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University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt

I have no idea whether this is the appropriate place to put this, so I apologize if it isn't. Every year the University of Chicago holds an campus-wide scavenger hunt; this is a major event in the academic calendar and is significant enough to have its own page on this wiki (University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt). This year, the most valuable item on the entire list is "87. "A Wikipedia account that posts its support for your team (on its talk page).... User:Jimbo Wales posting his support for your team. (50 points)" Mr. Wales, I am here on behalf of the IHouse Scav team to request your support. Will you please help us by replying to this? Thanks, IHouse Scav 2020 - IHouseScav2020 (talk) 19:22, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@IHouseScav2020: Can we get a link to the list? From reading the article, there seems to be a certain "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" aspect to this. What kind of scratch are we talking about? We wouldn't want any paid editors putting "Hi IHouse" on their talk pages, now would we? BTW (warning - joke incoming), why does this sentence remind me of Wikipedia? "Any University of Chicago student with a GPA above 0.5 may apply to be a judge." Humorously yours, Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:18, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

OK the full item with the correct numbering is "88. A Wikipedia account that posts its support for your team (on its talk page). A Wikipedia account created before the Hunt that posts its support for your team. A Wikipedia account with one of the various non-admin privileges (auto/extended/confirmed does not count) that posts its support for your team. An admin Wikipedia account that posts its support for your team. A bureaucrat Wikipedia account that posts its support for your team. User:Jimbo Wales posting his support for your team. [1, 2, 6, 9, 25, and 50 points, respectively"

See top left hand corner Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:44, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's the full item. I can't speak for any other Scav teams, but IHouse has exactly zero financial resources, so you don't have to worry about any back scratching here. I think we're counting on our roguish charm and clear moral superiority over the other teams making supporting us its own reward. :P IHouseScav2020 (talk) 20:57, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, I'm seriously demotivated here, I'm only a 6 pointer (AP, ECo, IP, Rv) - and not even sure of the 6 points (the IP thingee should do it, it lets me edit in the local library!). "15 years of editing and they put you on the day shift".[1] If I were you, I'd wait for Jimbo to show up. If you are motivated by six points, let me know and I'll give you a 30-60 minute task - an example of how to participate at Wikipedia. This can be delayed, I'll assume good faith. Smallbones_{([[User talk:Smallbones|smalltal, k)} 21:21, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Haven't been able to confirm that scav404.org is the official 2020 edition of the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt. But assuming it is, that item 88 could disrupt Wikipedia a bit. So..

F*** it. Let's all stand up.

I suggest we all post support for all the teams on our talk pages! Just add {{User:Alexis Jazz/item88}} to your talk page. I pity whoever has to tally up the points.. actually I don't. - Alexis Jazz 22:21, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry about that

I was probably joking around here too much. I wanted to see more about what the scavenger hunt was all about, and get Jimbo some more information if he really wanted to endorse that team. An apparent tragedy has now struck IHouseScav2020 has been blocked for having a group username and not being here to build an encyclopedia. I won't criticize the blocking admin. IHouseScav2020 can get a new user name just by asking the admin. As far as improving the encyclopedia (this will probably work - but no guarantees), please write up 2 paragraphs to appear in our on-site newspaper for Wikipedia editors, The Signpost, on why U of C students consider getting the endorsement of Jimbo Wales to be worth the top point prize. Just drop it off on my user talk page whenever.

Just because this now looks like a mess, I'll put my endorsement on my user talk page (all 6 points worth). I'll even suggest to the blocking admin that he do the same (9 points worth) on his talk page. (I realize that not everybody shares my sense of humor). Heck, let's go for the whole 50 points! Jimmy, would you please consider giving the IHouseScav2020 team your endorseemnt here?

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:32, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

@Smallbones: it's a shame they didn't make item 88 something like "Participate in WikiGap Challenge to improve the coverage of women (don't be misled by that page: it's not restricted to Nigerian women), win a prize in the WikiGap Challenge, reach the top 3 in the WikiGap Challenge. [5, 15, 150 points respectively]"

Don't spam Jimbo, spam the encyclopedia with useful content! Really, they should retroactively change that rule. - Alexis Jazz 15:18, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Of course they can do that too. They are much more likely to do it if we try to be somewhat nice to them! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:44, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

They would be much more likely to do it if they just did it! But if the event is almost over, well, maybe next year. - Alexis Jazz 18:34, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Worlds Largest Scavenger Hunt Request

Hi! I am participating in the University of Chicago's annual scavenger hunt. One of the items this year is a shoutout by you for our team. I know its a silly request, but would you be willing to help us out by posting support for snitchcock scav on your talk page? Thank you so much. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Liabg (talk • contribs) 15:09, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

@Cullen328: hey, look, another one. - Alexis Jazz 15:18, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, multi-spam is a drawback to my approach. I suggest that Jimmy just support the first requester and make a simple statement that he can't support everybody who is likely to come by now. In any case, as I understand it, the contest ends today and it looks like Jimmy might be off doing something else today and won't have time to check this page today. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:44, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

@Smallbones: I'd say it would be a much better idea to support none of the teams. Alternatively, if Jimbo or any other Wikipedian wishes to support the event (and prevent spam for other teams), support all the teams. If you support one, the others will just keep begging and come back next year. - Alexis Jazz 18:34, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

I say we do not support any of this, because Wikipedia is WP:NOT social networking. These WP:MEAT puppets are using off-wiki organization to subvert the purpose of Wikipedia.

I don't care how fun it is. I welcome anyone who comes to build an encyclopedia. For you Scavenger Hunt dudes, Facebook and Twitter are thataway. Elizium23 (talk) 02:19, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

True. Not supporting is the best option. The scavenge hunters would be welcome to contribute to the project though and award each other points for that as part of the scavenger hunt. Wikipedia isn't a social network, but there inevitably is a social aspect. Might as well try to take advantage of that to benefit the project. - Alexis Jazz 05:13, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Minnow

Plip!

Just a joke xD

User:Ntfresll (talk) Ntfresll (talk) 18:09, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I stop

By User:Gun23man I have realised the damage I done and am sorry to everyone peace and love! 2A00:1FA0:441E:3B22:F8AF:5973:903D:320C (talk) 09:08, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea who you are or what you have done, but if it was damaging, and now you are stopping doing it, I thank you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:25, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

I think they mean to say they are Gun23man. Perhaps this user is very young. Just a guess though. - Alexis Jazz 05:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Was it okay fo me to do this?

Per Wikipedia policy, was it okay for me to do this? --Stay safe, ◊PRAHLAD^balaji (M•T•A•C) This message was left at 14:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

If I am reading it correctly, then yes it is fine, however I would recommend some additional steps. First, the discussion should be copied to the relevant talk page. Second, I recommend raising some attention at WP:BLPN. Third, if the claim that the website is fake seems in any way credible to you, then a temporary removal of the link from the page seems warranted. As for me, I wouldn't consider it impossible that someone might create a fake website to smear someone, making it look plausible, and linking it in Wikipedia to give it some credence. On the other hand, random people claim all kinds of random things all the time, so it's hard to know. I would, out of an abundance of caution, remove the link unless some reliable source of international repute confirms it to be real.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:12, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I've made a couple of edits to remove unsourced material but I encourage everyone to take a look at this one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:15, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Larry Sanger: Wikipedia "scrapped neutrality, favors lefty politics"

In the news today.[2] It's on Fox News, so please don't post a load of comments saying that it isn't a proper news source. Although I don't normally discuss politics on Wikipedia, I am not a lefty and don't think that Wikipedia is biased. We must be coming up to an election somewhere, this always happens in Britain as well.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:53, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Ianmacm, He is correct. Just edit articles in the political area and you'll see that. There is even a tracker of admin action that shows how not just the articles are biased but the admin boards and decisions are also biased. A "right leaning" editor can edit an article and get a specific sanction whereas a "left leaning" editor won't, or get a much more milder sanction if any. I don't think it's news to anyone who reads the articles here, let alone edits the articles that Wikipedia is biased. As to how to mitigate it, I'm not sure what the solution is. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:02, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Bias is always in the eye of the beholder. I've never come across a Wikipedia article that had an obvious left wing bias, but that's just me.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

(ec) Well, to be fair, fact and neutrality have their own bias, and one largely at odds with Fox.

Any bias we have arises from the self-selection of our editors: what people would be most interested in contributing to an open content project? Fifteen years ago, when I was a new editor, the project was more anarchic, and I think we had more libertarian, lefty, and fringey types than we do now. As we've become mainstream, any bias we've had has become so as well. (For the record I'm not a lefty either and don't think we have much overall bias.) Antandrus (talk) 19:06, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Antandrus, agreed...I recollect a vast swarm of 9/11 CTers and Bigfoot believers. Seems the nuttiest moved on or we simply chased them away.--MONGO (talk) 19:47, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

For a man who isn't involved with Wikipedia, Larry Sanger sure does commit an awful lot of airtime to it. Like an ex he still secretly loves... If we have a left bias, that reflects our sources, I'd say. The most prominent reliable sources tend towards the liberal side. Wikipedia doesn't claim that every article is neutral either, merely that we strive towards neutrality. I'd be very interested to see Larry Sanger actually get involved in a talk page conversation about say, Donald Trump, and see what his suggestions are to make it more neutral. Easy for him to sit back and say we have a problem, harder to help actually fix it. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:08, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

CaptainEek, the problem is as seen here is that many editors are unwilling to admit that Wikipedia has a left-wing bias, so how can you sit down and discuss ways to improve when the other side says there is nothing to improve? Do you think Wikipedia has a left-wing bias in the political articles, especially when it comes to US politics? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:10, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

CaptainEek, it has happened (not about Trump): Talk:Intelligent_design/Archive_86#My_$0.02_on_the_issue_of_bias Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:54, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Fix ping to CaptainEek Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:54, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Antandrus, Your first sentence kind of negates the rest of your point. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:08, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Only if you think they stick to the facts. They don't, and it's a problem. What we desperately need are conservative sources that do. Antandrus (talk) 19:16, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Antandrus, you are confusing Fox News with the Fox News shows. Do you think Don Lemon or other commentators at CNN or MSNBC are RS? The actual news at Fox is just as reliable as any other news, if not more. As I say, your first sentence negates the rest of your point and proves the bias, as you say, there is no bias on Wikipedia and then show your bias. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 19:20, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, you are still confusing Fox News with a source that reports facts. It used to, a long time ago (see Guy's note below). We need moderate conservative sources that reliably report facts, and have very few; unfortunately Fox is not one of them. Antandrus (talk) 20:55, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Antandrus, as I said, your point proves bias, and I don't think Guy is the one we need to be judging sources. Have you seen his rant on US politics and conservatives? I recall watching Rachel Maddow talk about the Naval hospital ship and how terrible it will be and what a poor decision it was to sail to to NYC and that it'll never get there on time, etc. But as Mandruss kind of alluded to, any criticism of left wing sources over here is ignored, yet as you continue to point out, you just throw out Fox merely for being Fox, and then claim you have no bias. At least admit you have a bias. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:06, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, I think your error may be in assuming that I think Maddow is a reliable source. I don't. Maddow is an opinion show. Blowout is probably a RS, but the Maddow show is not. The Daily Beast is not reliable. Alternet is not reliable. Counterpunch is not reliable. On social media, I do not share the Palmer Report, Daily Kos, Occupy Democrats, The Canary. My politics are slightly left of centre (in as much as I have a party, it's the Liberal Democrats), but I don't judge sources by whether they agree with me, I try to stick to objective measures of reliability.

What the facts show, pretty clearly, is that left-leaning media, even highly partisan leftist media, are influenced by factual reporting, so conspiracy theories do not easily persist, whereas the conservative media bubble is dominated by an echo chamber effect that causes positive feedback. Which is why if you look at https://www.adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/?v=402f03a963ba you see a huge gap between the conservative bubble and the mainstream. It's why Hannity is still blethering on about Seth Rich, joined as of this week by Geraldo, and it's why a guy with a gun showed up to liberate the non-existent children held by non-existent paedophiles in the non-existent basement of a pizza joint.

And let's not forget that the opposite of mainstream is not conservative: the opposite of mainstream is fringe. Guy (help!) 22:59, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, That may be so, but there is a big difference between Fox News Channel and Fox News. That site doesn't take that into account. I'm not going to keep debating with you since it's clear you don't think there is a media bias and you live in your little bubble looking down on everyone with a different opinion as dumb Americans. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 23:16, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

No, Sir Joseph -- you're still accusing me of bias when I merely recognize that Fox News is not a reliable source of factual information.

Let me put it this way: right-wing populism has divorced itself from objective reality and truth. There was a time, long ago, when conservatives routinely used facts, when the fact-using professions — science, medicine, and others — were full of conservatives. They are no longer, because facts matter when you are a scientist or a doctor. Tragically, this has all changed, as right-wing populism now develops its narrative from grievance and emotion, and looks for supporting facts: and if it cannot find them it invents "alternative facts", i.e. lies. Center and slightly left-of center sources still look at facts first; as you get farther left, of course, you find narrative-first, facts-second sources (Alternet, Occupy Democrats, and other such rubbish). Fox News is a mouthpiece for the Trump administration, and cannot be trusted for factual content. Put the facts first and develop the narrative once you know the facts, and the Goddess of NPOV will put her arm around you and give you a big sloppy kiss. And it's good for Wikipedia when you research and write with her blessing. Antandrus (talk) 01:00, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Antandrus, Let me know when you need help with your shovel. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 01:04, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, one of the problems we have here is that a few of the conservative editors, including you, flatly refuse to accept that there is a serious problem with conservative media's feedback loop, and that this is directly relevant to Wikipedia.

Plenty of us here wish that the US had more reliable right-leaning mainstream sources. Right now, the WSJ is about it, though IJR is interesting. I was a fan of Shep Smith, a moderate and sane conservative voice.

It's not the case in the UK. Most of our heavyweight papers here are right-leaning. And you'd be surprised how often The Times aligns with The NEw York Times despite The Times being quite right-wing (owned by Murdoch) and the NYTR being dismissed by the right in the US as liberal fake news. Guy (help!) 08:54, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, Here's a little secret, I just voted in the Democratic primary a few days ago. I am actually an independent in a purple state. See, it's these little things that you as someone sitting in your castle in the UK don't get. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:30, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, oh I am not so isolated that I don't know about open primaries. Guy (help!) 20:10, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, Sorry, my state doesn't allow open primaries. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:16, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, yes, there is a difference between FNC and Fox News. Look at https://www.adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/?v=402f03a963ba. FNC is on a par with Daily Kos or Truthout for accuracy and balance, Fox News has the same bias level as The Daily Beast but is about 25% less accurate.

I think you might be living in the past. Prior to 2016, Fox News was roughly equivalent to CNN, but the 2016 election cycle and the influence of Breitbart changed that.

That doesn't mean Fox News only publishes bullshit - up to a third of its climate change coverage is now considered accurate and truthful - but it does mean that you can't trust it, because the distinction between fact and opinion is insufficiently delineated.

Note also that I (and most of my fellow liberal-leaning editors) do not cite CNN. Or MSNBC. Or HuffPo. And certainly not "News & Guts" or Palmer Report or any of the other liberal analogues to the conservative bubble. A rule that strikes out Newsmax also strikes out Mother Jones, and I'm good with that. Guy (help!) 08:25, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, "The consistent pattern that emerges from our data is that, both during the highly divisive election campaign and even more so during the first year of the Trump presidency, there is no left-right division, but rather a division between the right and the rest of the media ecosystem. The right wing of the media ecosystem behaves precisely as the echo-chamber models predict—exhibiting high insularity, susceptibility to information cascades, rumor and conspiracy theory, and drift toward more extreme versions of itself. The rest of the media ecosystem, however, operates as an interconnected network anchored by organizations, both for profit and nonprofit, that adhere to professional journalistic norms.” - Benkler, Yochai,. Network propaganda : manipulation, disinformation, and radicalization in American politics. New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-19-092362-4. OCLC 1045162158.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)}

Fox used to be mainstream, with bias. It's now part of the conservative media bubble, because theyw ere losing shares (and thus ad revenue) and because every time they criticised Trump, they were savaged by Brietbart. It's a dangerous truth that most of the GOP base is effectively isolated from any facts that contradict the conservative narrative. This is clearly visible in charts like this: https://www.adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/ Guy (help!) 20:20, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, Yes, we get it, you love throwing out Benkler every chance you get. The issue here is whether Wikipedia is biased or not. And I think you can say the very same things about left wing media that you are ranting about, rumors, etc. I've seen some crazy stuff being sent out by Occupy Democrats and even Biden commercials that got fact checked. So let's not pretend the media is all one way bias. You are the one who got a bit unhinged and wrote a rant after all. You really shouldn't be the one to tell people that Wikipedia isn't biased. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:11, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, well, that's an issue, but there's another one, which is what the hell we're supposed to do when the vast majority of conservative sources are unreliable. A problem bigger than Wikipedia, I think. Benkler is not the only source to make this point, but that book is unusually compelling because of its mathematical analysis.

Incidentally, you might not have noticed, but I am the one who got Occupy Democrats added to the deprecated source list. I also don't use HuffPo or a dozen other popular unreliable leftist sites. Guy (help!) 21:38, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, That's your opinion that conservative sources are unreliable. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:05, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, also the opinion of many others, including reliable independent sources. OAN and Breitbart, in particular. Guy (help!) 22:24, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Probably worthwhile just to go to original blog to bypass the fox spin. Bulk of the post can be summarized on this point here: The global warming and MMR vaccine articles are examples; I hardly need to dive into these pages, since it is quite enough to say that they endorse definite positions that scientific minorities reject. Another example is how Wikipedia treats various topics in alternative medicine—often dismissively, and frequently labeled as “pseudoscience” in Wikipedia’s own voice. which I'll let speak for itself as to why that point has issues that is not related to NPOV. The only aspect of his post that I do know is probably in the right direction is on the politics, though I would not say it as obnoxiously bad as claimed, but it is there. We rush to include any type of judgement that may fall on those on the right, but it can be difficult for any type of legitimate criticism of those on the left to be added. It's not that we need to be able to add more criticism to the left, but we need to back off on the criticism of the right (and in general, period, that's not the purpose of an encyclopedia, and to the point of NPOV). --Masem (t) 19:11, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Enlightening link, thanks Masem. I somewhat agree that Wikipedia has issues of political bias. But I reject Sangers suggestion that our WP:FRINGE policies need changing. We don't give minority scientific viewpoints traction for very good reason (like MMR causing autism or climate change not being real). As the Plandemic video showed recently, the internet is increasingly being used as a tool of misinformation, and Wikipedia is perfectly suited to fight that kind of misinformation. Sanger mentions that "false balance" is flawed, but what would he have us do about that? Portray all viewpoints with equal weight? Let people claim 5G causes Corona?? CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:48, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I agree that when it comes to fringe aspects that have been disproven based on objective and sound scientific principles, we are fully in our right to disfavor them, hence the point of the quote I pulled. In areas of subjective "who is right or wrong", that's one we should be more cautious about and where I agree to a point that we're not NPOV anymore, just not to the alarmist level. --Masem (t) 19:57, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Masem, I wish that there were some moderate conservative sources. Apart from the WSJ, there's close to nothing that can be used as a reliable source for facts. Guy (help!) 20:12, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

It's not that we have to be looking to include conservative criticisms of the left, it is that we should be a lot more resilient from including criticism from any side in the first place, and only after it's clear that such criticism is part of the enduring part of that topic to include. That still might be more liberal than conservative leaning in the long run, but it will absolutely be much closer to a central and neutral view than what we do now. --Masem (t) 21:38, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Masem, oh for sure. It should pass the "ten year test". Problem is, so many editors want to make Wikipedia into a real-time blow-by-blow commentary. Guy (help!) 21:40, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, Trump articles are really suffering from that, its a big WP:NOTNEWS issue. I think in ten years we'll see most Trump articles get trimmed down a great deal, once perspective starts to set in and we realize what was and wasn't important. But for the time being, we're hyper-reporting, which gives a feeling of great bias. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 23:52, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I like that term "hyper reporting" and that it does apply across the board to even not-as-political areas such as our coverage of COVID-19 in a broad sense, eg Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020 this is laughably not of any use to anyone in this form but its kept up to date. We've established a bad habit mindset of seeing something on the news and rushing to insert it, usually in WP:PROSELINE style, rather to consider if it is information that will be enduring or relavant in ten years or can be merged with other content, or so on. That's above and beyond the NPOV here but clearly feeds into it. --Masem (t) 00:08, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

If Larry Sanger is proposing that we must give equal time, space, and credence to the wildly-discredited claim that climate change is a scientific conspiracy hoax, or the frankly-dangerous nuttery around purported COVID-19 miracle cures/quackery... then we stop containing the "sum of human knowledge" and start containing "the sum of human foolishness and fraud." NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:58, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

NorthBySouthBaranof, Larry Sanger tried this with Citizendium. He ended up with articles written from the perspective that homeopathy is legitimate, for example, and had to nuke great swathes of content.

I am forced to the conclusion that Wikipedia's model is the worst possible, apart from all those others that have from time to time been tried. Guy (help!) 20:14, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, after witnessing Sanger’s last abortive attempt to edit here, I can say that’s pretty spot-on. He was little else but disruptive, and didn’t even know or comprehend most our current policies. This was in the area of intelligent design, where he strongly advocated WP:FALSEBALANCE for various fringe views. If Wikipedia had continued the way he was saying he had intended, it would have likely suffered an even worse fate than Citizendium, and would not even be a fraction of what it is today. The project would have failed. Miserably. If he had his way, articles would just become endless coatracks that imparted little actual information, and certainly not in an encyclopedic way. Which would render Wikipedia at least partially useless. I’m sorry, but WP:FRINGE, WP:NPOV (in its current incarnation), WP:RNPOV, WP:IRS, and WP:WEIGHT is what keeps Wikipedia ticking, growing, and becoming continually more accurate. Sanger would have us scrap over half of those foundational policies, from what I’ve seen. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 20:56, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Symmachus Auxiliarus, indeed. Much of the noise about "political bias" comes from the outspoken conservative editors, who feel (and indeed probably are) outnumbered. But their voices are heard, and, where factual, I think usually recognised in content. We live in extraordinary times, though. Guy (help!) 21:54, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I don’t disagree that this is a subject that perennially crops its head up. I also feel that’s something of an American versus a global issue; most of the rest of the world doesn’t hold the opinions of that minority (especially nowadays); in fact, they’re actually rather dwarfed by the mainstream views. This is largely due, I think, to a shift in the Overton Window, and thus reliable sourcing with a “conservative” bent becoming less and less reliable as a result (with some exceptions).

Basically, what Masem said below. In this particular context though, I was talking specifically about Larry Sanger. I wouldn’t be surprised if he chose a controversial topic at random, that he knew involved fringe subjects, and chose to be a provocateur. I saw him pop up in a few other places in my watchlist around that time, but that was the only place I saw any sustained conversation. What I described was pretty accurate. He wanted to give equal time and priority to all “sides”, and “let the reader decide”. I also think I was pretty accurate in saying that this would have just turned the topic area into an inevitable mess, a morass it couldn’t emerge from without reliable sources and expert opinions. I believe that whether it be religion, or politics, we can present minority (or even fringe) views perfectly well, and accurately, but that they need to be in the context of mainstream scholarship And opinion, and weighted accordingly. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 02:41, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Symmachus Auxiliarus, that is consistent with past experience with Sanger. I put it down to a desire to be nice to people. The problem with that is also the problem that has sunk pretty much every political experiment in human history: it is in the nature of bad faith actors to exploit niceness, to take without giving. Guy (help!) 08:32, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Ianmacm, Reality has a well-known liberal bias. Guy (help!) 20:07, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I dunno, only one side seems to constantly quote comedians as their source for reality. It really is a joke though I suppose. PackMecEng (talk) 20:35, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, No it doesn't. and it's opinions like this that should really get you out of any political editing. It's clear you have some sort of crusade, and you are unable to edit in a neutral manner, whether it's with regards to religion or politics. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:13, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, it's a joke, but one which is funny because it contains truthiness. Much of the current dogma of the conservative movement is counterfactual. It's also comparatively recent. Richard Nixon created the EPA, George H.W. Bush signed the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. It's only since the 1980s that the GOP selection process has imposed de facto purity tests on climate change, abortion, unfettered gun ownership and the rest. Guy (help!) 21:49, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Careful...don't you know that JzG is an ADMINISTRATOR! That means he has a monopoly on the truth, especially regarding American conservatives...which are all rebel flag waving, climate change denying, backward, antiscience, anti-vaxxers, bambi huntin, cousin marrying, well...they also do noodling...etc. Get with the program!MONGO (talk) 21:55, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

MONGO, you forgot gun-toting. Which is odd considering the 300 million+ guns in the US and the number of people who voted for Trump something doesn't add up, some evil gun owners might be liberal. As for hating science, here's an interesting read how the left is far more dangerous to science than the right, consider GMO, anti-vaxx, and to quote, "Third, there’s the resistance in academia to studying the genetic underpinnings of human behavior, which has cut off many social scientists from the recent revolutions in genetics and neuroscience. Each of these abuses is far more significant than anything done by conservatives, and there are plenty of others." The Real War on Science/ The Left has done far more than the Right to set back progress. by Jonathan Tierney I also think there is something odd with the vehemence in how someone from the UK thinks he is able to talk about US politics merely from reading newspapers, and of course leftwing ones at that. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:16, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I am very much an Anglophile, even though my ancestor was told to skedaddle from there abouts 400 years ago. But I think its common in Britain to poke fun at the right wingers here, maybe even be scared of them, though in most cases, bet they have never met one of them in person. Its almost as if the noodlers are going to organize their armada of rowboats and set sail across the Atlantic and storm the cliffs of Dover. They are afterall, to the left of our center, so to them, an American conservative is like some kind of wild eyed crazy and armed to the teeth. The reason no liberals own a gun is because Billy Bob and his three boys own an average of 175 guns apiece...least that is the usual talking point.--MONGO (talk) 22:28, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

MONGO, yep, same here, I enjoy watching PMQ's for some reason and I love anything British. One of my downtime activities is watching these YouTube videos and I have a few of them are British/Irish/Scottish and they travel to the US and they all can't believe how amazing the US is and more importantly, how amazing the people are. It's perfect timing because the Scottish guy just put out a video yesterday and he said if he can get a visa, he'd move to the US in a heartbeat. He can't stop raving about how awesome it is. This just goes to show you how powerful the press is. Maybe we should start a GoFundMe to bring Guy to the US and show him around. Just as long as we avoid campfires and baked-beans. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 22:58, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

MONGO, I have met plenty of right-wing Americans myself. My work has taken me to Fort Worth and Tampa, for example, and there are plenty of conservatives in Philly, a town with which I am very familiar.

I'm not heading off with a gunboat. You buggers hanged the last member of my family to try that. And it's not that we're tot he left of your centre, but that your left is the rest of the world's right. UK political parties align closely with the rest of the developed world apart from the US. Guy (help!) 20:15, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, Philly? Have you ever stepped foot in Philly? Somehow I doubt it if you think there are "plenty of conservatives." The city council has GOP representatives because it's mandated to have third party seats and they still had to fight with other third parties for a chance. Also out of all the seats in the State House, they have 2 seats and no Senate seats. I wouldn't call Philly a place where you can find "plenty of conservatives." [[10]] Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:24, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Last time Philadelphians voted for a Republican presidential candidate was 1932.--MONGO (talk) 20:44, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

There is only 1 district in Philly that elected a GOP member, the other GOP is at large and the other at large is a different third party or Dems. That's 2 out of 17 seats. Also, Philly has been under Dem control since 1951. (Incidentally, it is the poorest large city in the US [3] similar to what happened to Detroit from 1950 to now. ) Sir Joseph ^(talk) 20:56, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, Philly is a city where people commute. My good friend Jim62sch (no longer active) lives in the area and I am in daily touch with people from my old firm, SunGard, in that city. They live where there are trucks with gun racks on every driveway.

Bizarrely, though, it was only on the fifth visit that we went out of the back door of the Curtis Center and I realised that the Liberty Bell is right next door. Go figure. This was before I was diagnosed coeliac, so I was able to experience the legendary Jim's. But in five years of visits I never managed to hear the Wanamaker Organ play, sadly. Guy (help!) 20:57, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, Are you going to Britishsplain me the Philly area? I'm going to call BS on your statement that people in Philly have gun racks in every driveway. Nope, sorry doesn't happen. You visited the area a few times and you think you know Philadelphia enough that there are trucks with gun racks on every driveway? I think they were pulling your leg considering you seem to be gullible enough to believe any stereotype about Americans. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:04, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

SirJoseph, American conservatives are all nuts! You know it, I know and JzG knows it. Even those crazies over in Hong Kong know it.[4].--MONGO (talk) 21:11, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, it makes you wonder why the US is still the number one country people want to move to, and the number two spot isn't even close. [5] Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:23, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't edit articles on politics much but I have been heavily involved in articles on the Bible/Christianity/martyrs, mostly trying to have the articles make clear what can be known as to whether the stories in them are historically accurate. Sanger says in his blog post "the article on Jesus is biased because it would upset a lot of Christians" by saying for instance “the gospels are not independent nor consistent records of Jesus’ life.” We do not censor scholarly consensus because it might upset people. My colleague Tgeorgescu has contributed a good essay on this - Wikipedia:Academic bias -Wikipedia has, and should have, a pro-academic "bias". Yes. We are biased and should be proud of it. We are biased in favor of the academic, scholarly, mainstream consensus.Smeat75 (talk) 20:54, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

It is fine that we have an academic and mainstream bias, but we need to be fully aware this is well accepted as a liberal bias in a broad sense in both what material we are going to draw from and how we may want to present it. Our hands are sorta tied on the sourcing side (as JzG has rightfully pointed out, the collection of reliable, conservative-leaning media is very very thin), and while we are not going to create false balances there are many many ways to temper the liberal coverage to still respect the weight of those sources without exalting those voices, and that's part of the issue that Sanger is pointing out and that I and others have seen. We may be stuck to using only the liberal subset of reliable sources for inclusion on articles, but we're not limited in topic awareness and discussions of how to approach a topic, knowing what's controversial and what's not, what probably is a spur-of-the-moment controversy compared to a actual long-running issue, and the like, and that's the cautions I've put out. We're still going to come out with Wikivoice being more liberal than conservative, but we should be only very slightly off-center compared to the media's placement if we're doing it right. When we blindly follow the media bias without any corrections, that's the problem--Masem (t) 22:00, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Masem, yes, I'd agree with that. Just because there's a conservative media bubble that behaves differently from the mainstream, that doesn't mean the mainstream is immune from the echo chamber effect, just that in general it is less powerful than the fact-checking ethos in the kinds of sources we consider reliable. Guy (help!) 22:27, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

There is a left bias on article involving current political and left vs. right themes. Sometimes it's in places where the reader can can just "dial in" for the bias and it's still a useful article. In some other case it distorts or hides coverage of the topic so much that it badly degrades the coverage. It comes from dozens of different places. At the top of the list is wikilawyering to slant the article, a problem that could be helped by tweaks in policies. Unequal treatment of editors based on politics, by admins and even occasionally by arbcom. Editor headcount at contested places is also a cause. Policies that favor "old media" in the US also contribute. WP:NPOV which has nothing that is operationally usable regarding wp:weight is also another big contributor. North8000 (talk) 21:51, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Derp. Who is "Wikipedia"? Did Fox ask for a response on WP:Helpdesk or WP:Teahouse or something? And they got no response? How long did they wait, two seconds?

This is not surprising, Larry been trying to compete with Wikipedia ever since he left. I thought it wouldn't be appropriate to post the following link here. It's rude and all. Then I saw Larry Sanger tweeted the Uncyclopedia logo in relation to Wikipedia's neutrality. That's it, I'm posting the link! No, make it two! Do you like Uncyclopedia, Larry? Do you? - Alexis Jazz 22:28, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm actually very, very pleased to see this topic being discussed here. no matter what one's political viewpoint may be, it is always good to revisit this area of discussion from time to time. and also, whether one agrees or disagrees with Sanger's viewpoints, there is a legitimate issue to discuss here, simply in terms of how well we are upholding WP:NPOV.

when I first arrived at Wikipedia, the articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were in a state of total stalemate. no matter what edits one side made, the other side was almost always sure to revert them. the edit wars were becoming recursive and circular, with each side blaming the other for violating NPOV.

With the help of a few other positive-minded editors, I helped to implement a basic but important compromise; I simply said that one side should allow the other side to express their point of view; by doing so, the side of this conflict that made that concession had thereby achieved a legitimate basis to present its own view; in other words, by allowing the views of one opposing side to be fully covered as one valid side of a conflict, this made it acceptable for the other side's views to also be depicted as a valid viewpoint.

I think that what this really established is that in the case of a genuine controversial area, the best way to adhere to NPOV is not to seek some mythical objective viewpoint, but rather to present the two sides, if each side has some valid point, or some valid basis for making the points or assertions that it makes.

I would suggest a similar approach to the current topics referred to above. yes, there is often a mainstream view that does not need to be diluted or counteracted by alternate theories that are no more than fringe. however, if any editors come here with good intentions, and only seek to provide coverage for alternate viewpoints that have some valid basis, then they should be given some ability to do so. I look forward to hearing further insights on this. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 22:42, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Alexis Jazz, there is a regrettable tendency for disgruntled grifters (including people like TDA and Kohs) to dominate off-wiki discussion of Wikipedia. Some recent stories have been much better,, though, including the one that looked at the million-milers.

The most egregious example I can remember was when Cla68 fact-washed his wild speculations through The Register and then added them to mainspace as criticisms of Wikipedia. Guy (help!) 08:37, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Here's a good example of just how misleading and potentially damaging Larry's line of argumentation is. Beyond arguing that NPOV should mean false balance in political articles and framing positions that have overwhelming scientific consensus as "opinions" that should be "balanced" in order to be neutral, he cites the abortion article: No conservative would write, in an abortion article, “When properly done, abortion is one of the safest procedures in medicine,” - It's a claim accompanied by high-quality references that meet our particularly stringent standards for biomedical claims, but because "no conservative would write" it, it's an example of Wikipedia political bias. In general, if you're qualifying your edits to medical any articles with "would a [conservative/liberal] write this?" instead of following the highest quality sources, find a different topic start a different project? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:16, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Rhododendrites, sure, no conservative would write that in 2020. In 1980, it would have been mainstream. The pernicious influence of evangelical "Christians" has poisoned the GOP as much as dark money has. You cannot now be a serious GOP candidate unless you pass the "purity tests" set by Big Oil, Big Armaments, Big Pharma and Big Jeezus. If only RepublicaN jESUS LOOKED MORE LIKE THAT HIPPIE SOCIALSIT GUY IN THE bIBLE... Guy (help!) 08:41, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

With that I think it's safe to say that we can surely look forward to a very thought provoking and NPOV edition of any article you edit regarding an American GOP member or related article. So pleased to see that we can trust you to offer an unbiased and well, so highly educated perspective.--MONGO (talk) 12:07, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

MONGO, I mainly don't touch them. But that doesn't change the facts: the diversity that was visible in the early 80s has virtually disappeared. In every sense. How many African-Americans are there representing the GOP in Congress? What percentage of the Congressional GOP is made up of straight white men? Guy (help!) 15:15, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

So I imagine this means if I sent you a MAGA hat you would be unlikely to wear it?--MONGO (talk) 20:01, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I would go halfsies but only if we get a picture of Guy wearing said hat. PackMecEng (talk) 20:21, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

JzG, In contentious interview, Biden says black voters considering Trump over him "ain't black" For someone who loves talking about racial ratios and disparities, you might want to check how the UK or even just England is doing with regards to number of non-whites. The GOP has more non-whites in Congress as a percentage than the number of non-whites in England, by my reckoning. But again, the GOP isn't big on identity politics, Gov DeSantis won in Florida in big part due to minorities voting for him in part because of his stance on vouchers, but you wouldn't know that because it's a hyper-local issue and I don't know if your local castle gets such the local news. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:33, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

This Sanger guy is basically both-sidesing like Trump did after a Neo-Nazi killed a woman in the Charlottesville. A second of time spent debating such a morally bankrupt person and his indefensible point-of-view is a second wasted. Zaathras (talk) 03:22, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Zaathras, a bit, yes. You also wonder why Fox News would want to undermine a source of reliable information on, to pick a topic completely at random, the coronoavirus outbreak. Guy (help!) 10:24, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Zaathras, I hope you are more careful when editing articles than when conversing on talk pages. Accusign somone of being "morally bankrupt" sounds like a BLT violation, but I can't tell whether you are maligning Trump or Sanger. Can you clarify? Or better yet, redact? S Philbrick(Talk) 19:17, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Probably the most common form of bias isn't lack of giving two sides on some debated topic, it is in applying an unequal bar to what get included and excluded from the article.North8000 (talk) 12:18, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, being "lefty" in America doesn't mean aligning with the left. When neither of the two main parties are on the left-hand side of the political compass it is unsurprising that many in America, including Sanger apparently, believe that even centrists are "lefty". Black Kite (talk) 15:21, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Compare the politics of 60 years ago compared to the politics of today. Count Iblis (talk) 18:25, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

• Five minutes after this interview, this would be in the Trump article, and we all know this to be true. This is the issue that needs to be resolved. In contentious interview, Biden says black voters considering Trump over him "ain't black" And yes, NOTNEWS applies, but it's not applied uniformly. Look at Joe Biden and see how many RFC there are on the page for RS stuff. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:53, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

[6] Anyone who thinks both the Democratic and Republican Parties in the US have not shifted left overall is uneducated. No doubt Kennedy's policies and beliefs of 60 years ago would land him as a middle of the road Republican today.--MONGO (talk) 20:20, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

For die-hard Socialists or Communists, Wikipedia has a terrible right-wing bias. Of course, they are rather scarce in the US, but there is plenty of them elsewhere. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:08, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Not sure how the Communist Chinese could see that considering their far left political machine bans Wikipedia.--MONGO (talk) 20:26, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@MONGO: That's not evidence against my claim, it is evidence for my claim. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:50, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Its evidence that the extreme leftist communist regime there is opposed to free speech, a free press and supports censorship.--MONGO (talk) 22:43, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@MONGO: Which I never denied: free speech is bourgeois ideology as far as they are concerned. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:34, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

This thread is starting to look like the degenerated American political discourse scene which is basically limited to "bash the other team". Why not just strive for fixing any problems that we have so that we have informative articles. It sounds simple-minded but isn't. It's what we're here for, and is more fun. North8000 (talk) 20:10, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

As long as Wikipedia mainly derives political content from modern news sources, nothing will be changing. If your main sources for current topics are CNN, NYTimes, and WaPo, you're going to be able to safely assume what our articles will say. "RS" is now more important than "NPOV," something I'm not convinced is necessarily a good thing. News wouldn't exist if people didn't pay for it, and you've got to satisfy your customers and give them what they want so they stick around. Mr Ernie (talk) 21:26, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Disagree: we certainly can use current news sources to build topics on politic issues, but we simply have to drop the commentary facets from it, which is the point of NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM. If the political commentary itself becomes the news, we have to simply make sure we're reporting factually on that. Eg we'd still be discussing the whole matter of US's response to COVID as there's the entire blame game that's been going around, that's unavoidable, but we've got to be careful of how this intersect MEDRS and the RECENTISM issues, and the less we focus on the he-said-she-said and more on the broad aspects picture is, which we still can do with mainstream sources, the better. The problem is that many MANY editors want to rush to include even the slightlest bit for commentary that is coming from journalists or outside observers that is above and beyond the news itself, and that's where using current media sources is dangerous. UNDUE/WEIGHT absolutely needs a factor related to time, the closer an opinion or opinionated statement is to the event that prompted it, the less weight it should carry. --Masem (t) 21:48, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

NPOV has always been dependent on RS. WP:NPOV is defined as representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources. By definition, this explicitly rejects views which have not been published by reliable sources. It is not the fault of the left that the right increasingly buries itself in echo chambers which publish utter nonsense as a matter of course, and thus cannot be trusted to reliably publish truthful, factual accounts of reality - which is the basis of the NPOV policy. There's nobody on the left who forced One America News Network to, say, falsely claim that the father of a Democratic Congressional candidate celebrated the death of Israelis or spread malicious and false conspiracy theories about the survivor of a school shooting. Those, and many others, were entirely the choice of those who run the network, and those choices have destroyed its credibility as a reliable source. The right has only itself to blame for these issues. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:12, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Guess that means since they published utter nonsense resulting in multi million dollar defamation lawsuits as happened during the January 2019 Lincoln Memorial confrontation should we examine if the WaPo, CNN and NBC are also "reliable"?--MONGO (talk) 22:43, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

And our stance on that situation, just like all other court cases, is "innocent until proven guilty". The only aspect being that CNN actually settled [7] implying, but not asserting any fault. We (Wikipedia) can't take action on that at all though this is my point on RECENTISM and adding the time factor to UNDUE/WEIGHT. --Masem (t) 23:08, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Guess I have to say "this is a facetious rhetorical question" when I am posting a facetious rhetorical question.--MONGO (talk) 06:48, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

As our article on that incident notes, several news organizations, including CNN, took action to clarify and/or correct their reporting. The Washington Post published a report by its media critic which took issue with some of the paper's own reporting, as well as others, and critically analyzed the situation. I'd invite you to point me to where OANN has clarified, corrected, retracted, or even critically analyzed its claims that George Soros collaborated with the Nazis and funds migrant caravans, or that COVID-19 was developed in a laboratory in North Carolina with the help of funding from Dr. Anthony Fauci. You can't, of course, because they never have and never will. They exist in a universe where facts have no meaning. There is no possible equivalency between OANN and The Washington Post. One is a credible mainstream journalistic reporting organization which occasionally gets things wrong, and the other... is not. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:28, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Someone sounds awfully defensive. PackMecEng (talk) 23:36, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Someone seems to want to personalize what has, up to this point, been a civil discussion. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:38, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Is it you? Because you seem to be taking this pretty personal up to this point. PackMecEng (talk) 23:40, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

NorthBySouthBaranof, your sources for that laboratory claim are "The Wrap," which doesn't mention it at all, and MediaMatters.org. You're proving your point by using sources just as trashy as OANN. Mr Ernie (talk) 06:26, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm surprised to see so many words here on Larry Sanger's latest antic. So surprised I'm going to add more words to this section.

Why should we bother about what Sanger says or does any more? Once I had a bit of respect for him, although I didn't necessarily agree with him: he was the Trotsky of the Wikipedia revolution, the leading figure at the beginning who was maneuvered out of the project, & deserved better. However, at every step he's provided evidence that would convince any disinterested observer he had less to do with the success of the Wikipedia model than first thought. His biggest attempt to prove he & his ideas were right -- Citizendium -- is a failure. When he became the CTO of Everipedia, I thought he had hit rock bottom. (All you need to know about that episode are a few facts: Everipedia was founded by two white guys who described it as the "gangsta Wikipedia"; & that Singer planned to use "blockchain" technology to make it better than Wikipedia.) He's managed to gain media attention only thru his vicious, at times irresponsible, attacks on Wikipedia & the related projects. This was the guy who claimed Commons was a source of child pornography. And his latest attack on Wikipedia is nothing more than clickbait for right-wing readers, a boilerplate screed that any conservative columnist could write on an off day. I figure he must be angling for a commentator's job at Fox News. Or to encourage disunity at Wikipedia. Or, since the man has a Ph.D., maybe accomplish both with little effort.

To repeat an old canard, yes there are errors in Wikipedia. The best way to address them is to find more & better sources -- not to fight amongst ourselves & give satisfaction to Sanger, a bitter young man who had one great idea once in his life, failed to find another, & simply needs to move on with his life. -- llywrch (talk) 00:35, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Because while much of what he wrote is inconsistent with WP's mission and policies, there are parts that at the core do represent problems with WP that have been identified. We'll always be accused of carrying a liberal bias as long as we keep our reliable sources as we do (which is not a problem itself), but we can reduce editor-induced parts of that bias, for example, by avoiding the same political and ideological battles that the media gets involved in. --Masem (t) 00:51, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

>>"...he was the Trotsky of the Wikipedia revolution..." — Yeesh. More like: he was the Rasputin of the old regime. I read Sanger's Twitter feed for hilarious entertainment value. It keeps a thread perking at Wikipediocracy, let's just say that much. I'm sure his mama loves him. Carrite (talk) 00:27, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Carrite I've revised my opinion: now I consider him the Pete Best of Wikipedia. Only Best moved on with his life. -- llywrch (talk) 23:26, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I saw the existence of this discussion in the news. I mostly edit ancient philosophy, but I once got interested in a modern philosophical topic that has a political angle and found Wikipedia's article to exhibit terrible bias. It was an article that had been condemned in several articles in the press for its bias. The behavior of the editors who had staked out ownership of that page towards anyone who dared to question the lack of balance of the narrative they pushed was odious. I wasted a lot of time trying to right that wrong. For non-political issues Wikipedia is doing a good job, but for contentious political issues it looks like we are failing, and probably getting worse each passing day. Hopefully getting called out like this might serve as a turnaround. On politics we need to accept the fact that pretty much all of the sources now are biased, that they are tribal, that standards of reliability that work elsewhere don't work on political topics, and that it is mission-critical that we present opposing points of view in a way that we are not now doing.Teishin (talk) 00:47, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Larry Sanger, asking for help in 2013:

"Starting http://InfoBitt.com means I am finished with Wikipedia criticism. Quote this back to me if I happen to lapse."

The Fox News article doesn't mention it, but it is worth noting that in his new post, Sanger is also accusing Wikipedia of being biased against "minority perspectives on science and medicine" on topics such as global warming, alternative medicine and vaccines. His views on such matters are not entirely news - more than a decade ago, it was already observed by many that Citizendium (Sanger's Wikipedia alternative) appeared very favorable to pseudoscience (e.g. Sanger personally inviting a "leading proselytizer of homeopathy" - who had previously been banned on Wikipedia - to write Citizendium's article about homeopathy).

Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:16, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

The whole "left vs. right" thing is a mostly American creation that serves to keep political power within the plutocratic partnership; e.g. Kerry and Bush. It also serves to keep most Americans politically dumb downed and thoughtless because they usually are directed by family or peers into the Dems or Reps voting block in their 20s and stick (are stuck) there for life. The super advantage for the plutocracy is that since positioning on all major issues is set by the bosses of each party/partner, the people never get to exercise much of their individual critical thinking abilities about political issues which, as I say, makes them politically sheep like and much easier to lead and control. Most Americans never even think about why and how America has been stuck with only 2 political parties for.. how long? Much less think about whether America is really a democracy. Just think about that little fact. Any politically savy person knows that, by definition,(e.g. electoral college), So if Sanger wants to buy into the false choice of only 2 ways of thinking about issues and analysing who is on which of those only 2 sides, then he fits right in, but no Wikipedian needs to fall for the contrived "left/right" bullshit. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:43, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow, I thought you had some interesting ideas, but it doesn't seem like Sanger's comment was about left vs right but rather about Wikipedia left-bias vs little or no bias. Bob K31416 (talk) 00:59, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Good point, Bob K31416, very good point.

I'm thinking that were his opinion more concise and helpful, would he not just leave out the reference to "left-bias"? Would it not be a more important point for him to just try to focus on our level of NPOV success in a focused and stand alone way? I think that whenever anybody starts referencing "left" or "right" in any discussion or statement, that has an immediate distracting effect upon the substance and potentially constructive effect of the subsequent responses and tends to create wasted mental energy on adversarial and competitive expressions. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:04, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Let's make this specific.

Consider the proposition "Daniel Holtzclaw" is a rapist. If one looks at all available sources, without regard to Wikipedia rules, this is close to provably false, and definitely not proven true. If one follows Wikipedia sourcing rules, the opposite is the case. Why is that? Can it be fixed? Adoring nanny (talk) 01:11, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

This cretin was found guilty on 18 charges, sentenced to 263 years, sentence upheld by state court of appeals, final appeal rejected by the US Supreme Court. In what possible twisted universe in your mind is this "provably false, and definitely not proven true" ? Zaathras (talk) 02:41, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Zaathras, Wikipedia:Civility, "editors should always treat each other with consideration and respect". Bob K31416 (talk) 00:04, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@Zaathras: Lucia de Berk was sentenced to life in prison in 2003 for five cases of murder and two cases of attempted murder. She appealed and in 2004 she was sentenced to life in prison and TBS (forced mental treatment in a closed facility) for seven murders and three attempts. Because the combination of life and TBS was deemed impossible by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, the case went back to court and in 2006 she was sentenced to life. In 2010 she was acquitted on all charges. She was innocent, all the deaths were of natural causes. The justice department messed up big time. I don't know Holtzclaw, but strange things can happen. - Alexis Jazz 09:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not interested in Whataboutisms regarding to different cases. Zaathras (talk) 01:01, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Check articles by Michelle Malkin, Townhall.com, HoltzclawTrial.com, etc. And don't judge information by its author, judge by how well it matches up with the evidence. Basically, the sources that have it right are the ones that are not WP:RS. Not the first or last person to be railroaded by our justice system. Adoring nanny (talk) 14:41, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Biased sites too close to the source? Hard pass. Zaathras (talk) 01:01, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

User:Zaathras More importantly, I want to ask you a question. Suppose the courts and so forth are wrong. Is that information you would want to know? Adoring nanny (talk) 18:16, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but just an extremely ill-informed question. Again, this person was

• Tried by a jury of his peers and found guilty.
• OK Court of Appeals upholds the decision, unanimously.
• The US Supreme Court saw so little merit that they did not even carry it over to a full review.

The man went through 3 levels of the judiciary system, this is why we have these checks on the power of the lower courts, to address and rectify missteps and errors. At some point you have to trust that our system of government is, while not perfect, still very, very good at protecting citizen's right. Running around screaming "it's all rigged", "I was robbed" after exhausting one's appeals is just an invitation for us all to dive into anarchy. I have full confidence in the legal system and the sourcing in the article, that we can say, in Wikipedia's voice, that Daniel Holtzclaw is a sexual predator who raped eight women. Zaathras (talk) 01:01, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

User:ZaathrasI'll ask the question again. If the courts have it wrong, would you want to know or not? Adoring nanny (talk) 00:35, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Yup, we would like to know if the courts have it wrong. But it is not our task to tell them what to do. We simply report what the WP:RS say, we're not WP:ACTIVISTS. If you want to plead for his innocence, fine, it's a free country. But Wikipedia won't be engaged in WP:RGW. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:08, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Adoring nanny, I think the main sourcing rule in this case is WP:DUE, "Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects." BTW, I noticed that in the Daniel Holtzclaw article there was a paragraph at the end based on Michelle Malkin's work. Bob K31416 (talk) 00:04, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Nanny, I will give you the same response; your question is without merit. The man's case went through 3 levels of the judiciary, and I trust in the systems of checks and safeguards that the judicial system has in place that, if he was innocent, it would have been caught and rectified. Therefore, his guilty verdict is essentially ironclad. Zaathras (talk) 02:42, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

• Only as a comment, if the proposition is "Daniel Holtzclaw is a rapist" we would never say that in Wikivoice, but acknowledge what Zaathras has said about the admonishment by the courts we would say "Daniel Holtzclaw is convicted on X counts of rape" factually in Wikivoice. While there's presently little to question the courts' net result here, the wording that way allows for those remote cases where a person is aquitted of a conviction late in the process, by simply stating the facts of the conviction. WP should never say, in Wikivoice , that a person living or dead, was a murderer, rapist, killer, etc., outside in limited cases where the person has been long dead and their lives subject to great scrutiny to leave no doubt to that question - typically limited to the situation around serial killers. --Masem (t) 02:42, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

• Yes I agree, I didn't mean to imply we would use that literal sentence, it was not a good phrasing on my part. By the fact of being convicted and several appeals denied, the article can and should describe him as a convicted rapist. This is no Leonard Peltier. Zaathras (talk) 02:48, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

• This section is indeed a great example of Larry's point in action: Someone was convicted of particular crimes, all reliable sources frame the position one way, and Wikipedia's article reflects what those sources say. Then an editor comes by to say that Wikipedia is Biased because it doesn't reflect that Real-Truth (which can only be found if you look at unreliable sources). That editor is promptly pointed to the neutrality policy and WP:FRINGE. Yes, this is a very good example of NPOV working. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:19, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not disagreeing with your point, but I also want to show that while we're adjusting our gross dial to avoid the skewed bias towards what Larry's suggesting, we also have to watch the finer tuning to make sure we don't go too far the other way, which I think still is a takeaway of Larry's blog. Just the simple difference in wording between "Daniel Holtzclaw is a rapist" and "Daniel Holtzclaw is convicted of rape" - statements that in the media would be treated functionally equivalent - have significantly different impacts on tone and impartialness, which is what my point has generally be around. The culture wars of the early part of the 2010s with the following #metoo movement have not made this easier, and of course, don't have to talk about current Western politics of how its gotten worse. We, in mainspace, needs to be disinterested even if we're pulling from sources we know carrying a bias and that often just requires careful wording choices and avoiding certain issues at the present for the sake the larger scope of the encyclopedia. It's really really easy as purveyors of knowledge, many of us as self-stated "experts" here, to write a bit influentially on these events and that's where the line has to be drawn. And that I can fully agree is a difficult thing to do as a human being with the average background most Wikipedians have in the current environment. We've been slack in trying enforce this (as there's no real admin type actions to enforce until they blow up as EW or AP2 or similar cases) and goes to several points mentioned above - we need a sea change of thinking about how to write about current events to take any serious bias out of them. Not to correct the apparent bias, but simply just to avoid content that may lead to bias. --Masem (t) 04:06, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Obama article example

In the Fox article about Sanger's comments there is, "The first example pointed out by the site’s co-founder is that President Barack Obama’s page 'completely fails to mention many well-known scandals' such as Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal and the so-called 'Fast and Furious' operation."

Is that a correct and fair statement by Sanger? Bob K31416 (talk) 15:56, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

This is probably where Fox is not understanding WP:SS as well as to the person responsible. We are obviously not going to go into full details of any of these on Barack Obama the page, but:

• Benghazi is linked from the top box (as a major issue in his term) to 2012 Benghazi attack and under THAT page under "Investigations" there's at least 3 additional pages of details of going into what happened in depth.
• IRS Scandal is at IRS targeting controversy but that page does not appear to be linked through Obama's page. The thing is, is this really an Obama issue (compared to his "role" in Benghazi)? Not really.
• AP Phone records is at 2013 articles about the Department of Justice investigations of reporters. Not linked on Obama's page, but same as with IRS - was Obama in this issue? Even more so, this was Holden, not Obama at all.
• "Fast and Furious" is at ATF gunwalking scandal and again not linked to Obama. This has a bit more involvement from Obama (to evoke executive priveledge) but again, mostly from Holder so not really an Obama scandal to be called that.

So yes, we're failing to mention these "well known scandals' but that is because they have little to do with Obama as a person. His administration perhaps, but we're not going to highlight actions of someone like Holder who had been proven to be acting on their own on Obama's page. That's simply not how we write things. Whereas, where I'm sure the counterexample is "but we have all these things for Trump!" is because Trump *has* been at the center of these things. Mind you, I would make sure we take the same care to make sure we don't put Trump at the center of fault for things that he has yet to be shown to be the accountable party for, such as the US Census citizenship question situation.

But this also brings up a point: We should not be hiding coverage of conspiracy theories that we know are wrong as long as RSes have documented them so that we can explain neutrally what those theories are and why they are wrong. In other words, just like we are carrying doing the minefield of misinformation arising from COVID-19 to much praise from the media, we should carefully handle the same when we can reliably source the context of a conspiracy theory. We're not beholden to give false balance to explaining why those that thing the theory holds think its true, but we should explain what the basics of the theory are (to the degree all sourcing and content policies allow) and then as per FRINGE us RS to explain why the theory is not accepted or considered a conspiracy theory. EG: in the above Benghazi situation, it's hard to actually find it based on "benghazi obama conspiracy theory" those that should lead to some hit - not necessary a full article but a least a section to explain "There are some that believe.... . This has been shown false because...." type language. --Masem (t) 16:34, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Masem, Obama relents in fight over Fast and Furious documents , whether he was involved is up for debate, but to not include the scandal and to say it's not linked to Obama is the height of bias and just proves what Sanger and everyone else is saying. The ATF under Obama was Obama's ATF, just like all of Trump's administration is Trump's, even if you say he wasn't involved. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:42, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

All of these can be linked through the various Obama administration pages. That's all fair, but again, there's the lack of direct personal involvement at the core of the events that would make for being on the page about Obama more relevant. For the ATF, Obama's personal involvement appears to simply start when Holden asked him to evoke executive privileged and when that was denied, that was it. That's not even skin deep of involvement in the overall situation that was in question. --Masem (t) 16:51, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Masem, I thought your points have been pretty good, but regarding the "personal involvement" argument, that reminds me of Nixon not being personally involved in the Watergate burglary but being involved in the cover up. Bob K31416 (talk) 17:33, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Not to try to analyze the situation too differently, whereas Nixon himself appeared to work actively to cover the situation up and thus got himself deeper involved, Obama (as best we know) attempted one act of executive privilege per Holden's request, was told no, and thus gave in to the information request, refusing to get further involved. People in his adminstration certainly work involved, and definitely was a scandal around his administration, but not around him personally, whereas Watergate was one Nixon personally got himself deeply involved in, if that makes the difference clearer. --Masem (t) 17:48, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

There certainly is a big difference between the Nixon and Obama situations, but then the criticism of the Obama article isn't about prominently mentioning Fast and Furious, but about not giving it even an insignificant presence in the article. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:44, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

UNDUE applies here; how much of that story has affected Obama as a person or as a President? The argument I'm seeing is "It's a conspiracy, it has to be included", which... no, that's against UNDUE; we don't include every conspiracy theory made about a topic on the page on that topic if it fails UNDUE relative to the other facets about that topic. Watergate ruined Nixon, it better the heck be covered on Nixon's page, for example. --Masem (t) 01:09, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Regarding DUE, I googled the keywords: obama privilege fast and furious. I looked at the first 4 pages of results and got the gist that this was a notable Obama issue lasting for years.

Well, I'll call it quits here and in closing say that I think this discussion of ours may be an example that supports Sanger's criticism. Discussions like ours may have happened at the Obama article and kept this information out. I think you're acting in good faith and that you are not consciously being influenced by personal political bias. Just my opinion.

BTW, I thought Obama was a good president and that republicans in congress unfairly obstructed his presidency, also just my opinion. I try not to let this influence my editing by following the editing policies of Wikipedia, without gaming them. With that, I'll say good bye. Bob K31416 (talk) 06:14, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Considering DUE is not just about how often its in the news but relative to the topic as a whole or how it is connected to that topic. F&F is much more frequently connected to the Obama administration thn Obama himself, outside of the fact that it was the only time he himself issued an order of executive privilege on the call for documents during his time in office and which no one has figured out why (since those documents ultimately got released). No one believes Obama himself was really involved outside of this in the actual scandal of F&F, but absolutely the people running his administration (like Holder) were. That's why the scandal doesn't make sense on the top-level of Obama's page when thre are a ton of other facets that are much more DUE for coverage related to his personal leadership stype while on one of his presidental adminstration pages, there should be a brief discussion and pointer to the F&F operation page. It's not ignoring it but considering the weight of DUE to the topic and adding it appropriate given that BLP sit applies (Obama received no "punishment" for that). --Masem (t) 06:42, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The OP says more than you realize. Wikipedia even hid the highly wp:notable "Operation Fast and Furious" scandal itself. (there is no article on it) by burying it inside of a list of less serious less notable similar actions. But, from the period when he was running for president, we do have an entire separate article on Mitt Romney's dog's ride in a shielded cage on the roof of his car years before, which opponents were using as an attack point. Mitt Romney dog incident. North8000 (talk) 18:45, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

How is it hidden if you linked right to it by name? The Mitt Romney article is completely ridiculous though, I agree. Would a deletion discussion be worth it now? Surely when it was current this was a headline-grabber, but this has not stood the test of time at all. Zaathras (talk) 19:19, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes and yes. On the first case, we are under no pretense to give a conspiracy theory its own article if it better to be covered in the larger comprehensive scope of the larger event that the theory stems from; in fact, this should be the overridding principle of trying to avoid standalone pages on conspiracy theories as to keep the theories with the sourced facts of the case, and only makes standalone cases when there is no real parent event to connect it to or a size issue comes up (eg Watergate, Pizzagate, 9/11 conspiracy theories). As for Romney's dog article, that's at least a point of discussion summarized on Mitt Romney 2008 presidential campaign and referenced by the Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign in a few para. This is exactly the type of article that our hyperreporting results in, we're not thinking of the future, we're thinking of our political leanings (good or bad) and creates messes like this. --Masem (t) 19:42, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

There is no "theory" involved or covered. It was a distinct, highly noted, officially named campaign. Where the attorney general was (semi-bi-partisan) convicted on contempt of congress for refusing to provide documents on, and where the president exerted executive privilege over those documents. North8000 (talk) 19:47, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

That's a redirect, not an article. And as I said it is buried by putting it inside of a list of less serious less notable similar actions. In fact, it doesn't even have a section in that article, only a subsection, and all of the other coverage of it (re reaction, aftermath etc. etc.) is conflated & confused (=buried) with the less serious less notable actions. Regarding the dog ride article, the fact that it was created while Rommney was running for president is the key point. North8000 (talk) 19:47, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

See, people bring up little gotchas like "convicted on contempt of Congress", but fail to mention the follow-up, which in this case is "...however the Justice Department's Inspector General later cleared Holder of any wrongdoing" (from Eric Holder). Being cleared of charges by the literally non-partisan IG's Office is what takes a supposed scandal down a few pegs, from "it's a big relevance to Obama's bio" to "bit of a partisan hit-piece that was deflated". Zaathras (talk) 20:13, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

I mentioned those extraordinary events regarding notability, not to argue the case. Personally I'm concerned about being informative even more than balanced. It's when bias detracts from informativeness that I get more concerned. And IMO this highly notable, distinct, large officially named program with extensive coverage by that name not having it's own article, or even a section in an article, with some of it covered in a so-named subsection and the rest of it confusingly blended with other material is an example of that. And this is an encyclopedia where the guidelines stipulate that every assoc/ football/ soccer player who played 1 day professionally gets their own article.  :-) North8000 (talk) 21:14, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

To a degree I agree here: I'm reminded of the South Park episode "Trapped in the Closet (South Park)" where they illustrate as straight as they can show (in contrast to the show's usual humor) was Scientology's texts state their faith is, and led to the "this is what Scientologists actually believe". In that sense, we should plainly, neutrally, and impartially make sure that a notable conspiracy theory is at least explained in plain, simple terms. And having been involved with the Gamergate article in trying to keep that neutral, I know the lengths some editors want to go out of their way to avoid given conspiracy theory or similar type of fringe thing the time of day on Wikipedia, when really a short couple sentences without any judgement on the validity of the conspiracy theory's claims, as long as we avoid any BLP, MEDRS and other problem content that may arise and which can be sourced to RSes. UNDUE and FRINGE clearly tell us to make sure that such an explanation in context clearly identifies such claims as conspiracy theories or the like, but that doesn't mean we can't present them impartially at first and then follow up with volumes of why that wrong. So I do agree that the OF&F stuff should be at least clear what that actually entails because I know its clearly not the entire event on the ATF gunwalking scandal but only one facet, and even the section named "Operation F&F" in the article doesn't explain this. I don't know what type of section you'd need here for a brief summary of what the conspiracy theory around this is. --Masem (t) 01:25, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I brought it up here as simply as a pretty blatant example of bias. Burying a major clearly wp:topic. And juxtaposing that with the dog-ride story article being created during the election. To my knowledge there was no "theory" involved and few facts are in dispute. The one fact in dispute is that the higher ups denied having any prior knowledge of it. North8000 (talk) 15:51, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The question to ask is if we really are burying it. If we made a list of all the key factors of Obama as a person - knowing that we have a summary-style structure to handle his various periods in his government offices - and then had to rank per DUE/WEIGHT and make some cutoff where SIZE comes into play with the summary style approach - where would OF&F fit? Yes, it was a significant factor of his administration but himself personally, not that high, compared to Watergate with Nixon, the Lewinsky stuff with Clinton, "Mission Accomplished" with Bush, and so on. Just because it was a high profile scandal that involved his administration does not mean it needs to be covered on the page about his person, which is what I feel is trying to be begged for here, and that's the false balance aspect that we can't create. Any of these scandals with the administration better be covered on the administration pages, that's expected and would be a problem if we were missing those, and that's the feature of using Summary Style. It may seem to be creating bias but its understanding where the information actually best fits (and this includes making sure that on pages like Trump we're not assigning scandals that involve the Trump administration but not Trump on Trump's page -the idea works both ways.) --Masem (t) 16:35, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

By "burying" I was referring to non-existence of an article on a very large, prominent wp:notable topic, not to non-inclusion in the Obama article. Regarding the latter, well written articles will do as you say; make good editorial decision like that regarding inclusion, including based on scale, degree of wp:relevence, prominence within the topic. (I left out wp:weight) The complain is that this vetting is done unequally. North8000 (talk) 17:20, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

The Neutral Way

There is a neutral way to determine what goes in an encyclopedic biography, like our article entitled, Barack Obama (also note that that's not the only article concerning Barack Obama, just as the article entitled Abraham Lincoln is not the only article concerning Abraham Lincoln, scope matters, so eg. Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, George Washington have to be encyclopedic biographies). This will not work for all articles but for subjects that have already directly gotten encyclopedic biographies outside Wikipedia it does. Per WP:TERTIARY (and because it is a WP:BLP) we can look to high quality tertiary sources(see eg.,[8] [9]) to judge due weight for every possible fluff or scandal du jour, partisan praise or partisan attack, etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:31, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker, Re your comment "Per WP:TERTIARY (and because it is a WP:BLP) we can look to high quality tertiary sources(see eg.,[10] [11]) to judge due weight for every possible fluff or scandal du jour, partisan praise or partisan attack, etc." — See the section "Spring scandals and summer challenges" in your first reference. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:41, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

I've said my point on how to be neutral many many times before , and that's making sure for current topics to respect NOT:NEWS and RECENTISM, and stay to facts and objective statements, and avoid commentary until some X years out from events (unless that commentary is part of the news, such as Trump's tweet that got flagged last night). This is akin almost to waiting out for tertiary sources, but it still allows us to stay current. --Masem (t) 16:39, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Britannica vs Wikipedia with respect to political bias

The OP's suggestion in the above section "The Neutral Way", where he mentions the Obama article in the Encyclopedia Britannica as a high quality tertiary source, brings to mind a question. How does the Encyclopedia Britannica compare to Wikipedia with respect to political bias? Bob K31416 (talk) 07:15, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Et tu, Brute?

Is Sanger a Trump supporter? If he is then I move to strip him of his founder designation once and for all. That such people even exist! I was supporting the notability of Kyle Kulinski before I found out he was a third-partyist. EllenCT (talk) 01:37, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Serious? PackMecEng (talk) 14:46, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Sanger doesn't have any official "co-founder status" on Wikipedia, AFAIK. Rather this practice always seemed to me to be pushed by folks with a chip on their shoulder, e.g. an early paid editor who has been banned multiple times and across Wikis. The facts as I see them is that Jimbo owned the company that founded Wikipedia and had all the final decision making power. Sanger was the main (or only) employee for awhile but left after awhile when he felt that he needed to actually get paid for his work, i.e. after a while he was just another volunteer who decided to leave on his own. I don't know when he was switched from employee to volunteer, but it couldn't have been more than a year or two. Not to say that he didn't make many contributions, but "co-founder" has always been a stretch. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

That's cool but what does it have to do with Trump? Was Sanger supporting Trump for president in 2004? Pelirojopajaro (talk) 09:35, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, It's a satirical comment and section heading ... in my opinion. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:05, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

IMHO, Sanger is a Sanger supporter, nothing more nothing less. He's still unhappy (to put it mildly) about how successful Wikipedia is, & that he's been unable to create a viable competitor to it. And he's demonstrated time & again what he's willing to do darken Wikipedia's reputation. I'll repeat what I've said before: he simply needs to move on with his life. -- llywrch (talk) 17:54, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

Will Trump's executive order impact Wikipedia?

Social media companies like Twitter have developed their own systems to deal with fake news. These systems are not perfect but they are good enough to be an irritant to Trump, and Trump has now decided to hit back by invoking the decency act. It seems to me that Wikipedia might then also be affected by any such action, because we have our rules here too that Trump obviously doesn't like either. Count Iblis (talk) 16:24, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I share some of CI's concerns, but would word them a bit differently. I'll note Donald Trump is a lunatic: Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales I did hear the word lunatic from your lips but my ability to view the video is so bad that I think it would be better just to ask you. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:53, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

It appears that Mr. Trump's EO is going to target the Section 230 immunity, which could render the Wikipedia liable for content posted by users, and how disciplinary actions are handled. These are interesting times to live in. ValarianB (talk) 16:57, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I think it highly unlikely that anything Trump does will have any negative impact on us. Given that Trump governs through random chaotic rants on twitter, it's actually quite unclear to me at this point just what, exactly, he's proposing. I saw a quote from a law professor in the New York Times saying that she had seen a draft of the order, so I suppose it's out there - I haven't seen it yet (and I'm not a legal expert although I know more than I should have to know about Section 230 and all that). Executive Orders can't override laws that Congress has made, but there's no question that a President with a sufficient degree of lack of concern for the Constitution could tie a lot of people up in court for a long time before getting his ass handed to him.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:09, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Found this which is said to be the draft.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:12, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

From my understanding (and now that draft), it targets the vagueish language of S230 like "in good faith" and allow federal agency like FCC to define that better, back-dooring in policies if that's not met. Which, as long as this is part of the responsibilities that Congress gave to the FCC, then it is legal per several SCOTUS rulings (Chervon deference) for the FCC to make regulations like this, as long as they within the authority Congress gave them. (IANAL but have written up enough SCOTUS cases to know where this is heading). There's still plenty that can be challenged even to that end, but we'll have to see. --Masem (t) 17:46, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the EO is expected to be immediately challenged by the big Tech (regardless of its state, if it touches S230, they're going after it), and that first step will be seeking an injunction to stop its enforcement while a case progresses. --Masem (t) 17:46, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

IANAL also and I had a quick reading of the supposed draft, but I don't see how there is even anything to enforce before the election (FCC rules have to be drafted, etc.). So what's Trump's point? Finally Jimbo, do you really think that Trump is a lunatic, or was that just an arguing point? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:56, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

It is not my style to put forward "arguing points" that I don't think are true.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:20, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, Jimmy - I did not express myself well there. The question had to do with whether you really called President Trump a lunatic. I just could not get a good connection to see that ET (India) video. I tried again just now and got a better connection (by no means perfect). I now conclude that when you said the word "lunatic" it was in response to an implicitly hypothetical question (about 5:30 on the video) "What could be the worst that could happen?" I understand now that you responded that (approximately) "The worst that could happen is that they (Twitter) wouldn't just ignore him... so that if he were a complete idiot ..." My bad. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:48, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

@Smallbones: here's more context:

"If President Trump tweets something that is nonsense, we don't accept him as a source in Wikipedia for random things he says on Twitter. We have a group of admins who are very strict and firm on what can be entered.... The president's power does not extend to shutting down or threatening social media platforms. That's illegal. It's not something he can do. We do have the First Amendment in the US.... The worst-case scenario is that they don't have the courage to tell him to go away, that they begin to adapt their policies to his whims because he's a lunatic." — Jimmy Wales, ET Now, May 28, 2020 (Text is from interview.)

A spoken interview does not provide punctuation, so maybe @Jimbo Wales: would like to properly punctuate this part of his statement: "to his whims because he's a lunatic." (BTW, my applause for speaking truth to power! You have integrity.) -- Valjean (talk) 19:44, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Also probably helpful is that Wyden, 1/2 of the authorship of S230, says the EO is likely illegal [12]. --Masem (t) 18:21, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Donald Trump is just as welcome to edit Wikipedia as anyone else. However, WP:FREE says "In sum, in the United States you have the legal right to speak your mind (with certain narrow exclusions) on a street corner, at a town council meeting, or in a letter to your elected representatives. But you have no "right" to express yourself at will in someone else's home, to demand that a private newspaper publish your thoughts, or to insist that Wikipedia carry what you write‍—‌even if it's "The Truth"." This is also true when Trump posts on Twitter. He seems to have gone through the roof over the fact check tags on his May 26 tweets about mail-in ballots.[13] He sees this as a sign that the tech industry is trying to censor his position. However, people have been thrown off social media after they said potentially harmful things, and David Icke is a good example. Icke is also convinced that he has access to The Truth™.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The best cartoon ever https://xkcd.com/1357/ addresses exactly your points. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:36, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

The Flower Power sort of people never ruled the US. They have slowly changed the society from within instead of seizing political power and dictating their rules to society. Trump apparently seeks to dictate his rules to society, imposing them from above. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:22, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

• Seen this and felt it important to comment. It is my position that wikipedia should not be an activist website with a political position, wiki is supposed to be a source of uninvolved independant knowledge, you can say it is just Jimmy's personal opinion but as such an involved person in the wikipedia his opinions and statements carry weight. I don't think the founders comments in that interview stating the the elected president of the USA is a lunatic are in any way compliant with wp:npov or wp:blp and as such bring the neutrality of the content especially about Trump but also in general to neutrality here into question. Govindaharihari (talk) 19:07, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is supposedly based on what RS say but a lot of those RS provide TRUTH peppered with ideological analysis and personal biases. Perhaps Jimbo thinks Trump is a mentally ill person...aka a "lunatic". But since Jimbo made such a comment off-wiki...we have no control over that and I would be opposed to control it anyway, especially on a UTP, since preventing him from saying what he feels here on Wikipedia would be exactly what Trump wants it seems.--MONGO (talk) 19:34, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
  • @Govindaharihari: NPOV only applies to article content, and then primarily to editorial conduct (editors must edit "neutrally"), not to content or sources, which do not have to be "neutral" (when properly sourced and attributed). BLP only applies at Wikipedia, not elsewhere. Jimbo is in his right to have opinions and express them, especially such admirable ones. What he said would be perfectly good article content here, as long as it's attributed to him. That's what we do with any opinions which might be controversial. -- Valjean (talk) 22:31, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

That draft EO puts forth an interpretation of 230 that if a platform that edits/restricts content beyond the terms of service and the usual exceptions, that such makes them a "publisher" which does not enjoy 230 protection, and directs federal agencies and departments to follow that interpretation and for the rullemakers to draw details to implement that. I 'spose that the good news is that ostensibly it could be read as only affecting the actions of "agenicies and departments", plus the president can't change the law or be the official interpreter of it. Also he can't create the official legal interpretation of the law unless the law authorizes it. The bad news would be if the law does that. The more likely problem that inthe mess of the US liability system anything that can be used to argue that the protections of 203 don't apply could have an impact. North8000 (talk) 21:04, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, I can understand that that would be used against platforms which abide by the principle of free speech, like Facebook and Twitter, but Wikipedia never was about free speech, it is merely a service which abstracts the mainstream academic views and reports from mainstream press. So, even if that would pass as legislation, I don't see how it would affect Wikipedia. E.g. publishing your own article in Plos ONE isn't a legal right, it is a privilege, which Plos ONE could deny to anyone they wish. And another point: Wikipedia is not a commercial organization, it is non-profit. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:28, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Draft no longer [14]. Most of the same from the draft otherwise though. --Masem (t) 21:33, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Apparently, Wikipedia is targeted by this order:

Sec. 7. Definition. For purposes of this order, the term “online platform” means any website or application that allows users to create and share content or engage in social networking, or any general search engine.

But since providing a forum for free speech never was the intent of Wikipedia, I don't see how Wikipedia could be engaging in deceptive practices in that regard. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:44, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if Twitter has an equivalent to No legal threats. Even if it doesn't, I'll bet real money (as my Dad would say) that there is a clause in their User Terms & Agreement that says, in effect: "If you prove to be too much of a chronic nuisance we will close your account, no matter who you are." -- llywrch (talk) 22:10, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Would be interesting to see the Chamber of Commerce and the ACLU suing the administration for damages under the Civil Rights Acts and the Takings Clause. There was a First Amendment case just yesterday that in which Twitter, et al. won hands down.[15] -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:13, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

(EC) This is the big nothing - as I said above there's (almost) nothing to enforce. The main things the government is expected to do

• The Secretary of Commerce and the Attorney general are instructed to get together and by July 27 instruct or remind the FCC to make some new rules related to Trumps's views on social media.
• Government agencies should report how much they spend on advertising on platforms that Trump doesn't like, and presumably stop advertising there.
• The courts, presumably, may (or may not) take Trump's advice on the fine points of Section 230. Presumably government agencies may also take that advice, but it's not clear what they'd do with it since it is about civil litigation (IANAL)

I don't really see anything else, except perhaps 1 point kinda applying to Wikipedia.

• Online platforms may not discriminate against people who make money on their platforms according to different political views, e.g. they may not let Democrats advertise but not let Republicans advertise.
  • We could take advantage of this provision (which does apply to us) by putting in our Terms of Use that no discrimination against advertisers will be tolerated on Wikipedia - all advertising is prohibited.

If anybody sees other enforceable parts of this, let us know. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 22:24, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

In case people hadn't already seen this: But legal experts said they were doubtful the move would have any practical effect on the tech giants. Legal observers described the action as "political theater," arguing that the order does not change existing federal law and will have no bearing on federal courts. ---Avatar317^(talk) 23:05, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the order (as it is at this moment) is not enforceable. However, it should be seen as a declaration of Trump's intentions. Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:19, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

(Btw, please drop any good legal analyses of the EO on Talk:Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if you could please :) --Masem (t) 23:35, 28 May 2020 (UTC) )

Based on Masem's comment immediately above, I visted Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act#Executive_Order_on_Preventing_Online_Censorship expecting to see a mess (similar to the EO). But no, @Masem: he and others have put together a detailed and well-rounded section on it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:52, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

In the end, we should not underestimate the matter: Democrats want to get rid of 230 because Facebook and Twitter have eroded democracy. Biden has also stated he wants to get rid of it. Tgeorgescu (talk) 02:34, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

• You've got to laugh... CNN is is blaming social media for the Trump/Clinton fiasco.[16] The sensationalists are blaming the printing press itself, for the choices of the readership which loves them. Note: "war on truth". ~ R.T.G 10:10, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

References

It's also ironic that Donald Trump is trashing the Chinese government while proposing the same type of censorship that is found on Sina Weibo. Just try mentioning Winnie the Pooh on Chinese social media.[17]--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 12:15, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure, isn't that is what is going on with Twitter? All he had to do, was say he'd touch anything, and everybody rises to the occasion. There is nothing so easy to manipulate as your own reflection. And there is nothing which can be trusted less if it is not part of a mirror. ~ R.T.G 13:04, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

People have to behave themselves if they want to take part in a call-in on their local radio station, and Twitter is no different. Donald Trump would probably get taken off air if he called his local radio station with rants and threats like the one that got hidden on Twitter: Twitter hides Trump tweet for 'glorifying violence' Making threats (thinly veiled or otherwise) is one of the unacceptable things to do on social media.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 13:18, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

A race riot of the calibre that gets mentioned through history, and that is what he should be saying about it even if he feels on the wrong side. ~ R.T.G 17:47, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

I wonder who wrote it????

I also find it weirdly ironic ( but truly coincidental ) that it came out on the same day as China's "order" that opens the door to its upcoming "National Security Law", in the sense that both may be laying the groundwork for something more powerful. I dunno, I have to be in a certain mood to read through the "Trump" edict, but I hope we find out who actually wrote it. I doubt it was he himself?? Nocturnalnow (talk) 13:52, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

IMO the biggest threat isn't anything operative in the executive order. It's more from the arena of stupid lawsuits in the stupid US liability legal system, where nothing has to really make sense. The threat of somebody suing Wikipedia, and arguing 230 protection does not exist because of this or the definition that it attempts to create. North8000 (talk) 14:21, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

• I don't know if Jimmy's talked to Mike Godwin about this, but here's his take: https://slate.com/technology/2020/05/trump-twitter-section-230.html Among other things he echoes my first thought that (a) Trump can't do that because S230 and (b) Trump should be happy about that because if S230 said what he seems to wish it did, Twitter would have little alternative but to ban his ass. Guy (help!) 22:15, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

He's a bully, full stop

What everybody agrees on, even his base, is that he is an unabashed bully.

So starting from that point of universal agreement, just as with any bully, the best approach to any of his lunacy is:

1:Don't give him any attention at all. Just completely ignore his pathetic tantrums. Don't even waste time talking about him.

2:Treat him with zero respect and as if he does not even exist.

3:Once you get the chance; i.e. in November, just wind up and knock the shit out of the bully. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:49, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Don't insult Mr.president he don't deserve that don't comment badly you don't care wether one if his man are here they will just end a 19years of construction in a single day let watch our mouth be cautioned so that he won't give us a red card. I dont want that . So let stay calm and be cool.Tbiw (talk) 15:01, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi sir

Please check your email103.25.248.232 (talk) 20:11, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #2 – Quick updates

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This edition of the Editing newsletter includes information the Wikipedia:Talk pages project, an effort to help contributors communicate on wiki more easily. The central project page is on MediaWiki.org.

• Reply tool: This is available as a Beta Feature at the four partner wikis (Arabic, Dutch, French, and Hungarian Wikipedias). The Beta Feature will get new features soon. The new features include writing comments in a new visual editing mode and pinging other users by typing @. You can test the new features on the Beta Cluster. Some other wikis will have a chance to try the Beta Feature in the coming months.
• New requirements for user signatures: Soon, users will not be able to save invalid custom signatures in Special:Preferences. This will reduce signature spoofing, prevent page corruption, and make new talk page tools more reliable. Most editors will not be affected.
• New discussion tool: The Editing team is beginning work on a simpler process for starting new discussions. You can see the initial design on the project page.
• Research on the use of talk pages: The Editing team worked with the Wikimedia research team to study how talk pages help editors improve articles. We learned that new editors who use talk pages make more edits to the main namespace than new editors who don't use talk pages.

– Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Narrator: "the editors were soon surprised to learn that the definition of a valid signature defined the first known Turing-incomplete programming language, the compiler for which required 99% universal heat death merely to allocate the memory necessary to determine whether the ability to decide whether it halted was NP-complete." EllenCT (talk) 18:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi sir

Good day sir. Tbiw (talk) 14:39, 12 June 2020 (UTC) Good day to you too!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:05, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Sir i just want to talk to you about some things.Tbiw (talk) 18:19, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

How to discuss something with you and also interview you.Tbiw (talk) 10:56, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

See User:Jimbo Wales#Contacting me.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:59, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The section mark hashtag crosshatch is outside the wikilink. When you do stuff like that, how to you muster the gumption to not immediately fix it? EllenCT (talk) 18:46, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• There is no table of contents on Jimbo's user page, so it cannot be linked directly, you will have to scroll down to see the contact section. I did realize this at the time of writing.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 19:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay.Tbiw (talk) 11:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't help.Tbiw (talk) 11:06, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

A question that might be of interest to readers of this page

The Joe Biden sexual assault allegation article doesn't address the accuser's personal / family life directly but only what facet are explanatory with regard her allegations, these facets not presented within the context of a full telling of her life, as available in high level sources. And what is included tends toward the derogatory, ending up only with this partial biography dribbled out in bits and pieces and not impartial nor equitable with regard to her. How can Wikipedia's ideals be upheld by such an imbalanced telling of a living person's life? (See this talkpage discussion.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

If "crickets" show interest in this matter hereabouts inn't so much, I'm not surprised. Because it's crickets I get when I ask the following hypothetical, as well.

1st some background information - Sometimes, of course, the community believes wp:ONEEVENT situations merit sole entries/subentries focused on individuals respectively associated primarily with single well-known events E.g Juanita Broaddrick; Rodney King or, else, on these events E.g Shooting of Ahmaud Arbery or, else, in certain instances, in multiple coverages E.g Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination#Sexual assault allegations but also a blp of its accuser; Killing of George Floyd / victim; Zapruder film / author.

In the case of Reade, her separate blp was AfD'ed with its result being to merge it with "Joe Biden sexual assault allegation." However there is no consensus at the event article to include any biographical section with regard to this accuser, so essentially no biographical content successfully ended up being merged to there.

Now the hypothetical. Say there's a blp on Wikipedia on what highest level sources identify as the leader of Levantine holy warriors, "Abdul---.. Ben Curaish" (ABC). Some believe, however, that not enough solid info exists about this alleged person. (Is what's available mostly mis- or disinformation arising from: Western and/or various mid-Eastern (Turkish/Syrian/Israeli etc.) intelligence agencies? from the Levantine holy warriors themselves?) This blp is AfD'ed, the result of which is a merger of its content with the article "Levantine holy warriors."

Q. - What happens if the editors on the latter (Levantine holy warriors) page don't reach consensus to include anything in the way of a biographical of ABC on its page, believing its treatment of a complex topic is complex and convoluted enough, already? Does a redirect remain at the ABC namespace from which its content was failed to be "merged" resulting essentially in its being deleted? Or is the blp restored at this namespace until when and if it can be redirected to some "target" omnibus type of article elsewhere? (Go ahead and cue the crickets now, if you will.)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 17:42, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

chirp chirp petrarchan47คุก 19:36, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Internet Archive in trouble?

A few months ago, news came out that some publishers have decided to sue archive.org because they opened a "emergency library" and decide to help people in these trying times. Internet Archive has really helped me and all of Wikipedia. I heard WMF wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on bullshit projects over the years? That money should have gone to IA. What is WMF doing to help Internet Archive? TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 00:06, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

The lawsuit is only over the Open Library part. Now, whether that suit will succeed or not still is up in the air but this doesn't affect the rest of the Internet Archive, outside of any financial hit that may come depending on penalties from the lawsuit. Its going to be years before that suit is resolved. --Masem (t) 00:23, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

TryKid, I heard WMF wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on bullshit projects over the years? Really? I heard the Earth is flat and only 6,000 years old. But I ignored it. Guy (help!) 18:14, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

yeah. I shouldn't be believing things so easily. I've started re-realising that an hour or two ago. Thanks for reminding again. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:17, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

You might also want to consider how effective a strategy that amounts to this really is: "Hey, Jimbo, here's something I'm worried about that you may also be intersted in. Is this something you think the WMF could help with. Also, <insult>." Even if the WMF had wasted hundreds of millions of dollars (it hasn't), that'd hardly be a very effective strategy of advocacy and persuasion.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Sci-Hub may be able to host archive.org should it be banned in the US. Count Iblis (talk) 21:39, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Count Iblis, don't. Please, just don't. Guy (help!) 21:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Since Rowling is now to the right of Gorsuch, she is awarded the Pennant of the Right and may allow Russia to possess a copy of the IA for a suitable donation or sufficiently persuasive prose. EllenCT (talk) 19:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

From a writers' point of view, this lawsuit is long overdue. They are engaged in thinly-veiled piracy of the "copyright is theft" mindset, using the pandemic as an excuse. I would be tempted to quit all WMF-associated activities if any of my donations were used to aid and abet the Internet Archive in their ongoing criminal activity. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:27, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

↑That. Unless and until the copyright laws are changed, what IA are currently doing is just straightforward organized crime. ‑ Iridescent 22:43, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Woah. And I here I thought Wikipedians were Fully Automated Luxury Techno-communism type of people. Disappointed. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 22:46, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

At last check, Wikipedians held the views that normal people hold, which includes a wide range of opinions. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 23:07, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedians ... normal people Hahah--oh, you're serious? --JBL (talk) 17:52, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Barring an early settlement, the concept of controlled digital lending (the basis of the open library) is going to have its legal test from this case, as well as their argument as to why it was suspended. There are a lot of important copyright, fair use, and other key issues for copyright in the digital age this case presents. I would think it is unfair to call their work "theft" at this point given they have yet to be proven guilty of a copyright crime in court yet. --Masem (t) 23:04, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Without wishing to opine on the validity or lack of same with respect to this particular case, it seems unlikely to me that the Internet Archive went into their National Emergency Library program thinking it wouldn't attract attention from publishers' lawyers. It will be interesting to see how the case pans out; the suit as filed (from the NPR report) makes for an interesting read. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 23:16, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I've read through it, its clear the National Emergency Library is the straw the broke the camel's back as the authors/publishers had long had their issue with CDL as defined by the Open Library but never took the opportunity to sue. Given that the NEL seems like an obvious copyright infringement case, it made sense to challenge the principle of CDL at the same time (to cut down legal fees). Hence why I feel CDL is not a slam duck either way and will be an interesting legal challenge to follow. (And I would not be surprised that IA didn't work out the legal case to run the NEL before announcing it, given they were talking with the libraries they got the books from before starting it too. --Masem (t) 23:21, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know any professional writers, human beings who depend on their royalties to make a living, who do not consider this a blatant theft thinly veiled under the guise of CDL, with the veil removed using the pandemic as an excuse. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:06, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Orangemike, in my personal opinion, the whole CDL thing is an attempt by Brewster to drag copyright owners kicking and screaming into this century. From what i understand from their ideals they abhor information getting lost due to inaccessibility. They basically blame authors and publishers for making hardcopy books purposefully or by accident inaccessible or very expensive to access, when they stop distributing hardcopies. This is a problem that they think needs addressing (in law) but without forcing ppl it will not get addressed (in a way that the common man can experience). This also ties into IA, which purpose is to preserve the (usually non physical) digital works of the Internet, for which really there is also no legal base other than being a potential ‘fair’ exception. I think they overplayed their hand with the NEL, but are hoping that that will help their argument towards the public to make changes to copyright ‘for the good of humanity’. Its gonna be an interesting lawcase. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:10, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Sounds rather Napster like. The cost of defense/damages seems a very high risk. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:18, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

TheDJ, a lot of the books being "made available" can be bought wherever you buy your e-books, so this is a specious argument. There is no excuse for stealing the authors' right to make money from the sale of their books, either in hardcopy or e-book format. Pious blather about "for the good of humanity" is a pretty feeble argument when you're talking about a pop novel or self-help bestseller. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

The suit is seeking either the statutory copyright damages fee for each book that was mis-used under copyright this way (which I think was $150k per book without checking the lawsuit), or if the case is ruled against the Open Library, for all profit/revenue made from their service. And yes, when the NEL was opened, the Open Library had a position paper ready to go to argue its stance, which you can be pretty sure there was one or more lawyers giving them the goahead to launch it. And to wit, they have some case law on their side (Authors Guild v. Google) but adding the first sale doctrine to enable loaning books is what makes the legal aspect of CDL questionable. --Masem (t) 20:38, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Masem: Is there a copy of said position paper anywhere public, do you know? I'd be interested to read it. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 21:08, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

CDL position paper can be found here [18] and for the counterpoints, the filed lawsuit against the IA/Open Library is here [19]. --Masem (t) 21:26, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

All of this talk about intellectual property aside (& the parties suing are clearly not doing this out of altruistic concern for unfairly underpaid writers), I'll note that without the IA's use of CDL, I would not have been able to access 2 out-of-print books that I have been using to write Wikipedia articles with. (Public libraries are on hiatus, so ILL is no longer an option for me.) In other words, I've gotten more help to improve Wikipedia from Internet Archive than I have from the WMF. (As another data point, that one website Which Shall Not Be Named helped me get an article during this time without ILL -- & proving it, too, is more useful to me than the WMF.) -- llywrch (talk) 07:08, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Is that site Library Genesis? I don't see why it shouldn't be named, it's already quite popular. If it isn't LibGen, then it should be named even more to increase awareness about this good lesser known source. Library Genesis is named in the lead of WP:Resource exchange which I bet has helped lots of people. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 07:16, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

No, it's the site one commentator mentioned above, to which someone else replied "don't, please don't." (Amazing how many of these sites are springing up. To be honest, I prefer more law-abiding ones just because I'm not interested in the hassle of a "copyright infringement" lawsuit even if I think I can win it. Legal battles are very expensive.) -- llywrch (talk) 19:37, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Llywrch, IP piracy sites are a nightmare for Wikipedia. And the article on Sci-Hub is owned by fans who are really keen for it not to mention the fact that systematic violation of copyright is problematic. Guy (help!) 06:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

JzG I'm not sure what your point is. If you are worried I'll link to a site like Sci-Hub, I have no plan of doing this. As I said I wouldn't even be looking at Sci-Hub if my local library was in operation. Or I could count on the Foundation to help with getting material to write articles with. -- llywrch (talk) 06:48, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

IP piracy sites are a nightmare for Wikipedia. How exactly? Without LibGen, SciHub and other websites hosting materials that they don't have copyright for, Wikipedia would be a lot worse. These sites reduce systematic bias by giving access to knowledge to those wouldn't couldn't afford it otherwise. I certainly wouldn't have been able to get Districts of Bhutan to FL without LibGen. But I'm just a small editor; I'm sure more prominent editors will also vouch for LibGen's (and SciHub's) usefulness in Wikipedia editing. TryKid ^{[dubious – discuss]} 07:32, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Learning

Hello Jimbo, Just curious cause your the founder. What is the hardest math you learned or topic in general? Any programming languages you are fond of? Any favorite math problems? Thoughts of space exploration especially the long-term implications. Any books you recommend?Fun question - do you watch anime? Hope you reply.Manabimasu (talk) 21:29, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo excelled in most areas of mathematics, but when faced with the question of how much automatic programmed trading should skim from index funds ahead of rebalancing, he hesitated. Jimbo is a fan of Python, PHP, HTML, C, sh, R, JavaScript, CSS, X.25, and REST, not necessarily in that order. Jimbo recommends Billionares and Stealth Politics by Jason Seawright. Jimbo restricts his anime input to clips approved in advance from the Community Relations Team. EllenCT (talk) 01:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Dear Manabimasu, just in case you didn't know, EllenCT is making a joke. I don't understand the joke, and it isn't funny, but this is not a serious answer.

I studied stochastic differential equations - that was pretty hard. I'm fond of Ruby programming language. I'm fascinated by Cantor diagonalization as a mathematical topic - but I'm no expert for sure. I'm in favor of space exploration. I always recommend the book Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin. I don't really watch anime.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:58, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Adding a puzzle piece to the logo for Wikipedia's 20th anniversary?

I had a thought a while ago that in celebration of 20 years of building a repository of the world's encyclopedic knowledge that the logo could be updated by adding a piece to the ball. I was thinking just to the right of the Ge'ez (Ethiopic) piece would very subtly show up on that upper right corner, but the added character would only be visible from alternate views. Anyone have any thoughts on this idea? Would this sort of discussion need to happen somewhere else, since it's going to effect all Wikipedia projects, not just en.wikipedia? VanIsaac_WS^cont 19:21, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Vanisaac, make it a black piece please. Guy (help!) 22:41, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Vanisaac, you could add a piece that says, "BLM". Thanks, Thanoscar21_{talk, contribs} 01:22, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

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Nexus between BLM and COVID 19?

Hi Jimbo, I came to the opinion that the 2 most important societal events in my entire lifetime, imo, are the 2 which occurred within a 3 month time period; A: The COVID 19 shut down in the USA and B: The BLM (Black Lives Matter) transformative movement's explosion

Being also interested in statistical probabilities, I, just for the fun of it, started to wonder whether there is/was any sort of causational nexus regarding the timing of these 2 events. So I took a very simple approach of taking 3 months as a % of an 80 year life span = 1/4 x 80 =1/320th and then to try to get a rough probability of both events happening within the same 3 months, I multiply 1/320th times 1/320th and get the probability ( according to this rough and likely not great mathematical approach ) of 1 out of 102,400. or 1/102,400.

So do you think there is some kind of causation between the 2 events? Or that it's just another one of humanity's coincidences? I asked the smartest person I know and she said something like; "Well, the COVID shutdown put everybody 'on edge' and therefore more energetic towards jumping on a "cause". Maybe that could be it. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:46, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Looking at George Floyd protests#Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly the given quote, I don't think the two events are completely independent. --MuZemike 14:58, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd tend to agree that the shutdowns gave people a different perspective on life, I would argue that in the face of the undeniable tragedy of all the deaths, that different perspective is largely a good thing. At any event I hope that we are all thinking hard about governance and quality of life - for everyone, and this may have shocked a lot of people out of standard stereotypes and ways of thinking. So yeah, I think there may be some connection but I doubt if there's any way to really prove it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:34, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I think Jimbo is right--something was very different here. As we all know, we've been seeing unarmed black men shot to death and beaten by (mostly) white policemen for many years--Rodney King comes to mind as perhaps the first of the series. But almost always the police are not held responsible. So what happened here to finally break this camel's back and provoke not only local but nation-wide and eventually even worldwide reaction? Certainly the points that Jimbo brought out are important. But also, the symbolic fact that we all were able to see this black man's life ending with a white police officer's knee on his neck. That was televised and it was something new. But for me there was something else: He called out for his mother as he lay there dying. Women understand this and it rips their hearts out. But I think that men understand this too and, though I'm not a man, I think that it must cause deep sadness for them as well. Here is commentary on the aspect of men calling out for their mother as they die: [20] Gandydancer (talk) 16:38, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

There was also the strange sad coincidence of the symbolism of Colin Kaepernick's protest of going down on one knee being turned around to be the method of killing in this case. The two were unrelated as far as I know - although I don't find it a stretch to imagine a racist cop finding it sickly funny to turn around the kneeling against racism protest into an act of violence. My only point here is that I can't be the only person who first saw the pictures in the press of that cop kneeling on George Floyd's neck and immediately thought about Kaepernick.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:16, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

So did I, and I'm also guessing that we were not alone... Gandydancer (talk) 17:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, oh yes. And it probably was a coincidence (no, really), but fuck, it looked bad. Guy (help!) 22:44, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I'll confess I didn't think that, but now that you mention it the connection is undeniable. (I was more shocked that any policeman would think kneeling on a guy's neck for all those minutes was an appropriate reaction to resisting arrest. A thug like him should never have been a LEO in the first place.) -- llywrch (talk) 17:34, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I think a lot of people are being played. Bob K31416 (talk) 19:04, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Of course these events are related. The clearest explanation I've come across is in Adam Serwer's piece in The Atlantic: "The pandemic has exposed the bitter terms of our racial contract, which deems certain lives of greater value than others". I'm not sure I can do justice to his points in a brief summary, and I'd recommend reading his article in its entirety, but he draws a direct line from the disregard and devaluation of non-white lives evident in police-brutality cases to the shift in discourse about the Covid-19 pandemic as its disproportionate impact on Black and Hispanic Americans became evident.

There was a direct link between the first reports of the pandemic's disparate racial impact, and the shift in conservative/right-wing rhetoric away from containing the disease and toward re-opening the country regardless of case numbers. The underlying theme is that the comfort of (mostly white) Americans is of greater value than the literal lives and deaths of the non-white Americans disproportionately impacted by Covid-19. As Serwer wrote: "... federal policy reflects the president’s belief that he has little to lose by gambling with the lives of those Americans most likely to be affected." The Administration's response made it crystal-clear that it "did not consider the lives of the people dying worth the effort or money required to save them."

Serwer's piece also accounts for the views of people like Bob K31416, in that the American social contract with its relative valuation of white vs. non-white lives is so baked-in as to be invisible to people who are determined not to look. But the constant drumbeat of inexcusable acts of police violence against non-white Americans, combined with the willful, negligent disregard evident in the federal response to the pandemic, makes it harder to ignore. MastCell ^Talk 19:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

MastCell's reference to the article in The Atlantic is very appreciated. I had never heard of the "racial contract" before and the entire article is profound, at least imo.Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:40, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Bob K31416, played? No. Black folks are more likely to be hourly paid, and hourly paid have suffered worst under the lockdown. They also are more likely to work customer-facing jobs, again, hardest hit. But unlike the Gravy Seals who stormed State Capitols to protest their right to a haircut, Black communities and community leaders have been on board with protecting each other during the pandemic.

So you have a community that is suffering economically, that sees entitled white dudes raising a finger, and then watches a cop kill George Floyd in what, to all appearances, looks as close to murder as makes no odds. This on top of Ahmaud Arbery.

People are hurt and angry and rightly so, and the pandemic just raises the background temperature close to the flash point.

But hey. I am just another white dude, so ignore me and listen to people of colour. Guy (help!) 22:40, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I have to think that Nocturnalnow is a rather young person if they think that COVID 19 and the Black Lives Matter Movement are the two most important societal events of their lifetime. Yes, COVID is pretty unique, nothing quite like it since the "Spanish" Flu a century earlier. Unless you're Roberta McCain's age you wouldn't remember that one. What its long term effects will be remains to be seen. As for BLM let's be realistic. How is it going to change the long term dynamic between law enforcement and largely Black communities? The Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd cases stand out because their deaths were so obviously unnecessary. The protests have been fairly massive (and, of course, occasionally violent and destructive), but what beyond token gestures are they likely to accomplish?Who cares if NASCAR officially bans Confederate flags . . we'll still see plenty of them . . . or if Aunt Jemima's image is no longer on the pancake box or syrup bottle? None of that will change a social dynamic in which vast numbers of Blacks live in poor, but more importantly high violent crime areas, and will continue to have frequent, unpleasant, and sometimes violent confrontations with police. 70.181.40.210 (talk) 14:30, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I dunno, I've been pretty cynical for quite awhile, but 2 of Jumbo's phrases really ring true to me about this time being a defining moment(s),"...that we are all thinking hard about governance and quality of life - for everyone, and this may have shocked a lot of people out of standard stereotypes and ways of thinking."

So he may be a self described pathological optimist, but I doubt most of us are. The power, authority and recent acceleration of the BLM movement are incredibly overwhelming, imo.

It may look like just another wave to some people, but it feels like a tsunami, to most people, I think. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:40, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

How it feels is dictated by the news media. We live in two worlds. Our reality consisting of our personal experiences each day, and the world that is portrayed on TV news. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:52, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I am 56. There has never been a year like this in my lifetime. More people have lost their livelihoods than in 2008. Guy (help!) 19:27, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm 70. I remember 1968 (you'd have been four) when MLK and RFK were assassinated, when the Vietnam War was tearing America apart, when there were all sorts of civil rights and anti-war protests and attendant anger and violence. So, as for BLM, I've seen the reel a few times by now. AS for COVID 19, not to be unfeeling, but a huge proportion of the lives lost have been those of the very elderly or the very infirm. Many of the relatively young and strong have had their livelihoods suspended for a few months at this point. Whether all that many will permanently lose their livelihoods remains to be seen, but most people have a way of adapting. 70.181.40.210 (talk) 20:35, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

The Vietnam protests were much less multi-racial. More importantly, more actual and non-disputed facts are piling up everyday that are ripping the mask and pretense of equality to shreds. Just yesterday was 1 article about 2 trillion dollars piling up in upscale USA banks since COVId started and another article about millions of Americans not being able to afford water. I mean, almost everybody is starting to face the realities that almost nobody wants to admit, which are numerous and shocking, for example, the words "Land of the Free" were written in 1814. Who did those words apply to then? Who do they apply to now? and what BLM is adding to the analysis is the awareness that even if the laws were/are egalitarian (choke, thinking of crack versus powder possession laws), the implementation and enforcement of those laws is often not. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:19, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

JzG's dad worked on this during the Bay of Pigs crisis and through into the assassinations of MLK and JFK

At that time my parents lived on the site of Handley Page, manufacturer of a V-bomber and a known first-strike target. My earliest memories are from that time. People were scared, but the threat was different. This is more like the Spanish Flu or one of the great polio epidemics: a capricious invisible killer which has no intelligent agency and is not amenable to reason. Guy (help!) 09:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Lemme think. The worst epidemic since the Spanish Flu (hundreds of thousands dead world-wide), check; the worst economic recession since the Great Depression (unemployment in the US at one point exceeded 20%), check; the worst race relations since the 1960s (when was the last time a riot included burning down an American police station & widespread looting?), check. All happening during the administration of the worst US president? Yeah, I'd say it's bad on a record scale. I could check with my Dad who, at 96, did experience the Great Depression as a kid -- his father lost their farm & moved to Oregon to work find work in the lumber mills -- but I know he'd agree with me. -- llywrch (talk) 17:34, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay, but Nocturnalnow doesn't think that the current protests-demonstrations-riots are a sign of "bad race relations" but rather a sign of good and very possibly transformative race relations. I don't. I think this is what John Kenneth Galbraith would have called "New Dawning" ... something great is on its way when it isn't. That being said I think that race relations, on the whole, have improved a hell of a lot during my lifetime. However, the things that have really held them back have little to do with overzealous policing, Confederate flags, or monuments to slaveholders. 70.181.40.210 (talk) 18:34, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Was MLK part of bad race relations or good and transformative race relations?

Were the suffragettes part of bad gender relations or good and transformative gender relations?

I submit that they are two sides of the same coin. Crisis prompts change. We are seeing a period of regressive policies, and that has challenged the complacency of people who assumed that the arc of the moral universe was bending towards justice.

I can't be the only one who looks back at the Southern Strategy and the rise of the John Birch Society in the Republican party, and sees parallels today. From Bircher to birther. The main difference is that this time Goldwater won... Guy (help!) 09:20, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the Birchers were never an especially powerful element in the Republican party. Most of Goldwater's more prominent supporters rejected them. As for the Southern Strategy, however duplicitous and offputting it might be to some, it never entailed the idea of a return to Jim Crow. I understand your point about great protests of injustices leading to positive/transformative changes, but don't make the mistake of thinking that they always do. The Reign of Terror, the Soviet Empire, and the Iranian Revolution were largely the products of mass protest.

Previous protests here against police brutality don't seem to have done much good so perhaps even bigger, more widespread, and more violence-tinged protests will do some good. Perhaps, but I don't think so. That's because they don't really touch the basic problem in the lives of millions of urban Black citizens. They live in impoverished but more importantly crimme-ridden and anomie-ridden

places where many, particularly the males, will have confrontations with the police. Kinder and gentler police won't improve that dynamic and may even make it worse. 70.181.40.210 (talk) 17:45, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, the main problem with things like the Iranian revolution is that they tore down a shitty thing and replaced it with another shitty thing. It's hard to prevent that. I think that the one thing history teaches us more than anything else was best summed up by Douglas Adams:

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Adams was as much a sage of our time as Mencken was of his. Guy (help!) 18:31, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

"Parties, not Protests" are spreading COVID-19 according to NPR. EllenCT (talk) 18:23, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Yep. On the other hand: [21]. 70.181.40.210 (talk) 19:07, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Trump has helped to form a consensus on the matter of systemic racism in the US by taking an extreme position that has very little support. His statements about the pandemic have led more people to move toward the political center and that has also allowed for more common ground on the issue of racism. Count Iblis (talk) 19:15, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't see his position, whatever it actually is, on systematic racism as being especially extreme or politically costly to him, but I do think that his weird set of responses to COVID 19

will cost him, especially if cases and deaths in a number of Red states continue to rise. 70.181.40.210 (talk) 21:17, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

On a bit of a tangent, I'm trying to figure out to what extent this entire event is effecting freedom of speech.

News outlets are saying a professor was forced to resign because he is critical of BLM. Seems to be William A. Jacobson. I am pretty sure that in Canada and the USA lots of people, especially professionals, have to "watch what you say", and more recently in the very real context of protecting their source of income.

OTOH, I think this trend "watch what you say" has been picking up speed for decades and maybe society writ large is ok with this trade-off?

When I was young we equated "watch what you say" with fascism and communism and most of us felt pretty free to say whatever we felt like saying, but that also is problematic. Maybe its a pendulum thing? Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:14, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

xkcd on point, as always. The First Amendment means you cannot be punished by the government for what you say (with limited exceptions). It has never meant that you can't face societal consequences for what you say. There is a reason the KKK largely disappeared from American streets - it became societally toxic to be associated with such vile views and actions, and almost nobody wanted to be a part of them anymore. That there are similar societal consequences for racists and neo-fascists is just so.

I find it rather amusing that many of the people who are decrying "the death of free speech" are the same people who demanded the government criminally punish LGBT people, prohibit them from marrying, and allow them to be fired merely because of who they love. They don't actually care about discrimination - they're just scared now because the shoe's on the other foot, and it's suddenly their views which are becoming societally toxic, repugnant, and disgraceful. The difference is that nobody on the left is calling for people to be jailed, or to lose their civil rights. It's simply a matter of pointing out "Hey, this person is a horrendous racist, maybe we shouldn't listen to him and maybe he shouldn't be given a free high-profile platform to spew his vile neo-fascist twaddle all over the Internet." If he wants to go to Parler or Gab or whatever, hey, more power to them. Nobody on the left is calling for Gab or Parler to be shut down. But those sorts of sites are utter catastrophic failures for those people, because they're little more than echo chambers of hatred. They want to be on Twitter because that's where the normies are, not stuck preaching to an ever-shrinking choir. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:40, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Hence you have this hilarious article where the CEO of Parler is literally begging liberals and leftists to join his site. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:51, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

No way. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"Evelyn Beatrice Hall. That's what I like. Two wrongs don't make a right, and the nasty Casting couch shows just how plain wrong it is to make employment/livelihood conditional upon stuff that is a matter of personal opinion or choice. The other thing that ties back into COVID is that I see what looks to me like an enormous amount of psychopathy exhibited, especially in young people, when it comes to them not caring a bit about whether they infect everybody else while smugly/proudly saying "I'm not worried".

And the hypocrisy and/or stupidity of using/promoting boycotts over what someone says and not over things like the way some countries treat people of certain religions. I like the BLM and I also like a broad protection of all of our freedom of speech. They don't have to be mutually exclusive. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:35, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

We live in a capitalist system, for better or for worse. Corporate bottom lines are not enhanced by association with, or sponsorship of, vile hatred. Even NASCAR is turning 180 degrees on this. Neo-fascism is unpopular and unprofitable.

In a capitalist system, I get to choose where I spend my money. I am not required to spend my money in a way which finances causes, actions, or viewpoints which I disagree with or reject. For example, I choose not to spend a dime at Hobby Lobby - I have never and will never set foot in that establishment in my entire life. Freedom of speech means that I am allowed to tell other people that I refuse to spend money at a particular place for a particular reason, and to encourage them to do the same. That's what a boycott is. And if you oppose boycotts, you cannot possibly say that you are in favor of freedom of speech. Because a boycott is free speech.

Again, that someone has a right to say something while standing on a soapbox in the town park does not mean that someone has a right to say something using a private company's computer servers. That's capitalism - if you don't like Twitter's policies, tell everyone you don't like those policies, choose a different service. and encourage others to do the same. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:53, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Nocturnalnow, Here's a professor who seems to have gotten around that problem of losing his job for criticizing BLM, by writing anonymously. UC Berkeley History Professor’s Open Letter Against BLM, Police Brutality and Cultural Orthodoxy — Anonymous Berkeley Professor Shreds BLM Injustice Narrative Bob K31416 (talk) 05:21, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

That editor also wrote this gem which declares masks, social distancing, and contact tracing to be "pseudoscience." Great source, very trustworthy, wow. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:36, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

"The gem" he's referring to wasn't by the anonymous writer of the letter. Wilfred Reilly, a Kentucky State University Assistant Professor, said he and Thomas Sowell of Stanford University received the letter. Reilly also tweeted, "It's really worth reading, in a time of widespread panic."[22] Bob K31416 (talk) 17:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

A quick Google News search finds zero evidence for the claim that William A. Jacobson has resigned or been fired, so that seems to be a bit of fake news. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:25, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

It is not being well reported, which is disturbing in itself, imo, and we have nothing in our article (as of a few days ago ) but it is real news. Here's a Fox news report where he states “There is an effort underway to get me fired at Cornell Law School, where I’ve worked since November 2007, or if not fired, at least denounced publicly by the school,” and within this self published blog type article is a Fox Laura Ingram Show TV interview with Jacobson voicing his view of being pressured/censored; And her show is certainly MSM news.

However, You bring up a very good point which is: why is there not more media attention to what this well known Prof is saying about attempts to pressure him to keep his mouth shut about his opinion of BLM ? Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:33, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Brand Project

Hi Jimbo Wales, you were one of the board members who approved the Brand Project last month. You did this despite significant opposition by the community. Do you as board member endorse the new survey which does not provide the status quo as an option and which doesn't take the result of the RfC into account? Regards, AFBorchert (talk) 16:33, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I can only speak for myself.

I support the project to seriously examine the question and work through all the issues thoroughly. I'm unaware of any real opposition to that concept. It is possible to support the project without supporting or opposing any particular outcome.

I don't read the survey in the way that you do. It doesn't offer "the status quo as an option" because it doesn't present any questions that are a choice among options at all. If the relevant people in the relevant organizations strongly disagree, they should strongly disagree and explain why. That's what this stage of the process is about, not about a final answer at this point.

I think this survey very much does take into account the result of the RfC. I can only presume that if the RfC went in a different direction, this survey wouldn't be necessary at all. There was significant opposition and so this survey is precisely about the right thing: understanding the opposition more deeply to begin a look for the best answer. (Which could, of course, be the status quo - nothing about this process precludes that possibility.)

Finally, you're never going to get me to oppose a genuine community consultation. Far worse, and what I wouldn't support, is either of these options: "There was an RfC and people expressed significant opposition, so we should immediately drop the whole concept rather than explore more deeply to see if there is a solution that works for people" nor "There was an RfC and people expressed significant opposition, so we ram it through regardless."

The right answer to "Here's a preliminary proposal and people didn't like it" is - ok, let's all dig in and see what can be done.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:48, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm certainly not blaming you for this—you can't be expected to follow every single WMF statement—but the above appears to me to directly contradict the WMF's current stated position that it's non-negotiable that future cross-WMF branding is definitely going to include "Wikipedia" and all that's up for decision is the exact nature of what that branding-including-Wikipedia is going to be. If you're not already aware of it, I'd also draw your attention to the community feedback on the survey text, which has only been open for the few hours the survey has been published but is as unanimous a consensus as I've ever seen—including from people who normally rarely agree on anything—that the current version of the survey is irredeemably flawed. ‑ Iridescent 10:10, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if you perhaps sent me the wrong link? the WMF's current stated position does not say "it is non-negotiable that future cross-WMF branding is definitely going to include "Wikipedia"". Indeed, it says the exact opposite: "No, the outcome is not predetermined." And in case that weren't clear enough, it goes on to say "What has not been decided by the Brand Project team: The proposed naming convention". I don't know of any way to read that that would make it in any way match your interpretation. It isn't vague. If they did say something like that, I assume it must have been somewhere else, which is why I'm assuming good faith that you must have accidentally cut and pasted the wrong link.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo, I take it that what Iridescent is referring to is the point on the FAQ saying Wikipedia is a valuable asset that should be used somehow in proposed branding - reading that initially, I also think it reads as "we've decided to use the Wikipedia name". Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 10:50, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

While no one has asked me for my opinion -- & to be fair, no one has asked several hundred core volunteers for their opinion either -- I believe this entire rebranding exercise is a solution in search of a problem. No one has bothered to present a case for spending a non-trivial sum of money -- which could be better spent on other things -- for changing the name of the Foundation. Well, at least no one has presented this case to me. (Unless I'm expected to descend into an unlit basement & rummage thru unmarked file cabinets to find this presentation.) -- llywrch (talk) 15:37, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

You're being asked your opinion now - that's what this kerfuffle is all about. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:06, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Twenty minutes ago, an executive statement was put out by the WMF Head of Communications: "We should have been clearer: a rebrand will happen. This has already been decided by the Board. The place where we seek consultation and input is on what an optimal rebrand looks like, and what the path to get there will be." (Bold in the original.) "In the end, the Board, Brand team, and Legal team agreed that Wikipedia was the change which supported the goals of the change while also meeting practical legal and financial constraints." --Yair rand (talk) 19:32, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

  Well, that's an interesting development. I'd love to hear Jimbo's thoughts on this; that very much doesn't seem like not about a final answer at this point, and it's explicitly saying "the status quo is not an option". Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:48, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• And there are numerous options beside the status quo, that we have not been allowed to explore. We have (literally) been given the choice in this survey of calling the foundation "Wikipedia", "Wikipedia", or "Wikipedia".--Pharos (talk) 20:19, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

That isn't accurate, Pharos. No decisions have been made. If you have a proposal that you like, then make it! I don't know of anyone on the board who wouldn't welcome it! (I can't speak for anyone other than myself, of course, but seriously, this is a consultation and the board is happy to hear ideas.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:06, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Hi Jimmy. Seeing that Heather (WMF) (talk · contribs) wrote "We should have been clearer: a rebrand will happen. This has already been decided by the Board. The place where we seek consultation and input is on what an optimal rebrand looks like, and what the path to get there will be. [...] In the end, the Board, Brand team, and Legal team agreed that Wikipedia was the change which supported the goals of the change while also meeting practical legal and financial constraints." [23], do you still stand by the characterization that this process is exploratory? --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 17:03, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

"...a rebrand will happen. This has already been decided by the Board." Are there minutes of this decision? Jonathunder (talk) 12:53, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@Jonathunder: I've been looking for those too - I asked on the talk page of the statement, but although some replies have come from the WMF, none to my questions so far. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 13:43, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

There is now a statement from the Acting Chair of the Board: https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2020-June/095051.html --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 04:14, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I think Nataliia's statement makes clear what I have said: this process is exploratory and nothing has been decided yet. "The Board has not approved any specific recommendations yet." "Has the Board made the decision to change the name of Wikimedia Foundation yet? No, the Board has not." When Heather wrote "a rebrand will happen" this refers to the broad project of updating our various branding elements. As Nataliia wrote: "Rebrand may include: names, logos, “taglines,” colours, typography, or any combination of the above. An outcome of the project will be a set of recommended new branding practices."

I can only repeat: this is a project to explore various ideas. No decisions have been made about the outcome.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:06, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, that really isn't how it looks to an outsider. This parses as a marketing person doing what marketing people do: capitalise on your best known brand, poll the stakeholders to see if you can get some great quotes, but the fix is in.

That may not be what's really going on, but it's how it appears. And you know I am not given to conspiracy theories. This just looks like absolutely standard corporate marketing shitweasel stuff.

My $0.02: keep a separate brand. Sure, link them: "Wikimedia: Making Wikipedia Possible" or whatever, but please don't underestimate just how fucked off people are with the WMF right now.

Some of us remember the days when the WMF meant people like Danny and Cary, who are just so nice that resentment is impossible. I admire several of the WMF peeps right now. This desperately needs to be humanised - and the foot needs to come off the gas. Guy (help!) 22:51, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

You're hardly an outsider, you've known me for years. When I tell you nothing has been decided, I mean it. I don't know of anything that I have said that would parse like a marketing person speaking corporate-speak. I'm speaking plainly. Please re-read everything that I wrote up above. There is no 'fix' in and I think that perception is sadly preventing a real discussion from happening about the much more interesting question: what should we do?

I personally think that something like what you suggest is where we're going to end up. I also think that rather than the current situation of anger about things that literally are not at all true ("the fix is in") we'd be in a much better place if people could relax a notch or two and discuss interesting things instead.

As Nataliia said in her letter, on the face of it, an obvious and plausible candidate option is to rename the WMF to the WMF, changing "Wikimedia Foundation" to "Wikipedia Foundation". There's some legitimate objections to that (I personally find some aspects of it compelling), and some legitimate arguments for it (I personally find some aspects of it compelling). I'd love to chew on that some more. But the extreme degree of noise around "OMG THEY ARE GOING TO MAKE US DO THAT THEY ARE CORPORATE SHITWEASELS AND HEDGEFUNDERS AND MARKETEEEEERS" isn't something that I find particularly interesting or useful. It isn't true, I'm telling you: the board hasn't secretly decided anything here, waiting to pounce it on people with some bullshit quotes. That's not close to the reality.

As to what caused the current dust-up, I have my views that focus primarily on particular incidents in the past. But beyond that, I don't know exactly what caused it this time around. As you can see from reading this thread (up above, here) people have linked me to things and claimed they said things that they don't say, and so on. All that I can do is repeat the simple fact: nothing has been decided, no fix is in, and on a personal level I'd much rather we drop the drama stick and move into the much more interesting discussion about the actual things that could be done to improve our naming conventions, etc.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:59, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, oh yes, there is tremendous banked resentment, much of it likely related to events we could both name. Yes, I've known you a while, and I have absolute trust in your good faith. You've never been anything other than straightforward. I know Cary, too, and Danny. There was a sort of family feel back then, which seems to me to have been lost. Some messaging has been fumbled down the years, which hasn't helped.

And I don't think it's bad for WMF to get more professional. It's not a small operation. Any non-profit must necessarily be careful about its branding and image. I get that.

That said, there's no obvious sign of bridge-building right now. Stuff seems to be mandated. You may not see it that way, but a sizeable chunk of the community does. I remember when WP:BLP was mandated, that was seen as a good thing by most people, but I can't think of a WMF initiative recently which has got people on board in the same way. Guy (help!) 19:38, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I certainly believe that the board, as a whole, has not decided one way or another on the proposals. However, I don't have a seat on the board. That means any input I want to give on a proposal is filtered though the rebranding team or a Board member. I haven't seen anything from the rebranding team to make me think that my comments would reach those making the decisions in any substance. From the beginning, the rebranding team has explicitly refused to consider the option of remaining at the status quo, and made that clear in their presentations to the community. And while I expect our community-elected Board members to be aware and understanding of the community's consensus on a topic, they've said nothing about it (as far as I'm aware). That's expected, but nonetheless not reassuring. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 17:50, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Unless the option of "keep the current name" is included, community support for any decision made by this rebranding team would be negligible, at best. -- llywrch (talk) 06:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

The option of "keep the current name" is absolutely included.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:32, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, the statement appeared to imply that it is not, but Nataliia's statement of June 22 is more conciliatory. I'm naturally inclined to favour cock-up over conspiracy in such situations, and there's no doubt that the Wikipedia community excels at filling a nanosecond's ambiguity with a truly epic volume of speculation.

Actually I think this is one area where more of your voice would be good. I know that the "cofounderite" tendency sow distrust, but it's my experience that most of the community looks to you for leadership, and one thing you are particularly good at is thoughtful response to dissent. Guy (help!) 10:56, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Statement one, from Jimbo: "The option of 'keep the current name' is absolutely included."

Statement two, from Heather: "We should have been clearer: a rebrand will happen. This has already been decided by the Board."

These cannot both be correct. I'm still confused about which one is correct. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 19:13, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: I think they could both be true. Keeping the current name and, like, making the WMF logo the Wikipedia death star or something, could be consistent with both statements. Whether that kind of thing could be accepted by WMF staff, WMF board, and the community would of course be question. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 19:54, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

@Mdaniels5757: lol... Could be... but I didn't notice any questions in the survey about the logo ;-) Sure would clear your a lot of confusion if they specified they're talking about the colors or something and not the word "Wikimedia". Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 14:20, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@Levivich: Yeah. I don't think that'd be an outcome the WMF branding team would be happy with, but it'd be a face-saving option (especially for the Board and the rest of the WMF staff) that is not inconsistent with the branding team's statements.

In terms of likely outcomes, here is my totally uninformed speculation:

1. The board and WMF staff say "F consensus, everything's Wikipedia [x] now". I'd give this a fairly low chance, given the board's current stance. Perhaps 10%?
2. Some middle step happens that allows the WMF to both respect consensus and accomplish (at least some of) their goals. Examples could include the logo thing above, or adding something like "a Wikimedia project" under the logo (to increase Wikimedia recognition), etc. I reckon that there's a 50% chance that something like this happens.
3. The WMF board and branding team both respect the consensus against including "Wikipedia" in the Foundation's name, and make no other changes (i.e., an "indefinite pause" on rebranding). Given the Board's statement and the open letter, I'd give this a 40% chance of happening.

YMMV.

--Mdaniels5757 (talk) 20:23, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Mdaniels5757, I think you're being optimistic but I hope you're right! Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:46, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

IMO the current prominence of the names follows the reality. Wikipedia, the encyclopedia is what establishes our prominence in the world and provides the money (with commons functionally a part of the enclyclopedia) WMF's useful purpose is to support Wikipedia, the enclyclopedia. The rest is either more obscure projects or doing more harm than good. So, despite the backwards organizational hierarchy, Wikipedia is the dog and WMF is the tail. Now the tail wants to take the dog's name to try to make itself more famous.  :-) North8000 (talk) 00:58, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Newbie and IP edits should be vetted delayed before they go live

Vandalism, inaccuracies, misinformation, poor quality content, etc., all go live immediately on Wikipedia. It is why many are less enthusiastic in editing this site - it just ends up being a waste of time. Articles written with very much effort gets vandalized with ease.

I think the reliability of Wikipedia can be improved greatly if we can have a vetting process that will put the newbie and IP edits on hold for a limited time (say, 1 day) to be approved by experienced editors. It will mitigate vandalism almost entirely. Please consider. Vanischenu (talk) 21:13, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Pending changes can already do this, but it is applied only when there is a history of troublesome edits.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:56, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Learn German. Then come back and tell us if the eternal backlogs are worth CRASHlocking everything. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{2020's a bust; thanks SARS-CoV-2} 07:30, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

The "Learn German" link just goes to the main page. A more useful link for this issue would be to de:Wikipedia_Diskussion:Gesichtete_Versionen#Macht_sich_eigentlich_jemand_Gedanken,.... Strobilomyces (talk) 16:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Our volunteers are already overworked, that is simply an untenable solution unless we were to quadruple our core volunteer base. We already have a bunch of great systems to seek out problem edits, using robots. Vandalism does not stick around long anyway, its usually caught within minutes. This has been proposed before, and resoundingly defeated, as it goes against the very core of "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 07:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

There was a fad for applying pending changes instead of semi-protection when it was new, but it was soon found to produce an annoying backlog of unchecked edits, many of which were unproductive. Pending changes works best with articles that have some history of problematic edits, but do not have a high edit rate. Having pending changes on every article is not a viable option.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:01, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Ianmacm, or where there is a mixed history of helpful and unhelpful IP contributions. Guy (help!) 09:10, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Ianmacm,Jéské Couriano My proposal is to add a time delay of 1 day after which the IP edits will get accepted automatically. There will not be any backlog like PendingChanges. Vanischenu (talk) 13:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Which only works if articles aren't already suffering from a glut or drought of edits. If there is a glut, 24h is irrelevant because the volume of edits will be too much. (Barack Obama and George W. Bush proved that during the trial.) If there is a drought, nobody will catch it before the 24h is up. And there are 6.1 million articles. For reference, de.wp doesn't even have half that number and they're struggling. My statement still stands. Learn German. Don't force their situation on us. Help them. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{2020's a bust; thanks SARS-CoV-2} 01:32, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

My own view, for what it is worth, is that it would be very interesting to try to split the middle on this - the positive impact of PC is obvious, and the negative impact of eternal backlogs is also obvious. What I'm curious about is the workflow for clearing those queues and whether that could be dramatically improved. I'm thinking of things like a page which shows 5-at-a-time diffs where trusted users could tick 'good', 'bad', and 'needs closer look' and then a separate queue for those that have been ticked 'needs closer look'. Basically, get the quick wins out of the way to leave a much narrower queue. And then also, for the outcome of this process to directly impact the speed with which users get taken out of the 'newbie' state. This might take many forms but could be an additional tickbox or button on that 'needs closer look' page that says "this was a substantive contribution that was done well enough for a newbie" so that person gets a notification not just that their edit went live, but that they received kudos from an experienced editor and are now released from newbie status.

But here is my real point - my ideas here are pretty good I think, but of course they are somewhat obvious and others could have similar but different ideas, many of which would be better. But we have a situation ongoing for a very very long time now that there is a disconnect between the community and the developers... a lack of trust is part of it... so that experimentation and rollback (something that we as Wikipedians should be super comfortable with) isn't allowed to happen. Any change to software is much much harder than it needs to be.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:20, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, that's a really good point. Should we have a software architecture board, with community elected representatives? Architecture review is an approach I have used and advocated in complex mixed legacy and DevOps environments before. Guy (help!) 10:46, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know about a software architecture board. It's not an idea that I've considered before. How would it work?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:53, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, the idea is basically to give a wider group of stakeholders a voice in setting development priorities and approving feature changes. In business this would typically include development leadership and business stakeholders, and the idea is to make sure that effort is spent where it will have the most impact on organisational priorities. Normally we'd handle this through RfCs at Meta and the like, or by meetings between WMF and devs I guess, but the meta discussions tend to attract only people with detailed interest in things like microformatting, much of the discussion is arcaqne and they run on geological timescales.

I'm thinking here of a group that meets whenever a change requiring more than a certain level of effort is to be planned, to ensure that it's strategically aligned, that the strategy meets the aspirations of all the stakeholders, and that everyone is on board with the level of resource it's going to take.

I don't know, my open source friends always tell me I am much too corporate in my thinking, but this works well in some environments with complex stakeholder relationships (e.g. fintech, where there's conflict between sales, development and infosec, almost as a matter of course). Guy (help!) 18:24, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: are you talking about a Change Control Board with an equity stake provided to the volunteer editor community. - Bri.public (talk) 20:50, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Bri.public, no, I am talking about an architecture framework with community membership on the TDA board. Guy (help!) 22:01, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: I guess you mean a technical design authority as defined here here. Makes sense to try to get into the architecture/design process upstream of the final decision to roll out software changes. Is this a role at WMF Engineering? I poked around and couldn't figure out if it exists. - Bri.public (talk) 17:48, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your input Jimbo. Much appreciated. My request to consider is to add a delay time before IP edits gets live automatically. This time of delay will help Vandalism patrollers and watchlisters to review those edits and accept or revert them. Unreviewed edits can go live after the delay time, so that there will not be any backlog or a conflict with "editable by anyone" policy.Vanischenu (talk) 12:54, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

One of the perennial proposals is to require registration before editing articles. This runs into problems with WP:HUMAN, because it implies that all editors from IP addresses are potential vandals. This is a position that has been rejected in past discussions. It is easy enough for persistent vandals to create throwaway accounts, and there is a certain amount of unfair bias against IP editing.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:26, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Re "It is easy enough for persistent vandals to create throwaway accounts..." — If that's true, would that be the case for any registered user who is blocked for any reason? (Not an argument but just for information.) Bob K31416 (talk) 15:20, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Most of the really silly users that I have come across have created accounts. They are not necessarily throwaway accounts, but the account is misused. The statistic quoted at WP:HUMAN is that "although most vandalism (80%) is generated by IP editors, over 80% of edits by unregistered users were not vandalism." This is why it is important not to start out from the assumption that IP editing is likely to be vandalism.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:01, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Would it be improper to hire ten or so full-time volunteers? Each volunteer would review every tenth edit. Thanks, Thanoscar21_{talk, contribs} 21:42, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Similar proposal: WP:Delayed revisions. This should be implemented at least for all BLP articlesVanischenu (talk) 23:36, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

There are almost 1 million BLPs. Counting administrators, there are only ~8,500 members of CRASH. These numbers alone make "Apply CRASHlock to all BLPs" unrealistic from a logistical standpoint alone. And you CANNOT allow a 24h auto-accept for material that violates BLP. —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^{2020's a bust; thanks SARS-CoV-2} 01:38, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

This is where my mind went. I don't know how many editors engage with New Page Patrolling, but I would surmise that orders of magnitude more of us utilize our watchlists as a functional anti-vandalism service. Seeing a pending change on my watchlist that I could approve or reject immediately, but would get published in a short while if nobody rejected it sounds like a great protection level for broad implementation that potentially engages a huge swath of editors in their normal editing routine, but maintains the open principle of anyone can edit. When I see proposals like "require an account to edit X", this is where my mind goes as a good balance. VanIsaac_WS^cont 00:58, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

My two cents — the initial post talked about the problems with nubie and IP edits in general, and I agree there is a problem. Not having a solution for everything, I'd like to offer a solution that might help with one important aspect. I do appreciate our aphorism The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit but our message goes beyond suggesting that anyone can edit any article. We actually encourage (with some rare exceptions) brand-new editors to try to create a new article from scratch. We send them to AFC, where they create a draft, then have to twiddle their thumbs waiting for a review which almost invariably is negative. How many tens of thousands of potential new editors had given up in the face of this discouraging experience? (how many experienced editors burn out dealing with this dross?) I'm not quite ready to give up on the concept that anyone can edit, but could we emphasize that one must start with small edits, and gradually build up some experience, and only then tackle a brand-new article? Can anyone who's been around for some time (most of those contributing to this discussion) say that their very first experience with Wikipedia was the creation of a brand-new article? I suspect it is very rare.

As an analogy, pretend we are not a collection of Wikipedia editors but a collection of exercise enthusiasts. We could accurately say anyone can exercise, but if give new applicants an application to run the Boston Marathon, how many would succeed? I certainly hope that everyone reading will agree that such a plan would be ludicrous but that's essentially what we are doing in Wikipedia. How many new editors asked for general advice and we point them to WP:FIRST? (I know I do.) Yes, three paragraphs in there is a throw away sentence suggesting that "Working on existing articles is a good way to learn our protocols and style conventions...", but I suspect most readers skip over that. I urge a rewrite. Start out with the same advice we would give to an aspiring marathoner — start slow and get in shape before tackling something large. Our advice should emphasize the need to work on other articles first, and even there, it shouldn't be the addition of entire paragraphs that need to be properly referenced, we should encourage people to work on copyediting.

I don't pretend this will fully solve the problem outlined in the opening post, but I'm seriously worried that we are turning off tens of thousands of potential editors by encouraging them to do too much too soon. Let's rethink this approach.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:10, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Building on Ianmacm's comment, 80% of content is created by IPs and 80% of IP editing is beneficial. Is the Siegenthaler incident far enough in the past now for us to restore article creation rights to IPs (possibly with pending changes to start to see how it works out)? 2A00:23C5:C70B:500:ED1E:D467:15F0:EBAE (talk) 17:07, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, having worked for a while in AFC, I think it would be a terrible idea to restore that right. The New Page Patrol is already stressed, and such a step would increase manifold the creation of bad pages which meet various CSD criteria. There is a why AFC exists - to reduce the load on the NPP while allowing IPs and newbies to develop articles. JavaHurricane 06:42, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

• Jimmy, I believe we already have the foundation (no pun intended) for what you described above. It's built into the WP:Curation toolbar which contains the results of algorithm checks, it's used by WP:NPP and was already approved by WMF thanks to the hard work and persistence of Kudpung, others at NPP, and the WMF programmers who developed the code: The Curation Toolbar is a type of page curation. It is a suite of tools that is available on new articles or user pages to help patrollers review them more effectively. This optional tool enables editors to get page info, mark a page as reviewed, tag it, mark it for deletion, send WikiLove to page creators — or jump to the next page on the list. It works a bit like Twinkle, but provides an easier user interface, fully supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. The Curation Toolbar is part of the Page Curation project, which aims to enhance the current page patrol process by making it faster and less stressful to check new articles. I don't see why the gut couldn't be modified to work the way you described so that it works more as a filter to prevent vandalism rather than sending results to NPP. (sorry for pinging on your UTP, but I wanted to make sure you saw this). ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:03, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Looking at pages created recently, they seem fairly technical. The page which precipitated the Siegenthaler incident was a BLP violation which stood out a mile. IP-created pages are easier to curate than those created by registered editors. The backlog at AfC will disappear, but I expect most IP editors will want to continue to make use of it. Add to that, registered editors are not particularly good at creating articles, hence the pressure at NPP. IP editors, on the other hand, generally only edit on subjects they are interested in and have expertise in. 2A00:23C5:C70B:500:ED1E:D467:15F0:EBAE (talk) 13:47, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

WT Social. What is it? How can I decide whether to join it if I can't see any of it.

WT Social. I have little idea what this is, other than that you Jimmy Wales founded it.

https://wt.social - I go there and don't see the actual site. I don't know how you expect a lot of participation and growth without revealing what this great mystery is.

Twitter will let you see most everything without signing in.

Facebook will let you see public pages and groups without logging in. Only pages of individuals are not viewable until logged in. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:01, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I did a Google News search for WT Social, and set it for date order. Here is the only article in a month that mentions it:

“There’s more to learn from failure than success”- #JimmyWales, Co-Founder of #Wikipedia during his Live Class on Unacademy. By India Education Diary Bureau Admin - July 1, 2020. From article: "He elaborated on his experiences from failed entrepreneurial attempts such as Three Apes and Nupedia, before talking about his successful ventures such as Wikipedia, The Wikimedia Foundation, Fandom and WT Social."

That is the only mention in the article. There is another article (from 3 weeks ago) but it has a paywall.

I don't know how much of the media will bother to review a site they can't see without filling in a non-anonymous (according to the terms of use) registration form.

Logging in via Facebook and Twitter is not recommended, due to security concerns. Also, because it means one is logged into Facebook and Twitter for more of the day, and thus open to more of their tracking for ad purposes, etc.. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:08, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Editing news 2020 #3

On 16 March 2020, the 50 millionth edit was made using the visual editor on desktop.

Seven years ago this week, the Editing team made the visual editor available by default to all logged-in editors using the desktop site at the English Wikipedia. Here's what happened since its introduction:

• The 50 millionth edit using the visual editor on desktop was made this year. More than 10 million edits have been made here at the English Wikipedia.
• More than 2 million new articles have been created in the visual editor. More than 600,000 of these new articles were created during 2019.
• Almost 5 million edits on the mobile site have been made with the visual editor. Most of these edits have been made since the Editing team started improving the mobile visual editor in 2018.
• The proportion of all edits made using the visual editor has been increasing every year.
• Editors have made more than 7 million edits in the 2017 wikitext editor, including starting 600,000 new articles in it. The 2017 wikitext editor is VisualEditor's built-in wikitext mode. You can enable it in your preferences.
• On 17 November 2019, the first edit from outer space was made in the mobile visual editor.
• In 2019, 35% of the edits by newcomers, and half of their first edits, were made using the visual editor. This percentage has been increasing every year since the tool became available.

Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:05, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Talk page preferences?

Jimbo, do you approve of the deletion of my question at [24] as removed from [25]? Would you prefer the section be restored? Did I offend you? Is the question about your favorite author's thoughts on egalitarianism appropriate? 2601:647:5E00:C5A0:254C:5765:47B4:7C22 (talk) 05:39, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

E.g., [26]? EllenCT (talk) 17:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Talk page preferences?

Jimbo, do you approve of the deletion of my question at [27] as removed from [28]? Would you prefer the section be restored? Did I offend you? Is the question about your favorite author's thoughts on egalitarianism appropriate? 2601:647:5E00:C5A0:254C:5765:47B4:7C22 (talk) 05:39, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

E.g., [29]? EllenCT (talk) 17:07, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

What happens when the walled gardens aren't walled enough

Hi Jimbo. I hope you are well. I am well. I am completely enthusiastic and thoroughly confident. However, I am compelled to ask you about [30]. Do you think Guy Macon knows Eric S. Raymond? EllenCT (talk) 19:37, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

EllenCT, why would we speculate on that? ESR is legendary, anyone in IT has probably read at least some of his writing. Guy (help!) 23:00, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Signature question

Hello Jimbo Wales. Recently, a editor sent a notice in my talk page in other ptwiki that my signature was at odds with the rules, however I desagree. I used this tool and there it indicated that the signature was all clear. I also saw that many editors put an emoji in their signature. The Wikipedia:Signatures cite images, it says nothing about using an emoji, which is not classified as an image, but as a unicode character. Could you tell me if you think my signature is WP: SIGIMAGE or if it complies with Wikipedia: Signatures? I will be grateful if I can answer my question. Sorry if I messed up, English is not my native language. Best regards. ✍A.WagnerC (talk) 21:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Answered at User talk:Jonesey95; editors are welcome to add to my answer there if you have additional insight. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:05, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Excuse me for WP:MULTI and WP:FORUMSHOP. It will not happen again. Best regards. ✍A.WagnerC (talk) 00:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Thanks for starting Wikipedia! Without Wikipedia, we wouldn't find a lot more about well... anything!!! ILoveCocomelon (talk) 00:09, 8 July 2020 (UTC)