy players in the world -- until they did. Or diagnose a patient better than the best doctors -- until they did. Or translate between languages -- until they did. Or beat the top humans at Go -- until they did. Or recognize emotions in speech -- until they did. Or beat the best humans at Texas Hold 'Em poker -- until they did. Or lip-read better than humans -- until they did. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:56, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Exactly, and we'll soon find that consciousness is overrated, like being a chess champion once was. On the bright side, that ship sailed 20 years ago, and humans still enjoy playing chess despite machines crushing them. Probably we will still enjoy our conscious lives despite "machines" having their own. We are machines too. — JFG ^talk 05:19, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Very well put. I am reminded of the story of John Henry. Race cars didn't stop horse racing. Rifles didn't stop bowhunting. Phonographs and radio didn't stop live music. Movies didn't shut down Broadway. And you and I could have a hole digging contest even though backhoes exist. I have never seen anyone give a good reason why an AI couldn't edit Wikipedia better than we do, other that "it feels like that's something that requires a human mind". --Guy Macon (talk) 15:03, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

We may never get a Wikipedia that builds itself, but in the EU they're one step closer to one that censors itself. According to [16] there were 15 MEPs favoring in that first June 20 vote we didn't have a blackout about, and on July 4-5 they formalize it in a plenary, barring some miracle. While I would like to think that at least we can make that a day to formally declare the independence of an American-led Wikipedia that remains free and independent, who is kidding who? Two years after that, everybody at WMF will be slapping themselves on the back for building machines complying with any and all EU content restrictions, since censorship is a key resume item for any and all computer scientists. We may owe a huge debt of apology to Ted Kaczinsky, who appears to be turning out to be the only significant philosopher of our era. Wnt (talk) 19:56, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Related: The Machine Fired Me. No human could do a thing about it! --Guy Macon (talk) 22:59, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

The great thing about self-driving cars is they have so many spy features they can always find a way to blame a human for not driving them attentively at all times. Wnt (talk) 11:46, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Guy Macon, Thanks so much for the link to the article and other great info you provide. I read the article and find it fun and interesting to read as well as a great way for me to see/ get a feel for the bullshit that the younger generation of workers have to deal with. One of my daughters told me she expects to spend about 3 hours per week on what she calls "mix-ups" of various types. I, with my years of various experience, have come to the opinion that anytime a society has confusing nonsensical time wasters for individuals built into it, that causes/makes the individuals more malleable and accepting of much more serious types of nonsense such as dropping bombs on people in order to "help bring feeedom to" those people in some way. I am not saying there is a direct connection between the nonsense explained in your "machine fired me article', but rather, imo, an indirect, much more nefarious connection which benefits the evil/dark forces with getting populations to go along with their constant, ongoing throughout human history, similar and much more harmful, just plain evil, hurtful, and fatal wars and other projects of conflict. I suppose I must say that my analysis, in order to be somewhat clearly understood (not necessarily entertained or believed), includes as an integral ingredient, my whole heated belief that there really is something fully and inherently evil always around us humans which does every possible thing it can to fuck us up individually and collectively. I choose to call that evil by the name of Satan and his (a very few knowing and mostly unknowing) agents. Now, there are many other explanations as to why our world, lives have all of these seemingly innocuous "mix ups" generation after generation, a "chaos" type theory perhaps being one, but, imo, with every leap in our technical and AI advancements, I am becoming more and more confident in my analysis. i.e. that the devil, who I believe is, and often is portrayed as, the ultimate "trickster", is becoming more and more the only rational, if not logical, explanation for all of the confusing, nonsensical "mix ups"...i.e. that the slimy bastard is constantly conditioning us, his targets, to accept confusing and nonsensical events and justifications for little things in life, so that when the bastard wants to force an equally confusing and nonsensical yet truly important and evil event down our throats, such an event will be more palatable. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:20, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

http://wiki.c2.com/?TheLastOne EllenCT (talk) 17:15, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Too many pages about people

Latest comment: 6 years ago16 comments11 people in discussion

Just FYI. We knew this day would come, when "everyone" is getting a Wikipedia page, and the workload for biopages might seem overwhelming. Every day now, I am finding more articles about "ordinary" people who head a small company, or various professors, or young people in a talent competition. As you have noted, Jimbo, meanwhile WP has omitted many corporations who employ hundreds or thousands of workers. Previously, over the past years, I was content to see many new biopages were about people who won awards or invented something major (beyond the typical people who kick a ball for money). But Wikipedia has become more fair, with articles apparently about "anyone" who does something for major money, etc.

The result has become overwhelming, as too much writing or editing, about ordinary individuals, which has eclipsed writing about general topics, or about the traditional notable people, such as very famous people with stub pages (or none). Well, in all fairness, WP has been picky to deny articles, such as yet only "125,000" footballer articles, versus over 240,000 players noted at Playerhistory.com. WP page "John Smith" still lists only 250 people known as John Smith. But anyway, we knew this day would come, as a resource crisis, with finite editor attention span versus a vast ocean of new articles about people. The only solution I can deduce is to warn Wikipedians to better sort out priorities, to somehow allocate dedicated time to improve more major articles (perhaps ranked by pageview counts re wp:PVS), plus put other biopages into a resource-wait queue, or note other ways to warn users to avoid distractions over minor articles. Otherwise, the millions of notable ordinary people are pouring into Wikipedia as an endless clutter, with copvio who's who resumes, which obscure the typical encyclopedic knowledge. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:45, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't really agree that anything has changed, but we certainly have long had a bad over-emphasis on biographies, indeed articles about discrete things of all types, vs the broader topical articles that are the traditional and proper staple of "typical encyclopedic knowledge". But this is because our editors greatly prefer writing them (and they are generally much easier), and to some extent our readers prefer reading them. I don't know quite how you are "finding" them - for the normal reader, you only find what you look for here. The enormous views that pop culture bios get has always greatly helped WP's general placing at the top of search results, so as mostly a writer of lower-viewed "typical encyclopedic knowledge", I don't complain. Every so often I suggest a ban for say 6 months on the creation of all new articles, except in cases of clear "new notability", but I have no hope of this ever happening. Johnbod (talk) 14:22, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Okay, it seems to be a build-up of biography pages, over recent years, but now, as editors make mistakes in updating the reference cites, now those various biopages need to be edited every day. By comparison, the articles about other discrete "things" are more likely to apply in a wider range of topics, compared to individual people which seem of more limited interest to readers. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:38, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't see a problem. No one has to read them. I know NPP is stretched, but I haven't heard that they are overwhelmed. Space is cheap, so this sounds like a non-problem.S Philbrick (Talk) 17:34, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I concur with the above. Wikipedia is basically the engine for the Universal Answers Machine, and the broader and more inclusive the content, the better. The world won't end if there are some less-than-pivotal bios, as long as they are accurate. We have a system of notablity rules for sorting the wheat from the chaff... Carrite (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree with the disproportionate number of sports players (& porn stars) etc. But what about people who have achieved Wikipedia notability in sources in a languages other than English (&/or sources under paywall)? Language isn't meant to matter in RS, on eng.wikipedia, but if you've ever tried to 'rescue' BLPs off AfD, as I have, it does. Not appearing on basic, English language, free use, Google searches is enough for deletion, while paid English language searches (free with a Library card in my country) often offer up much more. I'm far more concerned with who is being lost through lazy deletions. It greatly adds to a lack of diversity in BLP, & Bios, generally. AnonNep (talk) 20:00, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

As AnonNep says, there aren't enough bios from non-English and esp poor 3rd world countries. Some also claim very forcefully that we lack women bios. As long as afd is vote based hard to see how we can stop inherent bias happening there, countering systemic bias is hard when other editors entrench such bias by thinking, for instance, that we are an encyclopedia about the English-speaking world. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 12:23, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Agree with S Philbrick and others above, this is a solution in search of a problem. Bios of various professors have to pass WP:PROF, there is nothing "ordinary" about becoming a professor. Personally I think that the rights of a corporation being equated to the rights of a human being marked a dark episode in human history and wanting more articles about corporations is POV-pushing of capitalism. People are more important than things. Corporations are merely things. WikiPedia has significantly more articles on things than it does people. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 17:08, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, there are problems of mixing issues of an encyclopedia with a user-edited "who's who" plus cases where people do not want articles written about them, or the burden of checking text for gossip about their private lives versus public notability. The focus on large corporations or companies relates to their impact on society at large, not trying to compare them as if more valuable than people. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:33, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Compare people in Online Britannica

By comparing coverage of famous people in Britannica Online (https://www.Britannica.com), our editors could see where WP pages need more expansion, and perhaps which biopages to avoid (in the resource-wait queues) in favor of updating the more-notable articles about general topics as well as the very famous people partially covered in the other-language wikipedias. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:42, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

It is also possible that the OB covers some really non-notable people, by the way. And almost a 100% chance that some fake bios are there to catch copyright violators. http://mentalfloss.com/article/69880/7-fake-words-ended-dictionary I am sure that "nihilpersons" exist. Collect (talk) 15:02, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Of course we shouldn't encourage folks to plagiarize Britannica articles, but we can do other things with their articles, e.g. check our articles against theirs to see if we've missed something important, or even paraphrase and summarize small sections of their articles and then cite them in our articles. One of the more interesting things to do would be to compare their coverage in specific areas, e.g. starting from [17] you can go to [18] and see that they have 2890 bio articles on folks in the visual arts, and then down to any of 21 subcategories, including 352 sculptors.

Here we go

There are 9 top level biographical categories, e.g. 11838 bio articles in History And Society, 3527 in Sciences, and 1280 in technology (yes they overlap - Leonardo is in all but one category I've mentioned). We'd have to compare percentages of course, to see how this relates to our coverage. I don't think that we have similarly accessible counts, but we should be able to do some estimation. BTW they have 1720 bios in sports and recreation and I've previously estimated that we have about 9.5% of all our articles in sports bios (about 475,000 back then)

I'm always surprised that we don't go through our coverage on a regular basis to see more of what we need, and what we don't need more of. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:27, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

'Of course we shouldn't encourage folks to plagiarize Britannica articles...' but re-searching & re-writing out-of-copyright national biography dictionaries, & the like, is encouraged. There are catergories for it & for more than the UK :) But the emphasis is still on dead white dudes.... AnonNep (talk) 15:43, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

We have pretty good tables for checking which topics of the 1911 EB we cover, here. But is there any way to check which OB articles we lack? I was a little shocked to find Chu Ki-chol on OB before I created an article here. EB (OB) is still, in many ways, the gold standard of encyclopedias, and we should at least try to beat them in their own game. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:17, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Focus on major pages each month: Ok, so I have confirmed how your noted concern is correct: "go through our coverage on a regular basis to see more of what we need" (think about key concepts covered in college courses, or issues in the news for months) and avoid the zillions of minor articles which are not being read by hundreds of people. WP is not harnessing the power of our many editors to improve major articles and expand coverage of very famous people (or corporations, or films, or books etc.), including those popular pages in the other-language wikipedias. Currently, WP runs like launching darts into a mountain range, where most hits are on downslope filler, while mountain peaks or major rivers would be rarely hit as the focus of concern. I can appreciate where many people might want to avoid wp:edit-conflicts (or edit-wars) by updating numerous minor pages instead, but the hollow coverage of major topics is still an ongoing problem for years now. Perhaps more editors should strive to update 50 major topics per month, then spend leftover time on minor pages. Purposely avoid minor pages, until "50" major pages are updated (or written) each month. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:11, 24 June 2018 (UTC)
- Or maybe we could have editors strive to work on what they want to work on, as this is a volunteer project and we can't force anyone to do anything. If you'd like editors to focus on major topics (and how to define major topics will be contentious in its own right), then pay them for their time and the resources they will need. Otherwise, you're better off cutting down on editing related to technical issues and making updates to "major" pages yourself. As for biographies, as long as a bio subject is considered notable in our terms, I see no issue with having an article on that person. If you think a subject-specific notability criterion is too loose, then try to have it changed through the normal processes. Giants2008 (Talk) 15:23, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Pop goes the bubble(?)

Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments5 people in discussion

Jimmy,

I know you're interested in Tether (cryptocurrency) and how it affects bitcoin's price. I've been on vacation the last week so I've missed a bit of the news on this. In the meantime, it looks IMHO like bitcoin crashed last night. The word "crash" has been thrown around pretty loosely in the cryptocurrency propaganda press over the last month (bitcoin prices were down about 20% in the month before last night) and the last week (down about 8%), but last night bitcoin prices fell about 6%, down well below 5900 from 6250 10 hours earlier (it's a bit over 5800 now). I haven't seen any news that even attempts to explain this fall. Depending what explanations emerge and market reaction tomorrow when more traders are active, IMHO we could have a real crash coming up. BTW, I'm not giving any investment advice here - just looking at an unusual situation.

First tether - a couple of weeks ago an academic paper [] suggested that half of bitcoin's price rise in late 2017 was traceable to manipulation using tether (as I reported here). Since then there have been no convincing denials. Last week Tether issued a new non-audit audit purporting to show that each tether coin was backed one-for-one by US dollars. The problem is that the non-audit audit was not issued by an auditing firm (which has to follow professional standards known in the US as Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), but by lawyers (who are professional advocates for their clients). The lawyers said they did not follow GAAP, and did not release the memo - Tether released it on their own, posting it on their website, where there is other mumbo-jumbo about "regular professional audits". My conclusion is that tether has found it impossible to find a real auditing firm to report the results that they'd like to see.

Then a top exec of Tether/Bitfinex left the firm(s).

Now what happened last night to bitcoin's price? Without any explanations coming from the press, it's pretty hard to say, but none of the possible explanation I can think of look good for bitcoin.

General background: Bitcoin is now 10 years old and people have made many very bold predictions about what it will do. They've predicted that bitcoin will replace US dollars, euros, etc. in everyday transactions, with high-speed, low-cost, secure transactions. But bitcoin has turned out to be very high cost, low-speed, and insecure. The only thing it is really used for now is speculating on the price of bitcoin, and thefts (euphemistically called "hacks") on or by the exchanges are occurring almost once a week now.

Ultimately regulation has to come about, and this has been happening fairly gradually, in almost every country where bitcoin trades. Regulation has gained momentum since the late December high of just below $20,000 per bitcoin (the price has declined 70% since), especially since the last G-7 meeting (April) where the finance ministers postponed making a statement until late July. Bitcoiners seem dead set against any regulation and haven't put forward any real self-regulation proposals. So the question is now: Can bitcoin survive the regulation that is bound to be coming soon?

Some possible (purely speculative) explanations for last night's fall in price:

there could have been another theft (hack) at/from/by an exchange. This is becoming depressingly regular news.
somebody got arrested or other serious legal action is soon to be announced.
it's just become increasingly obvious (after a price drop of two-thirds) that the price in not going up to 20,000 anytime soon.
there was a purely technical glitch - maybe an exchange just flipped a couple of digits around and scared everybody.
somebody else went on vacation and forgot to let people know who was responsible for jacking up the price over the weekend.

Well, none of this adds up to a really satisfactory explanation. Feel free to suggest your own. We'll see what other explanations come forward and how the market reacts tomorrow. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:57, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

This link suggests a "Japanese FSA crackdown" harmed all the cryptocurrencies. Something about that here. I don't claim to know anything myself on this. Wnt (talk) 16:50, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, this is the old news explanation. The Japanese FSA (regulator) required some basic "new" procedures from Japanese exchanges (something like taking down traders' names, addresses, and banking details before letting them trade - so-called know-your-customer rules or just anti-money-laundering rules), but this was announced Friday morning, so you wouldn't expect it to affect the market Saturday night/Sunday morning. Zero Hedge said this move had "no new news-driven catalyst". The Globe and Mail (Bloomberg) article was 2 days old, so it really doesn't explain last night's move. But perhaps the total effect of wearing investors down just hit a minor, almost invisible last straw, and people cracked. I might just be suffering under a delusion that price movements reflect some rational, information driven decisions by investors.

Looking around for new explanations seems less useful than my speculations above. Forbes comes up with a winner "Bitcoin Is Struggling Because Bitcoin Has Lost Its Way" pretty much the "wearing down" theory. It includes a classic: "Bitcoin has lost its buzz. Can Bitcoin regain its Mojo?" I'm glad I don't have to write this stuff. Fortune is a bit more staid - same basic story, but the cliche is older "Bitcoin Hits New 2018 Low Amid Shaken Investor Confidence"

In any case the latest reported bitcoin price is back up to 6,160, with no rational explanation that I can find. Stating the obvious and quoting JP Morgan(?) "The market will continue to fluctuate." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:17, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Smallbones: news from Friday morning impacting prices on illiquid high-commission cryptocurrencies Sunday morning isn't particularly surprising, when you consider how cascade effects delay from one to the other. Likely there was some confirmatory tidbit that some news player uncovered which caused them to raise the issue more prominently than they otherwise would after a delay.

Also please don't forget to indent your paragraphs evenly. I wasn't sure who I was replying to at first. EllenCT (talk) 17:59, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I've never really figured out how this indentation stuff is supposed to work. Somebody should leave me a link. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:06, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

I insert paragraph-tags "<p>" to indent all to same level, as ":::Text.<p>Paragraph2.<p>Paragraph3". That could also avoid interleaved replies. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:51, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

There is a hardcore group of people who buy and sell bitcoin, who are not going to quit playing this game anytime soon. Each of them has a certain break-even point for the bitcoin exchange rate, above which they can sell for a profit. If the price is way above that value, and is trending downwards, they may sell some of their bitcoins. They'll then wait and see if the price dips below the point where they can buy bitcoin such that their break-even exchange rate will drop. This buying of bitcoins when the price is sufficiently low, causes the price to go up again. Count Iblis (talk) 01:21, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I doubt it is that simple. 1st "breakeven" is a backwards looking concept, a sunk cost. Most folks in finance will recommend that you ignore sunk costs. Large bitcoin traders are probbly looking for ways to get their money out of bitcoins. You really can't buy anything these days with bitcoin and you don't get interest on it - so the question is how can you turn a bitcoin position into dollars. If you had bitcoins worth $1 billion last December (on paper), it's now worth $300 million on paper and you have to be thinking how much you can actually get out. These big bitcoin holders are known as whales. See ‘Bitcoin whales’ control third of market with $37.5bn holdings, Financial Times, June 9, 2018. That's about 1,600 accounts (likely fewer investors) holding on average about $23 million each. earlier article A big concern about whales is if they are manipulating the market. That certainly doesn't attract small investors.

In order to get their money out, whales need speculators to bring dollars, euros, yen, etc. in. This must be getting a lot harder with the advertising bans now in place at Google, Bing, Twitter, Facebook, and other large sites. Probably the best model to look at for their decisions would be "last man out loses" or "rats deserting a sinking ship". I certainly wouldn't bet on bitcoin's price going up. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:49, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

If these whales hold 1/3 of the bitcoins then 2/3 is held by the much lager number of smaller investors. The day to day volatility is caused by the decisions taken by the vast number of these smaller investors. These are ordinary people mainly from South East Asia, Koreans, Japanese etc. who have money to spare to gamble with it on the bitcoin exchanges. They are not in it for long term gains, they just buy when the price drops to sell it later when it goes up. And that can be just a few hours later. The more volatility, the more this game attracts players, and that can lead to a sustained price increase over some time, but eventually people will cash in on their gains and then the cycle starts over again. So, Bitcoin provides for an online gambling/gaming platform, so I don't think the bitcoin price will suddenly drop to an order of magnitude below current levels. Count Iblis (talk) 16:14, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

If anybody is watching this thread, I'd like to explain what happened today. I'd like to, but can't. Nobody is offering any rational explanations - perhaps I'm just looking at the wrong market for that. Roughly a third of what I've looked at says the sky is falling and bitcoin will go to zero. Another third looks at today's price action and says prices could go up. And another third just doesn't make sense to me.

Today prices became pretty volatile, falling and then jumping by a few hundred dollars within a couple of hours, but net the price is a bit up (last price now is a bit over 6200 - pretty much where it started Saturday night). That is different from the last month however. Despite a long downward move, the prices were not very volatile - no big intraday moves up or down. Now we have the prices not going anywhere, but with big intraday moves up and down.

The single piece of information I saw today was on the new issue of $250,000,000 in tether from a non-reliable source. IMHO this reflects a different timing than the price manipulation scheme proposed in Is Bitcoin Really Un-Tethered? but is roughly consistent with it.

I know nobody is paying to read this page because of my crypto commentary, and I'll refrain from any more (until bitcoin hits 5000). Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:06, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Wiki "founders seek novelty and new experiences but then abandon their communities quickly to move on to the next new thing"

Latest comment: 6 years ago13 comments5 people in discussion

Jimbo, would you say that this research is consistent with your own observations of Wikia? EllenCT (talk) 16:24, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Quick reaction to a short paper. It should be noted that Jimbo is not considered for this paper as a founder of the Wikia wikis. Rather it is the users of the Wikia site who found a new Wikia wiki that are considered the founders. It's a new academic concept looking at these founders, the paper is short, and the conclusions aren't extreme. It might lead to something useful to us and others. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:36, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

The closest parallel for us might be people who launch a WikiProject or similar.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:36, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

And the PDF paper covered 1 year, ending in April 2010, despite the claim of "two months" noted in the Abstract and the option to check more years from the revision histories. -Wikid77 (talk) 10:06, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and we do see that kind of abandonment in WikiProjects here. But the overall point is that people are supposed to abandon their work. In the growth heyday we literally asked people to agree that others would revise their work "mercilessly" -- in retrospect I wonder whether that fostered the community attitudes which we still often see as negative aspects of participating.

That same text now says, "You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license." Does that apply to voice assistants? Am I agreeing to a hyperlink or URL which does or does not list my userid? Would just any hyperlink do? EllenCT (talk) 18:04, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Completely off-topic, but does anyone know of a free/ad-based wiki, or similar, that isn't fandom based (nothing against them - I lurk a few!) that would allow for an original research based theoretical framework to be worked on. Sounds woo-woo but really looking for something with academic standards outside of an academic environment but.... discussing original research (No-no here). Doesn't seem to be much. *Sad Face* AnonNep (talk) 18:28, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Jimbo and I made you one and it's real time and I'm in teal (go Sharks!) and it's nothing compared to what I'm going to get Jimbo, Cory, Clay, and/or Larry to do to your bank account. EllenCT (talk) 22:10, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. That is certainly an improvement on me navel gazing. I'm not anti-Jimbo but Doctorow? Ugh. Knew him on pre Twitter/Facebook social media in the 2000s. Just my personal opinion. Ugh. AnonNep (talk) 20:41, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Well you know User:Doctorow is a participant here. What do you think is wrong with him? Some people seem to choose their battles more towards increasing their personal reputations or fortunes from their perspective, missing the longer term and greater fame (and likely concordant fortunes) they would achieve if they tried harder to support the wider community. We can tell people they can't edit their own article, but how do we tell them to get third parties to help them choose their battles? EllenCT (talk) 16:16, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, as you say, he's here & of primary importance is supporting the the wider community, so I'll hold fire on some (very) old issues. I do agree on third parties. There has always been an e-fame issue on Wikipedia whether its peeps with a higher profile, off or on wiki. As to solutions? I would like to think Wikipedia's polices solve everything but I'm also an advocate of expanding the 'office' role. If 'office' can cut through the B/S on potentially defamatory BLP content they should also be empowered to cut through third party 'puff', once reported. Just my two cents... AnonNep (talk) 17:36, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I feel like Larry Lessig or Clay Shirky would be better at getting Wikipedians astonishingly rich better than Jimbo or Cory. However, what would you write if I asked you to write four paragraphs asking the three Copyright Royalty Judges to allocate 10% of the 2016 United States cable television royalties to Wikipedians? EllenCT (talk) 03:36, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Ellen, I would like to ask you to stop hijacking other conversations to talk about this idea of yours. It's a bad idea, it makes no sense, and it's never going to happen, but if you'd like to talk about it then please - do so in an appropriate forum. I suggest that you write up an essay arguing for it, and please be detailed. On the face of it, asking that Wikipedians get royalties from cable television is nonsensical.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:28, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Jimbo, I honestly don't see how you could possibly say that the work of wikipedians hasn't enriched the value of unidirectional media, but I am far more than happy to do as you say. Thanks again. EllenCT (talk) 00:23, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 June 2018

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

From the editor: The Admin Ship is still barely afloat, while a Foundation project risks sinking

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In the media: Much wikilove from the Mayor of London, less from Paekākāriki or a certain candidate for U.S. Congress

Discussion report: Deletion, page moves, and an update to the main page

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* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 01:29, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Proposal for closing Simple English Wikipedia

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

There is currently a discussion about closing the Simple English Wikipedia. I was wondering what your opinion is on this. SemiHypercube (talk) 14:34, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Wait, now Google actually lists pages from Simple WP as search-results, if none exist at enwiki. I think there have been prior proposals to close Simple Wikipedia, but rejected before. We had talked to create a wiki Micropaedia using lede sections, but the 5 lede paragraphs tended to be too limited, because I think people disliked repeating condensed details in that manner (like telling a joke punchline in 20 words, then expecting people to listen to the long-form joke, as seeming unnatural). Many people dislike summarizing a whole page in the lede, where repeated photos or maps (or short tables) seem very awkward, and hence an illustrated, short page in Simple WP became the most workable place to create Micro articles (to avoid the rambling wp:data hoarding found in major WP pages which tend to grow into life-history of topic). Things to ponder. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:46, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Simplewiki statistics articles are consistently better as introductions, which is a serious Enwiki content flaw. EllenCT (talk) 14:28, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

When will someone delete this page?

Latest comment: 6 years ago12 comments5 people in discussion

When will someone delete this page in Cyrillic Игор Јанев, since that person as already under filter restrictions?178.222.75.200 (talk) 00:05, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Try asking at the Russian Wikipedia. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 02:56, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAHZA6SJ_JM EllenCT (talk) 03:37, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I am speaking about this eng. wiki. Here you have admin. locked possibility for creation of in Latin : Игор Јанев.178.222.75.200 (talk) 08:50, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Including Talk Page limited to auto confirmed users.178.222.75.200 (talk) 08:53, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Clean it all if related to user Operahome.178.222.75.200 (talk) 10:25, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Igor Janev spammer again?.

178.222.75.200, please tell us what Wikipedia page you are talking about. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:50, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Ok, its fine with me. No problem.178.222.75.200 (talk) 10:59, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Evasion noted. Is the problem that you are not fluent in English and did not understand the question? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:11, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

I think his issue is with User:Игор Р. Јанев - whose userpage is practically blanked and account locked. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 18:35, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks! Because that page appears to be impersonating a living person, I removed everything the page says about the living person and replaced it with a sock template. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:31, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Complaints about Igor Janev have been spammed here often. I commented on this here. Note that there is a real Igor Janev, known for writing a proposal a few pages long about the Macedonian naming dispute. Whatever the game is here, its ultimate intent would seem to be to harass the real Janev, so be careful here. Wnt (talk) 21:49, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Availability update

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Jimbo I have to work this weekend so everything I told you I would do you have to do. Thanks in advance! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAHXwLRI88Q EllenCT (talk) 17:16, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Hahahaha!! I have to work next weekend so I might be asking the same then

--5 albert square (talk) 19:38, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Happy Independence Day! +

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

File:DECLARATION Bitcoin.ogg

The Declaration Of Bitcoin's Independence read by leaders of the bitcoin movement

I know that some American expats miss the US on July 4 and do things like have picnics with hot dogs (hopefully not bangers), softball games, and maybe even fireworks. Just in case you can't find anything like that, I've included some folks reading a Declaration of Independence (for bitcoin!)

The video contains text read by Roger Ver, Jeff Berwick, Kristov Atlas, Trace Meyer and other leaders of the bitcoin movement reading The Declaration of Bitcoin's Independence. Maybe there are some fireworks as well, the declaration includes the words "Bitcoin is inherently anti-establishment, anti-system, and anti-state. Bitcoin undermines governments and disrupts institutions because bitcoin is fundamentally humanitarian."^[1]

Incidentally, the author of the text, Julia Tourianski, also uploaded the video to YouTube, her personal website and Archive.org. On Archive.org she declared that the video was in the public domain, using the "Public domain mark 1.0". I hadn't seen this mark before and apparently Commons does not accept it, so the video might be deleted there by the end of the week.

Happy 4th. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:22, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

^ Tourianski, Julia. "The Declaration Of Bitcoin's Independence". Archive.org. Retrieved 1 July 2018.

Time is running out to defend user rights online.

Latest comment: 6 years ago22 comments8 people in discussion

https://medium.com/freely-sharing-the-sum-of-all-knowledge/time-is-running-out-to-defend-user-rights-online-196272d7d2d7

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#I would like everyone to read this

Previous discussion: User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 229#I'm interested in bringing this to wide attention in the community

--Guy Macon (talk) 08:17, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

The EU proposal isn't all that much different from the Content ID system used at YouTube. The problem is that EU law doesn't define fair use as clearly as US law does in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and some countries such as Germany do not allow fair use at all. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is here on the German language version of Wikipedia. Note the complete lack of the cover art and audio clips to keep meine Damen und Herren happy. People should be wary of this type of restrictive copyright law being imposed throughout Europe.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:12, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

There is a huge difference between one website choosing to filter content and a law forcing all websites to do so. --Guy Macon (talk) 10:23, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. established that copyright holders must consider fair use in good faith before issuing a takedown notice for content posted on the Internet. The real worry with EU law is copyright holders saying no and refusing to allow fair use. Sites like YouTube could not be hosted in Europe if this happened.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:49, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

Guy Macon, have a listen to this prophesy and history. Take a step back. Think Uber. Whoever has the most money and best lawyers is going to win with any of these societal changes. Then think of people/consumers as voluntary slaves...think of the old "company stores" system; slaves to whatever rules and controls the slave masters want to install. Now, I think, slave masters want as much control over every aspect of their slaves' lives as possible, so they want to know all they can about their slaves, especially what their slaves are thinking about, in order to A: see and prevent any sort of slave rebellion and B: keep the slaves working and consuming at optimum capacity. The trend is obvious and the solution is becoming less achievable with every passing day. Our western world populations sense what's happening and are using the only power they have, their votes, to express, with Brexit and so-called "populism", their desperation is at the the point of grasping at straws.....but what they must do, and are unwilling to do, in order to change the trend, is put as much personal time into political activity as theydo into their gadgets and spectator sports. Sheep get fleeced. Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:34, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Nonetheless, if a good leader were to emerge, someone with some street cred like what Jimbo has, who could galvanize internet communities into instruments of political action (or at this point in time, political defence/resistance), then maybe the simple power of numbers could provide some protection and "fight back" energy. However, I do not see anybody like that anywhere. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:37, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo, it.wiki went on a blackout; it certainly would be really effective if other versions of WP (and sister Projects) did the same. What's your view? Greetings :-) --g (talk) 23:59, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I would strongly support that, but time is very very short. I'm spending time today talking to MEPs.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:12, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

g is correct.... Blackouts is a great approach, the sooner the better and the longer the better...I would even suggest indefinite blackouts. Nocturnalnow (talk) 12:57, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

it's starting to have some effects, indeed, two Italian MEPs (of different parties) have already declared they will vote NO :-) --g (talk) 12:59, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I hope it will have an impact. I fear that because we didn't have time to get all languages organized, we are not having the impact that we could. I hope that more languages will be able to join the Italians and Latvians tomorrow, as I don't know the state of play in all of them. If we don't win the vote on Thursday, this means that there will be no further chance to amend the law, and there will be a simple "yes or no" vote in Parliament in (most likely) September. I fear that the only way to stop it then will be to coordinate a massive blackout across all the European languages. But maybe the banner in English is enough. :(

I'm personally still reaching out to as many MEPs as I can. Many agree with us and fear flack from their party whips, but will courageously vote 'no' anyway. A few are so blinded by the music industry nonsense that they are doing something to damage YouTube, failing to realize that YouTube already has copyright filters... it's really just damaging the rest of the ecosystem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:02, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Content filters at YouTube? Who knew! Wikipedia External linking policy seems to pay no heed whatsoever to that mechanism? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:11, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I think you're making a joke here, but I don't get it. You can read about YouTube's Content ID program here and here. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:17, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Alas no. Don't worry, I've read at length already. I'm just suggesting that YouTube filters are irrelevant to Wikipedia insofar as every editor must assume all YouTube videos are in breach of copyright unless there are very clear and unambiguous visible markers that show otherwise. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:24, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, all the fuss is about implementing a sort of DRM worm on Youtube and force Google and FB to finally pay for snippets. Publishers would even agree to exclude WP, but in a totally insufficient way. They think the amendment is enough. And it isn't. Since today there's a hell on Twitter, they worried a lot and I'm repeatedly asked by them why only in Italy we are protesting, and I'm explaining that other language versions have Communities in more than one continent, usually European users are a minority in them. So, in case someone's reading that can do anything, please put a banner at least... :-) --g (talk) 17:02, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey Jimbo. I thought, was sure, you've had all the plans to do it already since at least June 20, instead of waiting to almost literally last minute. I'm so disappointed. Now don't wait anymore and go and blackout everything now. (As for how someone else said of "indefinite", if it passes then maybe even keep Wikipedia down, actually I think just all kinds of websites should go down and stay down.) ~~Also it's not just Article 13, Article 11 is also absolutely ridiculous nonsense, I don't care if you maybe think you can pay the link tax for all the links here, it should also be protested.~~ (I don't know where I got this one, sorry for any confusion.) Now seriously just get it done. Peace out. SNAAAAKE!! (talk) 16:41, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

I have been campaigning for this for some time, and I accept your criticism that I should have campaigned harder. But do keep in mind that such decisions aren't up to me, nor up to the Wikimedia Foundation, by our longstanding and healthy traditions. A great strength of the Wikipedia community is that we are thoughtful and deliberative. The weakness is that we are unable to act quickly. If we lose this vote this week (we may or may not!) then we will have to really go ballistic to try to defeat it in September. But let's keep pushing this week as a win is still in sight.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

If we lose this vote (and maybe if we win it -- remember all the other times the copyright lobby kept putting nearly identical proposals to a vote, hoping that the opposition will get tired) I have asked Cory Doctorow to try to get the Electronic Frontier Foundation to understand that we need more time than most websites and to choose a blackout date sooner rather than later. Not that I am assuming that we will have a blackout, but I do want us to have time to discuss joining one.

During the SOPA Blackout it was rumored that one of the most effective blackouts was I Can Has Cheezburger?. Supposedly, politicians' wives and children pressured them after being told that the politicians were the reason why there were no lolcats that day. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

The Economist reporting Italy blackout; Spanish also "down"?

Congratulations g,

From today's "The world in brief" section of The Economist's daily publication (The Economist Expresso):

"Wikipedia blocked access to its Italian site in protest against looming changes to European copyright laws that the e-encyclopedia says will curtail internet freedom. A draft EU directive, due to be voted on this week, would extend publishers’ right to demand copyright fees on even short extracts of reproduced material and require platforms to pay for linking to news." Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:15, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Also, Spanish down? Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

AFAIK, at the moment pl, es, lv and Estonian are down --g (talk) 13:29, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Victory, for the time being

So the vote went the way we wanted for now BBC News, but will return in September. Nthep (talk) 10:57, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

About that banner...

Latest comment: 6 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion

On 3 July 2018 at 04:05 (UTC) the Wikimedia Foundation placed a banner on the English Wikipedia to run until 4 July 2018 23:59.[19] The banner is displayed to readers in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cypress, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxebourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The banner reads

"To all our readers in [name of country], we need your help. On 5 July 2018, the European Parliament will vote on a new copyright directive. If approved, these changes threaten to disrupt the open Internet that Wikipedia is a part of. You have time to act. Join the discussion. Thank you." with links to "Contact your MEP" and "Read about it on Wikipedia".[20]

The banner should be extended a day to run until 5 July 2018 23:59 so that while they are voting they can read it, show it to other MEPs, etc. It can then be manually removed when we get word that the voting is done.

@Doc James: @Jimbo Wales: --Guy Macon (talk) 21:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

That would be a good idea, it seems to be off already in Austria etc. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with the extension. Also, I think it would be fair to semi-protect the article. It's way, way too vulnerable to single-purpose accounts; reasonable editing and the maintenance of NPOV can be done by established users. XOR'easter (talk) 01:20, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

For example. XOR'easter (talk) 01:56, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Anyone else we can ask? It is now 3 1/2 hours past the expiration. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:35, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Although I'm generally opposed to this bannering, I've extended it for 1 day in my capacity as a meta: admin due to the request here; any meta admin or WMF staff should feel free to revert without consultation if they feel I'm out of order. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:41, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: FYI. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:02, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: Note that on account of victory (for now) the banners should all be ended at this point. Either that or they should cheer on victory and remind folks this whole thing comes back again on September 10-13 (according to [21]), but ... probably this has been enough for now. ;) Wnt (talk) 11:28, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

@Wnt: Seddon_(WMF) has already disabled the banner. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:09, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Narrow copyright rejection shows value of discussion

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

We are continually seeing public votes run nearly 51%-49% as evidence of how close a vote-count can be, and the value of discussions. This time (on 5 July 2018), the EU copyright mandate was rejected (delayed?) by a vote of ~50.72% in 627 votes, as 318 to 278 (~44.33%), with 31 abstained. Of course those who abstained also helped to lower the rejection percentage to barely 50.72%, but in cases where a decision needs 50%+1 vote tally, the value of discussing a topic and changing a few percent of minds can be seen. Also, it indicates the need for high-majority votes to change policies, as perhaps requiring a large vote of 55%-45% to overturn long-term rules, to avoid near-random votes as steering the future. I am thankful that WP handles many issues by wider consensus, although it does seem page-deletions have been decided by count 50%+1 can delete a page in use for years. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:18, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Congratulations and thanks, to Jimbo, especially, and all participants

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

worth repeating "Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales told the BBC he hoped that the music industry could find a way to compromise before the September debate. "Don't think about filtering everything everyone uploads to the internet. That's a pipe dream but you are never going to get that," he said. Instead, he added, they should look to renegotiating deals with platforms such as YouTube to get "fairer remuneration"." Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. I had fun. I think this makes it significantly less likely that we will need to take action in September, because the politicians will listen to us in advance, knowing that we can deliver the one thing lobbyists fear the most: voters.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:28, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Good on you, Jimbo! EllenCT (talk) 19:02, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

	The Admin's Barnstar
	Hi Jimmy ! I really Love Wikipedia!! Jena (talk) 23:04, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia and foreign interference

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Wikimedia, yourself included, did a great job with the meta:EU policy/2018 European Parliament vote banners, which were credited with having an effect on the vote. That said, multiple Wikimedia chapters and multiple language projects were involved, as well as many of us from outside the EU. I bring this up because Australia recently passed yet another unreasonable spy-friendly anti-speech law, this one prohibiting "foreign interference", which seems to be defined as a list of dozens of new 'crimes' vaguely defined and punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Sources [22][23] vary on how extreme this is and to what degree private individuals and nonprofits might be protected or explicitly targeted (e.g. Wikileaks). But it sounds ominous that they invented this as a per-incident thing rather than to define the offense as being an "unregistered foreign agent" -- itself a broad and abusable sort of prosecution tool (ask Paul Manafort) but one at least seeming to be targeted at people making a living at what they do. Has WMF analyzed how this latest assault on freedom affects Wikipedians in Australia, and whether WMF or its components will be considered "extremist" foreign organizations on account of their free-knowledge principles? Wnt (talk) 22:13, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Your best bet is to try to get the Electronic Frontier Foundation to analyze the law, then notify us. Wikipedia doesn't do Original research like this well. We are good at following sources, not at being a source. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:55, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Error on Special:Search

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

When I put in a page name on the special page for search it says the following: "An error has occurred while searching: Search is currently too busy. Please try again later." It never happened before in my experience here. Any explanation? Felicia (talk) 01:58, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Could it be -- and I am going out on a limb here -- that search was too busy? I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:39, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Hi Felicia. I'm not aware of any ongoing issues with search. It could be just a temporary hiccup. If you (or others reading) notice ongoing problems, please let us know over on WP:VPT on in Phabricator. Not a lot of WMF folks frequent Jimbo's talk page, but we do try and keep up with the various Village Pumps. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 16:15, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

We're Number Ten!

Latest comment: 6 years ago8 comments7 people in discussion

Two places behind XNXX, and we don't have an article on it. (A small draft, though) People have always come to the internet for knowledge ... mostly carnal knowledge. ;) Wnt (talk) 18:18, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

On Wikipedia too, I'm sure.

—Paleo Neonate – 18:32, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

"One of the most visited websites in the world" does apparently not "credibly indicate the importance or significance of the subject" according to Mr. Haworth. I'm not surprised. Regards So Why 17:02, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Top factual content site in the world. It's a big responsibility. Guy (Help!) 21:37, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

It's an even bigger responsibility when you consider the other top sites classified as "reference". Many of those I really don't see as "factual content", others like Archive.org we work with closely, and some are actually part of the WMF. A selected list:

June 01, 2018

1 wikipedia.org

2 quora.com

4 answers.yahoo.com

5 archive.org

7 wikihow.com

8 2gis.ru

9 wikimedia.org

11 wordreference.com

14 thesaurus.com

15 wiktionary.org

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:10, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

SimilarWeb has Wikipedia at #10 but Alexa has us at #5. I wonder what the difference in counting is between the two. Related, there are some known improvements being worked on regarding the technical aspects of the sites to help in this area. CKoerner (WMF) (talk) 16:49, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

One difference is that Alexa appears to count www.example.en and www.example.fr and separate websites while counting en.example.org and fr.example.org as the same website. So the fact that Google chose the URL www.google.fr while Wikipedia chose the URL fr.wikipedia.org makes a difference to Alexa.

Moratorium?

Latest comment: 6 years ago35 comments9 people in discussion

I would like to propose a six-month moratorium on bitcoin-related posts on Jimbo's talk page. Who is with me? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:37, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Hey Guy, do you know about FoldingCoin? As in, like this for that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0esAwZoFxcw P.S. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA12wOtr-0k EllenCT (talk) 23:16, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Drat! Normally, I scan posts before reading them and skip anything that certain people write, but that blue YouTube link right before your blue signature fooled me this time. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 04:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Guy, I asked you about whether you like protein folding instead of hash collisions as a basis for a cryptocurrency, and you reply that you are sad your self-censorship didn't prevent you from seeing the question? Is that your idea of meaningful discourse? EllenCT (talk) 22:52, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

[26], [27], [28], [29], [30] EllenCT (talk) 07:27, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Okay no bitcoin, but what about blockchains? Everything is better with blockchains! PackMecEng (talk) 00:46, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Blockchains are really tasty if you sauté them in butter and don't overcook them. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: thanks for the feedback. I understand that some folks, myself included, can get carried away with their latest projects, so I'd enjoy hearing from others on this. This one, however, has gotten under my skin. It looks like, to all intents, the bitcoin folks have created a monster bubble (there are lots of references for this) and a lot of people are being taken advantage of, (as in losing their life savings or similar). And since bitcoin has been closed off of other forms of advertising, Wikipedia is an important forum for them to get their message across. And besides, Jimmy has expressed some interest in the topic - even going out on a limb in the press to say a few similar things. I'll tend to follow his advice on the moritorium. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:18, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Sound reasonable. I just wish that the message would go out somewhere else. What say you, Jimbo? (...he said, in the hope that Jimbo will be too busy talking to EU politicians to respond until after the big vote...) I do have a question for you, Smallbones; Honest question, not trying to be confrontational: there are other people who feel that Wikipedia is an important forum to get their message across. Abortion, Gun control. Various religions. Trump. Hillary. Climate change. Splitting California into three states -- the list goes on and on. Should we also welcome them to get their message across on Jimbo's talk page, or should the page be reserved for things that are at least somewhat related to Wikipedia and other WMF projects? --Guy Macon (talk) 04:53, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: Honest answer - I do see lots of "big issues" discussed on this page, e.g. Trump, Hillary, climate change (but not splitting California into three states). Most even have some relation to Wikipedia. Folks do use this page as a forum to gain public attention on certain issues - I've even seen people campaign *against* donating to Wikipedia on this page.

My main interests in posting here however are to communicate with Jimmy (unusual here I know), deal with the Wikipedia issue of crypto ads in our articles (important because crypto ads are cut off in many other places), and sometimes even just blowing off steam - NPOV editing of articles can be extremely frustrating at times when clearly biased or conflicted editors are working against you. My apologies for blowing off steam. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:17, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Please don't apologize. I rather like your posts. They are always interesting and thought provoking. And of course we have an article on the proposed split -- Yes California -- and about previous proposals; Partition and secession in California. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 14:44, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Oops. confused two different things. I don't think we have an article on this: Radical plan to split California into three states earns spot on November ballot. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

In his defense, I don't think he's trying to promote a viewpoint. He's just being friendly because he knows I have an interest in the area. I'm happy to ask that we not talk bitcoin here, unless there is some Wikipedia angle, though, because although I do find bitcoin and crypto to be an interesting topic, I follow the news reasonably well on my own. For Wikipedians with an interest, I do recommend following David Gerard on twitter or facebook, as he's wickedly funny and very insightful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:50, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:17, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Nope, censorship is a slippery slope and there is too much of it everywhere already, and increasing exponentially, imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:47, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Any undue messaging by stakeholders here will be ignored or removed anyway, I think. Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:52, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Please see above. It's not about censorship IMHO. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:17, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Exactly so. Censorship is when someone stops you from talking or writing about a subject. It isn't about someone deciding not to allow you to place your message on their talk page, and it certainly isn't about someone allowing you to place your message on their talk page followed by someone questioning that decision. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:48, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

) I should have known better than use the "C" word :), I agree, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with a User, in this case Jimbo, choosing for him/herself not to allow a topic to be mentioned on their talk page ( that's what we are discussing, I think,) and there is nothing wrong with you, Guy Macon, questioning a User's decision in that regard, but we must differentiate between messaging, discussion, and a post being allowed by a User. The decision rests with the User, I'd say, about something as innocuous, imo, as bitcoin. I just do not like the whole concept of suggesting to someone that they ban an innocuous topic on an absolute basis...if you had questioned the decision that would have been different, imo, from suggesting a decision .. maybe I am being too paranoid about this subject, I just hate "C" and I tend to see it places where maybe it is not. Apologies if that's the case here. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:45, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

On this US Independence Day let us reflect that our forefathers died so we could have the freedom to discuss bitcoin. Gamaliel (talk) 16:54, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Reality check: No offence but I'm pretty sure the Brits have as much freedom to discuss bitcoin as Americans. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:35, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

I will just leave this here:[31] [32] --Guy Macon (talk) 22:50, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Damn, Guy, that's the best entertainment I've seen in a helluva long time :). Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:16, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

You might also like Game of Thrones: Libertarian Edition, Star Trek: The Libertarian Edition, and Star Wars Libertarian Special. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:29, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

[33]. Should we take solace that Trump gives Socialists and Libertarians ample common ground? EllenCT (talk) 15:50, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

This is the hardest to even think about, much less accept. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:47, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: In that video Bush is, as always, misleading. In order to cut the ten hijacked planes down to four, Osama bin Laden said the U.S. had to pull its troops out of the Land Of The Two Holy Mosques, so the U.S. pulled its troops out of Saudi Arabia, though not quite as quick as they repatriated the bin Laden relatives. In order to make this not look like an abject surrender, the U.S. had to have a reason for pulling them out, which was that the threat from Iraq they had been defending against was neutralized. The rest follows. Wnt (talk) 22:23, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Wnt, that is too complicated and conspiratorial for me. In fact, I would have preferred that General Wesley Clark had not gotten into the "oil" explanation/speculation. His first-hand eye witness whistle blowing in the video is important enough, in and of itself, for me. If anybody, even a USA President, plans and implements a scheme that includes the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and over 4,000 American troops, especially under false pretenses, I personally don't give a shit what their motives were, I'd just like to see them on trial for their crimes. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:05, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

While Luke Skywalker reads Friedman, we can take comfort in this note from bitcoin. Apparently "cryptojacking" (hacking people's computers to make bitcoins) is replacing "ransomware" (the main reason why ordinary people might decide they need bitcoins). More supply, less demand ... where is your hype now? And who wouldn't feel safer knowing their financial transactions are certified by a global network of computer viruses? ;) Wnt (talk) 00:59, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Client-side cryptocurrency mining is the new abundance. Anyone know what Guy might want me to do to make up for whatever is keeping him from weighing in on how much time FoldingCoin would save vaccine developers if Bitcoin miners mined it instead? EllenCT (talk) 00:01, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Much as adblock is a thing, so is minerBlock. SQL ^{Query me!} 00:22, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not saying that it is or is not a viable business model as Moore's Law marches forward, but presumably a whitelist is easy enough. What about my question; how much time do you think vaccine development time would be cut by if cryptocurrency miners stopped using hash collisions and started doing Folding@Home? EllenCT (talk) 01:17, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Short answer: the bitcoin miners in China (Inner Mongolia) who now dominate the "mining industry" based on the cheap electricity they have there from coal get big coins from doing it. They would not switch to folding proteins just for kicks. The folks who would likely be interested in using their computing power to help fold proteins would likely not be affected unless they get their electricity from Inner Mongolia. More likely, the Chinese would just stop burning so much coal (which they may do anyway - they've banned bitcoin trading), and we could all breathe easier. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

You guys are doing a terrible job of having a moratorium on bitcoin discussions. It's been 6 days since I said I wouldn't start another discussion on bitcoin for 6 months and still you keep going. For every day this discussion continues, I'm reducing my promised moratorium by 1 month! If this thread is here next Tuesday, I may well post a 10,000 word analysis of the entire cryptocurrency industry! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:14, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Read Streisand Effect, while making sure not to think of any purple elephants, or else you have to start over. ;) Wnt (talk) 00:03, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Question about WikipediA logo

Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments7 people in discussion

Hi Jimbo! I was told to ask this question to you directly since you might have the finer details: I've been searching for information about the typography/casing of Wikipedia's written logo (rather than the puzzle globe), particularly with respect to the design choice to capitalize the last letter, A. In other words, why "WIKIPEDIA" and not "Wikipedia"? Is this practice used elsewhere or does it have a history? Any info on the design philosophy as explained by the logo designer?

Thanks in advance for any info. Academc (talk) 21:26, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

@Academc: It might aid your searches to use wordmark rather than logo (the WP logo is the globe). My guess is that "WikipediA" simply looks more balanced, especially when placed under the logo. nagualdesign 12:45, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

@Academc: That is a good question. I used to think that "WikipediA" is a CamelCase way of writing "Wikipedia" and was meant to remind us of CamelCase times. Back way before I started editing, the software that powered Wikipedia, UseModWiki, required CamelCase for links (nowadays we use square brackets). It was replaced by MediaWiki in 2002, see History of Wikipedia for some information and further links. However, the original CamelCase page title is WikiPedia... What speaks for my theory is that the original discussion leading to the wordmark was in 2001, so in CamelCase times. Maybe @The Cunctator:, who originally designed this wordmark, can enlighten us? —Kusma (t·c) 19:13, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I have very little idea.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:19, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

It's "WIKIPEDIA" and not "WikipediA" (the font makes a difference). So it doesn't look at all like CamelCase to the reader; it looks like all capitals with the "W" and the "A" bigger to fit round the globe. At least, that's the way I see it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 12:23, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
I have never noticed this before. Huh.....--Mark Miller (talk) 13:01, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it was just to balance. --The Cunctator (talk) 18:07, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Navboxes now format over 150x faster

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Finally, some more good news. The wp:navbox pages have been reformatting over 150x faster, for at least a month now, allowing an updated navbox to appear across 250 pages within a half-hour. Formerly (last year), a change to a navbox, used in perhaps only 50 pages, might take over 3 days to appear updated in all 50 pages. In fact, this week, a navbox used in over 700 pages had reformatted even faster, at over 100 pages-per-minute, or about 617x faster. I wanted to mention this rapid speed increase last month, but decided to wait another month to benchmark with several other active navboxes. For our wp:wikignomes who fix errors in templates, this means an error category, formerly obscured for days by hundreds of navbox pages, could be cleared within a half-hour, to focus on the other pages not related to the broken navbox. This speed can be a huge benefit to reducing frustration, when they fix template errors in hundreds of pages per week. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Congrats from a grateful gnome! 👏👏👏

— JFG ^talk 14:21, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Relations between Commons and en-Wiki

Latest comment: 6 years ago23 comments11 people in discussion

I don't post here very often, but I would like to point to a discussion at Commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard#What appears to be an inappropriate indef block of User:Rowan Forest and following. That's because the discussion has brought to the fore some significant and troubling underlying tensions between Commons and en-Wiki, a sort of clash of cultures between the communities of two Wikimedia projects. Obviously, anyone who wants to can take a look, but I'm specifically drawing this to Jimbo's attention because, after all, you have a particular stake in how the various projects work together. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:08, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't think this is appropriate. Firstly, the tension is the totally obvious one that members of one project had been invited to vote on the de-adminship on another project. This is never acceptable and has been pointed out, I don't think any en:wp mob going over to demote a German Wikipedia admin would be appreciated. So I don't think there is anything specific about Commons-WP relations to learn here. The specific problem with that discussion on de-admin was that Commons procedures were not followed, and there was no "discussion leading to consensus" but an immediate poll started by a user who had just been personally insulted. I'm sure Wikipedia has its messes too. AFAIK Jimbo does not waste any of his time thinking about Commons whatsoever, and the last discussion I saw here (quite some time ago) merely involved Jimbo saying something generally negative about Commons. If the project only gets mentioned when there's a spot of trouble, then negative views form. Why not instead enjoy Picture of the Year 2017 and appreciate some of the great images uploaded and promoted last year. Or be inspired by the latest Photo Challenge to go out and take a great photo yourself. -- Colin°^Talk 18:24, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm trying to be helpful. If you don't like it, you know where to pursue dispute resolution. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:49, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

By the way, editors who look over there will see Colin referring to en-Wiki editors as "racist". --Tryptofish (talk) 18:53, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

WTF, Tryptofish, I appreciate you've held a grudge against me for some months now, but this is childish in the extreme. If you have a problem with what I said on Commons, then discuss that on Commons. Jimbo's Wikipedia talk page is not the place. -- Colin°^Talk 19:45, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

If this thread was initially about the meta issue of inter-project relations, this sub-thread is unhelpful in moving back from the macro to the micro, dumping fuel on this particular fire that hasn't died down yet. Consider excising/hatting it (this comment included) if you want to have a discussion that isn't just about the most recent problems. $0.02. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:11, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I guarantee that Jimbo Has spent some time thinking about Commons. I'll leave it to him to characterize whether that time was spent wastefully.--S Philbrick (Talk) 18:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Vacuous negativity. Not needed by any project. -- Colin°^Talk 19:45, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Colin, I have no vested interest in this discussion (I have never used commons, have no intention of doing so, and don't much care about the administrative procedures there), but I have to say that your contributions here are probably counter-productive, in that they increase the likelihood of en.wiki users viewing the atmosphere at commons as aggressive and in need of changes. Just by 2 cents. --2601:142:3:F83A:392F:8D06:F31D:42C5 (talk) 20:26, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

IMO this is a conversation worth having, but not now. Disputes between enwiki and Commons have happened before, but they're not all that common and rarely so active or heated as this one. There was a lot of nastiness, and it's only now calming down. This would be better to discuss when tempers aren't already running hot. FWIW. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:53, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Agree completely. Tryptofish could greatly improve en-WP/Commons relations by closing this discussion he started, and going off to edit an article. -- Colin°^Talk 21:09, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

Tryptofish's post is only showing concern for the relations between the projects. I have no idea why this has blown up into seeming anything more than that. I hope that a little time will help calm things down.–CaroleHenson (talk) 21:44, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

I've no problem if Jimmy or any other is willing to cooperate with Commons. I remember when I met him along with Patricio Lorente, María Sefidari and Katherine Maher in Asturias while Wikipedia received the Princess of Asturias Awards for International Cooperation. We even had a nice chat about Commons as me from Commons. Here in this case, we already addressed the initial issue that caused this lapse and collected information from the participants. There was a bug in the "Copyvio" template and is fixed now. The block of Rowan Forest was unfortunate but had overtuned within one hour by another admin-cum-checkuser. Today I noticed that it was a new account of BatteryIncluded which is not mentioned in Commons. So we can't fully blame Yann for treating it a sock. We noticed that language is a stopping block of smooth communications in Commons considering the diversity of the participants in that project. CaroleHenson already offered to help and already started working on it. As Colin mentioned above a notice in a high traffic page like this while a poll is going on has some negative impacts. As many commented already, that poll is alredy corrupted and so we can't consider it as a good sample now. I hope a crat will dismiss it soon. Other than that, I welcome everybody here to participate in any other part of the discussions. J e e 03:20, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Agree completely with Jee. And the "dumping fuel on this particular fire" comment about Tryptofish's post. This whole discussion should be closed and we can discuss Commons and en-Wiki when users bearing-grudges are not trying to use Talk Jimbo to score points. -- Colin°^Talk 06:32, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, you seem to have no qualms with crossing over to en:wp and telling us what to do. Lepricavark (talk) 22:22, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Just one comment from me on the origin of this dispute. It all started when a Commons admin incorrectly blocked an editor after a single edit (mistaking them for a sock of someone else). That can happen, and it's usually easily rectified. But this admin also disabled talk page and email access, and deleted the editor's user and talk pages. That totally closed off all avenues of appeal, and the editor came over to en.wiki to seek help. It's that level of abuse of admin power that has angered so many at en.wiki who saw it, and it's raised questions of admin accountability and desysop policy at Commons. The level of personal attacks allowed in the subsequent discussion without any admin intervention has also aggravated the situation. For me it's most certainly not an "en.wiki vs Commons" thing. No, admin abuse and personal attacks are bad whatever project they're on, and any participant should be able to join in attempts to stop them, whatever project they're mostly active on. Tribal isolationism is a very bad thing, and is the very opposite of the Wikimedia accountability ideal. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:24, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

PS: Someone above mentioned German Wikipedia. If we had a discussion on an admin abuse problem at en.wiki, especially if there was debate on how en.wiki processes might be inadequate, I'd welcome input from de.wiki participants with their different experiences of how to address such issues. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:56, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Without rehashing the whole discussion, this is not an accurate or fair description. For example sockpuppet accounts are routinely dealt with as above. See for example this sockpuppet of INC, or this sockpuppet of INC. So calling such action an "abuse of admin power" is unfair, unless you think every single admin on commons is routinely abusing their power when dealing with sockpuppets. If such accounts should be handled differently, then open a discussion on the matter. The block of Rowan lasted for precisely 1 hour and 28 minutes and nagualdesign for 5 hours 18 minutes. The blocking admin apologised for the misunderstanding when he next logged on, and thanked the other admins for unblocking. And there the matter should have been considered closed. The en-wiki people were not just "angry" but outraged, with "fucking lunatic" being a summary of the tone and language being used. Inviting such an infuriated mob to come over vote on a poll for de-adminship was a huge mistake and I sincerely hope never ever happens again. -- Colin°^Talk 08:42, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You're mixing up several things. Yann blocked Rowan Forest mistakenly consider a s a sock of someone else as they come to Nagauldesign's talk page with their first edit. Yann may wondered how they find that discussion if a newbie. In fact, User:BatteryIncluded is not a new user in Commons; but those accounts not linked in Commons. Yann indef Rowan Forest, including talk page and email access. Then Yann deleted Nagauldesign's talk; not of Rowan Forest. Nobody knows why Yann deleted that talk; but it looks like pushing a wrong button before going to sleep. All these actions are mistakes and so over-tuned by others. Yann apologised when he come back next day. Yann didn't make any personal attacks. How he is responsible for other's comments. (I agree that one user having previous conflicts with Yann asked a question that Yann ignored. I've no wonder about it. It was they who started that de sysop proposal without waiting for Yann or any other admins.) J e e 08:47, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Ah, I misunderstood which user and talk pages were deleted, so you have my apologies for that - but it was just as wrong to delete Nagauldesign's talk page as any other. And I do think the immediate denial of talk page and email access of a suspected sock after just one edit constitutes abuse, especially as Commons has no equivalent of UTRS for a last-resort appeal. And if that's done regularly, then I think there is something seriously wrong with Commons processes - and Commons should not be afraid for such things to be exposed to public scrutiny. Everyone, suspected socks included, should have some means of appeal, at least in the first instance. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:16, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes; I too not agree with blocking a user as suspected sock without checkuser evidence. Denial of talk page and email access is also not good. Only recently Commons added a provision to handle oversight bans. I had asked that time to add a provision to handle checkuser blocks too. J e e 11:21, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Comment: Hello, the fact that editors from here or from elsewhere are mobilizing to help one of their unfairly blocked in Wikimedia Commons, is quite honourable and even potentially useful for repairing an error. The search for punishment, revenge or anything else done in a war spirit is counterproductive for all projects, and furthermore it's completely acting out of the realities of the admininship of Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons defends itself against this, rightly so, and hopefully will continue to do so. Note that this is just a comment, I don't expect any answer neither this page is in my watchlist. Best regards, Christian Ferrer (talk) 18:34, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
Ugh. I've contributed to Commons, usually after finding books long off copyright in the Internet Archive with informative images. I've been around here for a while, enough to have some exposure to the issues regarding a certain user, & why they can't post here, but always emerge in Commons dramas. Maybe back-off & STFU, unless you have constructive edits, could be good advice all round? AnonNep (talk) 19:05, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Brrr

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I have an account, but why can’t I still edit protected articles?ColorTheoryRGB (talk) 20:39, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

See WP:CONFIRM. Looie496 (talk) 21:39, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Always look on the bright side of life...

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Thank you for not being Elon Musk. AnonNep (talk) 17:13, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Heh. Yeah. I was reflecting on his latest outburst on twitter and the thought crossed my mind: "Well, I suppose he can never run for President now." And then I realized, that's the world I thought I lived in, not the world that I do live in.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:03, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Department of Energy specialists left plutonium in their car. In the morning, it was gone.

Latest comment: 6 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/article214731995.html --Guy Macon (talk) 03:38, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Please discuss under deletion review wp:DRV re "wp:Plutonium for Deletion". -Wikid77 (talk) 04:42, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Maybe it was the Illudium Phosdex thieves. Jonathunder (talk) 17:30, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

"To ensure they got the right items, the specialists from Idaho brought radiation detectors and small samples of dangerous materials to calibrate them: specifically, a plastic-covered disk of plutonium, a material that can be used to fuel nuclear weapons, and another of cesium, a highly radioactive isotope that could potentially be used in a so-called 'dirty' radioactive bomb."

I probably don't understand the science but why did they need "small samples of dangerous materials to calibrate" the "radiation detectors"? Couldn't they just calibrate the radiation detectors before they left on their journey? Bus stop (talk) 01:09, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Two plausible theories: [1] the detectors need to be calibrated before each use. I have used test gear like that. [2] They were idiots who didn't know what they were doing. Theory #2 is consistent with leaving plutonium in the car. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:55, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Guy Macon. I raised this question here. Bus stop (talk) 07:13, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Tempest in a teapot. If these were NIST gamma radiation standards, we're talking a 1" diameter solid plastic disk containing a quantity of radioisotope almost too small to be seen by the naked eye. Gonna need more than a couple of those to poison somebody, or thousands for a dirty bomb. You can buy variants containing cesium, polonium, cobalt, etc, from Bob Lazar's website right now with no permits or permissions required. He claims "they can be discarded with normal trash if they are no longer needed." ʍ w 10:27, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Lazar doesn't sell plutonium test disks -- perhaps because of his conviction for introducing banned hazardous substances into interstate commerce?

These are old, but I don't think the basic rules for plutonium test disks have changed:

See supplement B on page 16 of US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION LICENSE APPLICATION FOR SPECIAL NUCLEAR MATERIAL FOR PLUTONIUM-239 AS ALPHA CALIBRATION SOURCE COMPONENTS OF THE AN/UDM-6 RADIAC CALIBRATOR SET

Also see potential loss of AN-UDM-6 radiac calibrator set. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:22, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

This is just a educated guess (if you read the article you will see that the government is trying really hard to stop us from finding out any details about this incident), but if you are going somewhere where you will be picking up some radioactive material, you really need two ranges of detection: [A] a high range to tell you if this is a situation where you need to evacuate the entire neighborhood and send in a robot with a lead box, and [B] a really sensitive detector that will tell you if you are leaving a tiny bit behind. [A] and [B] may be ranges on the same instrument or they may be separate instruments. Calibration of [B] really doesn't matter. The only answers you care about are "none detected at the most sensitive range" and "hey, I am getting a trace reading from behind this filing cabinet!" Calibration of [A] is fairly important, but verification that [A] is working and not broken is absolutely critical. Critical as in "a bunch of people could die if the high range of this meter was broken and didn't warn us of the danger." If it were me, I would bring along calibration sources suitable for both ranges and test the meter(s) before and after visiting the site. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:01, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

CRISPR Cas9 editing sequence

Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments3 people in discussion

	Congratulations! You've been awarded your own theoretical CRISPR Cas9 human germline genome editing sequence
	Hey Jimbo, everyone knows how much you helped editing, so I'm awarding you one of my coveted theoretical CRISPR human germline genome edits which might exist some day if you play your cards right. This one cures either ebola or Zika, not sure which. EllenCT (talk) 01:42, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Would the peanut gallery please stop asking about the identity of the coveters. Thank you. EllenCT (talk) 09:27, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Also, to everyone who topic banned me from economics, you didn't think I'd get into bio, did you? Ha! EllenCT (talk) 09:33, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

This is a fascinating paper. Brand new procedures like toehold switch RNA sensors and NASBA are worked brilliantly together here, even if Figure 1 looks a bit too much like an ad. But everything in the paper, and from a few control-Fs even in the latest patent, seems to be about finding multiple copies of RNA in something like serum rather than cellular RNA characterization. The extension is obvious, but it may take considerable digging to see how much technical improvement is required to get there. Meanwhile, the patent goes to an even crazier level of technology to do "protein fingerprinting" with molecular crawlers and motors.

One way or another, the gold standard here for the genetics troll is to present the rugby coach in Lesotho or the boxing official in Thailand with a little scrap of paper which, in combination with a drop of clotted blood, can tell him the apolipoprotein E status of the players. If a player tests for E2 or E3, he might be careless with the helmet; if it's E4, he can pack up his stuff and go home ... for good. Doing the test opens a new age of genetic discrimination, while not doing it means that players suffer permanent brain damage and an early death per Concussion (2015 film). (That said, no doubt the patent police would tell the genetic troll what he does is wrong, unless he were the first to do it; an official who refuses to use the test in one case might commit negligence and lose all he has, but a patent owner who neglects to license a disruptive new technology is, of course, blameless; this is an application of the "kill them all and you're a god" principle) Meanwhile, if you're interested in biology, those are some great redlinks to get started on, and you'll have no trouble finding more in the paper, whose PDF is freely downloadable. Wnt (talk) 14:49, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm looking at the general field in relation to the facinating (especially in light of the CRISPR developments) Small interfering RNA article, which the thumbnail is from. EllenCT (talk) 18:16, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

@Wnt: Is siRNA a better vector than e.g. [34]? EllenCT (talk) 01:08, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I'd say siRNA isn't really a vector (molecular biology), since it is directly acted on by a cell with a biological effect; that said, I'd have said the same about shRNA before I found out people were putting the toehold RNA sequences into it - it still needs a lot of other sequence around it, but now I suppose it's at least part of a vector. P.S. make sure to put a fresh four tildes on a new (or fixed) ping or it doesn't work. Wnt (talk) 11:17, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

@Wnt: How do you feel about [35] as described in [36]? And what if I mark these fresh tildes minor (which I am prohibited by nomic rules from so I won't)? EllenCT (talk) 19:31, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikigene, the free genome that anyone can edit? Jonathunder (talk) 03:31, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Technically, the genome was the first wiki, but it was limited to edits by nature. Not the magazine, the universe. EllenCT (talk) 19:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Legal department

Latest comment: 6 years ago11 comments7 people in discussion

"A failing of the corporate mindset is that once lawyers are consulted, their advice is doomed to be followed. PR, your marketing people and your customers could be screaming in your face that what you are going to do is the stupidest thing in the history of free enterprise, a disaster on an untellable scale. But you've paid for the legal advice so by goodness you're gonna follow it!"

Source: Mandalay Bay hotel owner sues more than 1000 victims of the Vegas gunman

--Guy Macon (talk) 23:01, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the hotel has a point here. If you follow links from the story, you'll see that they were already sued by over 450 victims [37], so this isn't out of the blue. The idea of the victims' lawsuit is that a hotel doesn't have the right to check in a guest without searching his belongings, and that "Do Not Disturb" on your room door means "hotel employees should go in and search your stuff". The federal basis the hotel is claiming was a 9/11/1 era law meant to protect businesses from being wiped out financially by terrorists -- provided they go through the hoops to get a DHS certified contractor to give them what apparently is not very useful advice (I'm shocked). I mean yeah, you'd love to see wounded people get financial help, the company is a casino, therefore creeps by definition, why not break the piggy bank?, and there is real appeal to that. I'm just afraid the next time they would use the precedent to bankrupt a university if a student starts shooting into a concert or protest from a high dorm window. We can't have everybody be individually responsible for what everyone else does. What we can have is universal health and disability coverage so that people are financially protected from any kind of horrible bad luck without invoking unreasonable legal theories. Wnt (talk) 03:30, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

That would be fine if they were responding to those who are suing them. But suing every victim? But all of this ignores the larger point: that management lets the house lawyers give orders which they believe must be obeyed. That's something that the WMF should think about long and hard. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:32, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

At first sight, MGM's actions look rude and stupid. However, there is a risk that suing the hotel would attempt to place the blame on the hotel staff rather than on Stephen Paddock, where it clearly belongs. It's a bit like suing the owners of the Texas School Book Depository for failing to prevent the assassination of President Kennedy. Unless clear evidence of negligence by the Mandalay Bay hotel emerges, they are not directly responsible for the shooting.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:04, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

This reminds me in some ways of the story about Mark Zuckerberg suing small landowners in Hawaii. Without expressing any opinion on the underlying dispute in either case, it's a curious feature of how court cases work that what could be viewed as an application to a court to get a definitive ruling about a dispute or potential dispute between a single party and hundreds or thousands of other parties, which doesn't sound like a bad thing, is written up as a lawsuit against all those parties.

As to Guy's point, obviously it's a good idea for all organizations to not blindly follow the lead of house lawyers, but "That's something that the WMF should think about long and hard" seems quite pointy. I'm unaware of the WMF filing any lawsuits against innocent people. Or, in fact, of unwisely following the advice of lawyers resulting in any kind of problem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:02, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

To be clear, I was talking about a potential future problem that is worth thinking about now. I see nothing indicating that the WMF legal team has been giving bad advice or that WMF management is blindly following whatever the house lawyers say. It's just something that a lot of organizations do, and it may come up sometime in the future. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:29, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Ok, super! Sorry for misreading your intent!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:12, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Jimbo's point about how court cases give out wrong impressions through legal terminology is critically important, imo, and our western media rarely takes the time to educate us about the misleading terminology. For example, I just discovered last week that a Grand Jury "indictment" only needs 51% of the jury (12 out of 23) to agree that there is a valid reason to lay a charge. To hear USA media talking about the indictments of Russians recently you would think an indictment is close to a conviction when it is not anywhere even close to proof of a crime. Fortunately we have Wikipedia, but still, I think our media could do a lot better job of including some explanatory details in their reporting. Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:59, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

From our article Grand juries in the United States: "Grand jury proceedings are secret. No judge is present; the proceedings are led by a prosecutor;[15] and the defendant has no right to present his case or (in many instances) to be informed of the proceedings at all. While court reporters usually transcribe the proceedings, the records are sealed." --Guy Macon (talk) 21:36, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

See also Ham sandwich#Cultural impact: "a grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted." Federal prosecutors do have a pretty high conviction rate (93% for US Attorneys in 2010 per [38]) but past performance is no guarantee of future success and innocent until proven guilty. 24.151.50.175 (talk) 16:09, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Also, when you click past "BoingBoing", which is normally rather clickbaity, to the actual newspaper article, what you find out is that while MGM technically has to file as a "suit" against them, they're not asking for any money from the victims if they win, only for a declaratory judgment. If MGM wins, it will not result in the victims owing MGM any money, nor will it even mean the victims can't sue. They're just asking for a finding as regards jurisdiction between federal and state court and a finding on a federal law that may provide MGM immunity at the federal level. What they're doing is really more equivalent to filing a motion than anything; it's only because of odd quirks in the law that it winds up being filed as a "lawsuit against the victims". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:09, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Question.

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion

I read about WikiTribune, would that be a reliable source when it’s finished? Because Wikipedia cannot be a source for itself, but WikiTribune is from the Wikimedia Foundation, so I’m a little confused. ~SML • TP 19:05, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

WikiTribune is not affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:11, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

And generally, Jimbo does not make policy by fiat. This is a decision the community would need to make, probably via WP:RSN, which exists for exactly this purpose. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:22, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the information. ~SML • TP 19:53, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

My goal would be for WikiTribune to be a reliable source, but there are multiple things to consider, and as has been pointed out, that wouldn't be for me to decide at all.

Our goal is to have similar (actually, much better) processes to traditional media in terms of quality control for things marked as "published", as well as a much stronger corrections policy than others.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:01, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

No more open door policy?

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

(Note: the following text is about something that's not really that big a deal.) I remember the message at the top of this page used to say Jimbo has an open-door policy. But that seems to have been removed at some point. Why? Presumably, this being Jimbo's own talk page, he would've been the one who removed it. But did he change his policy on allowing, presumably, anyone to "walk through" the "open door" and comment/ask whatever they want here? IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 03:34, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

It took a little while digging through the history of this page, but I found the answer: on August 29, 2014, Nikkimaria removed that text from the notice, saying that it was her text (implying she had added it herself previously, and then changed her mind about whether it should be there). IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 05:00, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Yep. That checks out. SQL ^{Query me!} 03:08, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Door's open, though. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:03, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

U.S. news media becoming more opinionated

Latest comment: 6 years ago27 comments14 people in discussion

Is it just me who thinks that MSM, and I mean news media, in the USA is devoting more and more time to expressing the opinions of their commentators and reporters than they do to objective reporting of facts and events? I realize its always been this way, somewhat, but is it not getting much worse? Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:42, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: I would think so. My feeling is that thesis, antithesis, synthesis should be used prescriptively to generate ideological progress, so fragmentation into opinion-based niche markets would be expected to cause a lack of new ideas. Our articles on journalistic objectivity, advocacy journalism, echo chamber (media) and filter bubble don't seem to give useful statistics. I'd suggest asking WP:Reference desk/Humanities; that's the best place to get a better answer. Wnt (talk) 20:05, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

The US media has fundamentally changed in this respect, often affecting reliability. The Wikipedia criteria for reliable sources has become outdated, basically calling for the trappings of old media, and saying that if a source has those, it is automatically considered to be "reliable". The metrics of objectivity and expertise with respect to the content which cited it needs to get infused into policies. But we have pretty much lost the ability to evolve on policies and core guidelines. North8000 (talk) 20:23, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but is this a complaint "about the weather report because it reports rain, rain, rain, when it's raining, raining, raining,"[39] or is it something else? These are unusual times.-- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 20:39, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

A fundamental underlying question is whether media can be objective, given that reporters have biases. For example, a news report about medical marijuana in the 1980s would have sounded very different from one today, based mostly on changes of average viewpoint. I would think an article can be supported by reliable sources with biases, so long as many editors are free to include the RSes they want; it's when someone puts himself in charge of banishing the ones he doesn't like that bias is brutally established. This is the same disease as when a news outlet demands the same bias from all its reporters. We could wish for better sources to start with, but an encyclopedia cannot be better than the literature it summarizes. There actually are some news outlets like The Intercept where you can see articles by people who are, for example, very strongly for or against the notion that Russia interfered in the elections. That said, Wikipedia and news outlets still have the problem that the adherents of disproved points of view will keep haranguing on anyway, even when they know they're lying. But this was the same problem that the "objective" reporters would have had with that medical marijuana article; it's just that it would be at a lower level of hierarchy. And while demanding equality among the editors on Wikipedia seems like the purest possible defense, what do we do when the GRU signs up hundreds of thousands of people? We're trying to do philosopher's stone level alchemy here, and sometimes we just come up with stink bomb. Designing a free and fair forum is the central problem of democracy. Wnt (talk) 21:23, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

You certainly see, hear, and read a lot more opinion in the news than you used to in US media. Some of this is clearly a reaction to that guy in the White House. But it started a long time before he started in politics. (Was that when he started attacking the president by saying that the pres was not born in the US - with 0 facts behind his claim?) The establishment of Fox News is probably the biggest moment in the growth of opinion replacing fact, but it was growing a long time before that. I'm reminded that when Murdock (later owner of Fox) took over the Chicago-Sun Times in 1984 and Mike Royko left saying "No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in a Murdoch paper", and "His goal is not quality journalism. His goal is vast power for Rupert Murdoch, political power".

But most of the change in the long term seems to go back and forth. US newspapers in the 1930s were generally associated with specific political parties. I've just run into the concept of audience sovereignty (something like the right to boo - see [40] and [41]) that certainly effected news in the past as well as now.

Finally, we should look at changes in technology that lead to changes in (or disequilibrium in) news and entertainment. Important tech changes might be the boom in cable TV about 1980 (CNN established), and the web and Web 2.0, maybe even mobile telephones. An interesting comparison might be with the changes in popular music styles associated with the changes in music distribution technology (transistor radios and car radios, LPs, FM broadcasting, CDs, MTV, MP3s, etc.) Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:16, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

All those are important factors, but there are many excellent journalists around. Quality reporting and news journalism is still produced by MSM, and it's our job to use them to document the "sum total of human knowledge" (Jimbo). That includes facts, attributed opinions, "alternative facts" (=falsehoods from this administration, since they patented that idea), lies, quackery, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, etc. Yes, unfortunately the lousy "knowledge" exists, so we must also document it, as long as it's notable and found in RS, and we give it the weight it deserves according to how RS treat it. We just have to present it and attribute it.

Our job is basically unchanged from the beginning of this project, it's just a different encyclopedia than any other, and that's how it should be. We are documenting history, so let's do it faithfully. History will judge us harshly if our descendants can't read Wikipedia and figure out how they got into the mess they're in because we failed to document the opinions and controversies which caused things to go to hell. Facts are facts, but opinions are just as important to document.

RS are still the basis for all we do, so let's not allow any slippery slope degradation of our editorial standards toward acceptance of lousy sources, just because a rich and powerful autocrat has the power and bully pulpit to make them more noticeable than they deserve. They're still crap sources, and editors who can't vet sources and know the difference are incompetent to edit controversial subjects. If they aren't causing disruption, then great, but if they do, topic ban them and let them perform gnomish good deeds on other articles. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 00:36, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

The fundamental mistake, I believe, the original sin, if you will, is the notion of "reliable sources." The most esteemed sources get it wrong sometimes; the publications with the very worst reputation for carefulness sometimes are a treasure trove of factual information. WP was build around a constructed system that attempted to make editorial judgment unnecessary. A person could write about nuclear physics one day, carpentry the next, Albanian history the third — without knowledge or critical thinking or source assessment, just by following the simple road map of so-called reliable sources. In practice we have long since come to implicitly understand that editorial judgment is paramount, yet we still cling to this archaic and at least partially discredited notion that some sources are "reliable" and others verboten on a per se basis. Part of this has to do with the ongoing struggle over content in controversial topics (the notion of RS serves the defense of House POV), part of it has to do with inertia. I'm not sure whether the status quo is changeable or how — although RS worship does seem to me to be attenuating as serious journalism attenuates. Carrite (talk) 16:33, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

It's getting worse. EllenCT (talk) 04:41, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

This is caused by the free media. Free media sounds good, but note that it is a solution to a problem that isn't all that relevant in Western democracies. The downsides of a totally free media that is not funded in any way by the government, is that it is a commercial enterprise that has to find its place in the economy. It has to provide for a service for which there is a demand for. The news media will then end up competing indirectly with the entertainment industry. While people do not want the news to be real news, the news cannot be too boring or else people will switch channels. This leads to a competition between different news media, the news media that presents the news in the most entertaining way, will prevail.

Why did we read that Saddam had WMD? Because stories about an evil dictator intent on using WMD are going to sell a lot better than some boring analysis about the real situation in Iraq. Why is there a controversy about climate change? Because the science itself sells, but denying the science sells too, so you're going to get two opposite stories in the media, when only one side is telling a reliable news story. Count Iblis (talk) 12:54, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

It is weird to read statements like this that leave out people with power deciding to use their power to do horrible things. Like, the media can be pretty bad, but you need Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, etc. to make the decision that they will do a terrible thing just because they can in order for the media to matter at all. We have climate denial and (and denial of ecological damage more broadly, and gun--death denial, and ...) because people with the power to do things decide they'd rather do lie in order to do terrible things than not. The role of the media is after the fact. --JBL (talk) 15:49, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Of course the digital era has lowered the bar to entry thus putting a lot more junk out there. But that's a different topic, let's not avoid the main one. US media, including the ones that have the trappings that give them wp:RS status has become more biased and thus less reliable. It's a byproduct of the US slipping into a mode where the widepread priority has become scoring in the battle between two "teams", and the media has become a participant. A partial answer is pretty simple.....allow a sidebar criteria of "Knowledge and objectivity with respect to the text which cited it" to carry some weight, including in policies and guidelines. This is raising the bar a bit in certain circumstances.North8000 (talk) 14:14, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Warning - Meta: I'd find the opening argument here to be a lot more convincing if the article found at this URL had been published after the opening argument was posted here. This formulation makes the opening post seem deceptive (or manipulative) and needlessly inflammatory, as it's lacking important information which might have been had in advance. The current structure implies that either you haven't done your due diligence (you should have found that article before starting this topic here), and/or that this section was started only to generate a particular, emotional reaction from whomever's around. Though I'm sure all this was done with only the best of intentions, as was and is my post here. If you really did find that article only after the fact, then you may want to watch out for confirmation bias; it's one hell of a drug (Edit: one to which I'm not immune). ʍ w 00:13, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

It is my opinion that the media has become more biased and opinionated because the customer base has become more biased and opinionated, and much less able to account for it. This issue neither started in nor is contained within the United States. Actually, IMO, some of the US MSM has finally heard the wake-up call sounded by certain recent events, and are becoming the wiser for it - but they will be slow to reflect this. The early signs are some historically overtly biased (yet sometimes reliable) sources softening their tone on recent topics in recent weeks. ʍ w 00:13, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Id love to see a serious study of cause-and-effect. I'm not persuaded that the media is simply following. I suspect it is more complicated--S Philbrick (Talk) 00:40, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

I think that the cause is sort of sidebar issue. Probably the core question is how Wikipedia can evolve to adapt to it. North8000 (talk) 01:33, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

From a historical perspective, I doubt things are getting worse (Remember the Maine?), and advise editors to remember that newspapers are generally primary sources, published very near the time an event occurs. From a practical standpoint, unless you're trying to source extremely political statements (is Donald Trump the worst president ever, or the best president ever? "Sources" can be found for both), it's not terribly concerning as an editor. power~enwiki (π, ν) 01:41, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Normally, it's to source biased stastements, but not super-obvious like that. Also, and possibly more importantly, the bias show up as what gets covered and what doesn't. And coverage in sources has other effects besides sourcing...for example wp:weight and wp:npov. North8000 (talk) 02:38, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

At least as great a problem is that perceptions of bias have changed radically. If reporting is factually accurate in the traditional sense of the words "factual" and "accurate," but presents information that the reader would rather not see, nowadays it's likely to be called biased or fake. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:30, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

SBHB, how true! Objective facts are now called "fake news":

"FOX News and the planetary system of right-wing news sites that would orbit it and, later, Breitbart, were particularly adept at weaponizing such arguments and exploiting the increasingly partisan fervor animating the Republican base: They accused the media establishment of “liberal bias,” and substituted their own right-wing views as “fair and balanced” – a redefinition of terms that was a harbinger of Trump’s hijacking of “fake news” to refer not to alt-right conspiracy theories and Russian troll posts, but to real news that he perceived as inconvenient or a threat to himself."^[1]

This is our new world, and our job as Wikipedians and citizens is to not surrender, but insist that RS are our standard. The MSM is not fake news. It is not the "enemy of the people".^[2] If we cave, Wikipedia will be whitewashed, undermined, and fail to be an objective documentation of history and knowledge. -- BullRangifer (talk) PingMe 04:47, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Sources
^ Woods, Sean (June 20, 2018). "Michiko Kakutani on Her Essential New Book 'The Death of Truth'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 23, 2018. ^ Pak, Nataly; Seyler, Matt (July 19, 2018). "Trump derides news media as 'enemy of the people' over Putin summit coverage". ABC News. Retrieved July 23, 2018.

Some of the U.S. mainstream media is fake news (or fake-ish) along with their "happy-talk" opinions, as people worry to refer to FOX News as "Faux news" or other news groups repeat gossip and "let the reader decide". Some users above have warned how "news sells" and how it can be sold more, aka "yellow journalism" (sensationalism in news reports). In the U.S. it certainly appears how when a news group has a choice between "new" or "true" then they seem to run with "new" and claim they only repeat the news. If the news repeats "crooked Hillary" 999x, then there are many people who would just believe it, because the news "forgot" to report she was found to be honest and truthful after years of investigation. The news groups had the optional opinion to refute the lie of "crooked" but they opined not to refute, about 999x times. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:05, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

IMO the more common forms of fake news are distortion and deception including by omission and spin rather than the patently false outrageous stuff. And the average person is more likely to get misled by the former. North8000 (talk) 12:47, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

The idea that news vendors "have to write what sells" implies that they are able to sell it. If this introduces distortion, it is because "intellectual property" is fundamentally a slave system where the right of people to copy out what they read, or perhaps even to relate it in any terms, is turned into a market good controlled by a master. The facility with which news articles are copied cuts into this system, which has the ironic effect of making commercial compromises ever more frenetic as the outlets feel they have to prioritize present revenue over long-term reputation. However, there is potentially a light at the end of this tunnel, namely, one where sites more similar to Wikipedia step in - where news becomes a province of academics, activists, and people genuinely interested who have some other source of revenue than the news they sell. That is, if ever more intrusive proposals like the one Wikipedia recently went dark about in Europe can be defeated. Wnt (talk) 13:04, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

A large part of the problem is that the US now has de facto state media engaging in base propaganda techniques such as calling their competition and narratives they wish to suppress "fake news" -- which is pretty much worse than what RT does in terms of nurturing an informed electorate, more at the 1990s Pravda level of accuracy. EllenCT (talk) 15:46, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Right on, a guy at the gym here in Canada told me he used to keep up with USA news via the MSM networks and cable news but now can only handle about 5 mins. of that, and is switching all of his USA news viewing over to PBS and BBC, which ironically are a type of public if not state media, I think. Our CBC has even been caught up in repeating some of the biased and fake crap spouted on USA cable networks. Its like a cancer. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:10, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Meanwhile we also have relatively accurate media such as CNN, Wikipedia, Reuters, Financial Times, Evening Standard, Japanese state media, Die Welt, Huffpo, Think Progress, et al., all standing in stark contrast to the nacent attempts at US state media. EllenCT (talk) 21:17, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Who has a good history of what the Voice of America leadership thought over the decades of Rupert Murdoch? I know someone who worked for them. News Corp. is anti-journalism, generally. EllenCT (talk) 21:37, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

For 2 years no article on The Siberian Candidate

Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments6 people in discussion

I noticed the term can be sourced back to July 2016, but no one created "The Siberian Candidate" for over 2 years, and it seems there are enough sources now. Of course, coverage does not mean collusion, but it looked like a curious omission for the topic. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:37, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

If you think there are enough sources for an article, nothing is stopping you from creating it. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:56, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

The phrase is a take-off on "The Manchurian Candidate", which is near Siberia; otherwise there's not a greatly obvious reason to blame that particular part of Russia. It was popularized in this editorial by Paul Krugman. It seems like a scrounge to say that this one editorial has the notability for a standalone article, though there are a fair number of iffy sources about it. There is a section in that article about his opinions of Trump, but it seems to have been sanitized down to two sentences with a single random cite to a primary editorial. Oddly, if there is a bias to this reduction it is mostly anti-Trump in that the previous text talked about failed predictions and Trump giving him a "Fake News Award". In any case, it should be obvious that anything Trump says about him is worth reporting in this section, as is anything he says about Trump; a good neutral article would have at least a full list of his NYT editorials with headlines, which would (at minimum) provide a redirect target for Siberian Candidate. There is no writer so prolific that any one more NYT editorial under his byline shouldn't get mentioned in a proper biography. Wnt (talk) 13:17, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

#redirect [[Donald Trump]] ? Guy (Help!) 13:38, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

"there's not a greatly obvious reason to blame that particular part of Russia" Of course there is! "Russian" only has two syllables, while "Siberian" has four (the same number as "Manchurian"). IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 14:16, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

As Gilbert and Sullivan might have said: Now that our eyes are open to a candidate Siberian, We shall go at once to Jimbo and make him an oration. Jonathunder (talk) 21:59, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Some Colleges Cautiously Embrace Wikipedia

Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

From The Chronicle of Higher Education. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:28, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

You know it, Guy. Did they get that paywall from the IEEE? EllenCT (talk) 21:29, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, I guess we knew WP would be better accepted in academia eventually, and if everyone had acted sooner to support Jimbo in the trusted revisions (re wp:pending changes), then wider acceptance could have come some years ago. I think the main problem has been frequent edits to hot-topic pages which became a nightmare of "pending wp:edit-conflicts" (which of course would abate if conflicts had been auto-merged by weave merge back those years ago). Be sure to remind every professor about the trusted revisions now in enwiki, and how German Wikipedia has been restricting similar updates for years now. (Also, remind them how Swedish Wikipedia had restricted admins to 1-year-term renewal since 2006.) There are many ways to avoid user-slanting of WP articles or reckless admins driving experts away. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:38, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Alas, the above suggests Yet Another "Solution" to edit conflicts that violates the CAP theorem.

It is impossible for a Wikipedia page to simultaneously provide more than two out of the following three guarantees:

Consistency: Every page read either retrieves the most recent version or displays an error response.

Availability: Every page read retrieves a page (no guarantee that the page is the most recent), not an error response.

Partition tolerance: The encyclopedia continues to operate despite an arbitrary amount of data between editors and the encyclopedia being dropped or delayed by the Internet.

Nothing on the Internet is safe from failure, so network partitioning has to be tolerated. If we all gathered in one room where Wikipedia was displayed on a single screen and nowhere else (no partitioning) we could guarantee both consistency or availability, but not on the Internet.

When choosing consistency over availability, the encyclopedia returns an error if a particular Wikipedia page cannot be guaranteed to be up to date. This is what we all know of as an edit conflict message. (Of course we have a page on edit conflicts...)

When choosing availability over consistency, the system will always return a Wikipedia page, even if it cannot guarantee that it is the most recent page.

We can and do reduce the number of edit conflicts by allowing someone to edit just one section while at the same time another editor edits a different section. If you do this you will notice that you can only see the section that you edited -- you don't know if the other sections are being edited. Or they can edit the entire Wikipedia page while at the same time another editor edits a different page. Again each editor only sees the page he is editing and doesn't see any edits made to other pages.

A weave merge is an attempt to apply the above scheme at the level of a single "line" (Sentence? Paragraph? Take your pick.) Just as the CAP theorem applies to a section using our present scheme, it would apply to a "line" (whatever we define a line as) if we used a merge sort. Not very practical in an environment where editors remove something from one part of the page and insert it elsewhere on the page, often with minor changes.

That being said, there are some kinds of edit conflicts that a weave merge handles better than what we do now. One good example is talk pages. If we are both editing a large section of comments and I edit or add a comment near the top while you edit or add a comment near the bottom, a weave sort would avoid us seeing an edit conflict message. It would have to be smart, though, and not allow simultaneous editing of two comments close to each other in the same thread. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:48, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Russians accused of stoking Macedonia naming controversy

Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments3 people in discussion

This NYT opinion piece comments that the Greek government expelled/denied entry to four Russian diplomats over their efforts to "stoke" the Macedonia naming dispute, commenting "It is easy to see how Russia, which is opposed to Macedonia joining NATO, could be tempted to exploit this volatile mix to encourage hard-liners on both sides. Macedonia’s prime minister, Zoran Zaev, claimed in an interview with BuzzFeed News that Greek businessmen “sympathetic to the Russian cause” paid large sums of money to foes of the deal in his country to commit acts of violence before a referendum on the agreement is held."

As this very page has seen a very large number of threads about Igor Janev (allegedly by sockpuppets of globally locked User:Operahome; see User talk:Jimbo Wales/Unprotected for one I provided some background on) I have to be curious if they've had a link with Russian efforts. It must take a truly awe-inspiring group of trolls to change a nation's entire destiny for three decades over such a silly dispute, and it must also take a lot of work all over the world. I admire their talent, but I wish they would use their intellect to develop a decent liberal and civil libertarian philosophy and promote such fundamental principles for universal benefit. Wnt (talk) 12:41, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Critical thinking/Thought experiment/Brainstorming Reality Check. Why have the words "North Atlantic.." remained in clear opposition to reality? How could 9/11 be considered an "armed attack" re: Article 5. Does that mean any terrorists with box cutters, who have a leader living in Hong Kong, could hijack an Armenian plane or bus and crash it into an Armenian building and thereby trigger a NATO 17 year war response against China???? Well, my answer to both questions is 2 other questions, "Do people who are brainwashed realize they are brainwashed? and "Does perpetuation of seemingly harmless false terminology, used by respected authorities, condition people under those authorities to accept other more nefarious and deadly false terminology, statements, and assertions? Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:57, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

I feel I should provide some background to provide some context to my comment. The first Russian "shock" I felt was when I was 11 years old, in 1957, grade 6 in middle Georgia ( 100% racially segregated, btw ), and having an interest in science, I had excitedly drawn some crude sketches of the Sputnik satellite which I had seen in the newspaper. I had them on top of my notebook to show to my buddies at school. I noticed that my teacher, Mrs. Cheeves seemed extra serious while we pledged allegiance to the flag. Right after we sat down, she told us that a terrible thing had happened and that now the Russians could drop bombs on our heads from their new weapon, Sputnik. I remember distinctly sliding my sketches back out of sight and scared to death that someone would see it and tell everybody I was a Russian lover or something like that. Pretty soon about half the yards in my neighbourhood were being torn up by "Fall-Out Shelter" companies, digging big grave-like holes at a frantic pace. That was the first of many Russian shocks, but around 1990, I thought they would stop, But I was wrong. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:34, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

The fear wasn't altogether unjustified. Bear in mind that the only reason why you got that warning was because Sergei Korolev slyly proposed a project for the International Geophysical Year. Before that he had been thrown in gulag, lost his teeth to scurvy, treated like garbage, never allowed to speak of the injustice ... then they put him to work designing the systems to launch a surprise ballistic nuclear attack on the U.S. But with a single act of sublime treason, he completely revealed his country's capabilities to the world, preventing a surprise annihilation that otherwise would have been feasible -- and all the brutal bureaucrats had to stand there and honor him for it!

But I don't mean to say the Russians are all bad or NATO all good; only that for us the annoying obsession with Janev finally might seem to have a plausible explanation. Meanwhile, the Russian trolls degrading the politics of several countries could also commit acts of sublime treason -- just as Nelson Mandela did when he invited Peter Duesberg to spread his nonsense at a conference, after the patent lords of the west denied his dying people the right to make medicines to save themselves -- just as could many in the American armed forces and their various allies in, say, Saudi Arabia and al-Qaida who assist in wars such as in Yemen. Wnt (talk) 22:55, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Wnt, reading your posts is like listening to Jill Stein complete a booklet of Mad Libs after downing 5 shots of tequila. Please don't ever change. :) Also, it wasn't Mandela who invited Duesberg and the AIDS denialists to South Africa; it was Thabo Mbeki. MastCell ^Talk 02:31, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I did get off my own topic ... Mbeki started out under Mandela, with all this coming to a head right before he took power; my impression was that Mbeki appeared to believe the denialism, while Mandela knew better. Something can't be a treason if you don't know it. The history of HIV/AIDS denialism in South Africa is ugly, but bear in mind that before 2000 - the year Mbeki took power and declared antiretrovirals to be a "poison" - only a few thousand people in all Africa were allowed to receive the drugs. [42] This is despite the fact that we were reading articles from 1980 on where they actually had pictures of a box of nucleotide and/or nucleoside analogs and would say "the cure is in here" - finding azidothymidine was not a matter of inspiration, just having some guy run the tests. And then the way to "reward that initiative" was to decree the drugs would not be allowed for Africans to make or afford! Wnt (talk) 13:25, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Just as 2 examples of how racially segregated Georgia was even in the 60s, once me and my pals were watching a MoTown Revue show in the segregated auditorium, whites in the balcony and blacks on the main floor...these shows always were jammed with blacks and just a few whites, maybe 20, in the balcony, and I was lit up on booze, as usual, and we saw a black guy we knew, downstairs, "Jughead", Jughead, who was a carhop at the local drive in, so I went down to say hello and maybe get a swig of the deadly moonshine he always had on him...well, this was around the time there was some kind of race riots somewhere, so I guess the police, who were always at the concerts, were on edge and about 10 of them came running out and arrested me right when I started chatting with Jughead and hauled me off for a night in jail. The charge was laid the next day "Inciting a riot"...I had to wash police cars for about a month. 2nd. example, in my neighborhood everybody had a black maid and the deal was, they would make their own way to work in the A.M. but someone in the white family would drive them home so they'd have time to cook for their own families. The other deal was, the maids had to sit in the back seat of the car, just like the back of the bus. Well, that always seemed especially stupid to me because I felt like a chauffer, then 1 year when I was already in University I came home for a school break and my mother had a young black maid about the same age as me and I was supposed to drive her home, so when she started to get in the back seat I realize how crazy that was so I asked her to just get in the front seat. So she looked at me like I was the bravest and smartest white man she ever met, and got in the front seat. When I got back home my mother ( who was a very common sense oriented and piano teaching woman ) was just hanging up the phone and started laughing and laughing and couldn't stop....finally. She said "I got 4 phone calls from people telling me you were driving around town on a date with a "negro" woman ( that was the more polite word back then ). So, my mom didn't even need to ask me why I did it, cause she knew that I had some common sense too. I can almost remember that girl/maid's name, I wish I could. She was smiling from ear to ear when she got out of the car. I've told these events to very few people cause people up here in Canada just can not relate, but likely some of you guys can. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:26, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Instead of creating organizations to improve news accuracy, how about removing them?

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Jimbo please bear with me on this one a second and read [43], then subject says it all. Please share your thoughts on the question. EllenCT (talk) 21:13, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

An unethical issue

Latest comment: 6 years ago17 comments10 people in discussion

Hello, Mr. Wales. First of all I thank you for your visionary attitude towards creating Wikipédia. Now, as a professor and student (actually on Doctors'degree course), I have always praised Wikipedia on account of its openess to information, which is important, when facing desinformation, to construct equanimous society. I represente an Institution here in Brazil, religious and humanitarian one, called OICD - ORDEM INICIÁTICA DO CRUZEIRO DIVINO. I am not used to these new technologies, so I suffered for hours traying to organize a page about it, which I have done, with true images and information. Very, but very, very unfortunatelly, some editors (Edmond Dantés, D.S.) have deleted it imediately and left no chance for dialogue. I got overwhelmed. That is surprisingly sad. At first, they referred to it as it where was no legitimacy, then argued that there were no "independent sources about it". Well, I replied and send them a source of our GOVERNMENT, OFFICIALLY recogninz ORDEM INICIÁTICA DO CRUZEIRO DIVINO on account of its college, the very first of the kind, on AFRO-BRAZILIAN THEOLOGY, called FTU. FTU is an entity related and dependant on OICD - ORDEM INICIÁTICA DO CRUZEIRO DIVINO, as well as other entities, there are agencies of some newspapers, as well as articles of important periodics mentioning it. I've sent the links. Nevertheless, I tried to ask them to restore my page, and my requestes were, ar first, deleted WITHOUTH EVEN SOMEONE SAYING IF IT WAS DENIED OR APPROVED, JUST DELETED. Then, after trying again, It was denied with no apparent criteria. I argued also that there are pages on Wikipedia about other religious institutions, as well as their ministry, some of them without direct social projects. OICD has social projects, thousands of people are related to it, OICD has a offical website and is behind a publishing house (Arché), with books on Afro-brazilian religions written by very important scholars. I can not understand why such a treatment has been given to us, as it seems religious prejudice. We are trying to give information, regarding quality. Untill now I am waiting for at least some dialogue and studying to act judicially. Well, I am just writing in order to point to such a problem. Thanks. --Rodrigo Garcia Manoel (talk) 17:48, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Which account did you use for this and on which Wikipedia? Only there's nothing showing under your deleted contributions that I can find and I cannot see that page has been created on the English Wikipedia.--5 albert square (talk) 18:04, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps this page on the Portuguese Wikipedia? Jonathunder (talk) 18:33, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I have just created it again... Waiting for some eager editors to delete it again, for AGAIN, there is a request for deleting everything. Okay, let's suppose I did somethint wrong, a comma or something about formatting, but is it really necessary to delete everything? Is there space for dialogue, for educating instead of punishing? Link to the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodrigo Garcia Manoel (talk • contribs) 19:15, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I don't think Jimmy Wales, or indeed anyone here, has any influence at all (in a Administrative or oversight capacity) on what happens at Portuguese Wikipeda. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:19, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, asking Jimbo (or anyone else for that matter) to comment on an issue related to a non-English language Wikipedia article runs into problems with the language barrier and not enough knowledge of the background to the dispute. This page says of the Ordem Iniciática do Cruzeiro Divino "We defend racial and religious unity. We promote and teach tolerance to all cults and creeds, for we believe in a common principle that encourages all." I'm nowhere near qualified enough to say whether this meets WP:GNG for a Portuguese language reader.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:25, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

In all honesty, you might be best discussing this further with the admins on the Portugese Wikipedia. They're more likely to have knowledge of the article you're trying to create.--5 albert square (talk) 19:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I see. Nevertheless, I thank you all, for you have given me so much more atention and demonstrated so much good will, that I am pleased and satisfied. It is only a shame that in Portuguese Wikipédia there are so eager editors that takes some decision on seconds, without even reading about it, like you all have done. The editors do not even answer my messages asking about why they are deleting my page. Thanks again, that's inspiring. I use English Wikipédia, for it is more complete, and now I know why, portuguese Wikipédia lacks kindness and attention, it is like a competition between some "high editors" on achieving eliminations per day. Is there anyone in PT wikipédia which would help me? How can I get int contact with PT admins, please? Tks a lot, for real! --Rodrigo Garcia Manoel (talk) 19:38, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Rodrigo Garcia Manoel, ianmacm, 5 albert square, Martinevans123 and Jimbo Wales. As I was quoted in this post and as I was also that I deleted the article the first time (because I am eliminator in pt.wikipedia), I would like to comment on it. The article was deleted via Quick Delete because it is written in a way that does not meet the criteria of notoriety. The author of the article then opened a request for restoration on Wikipedia:Pedidos/Restauro, where an administrator reviewed the deleted content and denied the request, leaving well explained the reasons. At no moment did we refuse the dialogue with Rodrigo Garcia Manoel. We only revert the edits he made on this page, even after the request was already answered, where he did not accept the administrator's response and even said he would take legal action, which violates our WP:NPAJ. The user has already recreated the article that has now been forwarded for consensus elimination, where arguments can be exposed on this page. I am available to answer any questions. Greetings! --Editor D.S (talk) 02:26, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Rodrigo Garcia Manoel, if you just want to recover the contents of a deleted article, just ask us to send it to you by email with a copy of the content. However, in this case, we did not restore because the deletion was not incorrect. --Editor D.S (talk) 02:34, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Thanks to Editor D.S for replies. The uncivil SPA, that probably had COI, was warned and now is under observation on pt-wiki. --Ixocactus (talk) 04:33, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

It's not a surprise that a promotional article written by someone connected with the subject would be deleted. It's also not a surprise that they would then conclude that this is a massive conspiracy against them. Guy (Help!) 09:30, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Cheers, first of all, I have never said that there is a conspiracy. And yes, my first request to restore the page has been deleted without approval or denial. About dialogue, I would ask everyone here if the comment made by SirEdimon is "ok", quoting: "Segundo comparar é a OICD com a IURD é um disparate e um péssimo argumento." which in English would be something like "Comparing OICD to IURD is nonsense and terrible argument". Okay, let's suppose it is nonsense and terrible argument, but shouldn't one in a DISCUSSION use reasons, explanations, logic? For such a commentary is only an invective, non-explained opinion, subjective. That is the cause about my complaints: opinions used to base decisions without further analysis. Finally, the editors here in English Wikipédia have been so much mor attentive and kinder, they even looked for some pages talking about "OICD", they have made a research on a topic in another language. They have answered me kindly about the content. Nothing here is personal. We are not kids talking about a toy, but about a Institution that attend thousands of people, full of results on the internet talking about it. C'mon, it is the MAINTENER OF A COLLEGE recognized by BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT? What else is needed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rodrigo Garcia Manoel (talk • contribs) 13:13, 27 July 2018 (UTC) --Rodrigo Garcia Manoel (talk) 13:15, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls, just ignore this disruptive behaviour, this user is not interested in respect our policies and shall be blocked.—Pórokhov ^{^Порох} 16:06, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

I make the point of showing my aversion to collaborating in cases of possible conflicts of interest, even though I have participated in some successful ones. However, any experienced user of the project, regardless of language, knows that it is not news that users related to the subject of the article is exalted. And this is an obvious case of this, since the first elimination the user has been exalted and threatened judicially. The article in question is with pamphlet content, promotional and with questionable references. Therefore, the disposal or disposal process is valid.

I just do not understand the reason for giving multiple answers to users who demonstrate abusive behavior, including crossing Wikis. Le Comte Edmond Dantès ^msg 17:37, 27 July 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Conde Edmond Dantès (talk • contribs)

I´m done discussing. Tks to Pórokhov, I´ve been blocked. Now I ask you gently to stop accusing me, since you have already done enough. I'm blocked and the content will be probably excluded. In a few years someone will return and recreate, since the institution has almost 50 years and a lot of social projects. History will solve the problem. For now, I´m preparing an paper to publish named "Intolerância na rede: caso Wikipédia", and, as the page of discussions is public, It will be possible to quote, examine and show the non-logical arguments and attacks made there, only according to "opinion". I have quited and will stop writing here. So, please, you don't need to always have the "last words". --Rodrigo Garcia Manoel (talk) 18:58, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

@Rodrigo Garcia Manoel: Intolerância? Que intolerância senhor? Saiba que intolerância religiosa é crime, artigo 208 do código penal, ou seja, isso é falsa imputação de crime, artigo 138, então tome cuidado. De resto, boa sorte.—Pórokhov ^{^Порох} 19:40, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

AN discussion notice

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I alert you to a discussion at AN relevant to The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 19:01, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

The Signpost: 31 July 2018

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* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 23:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

A brownie for you!

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Since, you might like brownies! howdy, tongues! CharlieChumps (talk) 15:03, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Just because you have some money, that doesn't mean that you have to spend it.

Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Updated essay: see new "2016-2017 update" information near the bottom.

User:Guy Macon/Just because you have some money, that doesn't mean that you have to spend it.

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:56, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

Needer header link "2016-2017 update": That essay needs a section header entry "==...==" to allow skip to section "#2016-2017 update". Also just in case someone forces dashes into the header, I suggest put hyphenated section text into link "{{anchor|2016-2017 update}}" as a line above the header "==...==". Remember sight-impaired readers (listeners) might prefer hyphen link if dash is difficult for them to enter. -Wikid77 (talk) 05:02, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Wikimedia and Go Fish Digital

Latest comment: 6 years ago38 comments16 people in discussion

Recently it came to light that the WMF hired an external SEO specialist Go Fish Digital for a one-off project in order to look at how better to manage its SEO. Fair enough.

Turns out Go Fish Digital also specialise in Online reputation management. Specifically relevant to wikipedia would be removing negative information.

Also turns out they are likely to be engaged in doing this in violation of the TOS.

Leaving aside the complete breakdown in basic due diligence that led to hiring a company whose public stated intention is to deliberately minimise or remove negative information while promoting positive - directly against the core wikipedia values of WP:NPOV - I mean, how no one in the team arranging contracts with external vendors, nor legal, audiences etc managed to even google them and look at their website before saying 'here take our money' is beyond me - there is a related issue that this is another example of the culture gap between the WMF and the projects.

...No what I want to know is, in the response in the mailing list Gregory Varnum (WMF communications strategist) states of Go Fish "they did not request or receive access to any Wikimedia user data." However as can be seen from the phab request, they were given access to Google Search Console for the various encyclopedia's, and User:Faidon_Liambotis_(WMF) confirms the console does contain personally identifiable information (PII) and so extra safeguards are needed. These two statements are not compatible unless the PII contained in the google search console is not of wikimedia users. Which seems unlikely given its function. As a result, I have a number of questions.

1. What is the nature/type/form of the PII available in the Google Search Console. (User agent strings, IP's, usernames etc)

2. If it exists, Why is it available there. Google Search Console should *not* contain any PII, in fact any webmin usually goes through significant effort for various legal reasons to make sure it doesnt.

3. What part of the TOS says any PII may be handed to third parties for commercial purposes? The TOS allows for personal information to be exchanged for research, improvements or to help run the site. SEO optimization is none of those things, its not research, it doesnt improve the encyclopedia, and its nothing to do with the technical running of the website. SEO optimisation is a commercial issue to improve search engine visibility.

I'm also allowing for Faidon to be mis-informed about PII contained in the console, but I think thats far less likely given his position than the communications strategist being misinformed about what Go Fish actually asked for and were given access to.

Relevant links:

Mailing list thread

Phab request

Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/BurritoSlayer

Only in death does duty end (talk) 01:06, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Obviously this needs looking into - in depth. The WMF should give a full accounting of what happened. Take the required time please, but an in-depth serious report would be welcomed - say in one week's time. Let's not make wild accusations, but please, let's hear from the WMF on this. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:30, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

I think there is not much more we can get from the WMF at this point: there was a vendor that was selected without any due dilligence. Shit happens. I'm pretty sure this is embarrasing enough and the WMF won't make the same error again. What troubles me is how weak we are against undisclosed paid editing. There are a lot of companies offering paid editing services. There are a lot of clients hiring such services and we are not able to mitigate it at all. We just chase some sockpuppet farms from time to time, but never start more in-depth investigations that help us identifying the next sockpuppet generation faster. Overall, paid editing with sockpuppets pays off: It takes too much time to find them, and when we do, most of their contributions stay online. --MarioGom (talk) 21:39, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Its worthing looking at the phab request where these concernes were raise.

In T192893#4185804, @faidon wrote:

I'm not sure if this needs my approval, but if it does, it has it, as long as:

The console data contain PII, so an NDA would be absolutely required with whomever we'd need to give access to this. Presumably this company is under a contract with us and that probably includes a confidentiality clause? @Deskana, can you confirm?

Deskana:

Confirmed. They've signed an agreement covering our privacy policy, data retention, and data security requirements that was drafted by Legal and Security, so we are good to go there.

To me that looks like due diligence, Legal and Security wrote an appropriate agreement covering the things we are concerned about. The tech people who gave the permissions checked to make sure things were above board. --Salix alba (talk): 22:05, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

That sorta sounds like Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to me, i.e. give access to private info to somebody we suspect is already breaking our rules. I'm not primarily concerned about PII however. I'm mainly concerned about the WMF giving their stamp of approval to a company that advertises Wikipedia editing services, but has not made a WP:Paid editing disclosure (somebody correct me if I'm missing something here). The report I asked for above should come right from the top e.g. @Katherine (WMF): or perhaps WMF legal.

It's up to the folks at the top (and WMF legal) to let employees know that paid editing is a serious problem and that they should always be aware of it and help mitigate the problem, not add to it. If they haven't done this in the past, it's high time to do it now. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:32, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Just checking the above, I should be careful myself of "making wild accusations". I haven't myself seen Go Fish marketing Wikipedia editing, but what I have seen is

"The primary platforms that define your online reputation include:

[...]

Wikipedia

[...]" as reported here. I checked it out yesterday at Online Reputation Management and it was there. Today it is gone.

their advertising under "Reputation Monitoring" . (on same page at the bottom)

"We have custom-built a number of tools to help us with very specific monitoring activities. We can see Wikipedia updates as they happen" and what happens then?

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:50, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

For those of us out of the loop, can someone explain why the "Google Search Console" has anything to do with Wikipedia, and what kind of "personal information" is involved? I mean, if Google has access to any of Wikipedia's sensitive information that is already a problem. Even if they are merely collecting personal data from their own search users, then passing it on via Wikipedia to this company, that could be a problem. In particular, are IP addresses or browser strings of readers and editors somehow thrown into that, or what are you talking about?

Obviously, one holy grail for any reputation management company would be to get some kind of "checkuser" type data about the critics of their clients, IPs and browser strings and anything they can cross-correlate by databases to one of a hundred other sites people log into. Then the critics might get a letter from a lawyer and you never hear them complain about anything again. I understand, of course, that a company would never contemplate violating what they signed, but are there aspects of that data, like the browser strings or IP addresses, which are not considered "personally identifiable" in computer-scientist speak, since they are only used to identify people, which might inadvertently have been left out of the restrictions in the agreement? Can they get that data by correlating something this Search Console knows with the times that articles were edited?

Just out of curiosity, does this "Google Search Console" have any logs? Wnt (talk) 13:29, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Google Search Console is a tool provided by google that is used by webmasters to (amongst other things) monitor/see how traffic gets to the various pages. It can also do error-reporting and a few other things. It *shouldnt* contain any PII (and contrary to what you have said, browser strings and IP addresses are often considered personally identifiable information under data protection laws, IP's almost always are.) But before people go of on a tangent can they actually *read* my above post. How the WMF got to the position is less important than what they actually had access to. (And yes smallbones, they have altered their website since I posted this. I have screenshots of the original version) Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:17, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

The problem I have is I can't imagine how a Google Search Console should have access to a username, which is something your first post mentioned. I mean, in theory, the GSC ought to be limited to whatever information they can scrape from people typing in a Google search and clicking on the Wikipedia result ... right? (?) That's not to say they can't abuse what they do have, but we need more explanation. Wnt (talk) 15:17, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Anything in an address that shows up in search results. User pages are not indexed and Google isn't scraping us anyway so this is extremely unlikely but does happen elsewhere. Usually PII showing up in Google webmin tools is a result of poor webcode. However I can't think of a legitimate reason anything classed as PII should be viewable. Hence when a development director says there is, I want to know what. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:50, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Do you have evidence that Goggle isn't scraping us? They could very well scrape us but not use the info in the same way as they do with sites that don't use noindex and nofollow. See[44] and [45]. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:55, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

According to a conversation in Phabricator ([46]), Google does scrape Wikipedia, but it does so to verify that everything is ok with the custom crawler that uses MediaWiki API. --MarioGom (talk) 05:16, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

What Mario said. They only appear to spider for verification of what they get from their own access. So I would find it very unlikely Google would even accidentally crawl non-article content with noindex etc. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:16, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I think we already have an answer regarding the WMF and user privacy:

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy

Wikipedia talk:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy#Response to RFC

--Guy Macon (talk) 13:58, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas "With Online Reputation Management, we work hard to make all of the positive information easy to find. At the same time, we use many different strategies and tactics to diminish the visibility of negative content, or in some cases, remove it from the web altogether. The end result is a positive online reputation because when people search your name or brand, they immediately find positive content." [47] Any connection between us and this company must be terminated ASAP.

And, this is a gross misuse of donated money. Whoever hired or signed off on hiring a company who brags about performing such manipulation of information which is available to the public should immediately resign in shame or be fired. This is unforgiveable and inexcusable. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:38, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Yeah thats unlikely to happen, given it went through at least 3 separate depts, if everyone involved was fired who had the opportunity to notice this, they could probably move to a smaller office. But again, not the important issue. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:57, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I suppose you're only interested in the possibility of user info being leaked. We should definitely hear about how much, if any, was leaked and what steps will be taken to prevent further leaks. But what @Nocturnalnow: and I are saying is that our main concern is the hiring of a paid editor to advise the WMF. To be clear GoFish has not said directly - in any of the quotes here - that they are available to edit "your Wikipedia article" for pay, but their meaning is clear. It's not a case of being able to read between the lines, just of being able to translate AdSpeak to English. Let's make sure we never hire such a firm again. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:45, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

If the allegations above are substantially true, then this is a major WMF scandal that requires an immediate and substantive response. Katherine (WMF) should get off her transcontinental jet, sit at a desk for a few days, and fire the responsible people. And then report fully and frankly to the community in a transparent way. To be perfectly clear, I think that white hat online reputation management is a perfectly legitimate business. But it is a type of business that the WMF ought to have nothing whatsoever to do with. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:37, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Just a note. The Wikimedia Foundation has replied to the discussion on the Wikimedia-l mailing list. Ckoerner (talk) 17:56, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

If the mailing list post above is to be trusted - and I don't see any reason not to - then we don't have to worry about user data being compromised. We can also stop the noise about firing lower and medium level WMF employees. The problem IMHO lies near the top - senior managers need to get the word out that paid editing is a very serious business that is a very serious problem on Wikipedia. They need to take a look at the length of the sock puppet investigation and how much editor time was put into just the investigation. If that message gets through to the senior managers, we should drop this now. Jimmy and @Doc James: - can you make sure the senior managers hear this message? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 03:39, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I avoid this talk page, and am typically very pro-WMF, but wanted to state that if the WMF hired the company behind the BurritoSlayer sock family, they hired what in my opinion is other than Orangemoody the worst UPE ring in recent memory: they sought to delete articles as well as create them, and it wasn’t clear if it was whitewashing or an attempt to delegetimize competition for their clients. There were other things here that were also nasty. This case was a very big deal at the time, and I wanted to go on the record with my views towards its handiwork: it was by far the worst UPE opperation I have personally dealt with. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:11, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Why does a site that is already one of the top 10 interweb destinations worldwide need to hire a SEO specialist? Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 05:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Ditto for me...same question; just appears to be wasting donors' money unless there is a reasonable answer to Shock Brigade Harvester Boris's question, and wasting money often leads to lots of secondary problems. What is the answer? Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:12, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Comments: On the issue of undisclosed paid editing generally, back in 2015 we tried to develop some consensus on what more we can do about it at User:Doc_James/Paid_editing.

Based on that discussion we created a list of know undisclosed paid editors at Wikipedia:PAIDLIST and increased the requirement for transparency around paid editing per meta:Linking to external advertising accounts. Unfortunately on further discussion the third party intermediaries (like Upworks) through which much of the money changes hands were less committed than I had hoped in helping us address this issue.

We are looking at automated ways of detect paid editing. From what I understand we are currently looking for a research fellow interested in AI to push forwards this work with a stipend avaliable. There was also a consensus to potentially create a group of functionaries to help deal with undisclosed paid editing issue per here. Arbcom appears slightly more willing to take on this work. No sure others thoughts on this effort or if people have other ideas. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:31, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

@Doc James: do you think we should update the list of proposed solutions at User:Doc James/Paid editing? Or perhaps start a new page at User:Doc James/Paid editing 2018 or elsewhere? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:39, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

We have some good suggestions currently that still need to be followed through on. AI imo holds a lot of promise. Arbcom appears to be taking on more of a roll. Happy to consider other possibilities, though. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:45, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

I think that what we are missing is monitoring of articles. We have SPI and COIN to investigate user accounts, we have PAIDLIST to track companies operating the accounts, but we do not have a systematic way to monitor articles that receive substatial edits from these users. That reduces our effectivity. Blocking a sockpuppet farm is just a temporary obstacle, but companies hiring these PR firm continue incentivized to hire such services because, unless they are small companies or individuals, the effects of paid editing last. It just pays off. I think we should create an automated ranking of articles that have received significant contributions from sockpuppet farms and users blocked because of undisclosed paid editing. Then we can use this list to increase patrolling on those articles and make things harder for the next generation of sockpuppets. If we don't do something like this, I think we are bound to lose the battle against undisclosed paid editing by big companies because PR firms constantly learn about our processes and become better at not getting caught for longer (anonymous edits with private IPv6 proxies at different ranges, increasing isolation between sockpuppets, warming up user accounts for longer to make them look like legit users, etc). Their biggest weakness is that they will need to go back to edit for their customers or they risk getting out of business. --MarioGom (talk) 07:34, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I certainly agree with @Doc James, MarioGom, and TonyBallioni: on this. Sorry to repeat myself, but IMHO the key is to have the top people at WMF commit to making work against paid editing a priority. Jimmy, do you support this as a general strategy (I'm not asking about specific programs)? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:53, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Coming late to this conversation and I'll probably have more to say but just wanted to add a data point. I added Go Fish Digital to the PAIDLIST on December 12, months before the Phabricator tickets were opened, giving the firm access to our logs. At that time the evidence of activities on-wiki in contravention of ToS was suspected, based on their own advertising. Now the connection to the BurritoSlayer sockring is known. And I agree that this should be treated with utmost seriousness, as a de facto data breach of PII. One that was preventable. ☆ Bri (talk) 23:29, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Bri, I for one am sure glad you did come to this conversation because your info, imo, dramatically increases the "WTF is going on with the WMF's level of competence" aspect of this event. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Like TonyBallioni, I very rarely post on this talk page (only 70 minor comments since 2010) but I am however known for being critical of some aspects of the Foundation's work. As one of the editors very concerned about the paid exploitation of our voluntary work, I am extremely worried about this and I do believe it's time for Katherine Maher and/or Jimbo (preferably both) to chime in. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:08, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps delay new pages by notability

If an editor wants a new page about a corporation or new product brand, then perhaps have various waiting periods, such as 6-12 months. Currently, many new upcoming films are added months or years in advance (see 2019: film codename "Terminator 6"). Such a film could wait another 6 months, or a year, before the article would be allowed. Among failed tactics, some websites tried to tally likes/dislikes or followers in expensive databases, Facebook tried a system of "friending" to measure acceptance, but they discovered thousands or millions of Bot accounts which can be created across numerous rental servers and sold for use to give the illusion of acceptance to keep various pages. So I wonder if time-delays, which would be difficult to buy out, could be used to stall paid-editing so that not every consultant, or small company, new product, or latest internet sensation could get a $page$ created tomorrow. Pages of high notability could be created sooner. Otherwise, I think the paid-pages cause little disruption except for the feeling that other volunteers are missing the $chance$ to cash-in on their valuable WP editing skills. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:42, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

We see one of the harms of paid editing via OTRS were every few days we get concerns that someone who claims to be from "Wikipedia" is trying to sell the person an article about themselves. The person forwards this to use because they are confused as they did not think Wikipedia worked like this, which of course it shouldn't.

Yes increasing delays for low notability living people and companies may help. There has also been discussion of more aggressively moving what appear to be paid articles back to draft space. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:41, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I'll add to Doc's disagreement to "paid-pages cause little disruption". Paid editing in general reduces our credibility. Why should anybody even tentatively trust any article on Wikipedia if we've got the equivalent of "you should buy xxx" on many pages. But there are some very real costs to our readers that I believe we must consider. Binary options was taking in an estimated $5-10 billion per year for 5-10 years. I believe the entire industry relied on getting some positive mentions on Wikipedia. What other "trusted source" could be used to promote that garbage? It's hard to put a number on how much our readers lost from binary options but my guess would be something like $100 million per year. Retail foreign exchange brokers have been a similar problem in the past - maybe they only cost our readers $10 million per year, but my guess would be a bit higher. The great cryptocurrency ripoff - which is going on now - will be difficult to assess in terms of customer losses, but let's say it will be of the same order of magnitude as binary options. I have noticed an obviously paid editor working in this area and reported it to the proper Wiki-authorities - but so far, no action on this, even though my report is very well documented.

I'll add another area with very real costs to our readers: pharmaceuticals and medical procedures. But in this case the costs might be better measured in years of lost health or even number of deaths caused by bad information. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:07, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

We will never know how many people read our article on Energy Catalyzer or Andrea Rossi (entrepreneur) and decided not to invest in scam "inventions". --Guy Macon (talk) 23:14, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

I think it should be obvious that a humdrum lever any editor can twiddle with will have a very unimpressive price tag, and a very ornate and very special lever that only the Grand Poobah is allowed to gaze upon will have a very grand and imposing price tag. If the goal is to increase revenue, it makes sense to have a special star chamber where a company's advocates can explain that because they bought a set of old incorporation papers last week that have had an "office" inside a mailbox for the past ten years, they're immune from the ban. But if you want a good encyclopedia, then you'll let editors do their best.

As for binary options, I don't notice anything scandalous about how the article first emerged. They were being sold on exchanges. There are a lot of things in the market that are overpriced, risky, and not a good idea to buy, but I don't see how censoring the existence of a kind of commodity is the answer. Should we have banned cabbage patch dolls from getting an article because they were overpriced? More to the point, how about penny stocks? Nope -- Wikipedia has a job to do, so let people do it. Wnt (talk) 12:15, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Three rambling comments:

There's nothing wrong with having articles on binary options and penny stocks. But touting of them without disclosing financial conflicts of interest is illegal for a very good reason. Wikipedia must not be used to lend legitimacy to fraudulent enterprises. Some response to my query here would be nice.
I'm sympathetic to requiring EC to create any article and AC to create a draft about a BLP, company, product or financial security.
Ultimately, this is a game of maximizing the ratio between the time it takes a spammer to create a spam page and the volunteer time needed to get rid of it. There's no way around this, with PR/advertising budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars and dirt cheap third world labor. The community needs to learn to stop wasting time on this shit, and the WMF needs to provide technical and legal support that is significantly better than current levels (i.e. totally pathetic). PROTIP: fire one developer in San Francisco and hire ten in India or Ukraine. Third world labor costs work both ways. MER-C 14:36, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Uma medalha para você!

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

	A Medalha Especial
	You created Wikipedia!!! So, I give you it. Luístro (talk) 20:41, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your service!!

Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

	Your service for the world is greatly appreciated!
	Oh, and a belated happy birthday. -- GerifalteDelSabana (talk) 02:52, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Happy 51st Birthday

Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion

Have a happy birthday, Jimbo Wales! Supplied by the Wikipedia Birthday Committee, have one free cake! Enjoy! Best wishes to you on your special day!

Kpgj hpjm 02:19, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Happy birthday - is it 52 (as in Jimmy Wales)? In any case, enjoy the day. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:49, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I believe it is 52, yes! Thanks!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:14, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Can you choose to chime in at the thread, three sections up?∯WBG^converse 10:34, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Gee, I never tried to cross a minefield for my birthday... least it makes it easy to decide what to wish for. ;) Wnt (talk) 20:59, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Heh. It looks like the thread three sections up is now gone, as there is only one section above.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:39, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

A question, please.

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

Hello, Jimbo. I found this on the page Template:Paid when browsing through the templates.

Template Result

{{paid|employer=ACME}}

This user, in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, discloses that they have been paid by ACME for their contributions to Wikipedia.

{{paid|employer=ACME|article=Example}}

This user, in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, discloses that they have been paid by ACME for their contributions to Example.

{{paid|employer=ACME|client=W. Coyote|some=yes}}

This user, in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, discloses that they have been paid by ACME on behalf of W. Coyote for some of their contributions to Wikipedia.

{{paid|user=Jimbo Wales|employer=Acme|additional=Optional text}}

Jimbo Wales, in accordance with the Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use, discloses that they have been paid by Acme for their contributions to Wikipedia. Optional text

Anyway, do you think such examples are insulting? ----Ný(rönn)-Holtredéþch-Deskrúð / Nyholtredehn^Discussion! 12:54, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Insulting is a bit strong, but I would prefer not be used as an example, lest someone take it to be my tacit endorsement. I think, but don't know for sure, that I'm often used as an "example user" and usually I think that's perfectly fine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:41, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't this statement be on your user page? ----Ný(rönn)-Holtredéþch-Deskrúð / Nyholtredehn^Discussion! 14:00, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

It probably doesn't come up often enough. I think lots of good people in the community know that I don't mind being a "symbolic" person used for all kinds of ceremonial things, but also that I wouldn't like to be seen to be endorsing things that are problematic. Probably no need for a specific list. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:15, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I've changed "Jimbo Wales" in the template to "Mairzy Doats". Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:48, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

German school sued in photo copyright row

Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

This is the latest pearl of wisdom from the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. It's pretty obvious that a copyrighted photo should not be used without the photographer's permission, but the position of US law is that as long as the material is removed after a DMCA takedown request, that should be the end of the matter. The ECJ ruling appears to offer considerable new employment opportunities for the European legal profession. I've long been worried about people importing images from Flickr to Wikimedia Commons even when the Creative Commons license is dubious. It's easy enough for people to upload an image to Flickr and say that it is CC even if it isn't. Under the new ECJ ruling, lawyers could be rubbing their hands with glee every time this happens.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:08, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm skeptical of this interpretation. From the article, it sounds like the school refused to take down the photo until they were ordered by a court decision. The case seemed to hinge on some idea about whether a "new public" had access to the picture. I'd guess this was a test of some German copyright loophole that may not be familiar to me in the U.S. I'm still a bit unsure; the other coverage I found seems as vague. [48] But I don't see anything here prohibiting good-faith posting of material you have been told is CC-licensed, nor about a DMCA time limit, if in fact the idea exists in Germany. Wnt (talk) 22:14, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Mark Twain said that a German joke is no laughing matter. German copyright law is no laughing matter either, because it is fussy and has no concept of fair use. There is a risk of using European court rulings to inflict German ideas about copyright law on to other countries. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is much more tolerant, because it sets out a principle of fair use and will not hold websites liable for copyright infringement as long as they remove copyrighted material when a takedown request is made. It's remarkable that a schoolkid's use of a copyrighted photo in a school project set off such major legal action. A simple request to remove the photo should have been enough. The full length legal ruling about the case is here. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:30, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Interesting suggestion

Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

Hello Jimbo! What do you think about idea to create the global "Beatles Day on the Internet" (something like this)? Founder - the Wikimedia Foundation. Currently does not exist any global day in honor of The Beatles. You can be first. Which event will be linked with this day - I do not know. Something important related to the band.

Such date can bring favor for you and your projects by different reasons. And great happiness for fans of The Beatles around the world. Milliards of people visit Internet. Many of them are fans. But the new date will be celebrated and in real life! Sorry for grammatical mistakes. Simply I am Russian. - 37.144.104.118 (talk) 16:39, 9 August 2018 (UTC).

WMF shouldn't endorse commercial products. However, it could promote a day to share and publicize Creative Commons licensed music, especially if uploading it to Wikimedia Commons is part of it. ;) We could have some votes to "feature" some of the most-liked music tracks. I wonder if any of the Beatles cover bands ever gets tempted to play songs the Beatles never got around to writing -- they could donate some to the cause, and that should make you happy. ;) Wnt (talk) 23:23, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

The holiday is intended not for getting profit. I suppose that gratitude from a large number fans (they live around the world, millions) has value. The Founder will be related with The Beatles forever. The global holiday means new page in the history of this band. WMF can become very great part there .... - 95.29.149.27 (talk) 20:45, 10 August 2018 (UTC).

Interesting info: Government of Russia claims that exists Beatles Day under UNESCO. But UNESCO says that is joke (rumors). https://translate.google.com/ - 95.29.64.180 (talk) 16:49, 11 August 2018 (UTC).

@Crazy1980: Nobody cares. --MuZemike 17:23, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

[DecInd-1] Tourianski, Julia. "The Declaration Of Bitcoin's Independence". Archive.org. Retrieved 1 July 2018.

[Woods_6/20/2018-2] Woods, Sean (June 20, 2018). "Michiko Kakutani on Her Essential New Book 'The Death of Truth'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved July 23, 2018.

[Pak_Seyler_7/19/2018-3] Pak, Nataly; Seyler, Matt (July 19, 2018). "Trump derides news media as 'enemy of the people' over Putin summit coverage". ABC News. Retrieved July 23, 2018.

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