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User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive D

< User talk:Jimbo Wales

Constitutional policies for Dutch Wikipedia

Hi Jimbo,

Work is progressing on Dutch Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines (constitutional and other). As we've come to a point where your insights might be helpful, I'm about to post a message - in English - on nl:Overleg Gebruiker:Jimbo Wales, which will be linked from the Dutch Village Pump too. --Francis Schonken 00:20, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please also have a look at nl:Wikipedia:Conventies, richtlijnen en regels/Verkiezing commissie, which makes it take a slightly less favourable turn. I'd gladly translate, if you ask, but I'm afraid I'd probably especially translate the omissions. --Francis Schonken 02:20, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

Since the discussion involves fundamental NPOV philosophy, I'd be very interested in your opinion (if any) of the NPOV discussion at Talk:Reformed Egyptian (you can start at the section "details", you don't have to slog through it all). Am I fundamentally misinformed/misconceiving what it's all about? Go pseudonymously if you want<g>. - Nauvoo 02:38, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Please remove my name from the mailing list. Lirath Q. Pynnor

RFC pages on VfD

Should RFC pages be placed on VfD to be deleted? I'm considering removing Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Slrubenstein, Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Jwrosenzweig and Wikipedia:Requests for comment/John Kenney from WP:VFD. Each of them was listed by CheeseDreams. Your comments on whether I should do this would be appreciated. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:50, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have no opinion about this. --Jimbo Wales 18:23, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Complaint about User:GeneralPatton

Hi Jimbo,

I am here to report about inapriopriate behavoiur of User:GeneralPatton, who just blocked the 62.244.138.110 IP (at 06:25, 10 Dec 2004) after my edits of Paul von Hindenburg article. I made significant contributions and planned to make more. I was editing from an internet cafe in Poznan, Poland). And your name was shown on Administrators page to discuss the problem. I write this from a neighbouring computer in the same Cafe.

I made a correction of the city name Poznań, and erased the Nazi German name which is very offensive to Poznan inhabitants. I have explained my actions on the discussion page.

User:GeneralPatton has reverted my edits, reintroducing the offensive Nazi names and opinions, made no explaination, and then blocked me from editing. He called for the 'rv, user has a history of vandalism and confrontational behaviour' I do not understand, he called also for 'Broke the 3 revert rule over at Paul von Hindenburg' and at the same time did NOT blocked the User:Mackensen, who also broke the 3 rv rules. In my opinion Mackensen was the offender here, and I was defending the fair opinion.

In my opinion user Patton overused his powers in:

  • reverted my edits without discussing it
  • blocked me just because he disagreed with my edits
  • he was not neutral (nobody can be a judge in his own case)
  • violated the equal treatment rule by not blocking the oposing user (Mackensen)
  • erased the POV dispute banner without any reason
  • introduced the offensive and POV material without even trying to understand or discuss the case

I ask you to:

  • reintroduce POV banner to Paul von Hindenburg
  • make any corrections if you feel them justified (please take in mind that the name 'Posen' is offensive to Poznan inhabitants, and many of them can read English)
  • block User:Mackensen for breaking 3 reverts rule, and equal treatment rule
  • investigate Patton behaviour and take apropropriate actions

Additionnaly I suggest to work on a tool:

  • block User/IP from editing the specified article, and not the entire Wikipedia
  • if User/IP is blocked from editing entire Wikipedia, there should be place to make a formal complains with editing *allowed* here. The blocking admin should be forbidden from erasing a complaint about himself

Thank you and Good Luck An anonymous Wikipedian from Poznan

His IP is 62.244.138.113 that comes from the IP range of Tempest Internet Café (62.244.138.96 - 62.244.138.127) , Poznan/PL that has been blocked a number of times.

  • 05:23, Jul 26, 2004 RickK blocked "62.244.138.108" with an expiry time of 24 hours (vandal)
  • 05:32, Jul 26, 2004 RickK blocked "62.244.138.107" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Likes to call people Nazis)
  • 06:55, Aug 2, 2004 RickK blocked "62.244.138.105" with an expiry time of 24 hours (nationalist Polish vandalism, lying on edit summary)
  • 10:13, 5 Oct 2004 David Gerard blocked "62.244.138.106" with an expiry time of 24 hours (vandalism of Polish articles)
  • 02:18, 22 Feb 2004 RickK blocked "62.244.138.111" (repeated POV insertions, "fuck the Nazis" comment)
  • 05:56, 30 Mar 2004 RickK blocked "62.244.138.99" with an expiry time of 24 hours (Blocked user Gdansk)

Judging by RickK's last comment it is quite possible he?s the sockpuppet of the blocked User:Gdansk GeneralPatton 07:45, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A 24-hour range block for this anonymous user is now in effect for his use of an Internet cafe's multiple addresses to evade the original 3RR block and continue reverting. Additionally, the anon was engaging in "Nazi" name-calling. Mackensen did not violate the 3RR and is therefore not blocked. Not that you have the time or inclination to worry about such things. -- Cyrius|✎ 07:51, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
User:Gdansk made smilar charges against Adam Bishop a while back [1]
May I also add that the IP 62.244.138.108 signing as the User:PolishPoliticians (see his arbcom ruling: Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/User:PolishPoliticians) made a similar assault on RickK when he blocked him [2] and later accused RickK of vandalism [3]. GeneralPatton 09:34, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As a note, I avoided breaking the three-revert rule. When my three were up I went and got help. I did, it is true, later edit Hindenburg, but only to modify slightly what GeneralPatton had restored. Mackensen (talk) 23:03, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Please remove my name from the mailing list. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Thank you, Yahoo! appears to have some bad links still, but I'm sure they will be erased with time. Hopefully I no longer have any reason to involve myself with the wikipedia. I had been intending to call the WikiMeetUp location and make my request, now I have no need to do so. Lirath Q. Pynnor

Hail, flak-catcher

  Thank you for voluntarily being in the position of having to catch all the flak by the kooks and hate-mongers of this world. You are always appreciated here. JRM 22:32, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

Heroic Admins (or whomever)

Hi Jimbo,

I'm fairly new around here and my wife is already complaining about your project. As I poke around and try to feel the edges, I am utterly impressed with the way I have been welcomed and helped (a beautiful personal touch) and, in particular, the devotion of the Admins (or Syops) that are so amazingly vigilant at identifying, reverting, and blocking those individuals who feel a need to soil anything that is unsoiled or helpful.
I hope to become more of a contributing member of this community (wife permitting) as I feel more comfortable with all of the "customaries".
My congratulations for such an wonderful project and contribution to our world.

[[User:Hydnjo| Hydnjo\talk]] 01:32, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

JimboWales moved to User:Jimbo Wales/old

Heya, in an effort to clean up the main namespace, the redirect at JimboWales has been moved to User:Jimbo Wales/old. There's a single message from User:RoseParks in the history, should you want to keep it. --fvw* 03:11, 2004 Dec 13 (UTC)

Sollog harrasment

I received an email today from one of the Adoni websites from a mailing list I "joined".

This Eamil asks people to phone, email and basically harass Jim Wales. Is there nothing that can be done to stop this person who not only advocates harrassment of a person (who I consider to be innocent due to the fact that as I understand it Jim did not and has not posted on this person/group) but who allows videos of executions of terrorist hostages and photographs of the death Princess Diana to be shown on their website. They claim to be a religious group but have no aparant morals or qualms about making money out of events that all other religious groups (and 99.9% of no religious groups) condemn as outrages.

I for one will not be making the phone call as requested and I hope that this situation does not cause Jim Wales and his family any undue stress, heartache or worry.

All the best at this festive time. WhizzyB --WhizzyB 16:29, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC) PS feel free to tell me if you disagree anyone or if anyone at Wiki wants a copy of the email let me know

Jimbo - the Sollog crew have set up a website, wikipediasucks.com (I can't make it a link due to the spam filter), encouraging people to harrass you and vandalize Wikipedia. I've blocked several IPs for replacing the content of articles with that URL. Rdsmith4— Dan | Talk 17:13, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Your lecture at 21C3, Berlin, 27 Dec 2004

Hi Jimbo, the announcement of your lecture looks promising. Are there any plans yet for publication of notes/video/webcast/whatever for those of us who can't attend? Kosebamse 17:21, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am told that it will be online, but I don't know when or where --Jimbo
Anticipating your Jan-10th lecture in Tel Aviv U., is it going to be the same lecture? Is it available on-line already? 199.203.116.65 10:45, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fair play

According to the RfAr against me, these are the arbitrators

so why is James F voting on the proposed decision? CheeseDreams 19:12, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sollog

I'm really sorry your personal life is being attacked by this whacko. Claiming your a pornographer (even if you are I dont see the problem) and posting pictures of your wife and daughter is just awful. I want to personally expressed the uninimous support of the Slashdot community for you. Wikipedia is one of the best sites on the internet and you should receive nothing but praise, not this crap "Sollog" is saying about you.

Be happy, however, his phone number was posted on Slashdot and he is probably being phone spammed right now.

--Mboverload 19:19, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

I was also pained to see your personal life attacked by SOLLOG. My best wishes to you and your family. Samrolken 19:57, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Jimbo, you should not have to spend your own money defending against this attack, because the article in question is being edited by the Wikipedia community, not by you personally. (I don't care how wealthy you are, the principle still holds.) The Wikimedia Foundation should also keep its money for server upgrades.
Therefore, please consider setting up a PayPal account to accept donations, to help pay for any legal expenses you may incur while legally pursuing the perpetrator of this attack.
I am sure a number of contributors here on Wikipedia would be willing to donate to such a legal fund.
Regards,
— DV 22:03, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I have twice removed the above comments about this issue, because I feel the less said about it, the better. However, Mirv and RDSmith have reverted by deletions, and I'm not going to get into an edit war over it. Therefore, I'll say here instead that, in my view, any comment about this would be more appropriately sent in a private e-mail. Referring in public to nonsense simply serves to spread it. Just my opinion. Slim 23:31, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
You probably don't know who I am, but I've had a lot of serious disagreements with the Wikipedia community regarding how it operates and with the conduct of certain admins, impelling me to quit editing indefinitely, though I recognize the nobility of the Wikipedia concept and appreciate your effort. I want to express sympathy and support re: the Sollog mess. This crackpot has no right to behave as he has; after accusing you of libel, he claims you were convicted of hate crimes on his rant-site, a libelous claim itself and clear hypocrisy. Hopefully, this issue will pass peacefully.
Good luck and regards, Mike Church 07:47, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Licensing Proposal and the WikiMeet

As per our discussion at the NYC WikiMeet, I was wondering if you'd be interested in the following banner that i've created:

 
Licensing rights granted to WikiMedia Foundation
I grant permission for the Wikimedia Foundation Inc. to relicense my text contributions under any copyleft license that it chooses, provided it maintains the free and open spirit of the GFDL. This permission acknowledges that the future licensing needs of the WikiMedia projects may need to be adapted in an unforseen fashion to facilitate other uses, formats, and locations. It is given for as long as this banner remains. Note: This banner is under construction, and is subject to major changes pending discussions

Jimbo Wales/Archive D

I think this is basically what you had mentioned that you wished you had setup in the Copyright agreement when you created Wikipedia. Why not add it to the existing agreement so at least all edits after some date fall into this category. Based on the success so far of the multi-licensing campaign, I wouldn't be surprised if many or most of the users would agree to this as well. Let me know what you think (whenever you have time to actually check this). – Ram-Man (comment) (talk)[[]] 20:05, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Frankly, if I had enough support and consensus in the matter, I would help with a Wikipedia-wide drive to do just this for as many existing articles/users/edits as possible in addition to the suggestion above. I've found in my multi-licensing efforts that it is almost assumed by most users that Wikipedia already has this ability and they are shocked to find out that it isn't the case. Aside from those people you can't contact and those who just inherently don't trust Wikipedia, you could get a wide swath of people to agree to this. It might even be a bit of a legal safeguard too in the event that the GFDL fails to meet some legal challenge, although I'm hardly a lawyer in my evaluation. – Ram-Man (comment) (talk)[[]] 21:49, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Dear Jimbo, Ram-Man,
IMHO, the idea behind this is good, but doesn't this put too much burden on the copyleft article? I mean, personally I like the idea of copyleft much more than those arid texts, called licences, that give the copyleft idea a certain form. So the solution of referencing to "any copyleft licence the WF chooses", instead of referencing to GFDL or similar licences seems like a godsgift to solve it all. Only, the copyleft article is not stable. My involvement with that article goes back many months, and I return there every now and then. Opinions abounding. Somebody said on talk:copyleft "copyleft can not be treated in a NPOV way". I answered with a list of "points of view" I knew about regarding copyleft, each with their often paradoxal essential characteristics (and all produced by people that are supposed to know what they're talking about). All of that (and more) turns up in the copyleft article itself. The "equilibrium" found there is not the kind one could use as a rock solid foundation for distinguishing which licences are "copyleft" in the full sense, and which are only halfway-through "copyleft". And then, if that article becomes in a way the "criterion" of Wikipedia's licencing policy, you're electing an encyclopedia article as the forum (...battleground) for licencing policy matters, which is not the thing to do, I believe.
For my own contributions, I think I've done a sufficient leap in actually reading GFDL, studying it for what it implies, and on top of that, agreeing that my work here may be relicensed to any future version of GFDL. What more can one expect from an average wikipedian? Read several more of such licences? And stopping to contribute to Wikipedia if the latest flavour of "copyleft" in the smallprint appears not to correspond to my views? Please, GFDL-only for me!
--Francis Schonken 02:09, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well the draft proposal above would not have to use the copyleft article. It could easily use its own definition if the need arose. Since most of your complaint seems centered on that, the issue can easily be met by this simple solution. Obviously only those users who trust the Wikimedia foundation would agree to this. Of course they already trust the FSF in the exact same way by the "or any later version" clause, as you have mentioned. Part of the problem lies in the difficulty with using the GFDL in other contexts, or even in the context of Wikipedia. Imagine that I wanted to publicly read a Wikipedia article during a speech. Under the GFDL, I would be also required to recite the entire text of the GFDL, or at minimum pass out copies of the license to all of those listening in the audience, which of course would not work if it was broadcast over the radio. The only way around this is to use a different copyleft license designed for the medium used. This proposal intends to give the WF the sanity to choose for every user without having to ask every single time. – Ram-Man (comment) (talk)[[]] 04:22, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Andy Kaufman lives! (I think we have all been tricked big time.)

Can you please do me a favor? Do you administrators have the ability to see the IP address of a registered user? If so, can you please tell me if the IP address of User:Paektu is similar to that of User:JoeM (which I know is 4.247.194.236)? If they are similar, then I am the biggest fool on Wikipedia. --NoPetrol 03:46, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I can say that administrators can't see the IPs of logged-in users. Not even developers can do this practically - it involves searching access logs manually. So, for the time being, we have no method to check this, and I'm not sure we want to have as it can only be suggestive, not definite in proving that two users are the same. ✏ Sverdrup 01:02, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In any case you might inquire at #mediawiki, where there are usually a few developers willing to assist. Rdsmith4— Dan | Talk 01:15, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'll do that. Thanks. --NoPetrol 00:08, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sam Spade's block

Could you please review the discussion at the mailing list and WP:AN and comment on my block of Sam Spade? Sincerely Mgm (sorry for not logging on)

your comment

I responded to your comment on my talk page, and I did ask one question which I'd like clarification on. Later! – Ram-Man (comment) (talk)[[]] 20:52, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks!

Thanks for the quick fix with that rtl.css file. It worked perfectly!

Only now that I visited your user page I connected the nick with the actual person. Didn't realize I was talking to the Jimbo Wales ;-)

Thanks again, Tomer (17/12/2004, 01:37)

Hmm, since I don't know what an rtl.css file is, and don't remember talking to you, you may have had an encounter with an imposter? Well, at least the imposter was helpful. :-) --Jimbo Wales 00:02, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Haha... you're right. I was talking to JeLuF on IRC, when you (or an imposter) walked in and I confused you both.

Suggestions for the Wikipedia

I have the following humble suggestions for Wikipedia and the Wiki Think Tank.

  • Allow the Wikipedians to make entries about anything and everything as their firsthand knowledge or field of speciality. This will collect a great wealth of data at first and the evolutionary process (addition and editing) will make a crude material worth a reference.
  • The continuously editing and changing status of articles has both its pros and cons. There should be certain point that only necessary editing must be allowed and that should be only for those who are licensed (from the Wikipedia) and well reputed editors. The talk pages should be open for suggestions.
  • Some people (with an Wiki ID or anonymously or with changing IDs) have taken control of certain articles/topics and they are acting as Wiki Lords. They are editing articles to project their own points of view in a clandestine way and only professional people can detect such a behavior. Due to this behavior a large number of scholars, intellectuals and researchers are yet not taking Wikipedia seriously. This is against the evolutionary philosphy of Wikipedia. To nip this undemocratic behavior from the bud some thing must be done properly.

For more details please see page Talk:Habib R. Sulemani

User:203.82.48.55

arbitration

My last comment here elicited no response, so I won't spend long on this one. But the arbs at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz, Kevin Baas, Shorne, VeryVerily/Proposed decision are (to put it bluntly) off their rocker. Several users have materialized on the Talk pages there to implore them - in words sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh - not to impose the rulings they planned, and others have condemned them elsewhere. Only just as they were about to close did they buckle a bit and reduce one of their most egregious "remedies", but still stands three other harsh punishments, based on "findings of fact" I have rebutted at least twice. As the temporary injunctions I noted last time made clear, they seem to be paying almost no regard to the evidence and history even after several people pointed it out, and I've gotten little response on their User talk pages. Rather, it looks like runaway groupthink combined with a desire to be expedient or "send a message" (a goal whose wisdom was refuted in Michael Snow's appeal). The committee will of course be partly replaced soon (for better or for worse, I can't always trust democracy sigh), but that will be too late for me. Indeed, they are in the process of closing, which may be complete in a matter of hours. One look at the work I've done here will show how unwarranted this treatment is. Is this how you want Wikipedia's most productive and diligent contributors treated? Is it right? Or ask yourself this, will it make this encyclopedia better, or worse? VeryVerily 01:10, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think it will make the encyclopedia better. Jimbo Wales 10:07, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for answering. Obviously, I'm horrifed by your wholly off-base conclusions. VeryVerily 18:02, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Jimbo, I hope that you will take these comments into consideration. VV hit the nail on the head when he referred to the 'runaway groupthink' seen in this case. 172 01:37, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't agree at all. I've been watching this case rather carefully and I think that if anything it is a classic example of how tolerant we traditionally are of people who should have been disciplined a long time ago. VeryVerily refers to himself as on of Wikipedia's "most productive and diligent contributors" -- I don't dispute 'diligent' but I think 'most productive' is very much called into question by his long history of POV editing and revert warring. The ArbCom has done a great job in this case of looking into a very complex body of evidence and coming to the right conclusion. Jimbo Wales 10:05, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I agree with much of this. Any dispute I had with VeryVerily is dwarfed by the outrageous behaviour of these arbitrators, who are blatantly unresponsive even while they're about to punish others for failing to discuss. My challenge to Raul and anyone else stands for them to cite a single issue where I have refused to discuss. There is none. By the way, Jimbo, I have meanwhile agreed to three different proposed compromises on the Polish city-name dispute, including yours, yet the other side has accepted none - but it's me who's prevented from editing those articles. I think the results of the arbcom elections speak volumes - finally we have it official that, for example, 72% of Wikipedians don't trust Ed Poor, 58% don't trust Raul, etc., showing that those supposedly respected users are only popular between themselves and in the echo chamber of their own cabal. You should think hard about why only one candidate managed to win over 50% approval. Gzornenplatz 02:12, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
This comment of yours is the sort of classic that I am sure is going to lead to your banning sooner rather than later. You vandalized wikipedia with a vandalbot, you have lied to my to my face on multiple occasions, and yet you still have the nerve to come here and act like a victim. You've agreed to my compromise on Pila, this is true -- but you say that the other side did not, which is transparently false. Jimbo Wales 09:49, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
To keep on topic, what Gzornenplatz has done doesn't change whether the arbitrators' behavior is appropriate. If they are treating us unfairly, they are treating us unfairly, even if one thinks we "deserve" it. VeryVerily 19:43, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm not going to dignify the vandalbot comment with a response, you can believe what you will. But where did Halibutt, Space Cadet, or Emax agree to the compromise? On Talk:Pila, all I see is a mostly unintelligible comment from Sicherlich which appears to accept this on en while not accepting it on de. The others display their unwillingness to discuss this at all while they know I'm prevented from editing those articles. When I'm not, they will start reverting again. Gzornenplatz 10:20, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
Probably sooner, Arbitration on the case will close as soon as one more Arbitrator votes for closing. &#0xfeff; --fvw* 10:07, 2004 Dec 19 (UTC)
Gzornenplatz brings up a point I had only alluded to tangentially (in my "after people pointed it out" and "rebutted" comments), which deserves underscoring: the wholesale unresponsiveness of the arbitrators. They pretty much ignored what was said to them in Talk, as attested (e.g.) by the irrelevant temp injunction (and the failure to consider my responses), and at any rate rarely deigned to comment on matters of the case. I put this here merely since it's part of this conversation; I am aware Jimbo's mind is probably made up. VeryVerily 18:07, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales has a sad history of forcing out users who disagree with him (secretlondon for instance). And as my recent block shows, admins are now routinely using mindless groupthink instead of reason. - Xed 12:07, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, I defended against some of Secretlondon's charges at Wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians; it's based partly on believing what Jimbo said on the mailing list. I don't think she believes she was forced out. VeryVerily 19:29, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Mindless groupthink is right. These three good contributors have been banned for two months for nothing worse than getting into some disputes, which is good for Wikipedia and NPOV considering the nature of the articles that they edit. Lately, fewer and fewer admins are willing to disagree with prevailing opinions. Everyking is one; I'm another. But we are a dying breed... I'm not sure if Jimbo is even aware of the cabal-like conditions being engendered by the rise of this heavy-handed administrative hierarchy led by the Arbcom. If he knew what was going on, I bet he'd have some reservations. (I've read about the principles upon which he founded Wikipedia along with Larry Sanger, such as the goal of seeing what can be produced in structural anarchy and total openness, and they do not seem to coincide with the way things are run these days.) 172 19:55, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If I may interject here, I've seen this case and I think it's quite worrying for Wikipedia. I don't want people to have to be perpetually in fear of ridiculously harsh punishments just because they might get into a dispute with someone at some point. That's hardly the positive spirit that we ought to have as a community, nor is it a spirit of respect for others and their work. It is far worse for the project and for the atmosphere of the community to have rulings like this than it is to contend with occasionally hostile disputes—hostile disputes are inevitable given the nature of the project and what's at stake; there needs to be a better way to resolve these things than to punish honest people who are only here to build an encyclopedia. Everyking 12:11, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • i think WP needs people who talk and are willing to accept other oppinions; i can only talk about GZ; i dont think he is accepting something different then his own oppinion; and some days ago he continued again edit wars on de ... same topic ...Sicherlich 20:32, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

arbitration (refactored)

I've refactored this section substantially, because I thought it was getting too long and confusing.

To keep on topic, what Gzornenplatz has done doesn't change whether the arbitrators' behavior is appropriate. If they are treating us unfairly, they are treating us unfairly, even if one thinks we "deserve" it. VeryVerily 19:43, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't see any reason to think that you've been treated unfairly. I think that the evidence speaks for itself. I think that rather than lashing out at the ArbCom, you need to reconsider your own behavior and decide whether or not you want to be part of a community that values peaceful co-operation, or whether you'd be happier working with people who more highly value combativeness. If you like it here, take this as an opportunity to re-evaluate your own behaviors in a positive way. No one will hold it against you, and I'm sure many people would be quite impressed if you simply made a change of behavior and apologized for acting this way for so long.
First I want to take issue with the tone here. Saying I'm "lashing out" serves to dismiss my specific criticisms of the ArbCom as mere random, irrational striking out, and your other comments sound condescending, whether intentionally or not. Let me note that, contrary to the skewed portrayals, the vast majority of my ~12,000 edits were completely uncontroversial.
I am reminded of Ark30Inf's farewell words, "I have found that if you are not here to do battle then nobody will listen to you. Thats not what I am about." Bingo. The fact is, Wikipedia is at places not peaceful or co-operative at all, however much we'd all love it (and the real world) to be. At the very least, there are those who simply make trouble, and that includes most of those I have been in conflicts with. I do not "value combativeness", but combativeness is here. (It's possible the more recent ability of any user to start an ArbCom case and a faster turnaround time will help, we'll see.)
I tried virtually every resource to avoid sustained conflict, made endless appeal to the community. At the risk of telling my life story, I will illustrate with the case of "Ruy Lopez". The very first thing I said about him in January 2004 in my first appeal was "This user is making useful contributions to some articles, but...." Does that sound like I was itching for a fight, or was I maybe already seeking to establish a common ground? Long story short, several users agreed he was a problem, but nothing was done. I expended hours of time, wrote thousands of words hashing over the issues. But he kept mass-producing accounts and making the same set of edits, to the same set of articles, with the same tired arguments. I posted plea after plea to the Conflicts between users (now RfC) page for community aid, with more and more evidence of his behavior, but after the initial flurry of agreement got no help at all. The only thing that ultimately stopped it was persistently reverting all the destruction he tried to cause - often alone. Right now he's just on his latest attempt, and I see no advantage in not undoing his all-too-familiar attacks. Now, is this the story of someone who "values combativeness"? Does it sound like I came here to fight?
Of course, if you've been carefully watching this case, you know all this. You'd also know that in addition four of the six examples of my not "engaging in dialogue" in the FoF involve (and in two cases primarily so) the user who did this to my user page and then announced and carried out a policy of autoreverting all my edits through a series of anonymous proxies, behavior which some people might just consider mildly provocative. That I would be condemned for not having a "dialogue" with such a person on every page he autoreverted simply boggles my mind.
I have written far too much, of course, but I will close that I am as mystified at your portrayal of the ArbCom's analysis as fair and "detailed" as I am offended by your allegation that I have a "long history of POV editing". VeryVerily 05:21, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales has a sad history of forcing out users who disagree with him (secretlondon for instance). And as my recent block shows, admins are now routinely using mindless groupthink instead of reason. - Xed 12:07, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The only person who says that I "forced out" SecretLondon is you. The full history has been posted and explained, but of course you refuse to acknowledge it. Fine. But please stop repeating it without also including the full context, huh? It's misleading and unfair to me. --Jimbo Wales 18:58, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Where? - XED.talk.stalk.mail.csb 13:15, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Mindless groupthink is right. These three good contributors have been banned for two months for nothing worse than getting into some disputes, which is good for Wikipedia and NPOV considering the nature of the articles that they edit. Lately, fewer and fewer admins are willing to disagree with prevailing opinions. Everyking is one; I'm another. But we are a dying breed... I'm not sure if Jimbo is even aware of the cabal-like conditions being engendered by the rise of this heavy-handed administrative hierarchy led by the Arbcom. If he knew what was going on, I bet he'd have some reservations. (I've read about the principles upon which he founded Wikipedia along with Larry Sanger, such as the goal of seeing what can be produced in structural anarchy and total openness, and they do not seem to coincide with the way things are run these days.) 172 19:55, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Can you tell me which three contributors you think were banned for "nothing worse than getting into some disputes"? I think that's a pretty amazing thing to claim, given the incredible detailed analysis that the ArbCom makes about these matters. The issue has always turned on behavioral problems and these have only been acted upon by the ArbCom after multiple attempts to find a better way have failed. But I'm happy to review and discuss with you (especially with you, because your opinions are valuable to me) any particular case. Jimbo Wales 18:13, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If I may interject here, I've seen this case and I think it's quite worrying for Wikipedia. I don't want people to have to be perpetually in fear of ridiculously harsh punishments just because they might get into a dispute with someone at some point. That's hardly the positive spirit that we ought to have as a community, nor is it a spirit of respect for others and their work. It is far worse for the project and for the atmosphere of the community to have rulings like this than it is to contend with occasionally hostile disputes—hostile disputes are inevitable given the nature of the project and what's at stake; there needs to be a better way to resolve these things than to punish honest people who are only here to build an encyclopedia. Everyking 12:11, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree that punishments ought not to be too harsh, and I further agree that people should not live in fear. But I hardly think this can be characterized as "to punish honest people who are only here to build an encyclopedia". The users in question have a very long history of very bad behavior, and there have been many many people who have tried to counsel and advise them towards a better path, to no avail. Some people really are not just honest people trying to build an encyclopedia -- they are people who prefer to fight and argue and cause trouble for those who are. --Jimbo Wales 18:13, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, I don't know what they've done other than reverting a lot. I don't really see anything fundamentally wrong with that. It comes with having articles on controversial subjects that people are going to disagree strongly, and by reverting often you work your way towards a compromise eventually. There really isn't a way to avoid the problem of having hostile disputes like that, you just have to let people hammer things out. I don't see any reason to think they aren't genuinely interested in the good of the project, just because they get worked up about some things. Don't we all? If we didn't forgive anybody, we wouldn't have anybody left. Everyking 18:58, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes, of course we should forgive people when we can. And yes, we should take into account that people get frustrated at times and can have a bad day now and then. I think it's a straw man argument to say "If we didn't forgive anybody, we wouldn't have anybody left" because no one is saying that we should never forgive anyone. (Notice the other thread on this page about how willing we are to put up with almost anything.)
This, however, is not a case of a good pair of users getting into a quarrel one day and the arbcom jumping down their throats about it. Nor is it a case of groupthink. Nor is it a case of natural tension around a controversial topic. If you review the evidence page as carefully as I have, and as carefully as the ArbCom members have, what you'll find is pretty difficult to stomach. This is users who are abusing our trust, abusing our patience, engaging in a very long term systematic pattern of very poor editing practices, and choosing to escalate a feud rather than try to deal with it.
We can of course quibble in a fair way about how long or short various punishments should be. But we shouldn't kid ourselves into thinking that they merely reverted a lot, or that they merely had trouble coming to a good faith resolution on a difficult topic. --Jimbo Wales 19:30, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
These people have also done a great deal of good work; I don't see how anybody can deny that. Whatever disputes they've gotten into, I'm sure they've each done more constructively than they have to destroy. We cannot demand or expect everything out of people who are volunteers, devoting their own free time to deal with the often stressful nature of Wikipedia. That's a lot for a person to give of him or herself, and I think we ought to almost endlessly forgiving in such cases. What you call "boundless good will" is in practice not even half the tolerance we ought to have. In cases where people do more harm than good, yes, some harshness is called for. But in cases where people do good work but also get passionate in arguments from time to time, no, I don't believe they should be punished for that. Everyking 02:59, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

i think WP needs people who talk and are willing to accept other oppinions; i can only talk about GZ; i dont think he is accepting something different then his own oppinion; and some days ago he continued again edit wars on de ... same topic ...Sicherlich 20:32, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I hold out little hope for reform by Gzornenplatz. His behavior has persisted for too long, and I'm surprised he's allowed to edit in de.wikipedia again. --Jimbo Wales 18:13, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Stop breaking Wikipedia policy

Stop breaking the guidelines and using the wikipedia mailing list, PAID FOR by donators, to abuse me jimmy. WikiUser 20:34, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)Adding link to jimmy's abusive post so other users can see what he does with the $50,000 recently donated. WikiUser 20:37, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You know, it's so rare these days to find someone who buys their own rope (and for the subtle-impaired, I DON'T mean Jimmy). Mackensen (talk) 21:19, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
LOL →Raul654 21:29, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)
The abuse and goading against the rules by you two is noted and your contempt for the wikipedia project when I've raised a legitimate concern. Do you abuse your own families too? WikiUser 21:50, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)mark's just voted in as an arbcom and already he's going around breaking the rules and abusing people. Disgusting. WikiUser 21:53, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree, the Wikipedia has a staunch policy against personal attacks -- your passive aggressive description of a hypothetical Wiki user's actions as "bizarre" does violate that rule... as did your insinuation that Wikiuser is a troll. Both Mackensen and Raul should also be ashamed of their comments above. Please follow the wikipedia rules, or leave. Lirath Q. Pynnor

The issue isn't whether Wikiuser is being a troll. The issue is whether he's behaving like an ass (he is), and I'm glad that VeryVerily has taken up that point on WikiUser's talk page. Frankly I'm surprised that Jimbo has been as tolerant of WikiUser as he has, given WikiUser's lack of useful contributions to Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=WikiUser ) - he's done little but campaign against people for the past two months and most of his contributions to articles have been discarded as worthless, POV or just plain wrong. WikiUser is a timewaster, period. -- ChrisO 00:14, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

A 24-hour ban would be appropriate for Chris0, who just violated the personal attacks rule when he called WikiUser an "ass". Lirath Q. Pynnor

He said he was "behaving like an ass" not he is an ass.There is a difference. The first is a personal attack for sure, but the second? Anyway where in the blocking policy does it say someone can be blocked for 24 hours for saying something like this? Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 01:10, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"Personal attacks do not include reasonable and moderated language used to describe a user's actions in the context of dispute resolution or requesting assistance from others." (WP:NPA) I could have been a lot harsher, but I'm mindful of the policy. :) -- ChrisO 08:53, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Labelling "behaving like an ass" as "reasonable and moderated language" says little for your imagination or social skill. There are less offensive ways to express the same opinion. Oughtn't you be more mindful of the policy's intent than of its wording? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 00:28, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Maybe you should be banned for 24 for this very offensive line on your userpage? "What I've realised is that the Wikipedia has been overrun by a bunch of morons." Masterhomer 07:54, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Suggesting a ban for someone who states an unpopular opinion only demonstrates the statement's truth. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 23:38, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why are you behaving like an idjit Theresa? Of course, there is a huuuuuge difference between saying "behaving like an ass" and "is an ass" -- one is a personal attack and the other is, well, "like" a personal attack? Anyways, where in the blocking policy does it say that we shouldn't start banning people who make personal attacks? You are in the arbitration committee, hurry up and encourage your cohorts to arbitrate ChrisO's ban. Oh wait, now I remember -- the cabal is full of a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites who have double-standards ... if WikiUser said you were "acting like an ass", man that'd be listed in his arbcom evidence basket quicker than you can say 'wtf'. Lirath Q. Pynnor

People have said far worse to me than that. Lighten up. Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 08:47, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Lir, while you're speaking of double standards, what's the greater insult: "ass" or "cabal [...] full of a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites who have double-standards"? How about returning to civilised manners and talking things over politely? Kosebamse 16:19, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The first insult is greater — it is subjective, while the latter is partly objective. If the second statement offends you, it's your own fault. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 23:57, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'll return to civilized manners when u either ban 172 or demand he discuss New Imperialism. Im not going to be "civilized' so long as the cabal feels itself free to make personal attacks. Lirath Q. Pynnor
You always say things like that lir. You are responsible for your behaviour, not 172, not Jimbo, not some elusive cabal. Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 02:10, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Regardless, the admins have a responsibility to treat users fairly regardless of their actions, to not escalate conflicts, and to serve as role models of Wikipedia's policies. A rule which is not observed by those who enforce it has no merit. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 23:57, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think this exchange pretty much speaks for itself. My point in my mailing list post was and is perfectly valid. WikiUser makes bizarre accusations, contributes virtually nothing of value, does nothing but troll for controversy. And yet he still isn't banned. Much the same can be said for Lir, of course, although it should of course be added that he has contributed valuably at times.
For the record, though, saying that a block by an Admin violates Federal law as misuse of donor money is in fact a bizarre accusation, and furthermore there is no element of personal attack involved in my saying so. It's just a very simple, boring fact of reality.
I find it really funny that Lir and WikiUser seem to not recognize our boundless good will, when they are two prime examples of our willingness to tolerate just about anything. --Jimbo Wales 18:00, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It isn't tolerance to make a point of reminding people they are tolerated. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 08:36, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
If Wikipedia really was such a terrible dictatorial cabal, surely Lir and WikiUser would be among the first to find out about it? I don't think you've fully worked out the dictatorship thing yet, Jimbo. :-p -- ChrisO 18:09, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I dunno, it does appear that Lir has been aware of the cabal for a rather long time, and I expect Lir has by now accumulated quite a lot of evidence regarding the coordinated efforts of the clique. There's reason to claim Lir was, in fact, among the first to find out about the cabal.
What is most distressing in all this is not that Wikipedia tolerates trolls and other "problem users", but that it is even more willing to tolerate rude admins who consider themselves to be somewhat beyond the laws of Wikipedia — users who do not share the vast tolerance of the community, especially not when they are criticized (and far be it from them to be critical of their own actions). If a cabal existed, would Wikipedia care enough to stop it? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 23:38, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Hear hear. Lirath Q. Pynnor

(Crocodile Dundee voice) You call that an abusive post? No, this is an abusive post.... DJ Clayworth 18:18, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Speaking of abusive: during a long-running dispute, one in which my user talk page has been intruded upon repeatedly against all protests, user:Lir has entered my user talk page –out of the blue– to accuse myself of having carried personal attacks; a charge which is utterly groundless, I argue, and one which I found was phrased in snide and condescending terms, or discreditable cluelessness at best. That single comment has been my only direct experience with user:Lir. I wish to highlight that, aside from the (abusive, I argue) user Lir defended with that aforementioned statement, I have never been accused of having carried a personal attack. Now, I realize I am new here (Aug), but I was involved in editing very contencious articles (esp. on the topics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Communism, and Race). El_C
My advice El C is to ignore Lir. And ignore 198's attempt to wind you up as well. I find a polite response takes the wind out of their sails [4] removing thier comments only inflames the situation. Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 09:27, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Imperturbability is an elsuive beast to tame, the allegorical rope needs to be tied with one of those fancy knotts. I may lack your grace (or wit, or tact) in this regard, but..., strike that, I got nothing. Unironic how those who wage personal attacks which such ease invariably go on to accuse others of doing so with wreckless abundance. At the event, while I do not see myself addopting your approach, I am fond of how you responded to that attack, though I am uncertain whether you are actually human. If you are, as I suspect, an encylopedia robot from the not-too-distant future, that does give you a rather decisive edge. Most pressingly, your ability to commit electoral fraud –again– (i.e. since -I- didn't vote for you, I find your favourable ArbCom election results highly suspect!). El_C
(This thread is getting off topic, so out of respect for Jimbo, this will be my last post on the matter here. El C if you want to respond please do so on my talk page) OK firstly - my secret is out. Yes I am actually an AI designed to pass the Turing test, my mission here is to userp Jimbo, the AC being the first part of the plan, naturally I had to rig the election. Wait until you see what i have planned for the board! But that is in the future mwhaaaaah!!! On to more trivial matters. In defense of Lir, his post to your talk page wasn't in itself a personal attack against you, well not by my definition anyway. It wasn't er very helpful - I'll grant you that. It certainly wasn't designed to calm a fraught situation down, that's for sure, but a personal attack? Not in my opinion. Theresa Knott (The snott rake) 20:37, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You know, some people here just need thicker skins. I've been active here for about a year, and there is exactly one contributor (see the gruesome details, if you care) who has insulted me to the point where I felt it actually constituted a serious violation of the "personal attacks" policy. Here and in the flesh, people call each other an "ass", "useless", whatever; unless it's a campaign of venom, let it slide. Threats are another matter, race- (or gender-, or orientation-) baiting is another matter, but if you can't deal with someone calling you an "ass" (directly or indirectly) after you called someone else a "Nazi" (unless, of course, that latter person is, in the narrow sense, a Nazi: swastika armband, Hitler poster over the bed, etc.), it's time to grow up. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:19, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

Report user for abuse?

Jimbo: What do you think of an additional link in the toolbox for reporting users for abuse? Adraeus 08:40, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is there a problem with people not knowing how to report other users for abuse? While of course people should report abuse when it is necessary, I see no reason for us to encourage it. I'd say that well over half of the abuse complaints against admins that I see are completely frivolous.--Jimbo Wales 18:02, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes. Such information isn't easy to find. Adraeus 21:18, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
That kind of button would discourage attempts to deal with it by dialogue though, don't you think?Dr Zen 23:03, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Election results

There was a slightly larger turnout than I had expected. I'm happy with the results. It was especially gracious of Fennec not to demand a recount given the closeness of the vote for seventh place. — DV 22:12, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hope you don't mind my shameless plug

Hope you don't mind my shameless plug, but Peer review doesn't tend to get too many responses, and the article on corporation tax really isn't ready to become a FAC yet. I would really appreciate guidance on which direction the article should take - but am struggling to get a second and third opinion. OK, it's a shameless plug - but at least it's in the spirit of improving an article on Wikipedia to featured status. So if you, or anyone else, can offer good suggestions for corporation tax, they would be more than welcome. Take care, jguk 23:11, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Greetings!

Hi, everybody!
Hi, Dr. Wales!


Request for a Page on criticism of Wikipedia, which can be mercilessly edited by users

Hi,

I have seen many people complaining about different aspects of wikipedia. Although wikipedia has all type of criticism pages, from Criticisms of War on Terrorism to Criticism of software engineering, but no page on Criticism of Wikipedia, which can be mercilessly edited by normal Editors.

Of course I could have created it my self. But I fear it might be seen offensive by Dedicated wikipedians . Because it might expand upto the level where specific examples of misuse of power of 'administrators' to 'slowness of servers' can be entered. No need to mention expected inclusive deletion debate. Voting policy every thing.

So can I (or any body else for this matter) make such page?

Zain 06:53, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

As long as the page is NPOV, I see no particular problem with it, although I would suggest that the judgment of editors at VfD should of course be respected as always, and quite possibly this page should be merged with Wikipedia. Whether it should stand alone as an independent page is an editorial judgment best made by the community, not by me. Is it really encyclopedic? I sort of like the page, though. Britannica surely doesn't have an article about what sucks about Britannica. :-) --Jimbo Wales 14:32, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Neither Britannica has 'non-article domain' pages like Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia is Not So Great, Wikipedia:Criticisms :-) I bet it won't even have a section on criticism like we have in Wikipedia. This page is simply expansion of that section.
Thanks for your complements on the page :-)
Zain 15:19, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Zain you ask if you can create a page for opinion and he say's; "as long as it's NPOV", i.e. has no opinions on it! Of course you're right the wikipedia is full of pages with people giving their opinions on the wikipedia [this one] for example and [this]. And the admins have their own [noticeboard]. But you can go to seedwiki and instantly create your own 50 page wiki that we can use to give our views on. And where you can also "Start as many wikis as you need". WikiUser 19:10, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't know why some time people are taking me wrong :-( I just wanted an encyclopedic article. The word mercilessly just means as openly as any other article. But some are taking it like I want to create a user complain forum. I want to create an NPOV encyclopedic article.
Although I agree some are taking it as a 'Normal NPOV' article, but others have some suspicions. Nope it will be nothing more then a 'normal NPOV encyclopedic ' article Nothing more.
Zain 19:46, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

mediation problem

I have put a request on Wikipedia:Requests for mediation. 24 hours have past (approx) but with no response. Am I attempting incorrectly or should I wait?

I know this is not the correct place to post it but don't know any better place to put it.

Zain 22:38, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We need to expand the mediation committee; they are understaffed and overworked. That's the right place for you to have asked.--Jimbo Wales 04:05, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well I think we should have an additional page on Wikipedia Domain space like Wikipedia:Inernal issues needed to be solved on Wikipedia. May be that will be put on deletion too like Criticism of Wikipedia at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Criticism of Wikipedia. Well if such page is made probably some body will put some suggestion on my new stub Wikipedia:User Suggestions to solve issue by community rather then staff. But deletion of Criticism of Wikipedia may discourage ‘ordinary editors’ to coordinate in 'official matters'. (If english is bad I am sorry not my native language :-( )
Zain 04:31, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I see absolutely no reason to think that deletion of that article will discourage anyone from participating or co-ordinating about anything. Why should it? If you want a neutral encyclopedia article about criticisms of wikipedia, how is that co-ordinating about official matters? But if what you want is a page for people to work on solving some criticisms, then the article namespace is the wrong place for it. Meta is where stuff like that goes, or sometimes in the wikipedia: namespace.
And what do you mean by 'ordinary editors'? People who aren't sysops? But there's no rule anywhere that you have to be a sysop to be able to write on meta or work on policy. --Jimbo Wales 06:18, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Probably I over reacted :-(
Is Wikipedia:User Suggestions chooses correct location? Should I reallocate it?
Zain 02:03, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

VfU

Hi! If you have the time, what is your opinion of the discussion at Wikipedia:Votes for undeletion#User:IndigoGenius.2FMicronation? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 01:20, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sure! It's a very interesting discussion, and I see valid points being made all around. There are a few things to be said about it. First, there's obviously tension between "Wikipedia is not a free hosting service" and our usual custom of letting people have very wide latitude with what is in their user space. In this case, I think I would have (narrowly) voted to delete, on the grounds that the user was just trolling in the first place, and it being important to defend the principle that people aren't supposed to just start creating an alternative encyclopedia in their user space when they are mad about something. This could also go the other way in other cases, it depends on the specific personalities involved.
As to your charges of cabalism (above on this page, and in the VfU discussion), well, I think they are a bit overblown. It is true of course that many of us are in very firm agreement on certain issues relating to insisting on good behavior, but this does not make a cabal. If there is a problem with rude admins, bring me specific examples, and I'll do something about it. --Jimbo Wales 04:03, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"Don't worry, it's not a cabal, it's a dictatorship" -- RM 04:35, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
I'm not so concerned about the existence of a cabal myself; it's hard to tell whether there might be one. There does seem to be a clique, though, consisting of a group of admins and a number of other users. The more visible among them seem to be Neutrality, Raul654, Eloquence, RickK, Mirv, Hephaestos, Snowspinner, and Blankfaze. RickK in particular has been noted by many users as being especially abrasive, which is evident from his user page and talk page. I've seen less of the others, but they all seem to support each other in general, making things difficult for many well-intentioned users who happen to annoy one of them in some way. I believe the Red Faction developed specifically in response to this group. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 06:08, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think that's a rather strange list. It doesn't seem to me that those particular users form a coherent group of any kind. If they do tend to support each other, isn't it for the same reason that I would tend to support each of them, i.e. that they are generally right? Merely agreeing with other people is not sufficient evidence for a cabal. What you need to show me is an example of these users supporting each other in a case where one of them was clearly in the wrong. Because that's what you're claiming, right? That some admins (the ones you list above) behave badly, and the others cover for them? But I've seen zero evidence of this. --Jimbo Wales 07:13, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This is part of the problem. There's a belief that some users are generally right, and therefore they are mostly immune from criticism. I'm not entirely certain this is the correct list, but from my experiences, this is an accurate grouping. What makes you sure they are right?
I spend basically my every waking minute of every day working on some aspect of wikipedia, and a big part of this is really investigating complaints of sysop abuse. Speaking of Lir and Plato for example, they are both users with a very long history of bad behavior. And I'm sorry to say, both tend to give a generally inaccurate description of the disputes that they've been involved with.
So, what makes me sure that the users you are accusing of misdeeds are generally right? I've looked into it, in great detail. I have my own disagreements with various things that each of them has said and done at various times, of course -- this is natural. But what I also see is overwhelmingly positive good work in an environment that isn't always as supportive of them as it could be. --Jimbo Wales 08:20, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I don't collect evidence against them, and even if I had any I would be uncomfortable bringing it up. Lir and Plato have had much larger conflicts; they might have stronger statements. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 08:05, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What I have seen plenty of evidence of is the purposeful misdeeds of some of the group of users you cite below as people you get along pretty well with. Do you really want to say that you think that those are the kinds of behaviors people should emulate? Why? --Jimbo Wales 07:13, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
No, I don't. While I don't believe the users in the above list should be emulated, I also feel that emulating Plato or Lir would often not be beneficial. Wikipedia could do well with a lot less factionalism, righteousness, and groupthink, and a lot more openness to criticism, tolerance of extreme minority views, and wikilove all around. If users are expected to be trolls, they will become (or remain) trolls; if they are expected (and encouraged) to be considerate and reasonable, they might become so. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 08:05, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, I'm all in favor of openness to criticism, to tolerance of extreme minority views, and wikilove all around. But consider this: both Plato and Lir are not banned. They are welcome to edit, and in fact both often do. They post to the mailing list, they come to IRC. They 'are' tolerated. --Jimbo Wales 08:20, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps. You should also consider that some users have not been tolerated well — for example, IndigoGenius, who in just two months decided se wanted nothing to do with Wikipedia. In the surrounding discussions, everything se represented was attacked; se was mocked and ridiculed for sen beliefs. Lir and Plato may be still around more due to their tenacity, their willingness to deal with the abuse leveled at them. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 18:20, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Let me challenge you a bit on the wikilove front. You've attacked some very good users in this exchange, and basically accused them of what would be considered grave misdeeds within the prevailing wikipedia ethos. Could it be that you could instead show a little wikilove and tolerance? Could it be that Plato and Lir should have a little bit more openness to criticism? --Jimbo Wales 08:20, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This is another problem: some people prefer to take criticism personally when it might as easily be intended as constructive. Naturally their responses would often be seen as more hostile than they should be. Is that wikilove? I mean no offense by the above list; I hope it will help users to consider their actions more carefully.
Plato and Lir have shown extraordinary openness to criticism. They might be seen as reasonably indignant at not finding similar openness from a group which claims to be tolerant. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 18:20, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I made this very point on the mailing list the other day with respect to WikiUser. He bitches and moans about how horrible we are, he does all kinds of bad things, contributes virtually nothing of productive value and yet... he's still posting to the mailing list, he's still editing the wiki, and he can post to my user page and I'll answer him. This idea that somehow we're not open to criticism or that we're intolerant of dissent -- isn't it a bit mistaken? How much more open could we be?
I think that the problem may be that you've made friends with some trolls, and you've lost a bit of perspective on how badly they have treated people. But the next time you hear one of them whining about the abusive sysops at wikipedia, keep in mind that after years of problematic behavior, Lir is still allowed to edit wikipedia. --Jimbo Wales 08:20, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Here is another problem. Users are quite willing to apply offensive labels to their opponents. It would be hypocrisy for them to argue, despite this, that everyone should practice tolerance. I might as easily suggest you have lost perspective from becoming friends with the cabal — but that would make neither of us more tolerant than someone who looks everywhere for Nazi sympathizers. How polite is it to say to somebody, "You're a whining troll... but I tolerate you"? Is that wikilove? Is it even tolerance? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 18:20, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
RickK? Clique? ... I dunno. That'd probably make the clique effective or something. :) -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 06:23, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC) And oh, yeah, There is no Cabal. Fnord.
I am honored to be included among the enemies of the "Red Faction." Neutralitytalk 06:32, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
Well, that comment certainly speaks for itself.
To be fair, it's worth noting that Sam Spade, Plato, Lir, Cprompt, and myself all get along pretty well (though I've never encountered Cprompt). I'm a bit hazy on exactly who is in the Red Faction, but Sam Spade and I definitely are not, and even Plato might not be anymore. ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 06:52, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
ME??? A clique?? OMG I've always wanted this! Back in highschool I hung out with the A/V nerds or sat alone at lunch and I would always look over at the "preps" table and wish I was one of them... Seriously though... I had no idea I was in such company. I wonder what I've done to deserve the honour. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 06:53, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I couldn't help but looking at this discussion. I do feel that there is Clique here Jimbo. However it's more of a Confederation as opposed to what Eequor stated. Nevertheless I still like wikipedia. I note that you have created an account with Lirpedia, I must clear it with Lir before I could sysop you (BTW: You might wanna take a look at this page [http://www.kapitalism.net/wiki/index.php?title=Lirpedia:CopyCommunism]). Anyway Jimbo should you have problems with Trolls here on wikipedia send them to us at Lirpedia. I wish you all the best and a very Merry Christmas to you! :) I look foward to discussing Capitalism with you on the IRC :)--Plato 19:24, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fancy inquiry

Some funny person left this on my user page, and I enjoyed it so much I wanted to put it here. I'll actually answer the question soon.

 
This is a picture of Jim Callaghan, the Chancellor of the Exchequer who introduced corporation tax into the UK in 1965. How interested Jimbo is in UK corporation tax is unknown. Maybe he could tell us (or is that asking for too much personal information? :) ). But if anyone, after this shameless plug, would kindly comment on how to improve the article on corporation tax, it would be greatly appreciated.

Ayn Rand

Hi jimbo. I'm curios. Don't you find a contradiction between your belief in Ayn Rand's principles and the free and not commercial nature of wikipedia ?

Another question, are the rumours about your coming visit to Israel true ?

Shashaz (contributer in he.wikipedia)

Yes, I will be coming to Israel in January. Perhaps I will meet you there?

To answer your question, I'm not really sure what you mean, really. Rand was an advocate of voluntary co-operative action, commercial or noncommercial, and is primarily noted (politically) for her opposition to the initiation of force. Anyway, I don't see any contradiction. --Jimbo Wales 19:32, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

GNAA

Hello, Jimbo. In case you don't know, the Gay Nigger Association of America article is on VfD again. Since you commented on the last vote, it would be much appreciated if you would do so again at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Gay Nigger Association of America. Thanks, and happy holidays to you. Warmest regards --Neutralitytalk 00:06, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

Eh, I don't know if anyone cares what I think. At the moment it appears to be approximately 50 to 50, which tells me it isn't going to get the 2/3 majority (again) even if I were to support it. And if it were deleted, how long until they start a new one? Honestly, I feel like we've basically allowed ourselves to be trolled by even having 5 votes. I strongly support deleting it. I think they are not notable. But I think the real point is for us to all take a deep breath and realize what they want here, which is precisely for us to get into huge flamewars as a direct result of their bad behavior.
So I guess my real vote now is that we just ignore it and try to do something more interesting. --19:40, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Wow. This has now been listed for the fifth time. Exactly how many times are we allowed to list a page? If "forever" then I'm going to get started with Childlove movement. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:40, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
How long has it been since the last vote on Childlove movement? I doubt if it would ever make sense to have a firm policy on how often things can be proposed for VfD -- it really depends on the context I think. I think a well-run campaign to delete this one would depend on making sure that the relevant information is included elsewhere? --Jimbo Wales 19:40, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am appalled. I in no way support or endorse the GNAA or the Childlove movement but that doesn't make the subjects any less noteworthy. To that end, they certainly should be documented (not advertised) on Wikipedia in a fair and objective manner. Repeated VfD listings such as the five consecutive listings for the GNAA are an abuse of the system, especially considering that more-or-less 50% of the community agrees that they should indeed be documented here. I don't like the fact that the German Nazi Holocaust took place either, but that doesn't mean we should censor it from Wikipedia. Food for thought. —RaD Man (talk) 09:45, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."

These words are inspiring.

"I doubt if it would ever make sense to have a firm policy on how often things can be proposed for VfD"

These aren't. Dr Zen 00:55, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nope, they're not inspiring, they're practical. I think despite excellent past records, we can't expect Jimbo to make everything he says inspiring; It's incredibly hard to order a grilled cheese sandwhich in an inspiring way for instance. That doesn't mean ordering a grilled cheese sandwhich isn't worthwhile and a sensible thing to do. --fvw* 12:51, 2004 Dec 30 (UTC)
mmmm... grilled cheese sandwhich.... see? I'm inspired already! - Ta bu shi da yu 17:32, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Tokipona

Dear Jimbo, i remember somewhere sometime reading your opinion about keeping tokipona interwikis in "real" language encyclopaedias. I personally prefer them to be deleted and i vaguely recall that you expressed the same opinion. Or maybe i'm confused. Anyway, now that wikipedia.tokipona is closed, we are wondering in wiki.pt what to do with these interwikis, and i thought to ask you directly instead of quoting of memory an opinion of yours. So: should tokipona interwikis be removed? All the best, muriel@pt 19:19, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion, they should be deleted, but my opinions on such things aren't something I would make into policy. My opinion should be given the same weight in such matters as the opinion of any other thoughtful person. --Jimbo Wales 19:35, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Uau that was quick! I just thought there was some kind on decison made on this, but if there is no strict policy, than i think we'll remove them. Cheers, muriel@pt 19:37, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wiki email list request

Hi,

It seems that several months ago a now banned user used my full name on the wikepedia email list. Because mail on the list is publicly archived the email, at http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-April/012194.html , is available via google. Recently another user revealed my full name on Talk:Red Ensign and this is now a subject of arbitration re violation of privacy and personal attacks.It seems he got my full name via google by finding the email in question. For work reasons I'd prefer not to have my full name easily available and I'm wondering if its possible to either remove the email in question from the wikien-l archive or make it unavailable to google?

Thanks. AndyL 01:28, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Absolutely, this is no problem, but I wonder if someone already did it for you? I don't see your real name there. --Jimbo Wales 02:35, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
See the subject, the deceptively big header at the top. --fvw* 02:39, 2004 Dec 28 (UTC)

Yes it's in the subject line at the top of the page.AndyL 00:19, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Santy worm poses an elevated risk to many Web sites built using the PHP

The latest version of the Santy worm poses an elevated risk to many Web sites built using the PHP scripting language, security experts warn

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1093&e=6&u=/pcworld/119051

– Dennis (talk) (Wiki NYC Meetup)[[]] 17:18, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

Privacy Policy

Hi Jimbo,

I have created Wikipedia:Privacy_Policy as an answer to a post in the Policy Pump: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#privacy_policy.

Just trying to be helpful...please feel free to delete/modify at will.

Thank, Gabriel Kent 23:45, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

ps. see my comments page for a view regarding the Privacy Policy from User:Oven_Fresh

We have a MAJOR problem

We need someone to fix it, and quickly. The GNAA have discovered that you can add non-printable characters to the end of usernames. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Grunt%AD Admins can't block these guys. We need a developer to fix this ASAP or else they're going to rip through Wikipedia faster than you'll ever imagine possible. There is no way we'll be able to keep up with them. Trust me when I say this: they are one of the most destructive and malevolent group of crap flooders I've ever seen. We need this fixed. Now. Ta bu shi da yu 08:41, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

From the block log:
08:52, 29 Dec 2004 Dysprosia blocked "User:Grunt&shy;" with an expiry time of (impersonation, vandalism)
Did that work?
Grunt­ (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
-- Curps 08:55, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Unfortunately, its seems that &#xAD; doesn't work in place of &shy;
Testing:
Grunt­ (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
So it would be necessary to look up the ISO Latin-1 entity names corresponding to the hexadecimal code. For instance, at http://access.lowtech.org/events/resources/ascii.html
-- Curps 09:08, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Sorry, doesn't work. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:09, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Another problem here is that the tool tips (and the status bar text) generated when passing the mouse over links to these imposters gives no indication that an invisible character was used, so unless you click the link and read the URL in the address bar, the imposter appears to have hijacked the named account.
However, I'm optimistic that most admins will be diligent enough to check this, and that this will not cause the wrong person to be blocked.
As a constructive suggestion, the developers should block all escaped characters from user names. If no developer feels this is urgent enough to warrant immediate implementation, I will put this suggestion up as a software poll. — DV 09:17, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Hmmm, surely there's an internal log somewhere that records what IP they're using. You can still block them by IP, no? -- Curps 09:49, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Let me put it this way: http://www.q-cat.com/goodproxies.txt + http://jgillick.nettripper.com/switchproxy/ makes Jack an unhappy boy. That's the combination they're using. It wasn't hard to discover this. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:46, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Care to translate that into English for the rest of us? What implications does that have for what we need to do? - Taxman 18:59, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)
It means they're using open proxies and switching as soon as the old address gets blocked. What we have to do is permablock all the addresses on that list, I assume there's already admins working on it? --fvw* 19:38, 2004 Dec 29 (UTC)
I was told that we are loathe to do this because we have anons from certain countries like China who use these proxies to contribute to articles. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:02, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
That doesn't help when dealing with users coming in from dynamically assigned IPs, unless you want to start blocking hundreds or potentially thousands of users by blocking entire ranges of addresses.
I wouldn't worry about this too much, as you can detect these imposters using the URL in the address bar. Simply ignore the tool tip and status bar text if you are in doubt.
I left a message with developer Tim Starling asking him to consider blocking names with escaped characters. Perhaps he will have a better idea how to deal with this. — DV 10:02, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Final status: according to User:Ta bu shi da yu a workaround has apparently been found to block this problem. -- Curps 10:41, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

And that would be? Is it something that we need to know about in order to be on top of? - Taxman 18:59, Dec 29, 2004 (UTC)
From what I understand there was a hotfix developed by JeLuF that stops unprintable characters from being inserted into usernames. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:59, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[[Special:Contributions/Grunt%AD%AD|Special:Contributions/Grunt%AD%AD]]
chocolateboy 08:47, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee Elections December 2005

Hello, there. I was wondering if you will be available to participate as an independent election organizing committee member in the December 2005 Arbitration Committee Elections? If so, may I adapt the 2004 AC election organizers statement for 2005? Thank you for your time. --Ryan! | Talk 19:00, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

Corporation tax

Thank you for your kind words on the corporation tax article. Unfortunately, still no comments. So I've added some more info and am lobbing it on FAC and seeing what happens. All the best, and happy new year, jguk 16:15, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Earthquake disaster

I live in Bangkok,Thailand and I have been going around hospitals in the past two days to help where I can. I have seen people totally destroyed listened to people whom miss family members and friends. Tomorrow (Jan 1st) I will be going to Phuket and Krabi to help somebody find a familymember as I speak the language and now the country, I am also taking pictures with me of familymembers of people I have visited in hospitals.

I am doing a small part to help. I want to ask the community in the English wikipedia to help a littlebit also. In the Dutch wikipedia we have put an announcement on all pages with a banner pointing towards a page where you can find details to donate money. Can the English wikipedia please do the same and help this littlebit also. We are building an encyclopedia. But this is a disaster that hit everybody ..... so please help out the relief effort by doing this. Waerth 18:15, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

See also Talk:Main_Page#Supporting_the_change_by_ugent, i urge to to support the return of the banner ugen inserted. -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 19:51, 2004 Dec 31 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales is a notorious follower of Ayn Rand's ideas, and therefore would have little sympathy for organised efforts to reduce the suffering caused by the tsunami, see [5] - XED.talk.stalk.mail.csb 20:29, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Is this true? I doubt the veracity of this claim. If there is even the slightest element of truth to this, I want the money back that I donated to Wikipedia so I can give it to the Red Cross where it will be put to good use. GRider\talk 21:00, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
In a word, no. Xed gets his kicks by telling lies about Jimbo and (in general) harassing him. Not only here, but on the mailing list as well. He can be safely ignored.(this was Raul, signature removed by someone)
This is correct.
Is it? Where have I said anything about you on the mailing list?-XED.talk.stalk.mail.csb.donate 10:02, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I in no way am opposed to relief efforts for victims of the Tsunami. Xed likes to say inflammatory things about me, which is unfortunate, but you know, whatever. I did suggest that our efforts could be more powerful if we treat the subject in an NPOV way, and if we feature it "in the news", this much is true. And I stand by it. The world needs objective information, and we're very very very good at that. People need clear, unbiased objective information about the relief efforts that are underway so that they can help in a productive way. I don't really know what to say about Xed, really, other than that I'm disappointed that he continues to troll about me without bothering to ask my personal views or to get to know me as a person. For some people, ideology is more important than humanity, I guess.
The irony is deafening. Look at this amazing response to Larry Sanger's reasonable suggestions - [6]. The haughtiness, the arrogance, the personal attack - all present. - XED.talk.stalk.mail.csb.donate 10:02, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Where is the donation link?

File:Wikipedia website-disaster victims.png
en.wikipedia.org (2004-Dec-31)
File:Apple website-disaster victims.png
www.apple.com (2004-Dec-31)
File:Amazon website-disaster victims.png
www.amazon.com (2004-Dec-31)
File:Microsoft website-disaster victims.png
www.microsoft.com (2004-Dec-31)

Jimbo,

Sannse just stated that you have asked him to remove the donation link from the main page.

Sannse is not a "him" but a "her". -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 10:28, 2005 Jan 2 (UTC)
This is a misperception. It was and is my feeling that we can help best by providing clear, concise, neutral information about what is going on. No more, no less. Our neutrality is our power. We should guard it carefully. I fully support relief efforts in this tragic situation, of course.

To clarify - Jimbo did not ask me to remove it, he expressed an opinion (which I agreed with) and suggested we move the link into "in the news" rather than as a banner - Danny put the new link into ITN and I removed the banner. Jimbo's language was never that of a top-level decision. I think my using his name in the edit summary was a mistake, I should have taken responsibility for the edit myself - it was my edit, not his. Jimbo - apologies for that. -- sannse (talk) 11:43, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation Sannse.
All that matters now is that the link is once again featured on the main page.
Happy New Year.
— DV 19:33, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Just out of curiousity, where did Jim Wales express this opinion? Dan100 22:09, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
There was a brief discussion in IRC between me, sannse, and Danny. There was general agreement that we could help best with an "in the news link". Emotions are high right now, and I understand that I'm a lightning rod for criticism. Fine. But for god's sake, try to remember that I've devoted my entire life and fortune to giving away free knowledge. I'm hardly an ogre. Additionally, notice that I did not decree or demand anything. I was asked an opinion, and I gave it, no more and no less. I think my opinion was right, but I also accept that others may disagree. --Jimbo Wales 02:26, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)


  • Finding something interested about Tay-Sachs disease, I happaned to drop by to provide some information -- I didn't waste my time trying to make any great contributions, since your website is full of cabalists who will delete my contributions without regard to their merit, but I did make an effort to improve the articles on Tay-Sachs disease and Jared Diamond.
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jared_Diamond&diff=0
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tay-Sachs_disease&diff=0
      • I then took a moment to examine the arbitration page where to my amusement and disgust it appears that I will be banned for a year, after I filed an arbitration case asking them to address the fact that Snowspinner banned me for a month (because I voted in an election as Lir, but forgot to login).
      • Cabalists such as Raul were unable to push their year-long ban through, but now it appears that the newly elected arbitrators have decided to follow him; without any effort to speak to me or address any of the questions or points I raised.
        • You should be personally ashamed of your leadership here, and your refusal to address any of this. Lirath Q. Pynnor
I think that there should be a donation box. If this discussion is going to continue either here or on Talk:Main page, it might be a good idea to create a Wikipedia:Earthquake discussion or similar. Just a suggestion.--Gabriel (internal ID number: 118170) 09:01, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the donation link on the home page, I hope that people understand that asking me about such things directly is just asking my opinion. It's really worthwhile to have a discussion about how to handle such things, and the best place would be the talk page of the main page, and the mailing lists. --Jimbo Wales 14:38, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Page protection

Would you agree that Donations for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake must be protected to guard against potential scams? ‣ᓛᖁ ᑐ 16:45, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

  • In light of the recent (and possibly scandalous) QuakeAID article I'm inclined to agree. A moderator can move in verifiably charitable agencies from the Talk page if need be. —RaD Man (talk) 10:11, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikitravel

Is Wikitravel part of Wikimedia, and if so, should it be added to Template:Wikipediasister? Are there any other projects? NB I've also made an edit further up this page. Please reply on my talkpage.--Gabriel (internal ID number: 118170) 08:52, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Am back from Southern Thailand

Flew into Phuket in the morning then visited the relieve center with the man I was guiding. Total chaos but somehow organised. Visited a hospital in Phuket with pictures of other missing people I had brought up from BKK looked at 1 dead person somehow fitting the description of one dead person. It was not the guy on the picture. The person we were looking for was gone missing on Phi Phi island and we were told all persons from Phi Phi were brought to Krabi. So we decided to go there.

So we boarded a bus that went from Phuket to Krabi. As usual the busdriver drove like mad. Thirty KM before Krabi the bus hit something the bus ended up on the side of the road and hit a tree. 2 or 3 dead many wounded. The man I was with had nothing. I only had a lot of bruises on my arms legs and in my sides, which according to the doctor will hurt like hell for a week but nothing serious. With this delay we arrived in Krabi in the evening. That same evening we went through books with dead people trying to find something. We found nothing. The man than got a phone call from holland telling him his sons situation had deteriorated (his son was found alive on Phi Phi a few days earlier) so we decided to go back to BKK and send him on the plane back. This morning before leaving we tried the same, nothing even looked at 3 deceased. Than we went back. And now I am typing ..... Waerth 21:06, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia?

Hi Jimbo, newbie here.

Just wondering is Wikipedia so free that if its stated purpose of being called an encyclopedia changed (democratically)... would you step in to fix it? Potroast 04:18, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC) btw- great idea

Potroast - (This has been said elsehwere, so I am not going to go into depth) To put it bluntly, Wikipedia is not a democracy. It has some democractic trappings, but don't confuse that with being a democracy. →Raul654 04:24, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for reply Raul (I would tend to agree with you) but that wasn't my question (maybe I shouldn't have used the word democratically since I'm still trying to understand relationships in the Wikipedia information structure. What Wikipedia's information's IS.... and what parallels it might have with information we receive in our daily live.

If Jimbo ultimately decides its an encyclopedia (NO MATTER WHAT)then I will go to the encyclopedia link to see if it meets the definition. If it does not... I would see it as an abandonment of rationalism. If it did.. I would continue along the food chain to see if articles are consistent with one another.

If you or Jimbo could help me understand the Wikipedia power structure (or direct me) it would be appreciatd. Potroast 06:11, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

There are very few policies which are set in stone, and one of them is that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. This is not to say that other types of reference works, or other types of works of all kinds, are not valuable, but rather to say that this is what we do at Wikipedia.
What is an encyclopedia? This is not something that is handed down in grand detail by me, but rather a shared consensus in the community. Of course we do have some debates around the edges; this is only natural. But we do have very strong agreement with a very large cross-section of contributors, and this is sufficient to allow us to achieve a great deal of positive good in the world.--Jimbo Wales 14:28, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have personally observed that a lot of debate on talk pages is 'What wikipedia policy says about it'. Is there any forum where we can request for 'policy clarification'? Zain 20:53, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Gdr 12:49, 2005 Jan 4 (UTC)
Thanks. Well I think if wikipedia pages could get 'navigation tool bars' like some other pages it will be very helpful.::Zain 23:36, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mediation Problem

I have another problem. My request for dispute resolution is more then two weeks old now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation . I can wait for it, no problem But Problem is that the whole section of Israel in state terrorism is wiped out by the person with whom I have conflict http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_terrorism#Israel. I have offered him multiple times to resort to last edit which he has made. He declined saying that although that edit was made by him he didn't agree with that. Then I asked him to restore to the other last version which he made but he is not currently agreeing to any thing.

Can there be 'temporary solution'. I am prepared to accept his last edited versions too.

Zain 23:36, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My request of mediation is now more then one month old :-( Although there was some recent edits by the person with whom I faced problems earlier. But I doubt there can be any talk solution to this when he declines to honor his own edits. Any person here, who might be willing to help as a third person will be very helpful. Zain 00:17, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

First of all, sorry to intrude if not wanted, but I thought the case seemed interesting from your description above. From the mediation request, however, I understood little. Is it possible that the mediation committee have not taken the case because it is not described clearly enough on the request page? --Eddi (Talk) 05:13, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Probably bad english. I will try to make the description better after Eid Holidays. Zain 00:32, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Happy Wikipedia Day

I just noticed that today is Wikipedia Day. Since you are the Benevolent Dictator of Wikipedia, I thought it only appropriate to wish you a happy Wikipedia Day. Here's to many more! --Slowking Man 00:58, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)

 

I can't sing that one copyrighted song here, so I'll have to settle for "For It's a Jolly Good Wiki". And so say all of us! May Wikipedia outlive you — and me as well. :-) JRM 01:07, 2005 Jan 15 (UTC)

Happy birthday, Wikipedia, and congrats, Jimbo. Thanks for all the fish, even though I certainly won't say goodbye! ^^ -- Schnee (cheeks clone) 01:26, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Time zones are an awful thing, as this post makes it a very late Happy Birthday from Beijing. Just too good it isn't the 16th State-side yet, as I type this in (2:10 AM 16th here). Happy Wikipedia Day! ---DF08 18:10, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Happy belated Wikipedia Day for what it's worth... Mgm|(talk) 10:16, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Etech05

Jimmy, I enjoyed your talk at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. It was nice to finally meet you.

--Zippy 03:23, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Candidates for speedy deletion

Heya Jimbo,

I hope the trip to Jerusalem went well. Is your appearance at the American Library Association conference in Chicago in June open to the public?

We recently had some very long discussions on what can and can not be speedily deleted, and concluded it with a giant poll. The poll was phrased such that "Sub-proposals garnering 70 percent support will, subject to the approval of Jimbo Wales and/or the Board of Trustees, become official policy."

Three of the eleven proposals passed with more than 70%. They were:

  • Proposal I (Amount of content I) passed with ~84% support.
    "Any article whose contents consist only of an external link, "See also" section, book reference, category tag, template tag, or interwiki link."
  • Proposal VI (Requested deletion) passed with ~88% support.
    "Any article which is requested for deletion by the original author, provided the author reasonably explains that it was created by mistake, and the article was edited only by its author."
  • Proposal X (Correspondence) passed with ~95% support.
    "Any article which consists only of attempts to correspond with the person or group named by its title."

If you can give them your stamp of approval, we can consider them policy. And congrats on 4 years and 450k articles. —Ben Brockert (42) 05:36, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

I give my approval. These should be considered policy now.--Jimbo Wales 03:40, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your time. —Ben Brockert (42) 04:17, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

Congrats

Congratulations on being nominated for Wired's Rave awards! TECH INNOVATOR: Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia. - Ta bu shi da yu 00:06, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Conference in Cambridge

Yo, Jimbo. I was very excited to hear that your schedule brought you to the town where I happen to be staying, but I was disappointed to learn that the conference in question was invite only. Will you be making any public appearances while in Boston / Cambridge? --L33tminion | (talk) 03:33, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry

Remember last time, how I put that parody picture of you on your userpage (which you later moved to the funny pictures sub-userpage) ?... That was before I decided to become mature, and I regret what I did. Please accept my apologies. Squash 05:27, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I didn't mind, it was funny. :-) --Jimbo Wales 15:35, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mike

I think it's demonstrably false that it would bring up only negatives. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 07:21, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)

Ok, then. "mostly" or "more negatives than positives for no good purpose" let's leave the guy alone, huh? --Jimbo Wales 23:19, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
  • Sigh* Did you even bother to read my LENGTHY posts on the page as well as my message to Mike on his Talk page? I was SERIOUS about it. I've taken your advice and forgiven him. There's no point in being pissed anymore, he's obviously not the same person he was before. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 08:34, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia was object of article in major Brazilian magazine

Hi mr. Wales. I don't know if you are aware of it, but this week's issue of the Brazilian magazine Veja carries a story on Wikipedia. This magazine is the largest and most prestigious one in Brazil (over 1 million subscribers), also reaching Portugal and Portuguese-speaking individuals all over the world. I've made this known to our community at the village pump. As you can see by my comment there, the project was criticized to a certain extent. I'm posting this message here because, should the Wikimedia Foundation wish to respond, I can provide the e-mail address of the newsroom. A letter from you, as founder of Wikipedia, would be almost certain to be published in next week's issue. It would have to be in Portuguese though. If you would like to send them a message but can't find a translator, I can translate it and return the end result for you to send. Regards, Redux 02:06, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi again. As you requested, I've just e-mailed you a full translation of the article, highlighting the criticism to Wikipedia. I sent it to your address, jwales@wikia.com (informed in your user page), and I did it from my e-mail account created especially for "Wikipedia purposes", so the sender's name should appear as "reduxwikipedia". If by any chance you don't get it, or if you prefer it be sent to a different address, please let me know so I can resend it. Regards, Redux 17:22, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hello yet again. I was just checking the magazine's website, and I found an important note, should you decide to write them: they had a disclaimer informing that they can only print in the following issue letters / messages received until Wednesday of any given week (since the issue is released Saturday night). It is also worth mentioning that VEJA's headquarters are in Rio de Janeiro, which is currently 3 hours ahead of Florida in this time of the year (due to daylight savings). Since time is of the essence, I figured I would maybe get ahead of myself and give their newsroom e-mail address at once: veja@abril.com.br Also, for "regular readers", they also require that an address and a telephone number be included in the message. I don't know if any of this will actually be put to use, but better safe than sorry. Regards, Redux 00:28, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi again Jimmy. I thought I should let you know that I've posted a temporary page with a full translation of the article, so that the entire community can read it, if they want to. Here is the page. Regards, Redux 16:33, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Open proxy blocking

I've suggested a more preemptive approach against open proxies at Wikipedia talk:Bots. I've posted about the suggestion to the mailing list, but it was at the end of a thread so you might not have noticed. Since this is a pretty big deviation from what normal bots do, I'd like to get your input on the matter. Thanks. --fvw* 13:53, 2005 Jan 24 (UTC)

How to complain an administrator?

Hello I would like to know if I can complain an administrator who has made a number of controversial reverts and requests for deletion and is being rude in discussions?

Credibility discussion

Can you tell me where the latest discussion on perceived credibility or Toward 1.0 is happening? Thanks. Tom H. 22:22, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

papers, please

Mentioned you and the 'pedia in a short informal paper about information sharing online. It's not the first time; it won't be the last; it's far from the best; but still I got a curious thrill from it. Wikipedia hitting the mainstream--all right! Congratulations. Koyaanis Qatsi 00:39, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Or do you know who can?

We've just voted for a new logo, now we need someone to install it for us :). Dan100 07:57, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

Question about conference...

Hey Jimbo, a friend of mine, Aaron Krowne, head of digital library research at Emory is working towards putting together a conference "Free Culture and the Digital Library" for this Fall. He says they have Lessig and Siva Varidajanathan and he wondered if you or some other people high up in Wikimedia would like to come. According to him right now it's in the planning stages, so there's no hard info, but he asked me to check so that's what I'm doing. On a side note, Krowne runs planetmath.org and we're working together right now to set up content sharing between WP and PM. Cheers. CryptoDerk 03:57, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)

Arbitration Request Appeal Request

Hi. Forgive me if this is not where I should post this, but I was told by mav that you are the person to speak to regarding appealing arbitration requests. I will not go into detail here, but I believe I have a strong case for modification of parts of the abitration conclusion. Can you assist? thanks! 168.209.97.34 12:29, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I'm happy to assist, but you have to tell me who you are and what it is all about. --Jimbo Wales 15:19, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This IP was the subject of Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/168.209.97.34. There were a couple user accounts mentioned, but they haven't been used since November. It appears this person is sticking with the IP for now. --Michael Snow 19:00, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews process assurance

Jimbo, you've made a comment on CNET a few weeks ago, "If, in six months, we can't get away from writing highly slanted, biased stories, and it's just a disaster, we'll close it." As Wikinews grows, there's been a number of users who've pointed to this statement as cause to worry that at some point you'll unilaterally and suddenly close the project. Personally, I'm pretty sure that this would never happen. But I think it'd be a good thing for you to commit to supporting Wikinews with some more force, if possible — I feel that some folks are cautious about contributing time to a project that might go away. Your (and the board's) explicit statement of committment to Wikinews would give us all a better level of assurance. -- IlyaHaykinson 00:34, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, this was in response to a query from the reporter of what we would do if it just proved impossible to have highly slanted, biased stories, and my response was just meant to be: this is not an option. We'll do it right, or we'll not do it at all. Now, what I would say is that if we find that highly biased and slanted stories is an ongoing problem, we'll first try a lot of social experimentation (blocking people, for example, or having a faster speedy delete procedure than wikipedia, or whatever) to try to find the way to make it work.
I wouldn't unilaterally do anything out of the blue on this of course. If the outcome that I was discussing were to come about, the entire community would be up in arms to close it, I think. --Jimbo Wales 01:31, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

SQL queries

I draw your attention, in your role as a developer, to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#SQL Queries. - Mark 09:45, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Biased editing by Neutrality

Hi, I am concerned that Neutrality has a personal agenda here in the Singapore article. First of all, his edit was not minor, yet he classified it as a minor edit in the edit summary. According to Wikipedia:Minor_edit:

The rule of thumb is that an edit of a page that is spelling corrections, formatting, and minor rearranging of text should be flagged as a "minor edit".

A change in the classification of government is hardly a minor edit.

The system of government was replaced by Neutrality to single-party state, which states that ...no opposition parties are allowed... Ask any Singaporean and informed individuals and they will tell you that there are opposition parties in Singapore, ie, they are allowed.

I would think the more appropriate term would be dominant-party system. However, as stated in my edit summaries earlier, it is best that a neutral point of view be maintained. To label it as a single party system of government is hardly NPOV, in my opinion.

From Wikipedia:Vandalism, Vandalism is indisputable bad-faith addition, deletion, or change to content, made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia... Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism... An edit summary was given, with the rationale behind the change. This can hardly constitute as vandalism. In fact, I think the edits by Neutrality here are in bad faith, as they reek of POV.

I would appreciate it if Neutrality puts aside his personal opinions and edit to better Wikipedia, and not use it as his own soapbox. As he is already a member of the Arbitration Committee, I really don't know who else to bring this issue to as a newbie, except you. Hope you can provide some guidance. Thanks!

--202.156.2.170 08:24, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hi,
With regards to the Singapore article, Diablo Mailer and Huaiwei have stepped in and helped. I wanted to avoid confrontation and follow the Wikipedia:writers rules of engagement, but Neutrality did not reply to my post on the Talk page but deleted the whole discussion instead. The section was brought back by Huaiwei but it was deleted again by Neutrality.
I could only back off and hoped that other people could talk to him. However, I do want to go on record here by saying that I strongly do not approve of deleting a legitimate discussion on a talk page - that defeats the purpose of having a talk page.
--202.156.2.170 02:08, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

H'lo, Jimbo. At Singapore, several users were at work over a dispute on how to put Singapore's form of government on the country template. Right now I think everyone (Diablo Mailer, Huaiwei, and I) have agreed on the current style (De jure: Westminster system / de facto: Dominant-party system). One anon insists on personally attacking me in edit summaries and talk pages, so I don't know his/her deal is. The article has stabilized on a consensus version, so the issue is moot anyway. Warm regards --Neutralitytalk 03:17, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

Wik

Jimbo

There is currently an Arbitration case concerning Gzornenplatz/Wik over at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz. One question very pertinent to the case is whether you had intended to ban Wik (but with an actual block never being put in place because he "left"), or whether you have not banned him. There are a number of old emails from you quoted at User talk:Vandalbot and User:Vandalbot which suggest that you did intend to ban him, but nothing explicit. I know you do not like to get involved in ArbCom cases (after all, that was part of the reason behind setting up the ArbCom), but in this case it would appear you have some useful evidence to give.

I'm sure it would be appreciated if you would clear up the issue by providing a statement of fact on Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Gzornenplatz/Evidence. Kind regards, jguk 22:10, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

WikiUser RfC

Hi Jimbo,

As one of the various people abused by WikiUser, you may be interested to know that a Request for Comment on him is currently underway - he's threatened mediation against three people and started proceedings against two, which is one idiocity too many as far as I'm concerned. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/WikiUser and feel free to add to it as you see fit. -- ChrisO 01:58, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks VfD vote

Jimbo, first, let me say thank you for providing some insight on the vote on Wikibooks. However, your Wikibooks user account has only 16 edits, and we've been requesting that editors without much of a history on our project provide some proof that they are who they claim to be if they come to a policy page and start voting. To require less of you would be problematic, from a user moral view. The standard solution we've used in the past is for the user in question to state on their home wiki that they are in fact the user on Wikibooks. It would be helpful if you could do the same, either here or at meta.

Thank you,

Gentgeen, also me at Wikibooks, 05:25, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it's me. :-) --Jimbo Wales 15:58, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the help. Gentgeen 03:47, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia Failure Points

As you may recall, I have had a strong pass interest in the Xanadu Project (and designed one solution for it) and other online publishing efforts. I have also pointed out that Wikipedia fails when dealing with the more obscure subjects where the small number of bigots outweigh informed contributors on the subject. The continue grief has now highlighted that as it currently works, Wikipedia actively works to dis-inform.

As the quality of the general articles improves, the public increasingly accept & relay upon what Wikipedia says; worse, they believe because it is open-source in nature that is immune to commercial bias Britannica and similar would be.

But instead, it is only the popular & well known, or the non-controversial subjects which Wikipedia can write good articles on.

Those articles that need to be published most of all, are the same ones which the Wikipedia community has to leave to the mercy of the bigots & totalitarian personality types. While real authors who have content & information to contribute are beaten off with sticks.--Daeron 03:43, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Request for NPOV & Accuracy Disputes

Papua_(Indonesian_province) article about poltical state of Papua Province, Indonesia.

NPOV Dispute

1. The name of the province, Papua Province has been omitted to promote political bias.

(just as in Australia, we do not call the Northern Territory by the name Northern nor is the Australian Capital Territory called Australia; and I suspect in the US that Americans call the District of Columbia by the shorten form DC and not Columbia.).

2. Says Papua is a Indonesian state;
I suggest this opening line biases any reader to believe the principle meaning of Papua is this state that was created last year (proposed previously in 2000).
I suggest readers are thereby by deduction to assume that Papuans are Indonesian.
a belief which is not corrected or clarified in the article since Kenney has maintain control of its content.

Accuracy Dispute

1. The name of the province, Papua Province has been omitted.
2. Says Papua is primarily used for the Indonesian state, the article evades correcting this stating the traditional 300 year meaning of Papua and why English speakers refer to West Papua as the western half of the Island.
3. Says West Papua is used only by 'nationalist' and separatist; and conceals that it has been the common English name for 43 years. Though the article is about the new Province inside of West Papua.
4. Says "The province originally covered the entire western half" ; but there is no evidence that the new Papua Province government is the same government as the old Irian Jaya government, which I believe it is not, but is a newly formed governemt/state of Indonesia.
5. Tribal groups, while these are all in West Papua (western half of Papua) the list has not been sorted into those in Papua Province and those West Irian Jaya.
6. Postage stamps, this refers to Irian Barat/Irian Jaya which occupied the region of West Papua; but does not relate to the smaller province of Papua Province.

Human rights violations in western New Guinea

article written by me hi-jacked by John & Wik, article is about the reported events and conditions in or consistant with:

Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua -
Application of Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control

Accuracy Dispute

1. Title of the Report has been removed
2. Updated information has been excluded
3. The explanation of the report has been excluded
4. The article gives no indication of the conclusion of the report

Compare to [article] real article without benefit of Wikipedia community because they only see the reverted re-directs.

NPOV Dispute

The editors John_Kenney & Wik have taken it upon themselves to declare no genocide, or genocide like activities have taken place. And that the reports from the Universities, Church NGO's, and others are not credited with being informed and crediable reports. This has been confirmed by Kenney's statement on the West Papua talk page which I have documented at AMA Requests for Assistance

Western New Guinea

NPOV Dispute:

1. Kenney have moved article from West Papua to Western New Guinea to suit his POV.
2. Gzornenplatz has removed the explanationary text from top of article.
3. Gzornenplatz has replaced every use of the english term 'West Papua' with the Kenney speak term Western_New_Guinea

Accuracy Dispute:

1. Gzornenplatz has replaced West New Guinea with West Papua as a dis-used historical name. Where as West Papua is a current name.

West Papua has been in common English use since 1962. Both NGO reports and US government reports have often used West Papua as a meaningful name in addition to whichever its current Indonesian title was. (for that latest attempt to discuss West Papua as a English title as well as a descrptive for the region - search the Talk page for "And yet again I have to wonder")

As I do not wish to listen to more abuse or efforts to confuse readers by Mr Kenney, I request you (or any person who cares about what Wikipedia is publishing) review and submit appropiate notices. I have provided many online references as evidence, John has also recently provided his online evidence to prove West Papua is not a English name for the region; destroying an important article over such a trivial issue is shamefull but was the pretext for John introducing his POV against Melanesians (of course a simple google of "West Papua" might be easier than reading that Talk page).--Daeron 05:00, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

8 Feb 2005

Why do I continue to suspect that User:OneGuy is a sock puppet of User:John_Kenney ?

I noticed OneGuy supporting Gzornenplatz with the same kinds of defence as Kenney used for Wik last year. That John_Kenney's interest in the Papua articles seems to have been replaced by OneGuy's.

But I wonder when OneGuy and Gzornenplatz became such good friends, perhaps it's somewhere, I just could not see any place where these two accounts formed such a relationship as John & Wik had last year when I documented John instructing Wik on how to prevent Tannin or myself from contributing to Wikipedia.

8 Feb 2005

I also notice OneGuy has added a copyrighted image Map Image - I don't remember which site it comes from, but although I copied to my hard-drive as a potential reference for making maps; I knew full well that someone had put considerable effort into creating that image and that it was copyrighted.

The image is also internally tagged Copyright (c) 1998 Hewlett-Packard Company.

P.S. sorry about map appearing, only wanted to include link, not include the image itself. Daeron

First of all, the baseless accusation that I am a sockpuppet of John Kenny violates two Wikipedia policies Wikipedia:No personal attacks and Wikipedia:Assume good faith. Please stop posting these baseless accusations on user pages (as you also posted this on User talk:Mozzerati). As for the map, the map was taken from www.papuaweb.org. According to their site, The resources of www.papuaweb.org are provided free to anyone with an interest in Papua via the world wide web (internet) and to educational institutions in Papua (in a CD ROM format). Authors of content on www.papuaweb.org have made their work available without charge for educational and non-profit purposes only. [7] OneGuy 07:54, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
While we are at it, note the usage "institutions in Papua." So much for your assertion below, "Not even Indonesia claims the name is Papua" :) OneGuy 08:10, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Authors of content on www.papuaweb.org have made their work available without charge for educational and non-profit purposes only.--Daeron 02:52, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I can find for you about 3 million pages that call Australia "Oz"; that still does not mean its name is Oz, or that a encyclopedia article about Australia sould be under the name Oz. Fact is that the Indonesian government name is Papua Province because its their province in Papua. Papua is still the island; and Papua Province is still their province in Papua. And it would greatly help if you would stop confusing readers by calling the Province by the islands name instead of the Province's name, Papua Province. That way people know when you are talking about the political state, and when you are talking about the island.--Daeron 02:52, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

BTW: regarding Wikipedia:No personal attacks, I just saw your comment at Talk:Demographics_of_Lebanon where you state: If you insert your own false numbers in the article, someone skilled will of course fix that :)) OneGuy - - which sounds similar to something John said last year, or was that the talk with Wik about stopping Tannin or myself from editing the Papua pages?, or is it more like your comment on my talk page You are not going to push your POV propaganda till I am here. I promise you of that.. In any event, while I have informed personal opinions, I do not make vigilanti threats like some people.--Daeron

11 Feb 2005

Why does Wikipedia still refuse to admit that the name of the Indonesian province is 'Papua Province' and instead attempts to continue the name confussion which the Islamic military regime had been attempting to create for over thirty years. Not even Indonesia claims the name is Papua instead of Papua Province. Indonesian Papua Province Website ; Museum--Daeron

Spam Filter

Hello, I just picked you out from a random list of administrators. I am having a problem editing the Max Hardcore article. It says that the "spam filter" is preventing it. Do you know how to fix this? Thanks for any assistance.

(i'll handle this -- Chris 73 Talk 05:42, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC))
(problem solved, removed two spam links, although they may have had some validity on a male porn star article -- Chris 73 Talk 05:52, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC))
Thanks.

Search as I might, I can't find the source file for the Wikimedia logo, to use on my Wikimedia Quarto covers. This is the closest thing I can find [8]; it creator (Neolux) isn't responding to e-mails, and hasn't edited the English Wikipedia since September 9th. Does a larger version exist, or should I create a new vector version? -- user:zanimum

Moving images from Wikipedia to Wikimedia Commons

Greetings. I'm a little confused about how to correctly move images from here to the Commons, without losing information or violating the GFDL. It's rather important for me, because I tend to take care of Wikipedia:Images and media for deletion, and that means I delete hundreds of images a week, including many that were listed because they also exist on the Commons.

I've started a discussion at Talk:Wikimedia Commons#Moving images to the Commons. Could you give you input, or could you tell me who I can ask that is likely to have a definite answer? Thanks so much, – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 19:56, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Dearest Jimbo Wales

Dearest Jimbo Wales, I just wanted to say thanks for creating something so creative and dynamic. Despite your personal opin of me and dislike of the topics I am interested in, I just wanted to say you are awesome for creating wikipedia. I only wish that wikipedia would stay censorship free, fair, unbiased, neutral and allow a wide range of legitimate (even if controversial) POV and pertinent links on all topics, especially those very sensitive topics involving religion, politics and ethnicity. There seems to be a serious problem with censorship on those topics not allowing other POV which are deemed insensitive. Anyhow, thanks for creating something so beneficial to humanity. I wish you long life, prosperity and happiness. Thanks again,

Dnagod 20:07, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Mr Wales

Mr Wales as a new Wikipedian, can I thank you for what you've done with this project? Kind regards Brookie 20:51, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, me too! But I still don't understand how it all works, or why!!! Regards 217.205.243.115 14:37, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Russian spambot

Just in case you weren't aware, the Russian spambot has turned into a very serious threat and is being discussed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Continuing_spambot_attacks (and see also m:Talk:Spam blacklist#Please_add_.28spambot.2C_part_1.29). It uses too many different linkspam URLs and too many different anonymous IPs to be fought using traditional methods of spamfiltering and IP blocking — essentially, nearly every new attack uses a different IP and a different linkspam domain than before. Pages affected have to be vprotected indefinitely — it added 67 spam edits in 10 hours the last time we tried to unprotect the PHP page — and it seems to be gradually expanding the number of pages it attacks. See Category:Protected against spambots. -- Curps 11:10, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

can you answer the question on the copyright status of bomis images at commons:Commons:Village_pump#Bomis Plugwash 00:11, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

b:Getting a date

Hi. I thought it would be best to point out that a wikibook (Getting a date) similar to the one you kicked up a fuss about (Getting a girl) has been created. I'm not sure about this one myself, but I think it would be better for everyone concerned that, if your going to basically order this one to be deleted as well, you do it sooner rather than later.

See also b:Wikibooks:Votes for deletion and b:Wikibooks:Votes for deletion/Archive -- mattrix 23:27, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What should happen I think is that such stuff be moved to Wikicities. And a policy should be developed to help us to have an "external" reference to help us decide if something *is* or *is not* a "textbook" in line with the mission of wikibooks.

--Jimbo Wales 04:40, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Exactly which Wikicity is "Getting a girl" supposed to fit into? What community is going to be interested in editing such a wiki? There's the [http://howto.wikicities.com How To] Wikicity, but that is focused on engineering topics. I can't imagine they'd be too pleased with such content appearing there. Are you saying there should be one wiki for all rejected Wikibooks content, or should each rejected "book" try to find a place on an existing wiki? For example, Getting a girl could go to the [http://personals.wikicities.com Personals Wikicity] whilst if the Emergency Medicine book was deleted, it could go to the [http://medicine.wikicities.com/ Medicine Wikicity]. I don't like promising people that Wikicities will take them in when that might not be the case. There are communities to consider over there who might not like the thought of having random Wikimedia junk forced upon them. Angela. 19:28, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)
Surely if a suitable project for it doesn't exist it can be created -- or are you suggesting that it isn't suitable to be on wikicities at all? Thanks, -- mattrix 20:11, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is a textbook -- not every textbook is a tome full of equations. (actually, it need not be a textbook, according to various bits of wikibooks documentation -- how-to guides are supposedly acceptable, and what about the cookbook?)

As a general rule, it is extremely rude to destroy something that people care about. Do remember the concept "tyranny of the majority". If someone is putting work into a book, the strongly-held default position should be that the book stays. Destruction of the book should require overwhelming support before being performed. (for example, 85% support with 95% confidence)

If this is all about maintaining a serious image, well, that is a lost cause for other reasons. One can not hope to teach a chemistry class while the study problems are changing day by day. (on monday evening the problem used sodium, but by nightfall it used potassium...)

AlbertCahalan 05:20, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Image standards

Since you have done as you said and removed the image from autofellatio, do you want to consider proposing those image standards we discussed? If you do, we still need you to give some criteria to define "clinical". →Raul654 06:03, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo, thank you for removing the image from autofellatio. I know a lot of people consider this censorhip, but I consider it a fundamental respect for people's boundaries. Samboy 05:57, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, too, Jimbo. Arno 06:05, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've marked both the image here and the corresponding image in the commons up for deletion. Samboy 06:54, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Now Wikipedia seems destined to become fit only to be a children's book or fit for the emotionally immature. Shouldn't the article itself be removed next? 68.80.31.42 06:21, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Emotionally immature,68? You? Never!!!! Arno 07:01, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC) 06:59, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo, I realise that you own this website, and as such you reserve the right to choose and decide its content. However, I really, really believe you are setting a bad precedent. If Wikipedia becomes a place where information is censored, then I think a lot of contributors will leave. The great thing about Wikipedia is that it is not paper. It can have an unlimited amount of articles about topics you would never see in a traditional paper encyclopaedia, including articles like Fuck, Robot fetishism, Dildo, and Autofellatio. I have always envisioned this project as the ultimate repository for information. If you're going to censor that image, what is next? Censoring the article? Censoring all possibly offensive images? I urge you not to use your powers as our monarch to set this unfortunate precedent. If you want an encyclopaedia that is family-safe, then a fork should be made. But this is a place of free content, and that includes possible offensive content. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 06:59, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Who said anything about family-safe? Not me. I think Fuck is a delightful article. I think bad grammar should be removed. There's a difference between censorship and sound editorial judgment. In this case, what I did isn't about any of that, though, it's about setting a precedent that in cases like this we should take the more cautious approach while a poll is being undertaken. Especially when the poll is trending strongly in one direction. --Jimbo Wales 09:33, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Did you even read (and take in) Jimbo's reasoning? For instance, where does the issue of copyright violations fit in this stirring scenario? Arno 07:03, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
A lot of people don't know that Slippery slope thinking is a fallacy. Samboy 07:10, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I would also like to express my thanks for your intervention. ;) Neutralitytalk 07:41, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo, when software is introduced that does censorship by default, software that will need us to compulsary tag content as that is required to make this mechanism work, software that will make it easy for an organisation to censure our content, we will have something that will be activated in all projects. First it starts with pictures only but then it will be articles too that people want to see censured.

This argument that people want it themselves is awfull. It is the ignorant, the biased saying that some content is too much for others. This while we put every effort in creating a neutral point of view and, consequently want pictures that are illustrative of what an article is about. The world is a beautifull place but it has its dark side. We should show the world as it is. Not as some would like it to be. GerardM 08:32, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Raul's convo

(CC'd to talk:Autofellatio) For the benefit of people reading this, I had a conversation with Jimbo about this a few days ago. Here's a small snippet which might help you to understand his reasoning:

[17:05] <Raul654> Ok, then *why* exactly are you deleting it?
[17:05] <Raul654> you aren't deleting it because it is a copyvio
[17:05] <jwales> Right.
[17:05] <Raul654> you aren't deleting it because it could offend people
[17:05] <Raul654> then why exactly do you want it deleted?
[17:06] <Raul654> I'm missing something here
[17:06] <jwales> Because it is a horrible picture. It adds nothing of value. It is unserious. It is demeaning.

Jimbo did not delete it for censorship reasons. He deleted it because it is his opinion that the article is not more informative because of the picture (I disagree with this asseration, for the record). As such, he would like it deleted. He also went on to say (although I could very well be misinterpreting him and he is free to correct me on this) that if someone could find a "clinical" photo to add to the article, he would be fine by it. (By which, I assume he meant inlined, as with Clitoris, which he mentioned as a good example of how to handle a situation like this) →Raul654 07:19, Feb 13, 2005 (UTC)

Er, hmm, I don't really care for private irc chats to be posted publicly. This quote is from many days ago when I was talking about deleting the image outright that very night. (Yes, I feel that strongly about how awful it is.) I ended up not deleting it but just going ahead and removing it from the page in order to reflect the growing consensus in the poll that inlining it is undesirable.

--Jimbo Wales 09:05, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I believe that just a few more than 60% have supported inlining to date. It is still possible that a rough consensus (say the 2/3 that is used by some admins on VfD, or even the 70% that Cantus suggested in early February) may form; however this is not the case at present. Clearly there is no consensus for inlining, either. But I think other factors introduced since your intervention (such as Rama's okayish drawing which is now inline) may have produced a result that is more-or-less acceptable to all. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 13:58, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have to admit I was completely taken off-guard the first time I saw that article. When browsing the internet there is often a sense of complacency, and you may not take the moment necessary to translate the word "autofellatio" into "putting your own penis in your mouth and sucking on it". That said, a person's first encounter with the topic should not be a photo of someone putting their own penis in their mouth. However, a photo should be made available should someone like a more graphic example. I appreciate the "clinical" stance as to which photos should be included --Alterego 05:01, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

The picture that started all the fuss seems pretty clinical to me. I just don't "get" that suggestion. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 14:02, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ideas for Bootstrapping Wikivarsity

Hi First of all Hats off for giving us the Wikiworld :)

I have some suggestions about Wikivarsity. Would like to have your comments...

Please pay special attention to the portion where I suggest giving certificates to translators, thus increasing the number of translators available for all Wiki projects. While at the same time giving some tangible rewards(without spending money) for the time dedicated on Wiki translation. Imagine how powerful it could be, if most of the translation services in the world boasted of Wikimedia Certified Translators.

[9]

Hope you find it interesting. Looking forward to your comments. SudarshanP 10:44, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Although I'm not Jimbo, I felt I should respond. I think this would be a great idea. After all, translators are few and far between. Other than passion there is little reason for them to do this drudgery. They are a rare resource and I think we should applaud and reward them in some way. Mboverload 09:21, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

Status of Harlan Ellison contact?

Over on Talk:Harlan Ellison last year you said you were in contact with Harlan Ellison regarding some dispute over the content of the Harlan Ellison article, and that you were temporarily replacing the article with a stub until that was sorted out. Did anything ever come of it? I was just about to restore the old material, but I figured I should ask "in person" before doing so. Bryan 16:45, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Lacking any word on what's going on, I have restored all the deleted material. If Ellison still has problems with it I think we should work them out the Wiki way instead, since behind-the-scenes negotiation appears to have been fruitless. Bryan 16:46, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposed amendment ratification vote

This vote has been effectively stalled since January. There's currently a (54/68) = 79.4% vote in favour of the amendment, which the page indicates would be a passing vote except for a small note saying that at least 100 votes would be needed to pass it. This doesn't seem likely right now; I'd like a word with you at some point as to what we can do about the vote and the associated amendment, for I'd much like to see this go into effect. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 18:22, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)

Removal of the "Snowspinner" amendment (regarding the use of evidence from outside of Wikipedia - IRC and private e-mail, etc.) would appease many of the "no" voters. Such an obviously charged issue should be handled separately with a vote that explicitely either grants or withholds the right of ArbCom to hear such evidence. -- Netoholic @ 20:03, 2005 Feb 15 (UTC)

Question

Dear Sir, Do you know about any new Wiki's that might come up in the next few months or years?

Wikisource : language domain requests

Mr Wales,

I'm a french administrator on Wikisource. I hope you will unterstand my bad english. There are several requests to create language domains in German and French. These requests are supported by the most significant users of Wikisource, and by several anonymous. But it seems that some users refuses, and block the decision. I am enough disappointed, because, for example, for the French domain, that is required by the two more significant French users, and by two others which are heavy users on french Wikipédia. The page of the requests says : This is in accordance with the decision by the Wikimedia board that language domains may proceed here at Wikisource when there is enough support for them. Do you believe that it would be finally possible to do something ? You can consult the pages Wikisource:Scriptorium/Language domain requests and Wikisource:Scriptorium/Language domain proposal to make you an idea. Caton 15:08, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I suppose that it is necessary to be resigned to the will of some people and to keep silent itself. The situtation is harmful for the development of Wikisource. But I speak all alone.Caton 07:10, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Lost Counties, Cities and Towns of Virginia

Unlike much of my WP work, most of this article was put together off-line during a long period of time, and very little was pulled from other WP articles. When we had the February 21-22 server problem, I had time to reflect on how much I enjoy the WP work, and instead of worrying, I resolved to work on something to have to contribute content-wise when the system came back up. I am not in a position to help with the financial end, but I appreciate those who do.

I just wanted to drop you these comments. Mark in Richmond Vaoverland 12:51, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

fraudulent and vandalistic administrator abusing his position user:Dbachmann

Hi Jimbo,

I wrote an arbitration case [[10]] that was refused to discuss with the argumentation, the facts were disputed in the case [[11]] here [[12]]

However this is not true. The Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Antifinnugor did not handle User:Dbachmann's abuse of his state as administrator, his fraud, his vandalistic tendencies and support of clique's at all, which are facts, that Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Dbachmann clearly proves. None of these was handled in Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Antifinnugor. I'd like these, until now completely unhandled things to be handled. What is the way for that? I think, serious projects cannot afford to work with vandalistic and fraudulent administrators, and support such persons. antifinnugor 19:20, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

How to reach Jimmy Wales

I just read the article in Wired, "The Book Stops Here" that features Jimmy Wales and others at Wikipedia. I have a question I'd like to write to Jim privately. How can I do this? I'm not familiar with blogs and I interpret this as being a public forum.

Thanks,

Peggy Lucero Bethesda, MD mdwomanus@yahoo.com

Try the "E-mail this user" link on this page.-Mr Adequate 22:14, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wallpaper

I'm sure you're gonna love this :) Jimbo and Richard Cheers ! ;-) notafish }<';> 12:52, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

duke

The 13th, and present, Duke of Manchester is "Alexander Charles David Drogo Montagu", born in 1962. His son and heir apparent is "Alexander Michael Charles Montagu" styled Viscount Mandeville. If you do chat with the Duke, you might invite him to add the details of his marriage to Wendy Dawn, née Burford, or the exact birth date of his daughter Ashley to our data<g>. - Nunh-huh 23:43, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I can certainly confirm that the 13th Duke is Alexander, not Andrew ([13] and other sources). -- Emsworth 23:53, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User talk with students at University of Deusto, Bilbao (Spain), 3 Mar 2005

Then, since you will not be able to come over Spain until later in June, and we didn't manage to organize a video-conference, I believe we still have this possibility over the internet: a real time user talk.

Please, could you confirm your availability for doing so tomorrow March, 3rd, between 11:15 and 12:30 CET?

Best, --JosebaAbaitua 07:29, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Semana de las Lenguas

Yes, I can do this. Am I right in understnading the time. 11:15-12:30 CET. CET is GMT+1, so 6 hours ahead of me? So for me, this is 5:15-6:30 AM. Very good. Where and how? IRC? This is easiest for me. But any way that you like, that I can manage, I will be there.

I will be online in #wikimedia at 5:00AM tomorrow if you want to find me. --Jimbo Wales 22:57, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I believe we have one problem, we have to install the IRC protocol first.--JosebaAbaitua 03:38, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This is will be the content table of the presentation
I've droped you a replay in mi discusión.
Is your time the same as in Atlanta? In that case, yes, we are 6 hours ahead (UTC+1).
Is #wikimedia an IRC that we can use? --JosebaAbaitua 01:06, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

WIRED article available on-line

The article in WIRED magazine is now available on line: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/wiki.html

– Dennis (talk) (Wiki NYC Meetup)[[]] 15:57, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

Hello!

Mr. Wales, you are the "God-King" of Wikipedia, right? So you're the top, executive, #1 guy. Do you know who the #2 guy is, or perhaps the most powerful or active admin? 68.23.105.21 00:10, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  1. Would you say it would be Maveric149?
I am not the God-King, no. I am not the benevolent dictator. Within the community, I play a role similar to that of a constitutional monarch in the British system, i.e. with some reserve powers that are acknowledged by the community but rarely exercised, and (I very much hope) declining power over time as we properly institutionalize our values.
Now, as to the rather interesting (but largely academic) question of who might be considered to have the second amount of power as compared to me, I think that within English wikipedia, the answer is Angela. She is a board member, she is universally beloved (well, as universally as one can be in a community of diverse individuals), and she knows everything about everything. --Jimbo Wales 16:20, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Take a look at this.

Are you pleased with this article?

Well, it isn't an article really. It's a humorous essay. It's a little out of date now, but it's quite enjoyable. --Jimbo Wales 16:22, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I created that thing as an April Fools' joke. I can't believe it's still being actively edited. Pakaran 22:56, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

P.S.

Is there a law for Wikipedia that groups all separate policies together?

I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean. Some policies are global, some are set locally in each language depending on local culture and circumstances.--Jimbo Wales 16:20, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Interview

  • Are you evil?
Indeed.
  • Is Wikipedia evil?
It should go without saying.
  • Is Wikimedia Foundation evil?
Worse than that, actually.
Only on Tuesdays. --Jimbo Wales 01:45, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hye!

Which would you choose, being an administrator at Wikipedia, or being a hobo out on the streets? 68.23.45.217 21:59, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Gee, I should suppose it is best to be both.--Jimbo Wales 01:46, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Greetings from Bilbao (Spain)

I´ve droped you a few lines in es.wikipedia. Best, --JosebaAbaitua 23:29, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Notice that you were mentioned.

I don't want to talk about you behind your back, so I am letting you know I mentioned you (somewhat critically) in this discussion[14].--Silverback 01:58, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

ps. I originally mistakenly posted to the talk page for the article rather than this page, so I have deleted it there and reposted here, but with the original date.--Silverback 12:08, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NASA World Wind

In case you're interested, there is now (the beginnings of) reverse linkage into Wikipedia from NASA World Wind. See WikiProject Geographical coordinates for some examples. — Egil 10:04, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cecropian ruminations

Jimbo, I am not soliciting a response but I would be grateful if you would simply look at my comments on my user page. Cheers, Cecropia | explains it all ® 20:50, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. It is appreciated. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 20:35, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Image:NupediaLogo.jpg

Nupedia's logo (Image:NupediaLogo.jpg) from the Wayback Machine is currently on Wikipedia as {{Logo}}. But, was its logo available under the GFDL? 119 21:51, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Stanford Presentation Slides?

Could you post the slides from the Wikipedia presentation you did at Stanford onto the web somewhere? Thanks for all the great work you've done helping make information free. Salasks 17:00, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposed amendment ratification vote Part II

I'm not sure as to the current status of this, but you've previously indicated on IRC that you wish to see this implemented. If you can give your stamp of approval here ASAP, it would be appreciated, as there are already more amendment proposals brewing (mostly regarding the 100 vote rule and in relation to the "Snowspinner amendment") and there are cases ongoing right now where there are arguments involving arbitration policy. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 16:44, 2005 Mar 10 (UTC)

Misleading edit summaries

Can I block someone for repeatedly providing misleading edit summaries? Mgm|(talk) 17:52, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Universism article

I would appreciate your review of this sitation. The article on Universism is being deleted on the basis of two misunderstandings - 1) that it is not a significant movement and just Ford Vox's homepage (shown to be false) and 2) that a bunch of "sock puppets" voted to keep it back in December 2004 (shown to be false). I think another major factor is that the adminstrators concerned just don't like the subject. Universism is controversial not just among people of faith but amonth true atheists as well. Here is the article: http://faithless.org/wikipedia.htm Undeletion discussion of Universism article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_undeletion#Universist_Movement Discussion of article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Universist_Movement Original VfD page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Universism Recent forum threads: http://www.faithless.org/community/index.php?showtopic=2630 http://www.faithless.org/community/index.php?showtopic=2512 There's no reason there shouldn't be a Wikipedia article on Universism, but there isn't because the article was deleted in early December for not being 'notable' enough, just days prior to the New York Times article. Here's what else the Movement has been up to: http://universist.org/news.htm From Wikipedia's standpoint, Wikipedia should include social and religious movements, and this is the kind of article where Wikipedia can really shine: Universism started in 2003 and there won't be a Britannica article for 20 years, but there can be a Wikipedia article today and there should be given the progress we've made. It would be a shame for Wikipedia not to cover Universism for the above misunderstandings. Futhermore, Universist Movement officials pledge not to edit the article themselves. Universist 16:12, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If it is indeed true that this was featured in the New York Times, Fox News, the BBC, then I would vote 'keep' on a VfD myself. This is not a decree, just a personal opinion. Possibly the pre-NYT VfD was valid, but further press coverage has now changed the state of the world such that an article is warranted. I should not that I have not looked at the VfU page, so perhaps there is further information of which I am not aware. I'm just saying that in general, something that has gotten major press coverage is almost certainly worth at least a stub.--Jimbo Wales 01:51, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Jimbo, the admins concerned are postulating all sorts of interesting new criteria for undeletion, craftily so that Universism does not fit them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Votes_for_undeletion/Universist_Movement ...Among them have been the "Google News" standard - ie, no current hits on Google News for Universism, so no Universism Wikipedia article. Yet just a cursory search lead me to discover that there are many religious movements in Wikipedia without current Google News hists, like Discordianism, Brownsville Revival, Atherius Society, Adidam, Branhamism, Chen Tao, Elan Vital (nothing about the movement), Instititute of Noetic Sciences (article Noetic), and Konkokyo. Another standard now proposed by Dpbsmith involves getting a front page story in The Birmingham Post-Herald and a dozen mentions in The Birmingham News. These are conservative publications not interested in us. We have already received a COVER STORY in The Birmingham Weekly, the city's #2 paper: http://universist.org/cover.htm ...Dpbsmith's criterion including listings in the Birmingham News religion calendar, but again we already user the Birmingham Weekly calendar every week, our audience doesn't use Birmingham News and certainly not their religion calendar. It includes a Bellsouth phone account and listing in the Yellow Pages, expenses we do not want. This is just absurd and not what Wikipedia is about. The fact is that we exist just as Wikipedia exists. We have received enough press that we warrant a listing here among all the cartoon characters. This is embarrassing that there isn't a Universism article after all we've done. The only explanation I have seen is that the admins who deleted it the first time simply do not want to be wrong and will rationalize to their graves. Universist 17:30, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That article is "generous" at best. It sounds like an advert to me to be honest. That's probably not helping your case any. --Alterego 18:05, Mar 13, 2005 (UTC)
Are you talking about the Bham Weekly article? Here is the author's pedigree: http://www.writerstoolkit.com/AboutAuthor.htm Here is the Wikipedia article we are discussing: http://faithless.org/wikipedia.htm A suggested alternate Wikipedia article: http://www.universist.org/npovuniversistmovement.htm ...I just think Universism deserves an entry in Wikipedia, regardless of who writes it. Universist 20:57, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I was talking specifically of the wikipedia article. --Alterego 04:13, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

A moral wasteland

I rarely visit Wikipedia anymore as I consider it a 'moral wasteland' that has been made so by the overwhelming liberal viewpoint individuals who edit here. It appears, to me, that Wikipedia appeals to academia or to Linux-lovers (who would also be Microsoft-haters, and by inference, capitalism-haters). So I have gone back to using Encarta for most lookups and abandoned my plans for extensive editing here.

In other words, Wikipedia had their chance to convince me that they are reasonable and prudent when it came to articles with questionable moral content. They failed.

I rarely, if ever, edit anymore, and have even gotten out of the habit of looking here for articles. KeyStroke 23:19, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)

Arbitration can pry into private correspondence?

Jimbo, in among the rather harmless amendments to the arbitration policy was the so-called "Snowspinner amendment", which permits the likes of Snowspinner to present his personal correspondence as "evidence" in arbitration (which, it seems to have been forgotten, was meant to be a way to resolve differences, not attack other users).

I've always thought it was a good unwritten rule of the Internet that private correspondence should not be made public. Even trolls on Usenet consider it poor behaviour. I note that you too showed an inclination to this belief, when Raul repeated an IRC conversation that you had with him on the talk page of autofellatio.

I believe Snowspinner's amendment was not motivated by a desire to improve policy or the encyclopaedia but by personal animus, because he is aggrieved that someone called him a "fuck" in IRC but was not punished for it. (You have to ask whether Snowspinner could not just have shrugged that off -- we're not in school here and the idea is we all try to get on because that's the way to build an encyclopaedia, wiser minds have determined, not that we should all be spending our days sneaking on each other, trying to cause trouble -- frankly, a rogue such as Snowspinner is a great deal more disruptive of the functioning of Wikipedia than most of the "trolls" he is convinced plague his life.)

Can I ask you to revisit this issue? I can't see how it is constructive.Dr Zen 23:26, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sometimes users mailbomb others with vicious insults. It's rather silly to suppose that such behavior has to be ignored, isn't it? Of course private correspondence should not be made public even in most of these cases (it can be a personal judgment call in many cases), but the idea that somehow the arbcom was supposed to be restricted in investigations to just what takes place on the wiki is a different matter.

I can't comment in particular on the Snowspinner example you cite, because I don't know about it. But the community does hang out in irc, and it is very very unfortunate if #wikipedia is a hostile environment. People ought to relax about being called a "fuck" in IRC, because it just makes the caller look like an idiot, but also people ought not be namecalling either.

Remember, the arbcom is not a court of law, but a community function. They have no power to subpoena, no power to jail anyone. So they can't "pry into" anything.

They do have the power to say: look, behaving like a jerk and expecting an infinite right to edit wikipedia is not going to happen. So I see no reason to artificially limit what they look at. Wikipedia is a real human community, not an online game. If someone sends you hateful email as a result of your voluntary efforts to make the world a better place, then it's 100% perfectly ok to complain to the arbcom about it, and to have a rule which says "Oh, someone mailbombed you with vicious insults, but that's something we can't ask them to leave the community over" would be wrong. --Jimbo Wales 01:01, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We'll have to agree to differ. I think in "real human communities" the private should be left private, the public public; you disagree. I think what you do in email or any other personal space is quite separate from what you do here in the Wikipedia space. I think the latter is the proper concern of the community; the former none of its business.

Is it the arbcom's business if you're a jerk outside Wikipedia? Really? If I find "evidence" that User X has been a jerk on, say, slashdot, how about that? What if I know they are a troll in another medium? Is all that "evidence" that can be used against them? Other media are different, though. They have different rules of engagement, if you like.

That's not to say that I don't agree that one ought not to abuse one's fellows in emails or IRC. It's not going to be conducive to making this a place where a great encyclopaedia is built. I certainly don't think it's something to ask someone to leave the community over though. What next? You have a criminal conviction, you can be left out? You wrote a snitty blog post? You're not nice to your mum?

Is the arbcom not a court of law? It sure looks like one. Dr Zen 02:18, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think that in general the private should be left private, and the public public. That's an entirely different question from whether the ArbCom ought to ignore evidence that is directly relevant. I'm sensitive to some of the slippery slope concerns that you're raising, but let's recognize that they _are_ slippery slope concerns, and treat them with some. When I say that if a crazed Internet psychic posts pictures of my little girl on his own website with ludicrous libelous comments, then it's perfectly legitimate for this to lead to his ban at Wikipedia, this is not even remotely like saying that people should be banned for not being nice to their mums, right? Either extreme position is indefensible, I would say. In the very unlikely event that someone would be banned from Wikipedia solely for writing a snitty blog post, I'd be the first to step forward and overturn the ban. And yet in the other extreme, I think you'd have to agree with me that certain outrageous behaviors don't get a free pass just because they took place in IRC or private email or another website. If you agree with that, then you agree with me on the principle: the ArbCom ought not face arbitrary restrictions one way or the other, but use simple human judgment in the light of community conventions and norms.

If someone starts sending you death threats in private email and slandering your family all over the web, based on your good work at Wikipedia, then they will be banned from editing Wikipedia. As a healthy community, we should respect our members enough to afford them that kind of respect and courtesy. This is a very far cry from the extreme scenarios you are envisioning about people being banned over trivial flamewars on Slashdot and the like.

When I said that the arbcom is not a court of law, I was responding in particular to this idea that they can "pry into" private correspondence. They can't. Someone can send it to them, but they have no way to subpoena it. They can't put people in jail, they can't order people to be brought into court. This is a private website run by a community which tries really hard to have an atmosphere of love and respect, and the arbcom's role is to put some due process into the dealing with unfortunate social situations. But it isn't a court of law, it's people trying to make good decisions for the overall health of the community based on our policies.--Jimbo Wales 16:51, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Using Google as a barometer to justify deletionism

May I ask you to comment on the topic of using Google in order to justify the deletion or inclusion of an article? In my opinion, the entire notion is flawed and there is nothing about the process documented at Wikipedia:Google test which merits being called a "test". Best regards --GRider\talk 00:51, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the Google test is often helpful, but should be used with judgment. I see no way to ban people from doing it, do you? It's useful information which ought to inform our judgment, although of course in many cases there can be reasons to override or ignore it. I trust people to make the right decisions thoughtfully, using the Google test as one element among many.--Jimbo Wales 01:01, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Arbitration policy/Proposed amendment ratification vote Part III

Jamesday is opposing the passing of this amendment. See this edit. -- Grunt 🇪🇺 01:14, 2005 Mar 12 (UTC)

Hi-Bye

  • Did you ever meet Satan?

No, but I think we're supposed to be on a panel discussion in Amsterdam in May.

  • Are you filthy rich?

More filthy than rich.

  • Would you consider yourself an expert in any field of academics?

No.

  • Are you planning to take over the world?

Yes, one click at a time. --Jimbo Wales 02:36, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Bye-Hi

No, they kicked me out after an unfortunate incident with a stack of Britannica... well, it's a long story. :-) Are you having fun with this? --Jimbo Wales 02:36, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Appeal

Jimbo, several days ago I sent you an appeal by e-mail of the January arbcom ruling against me, but you don't seem to have replied...I understand that you are busy, but could you take a look at it and tell me your thoughts? It is very important to me, and I feel without a proper resolution to the matter I will no longer be willing to work on the project. Everyking 12:34, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would urge you (Jimbo) to make sure that Everyking, Netoholic and Dr Zen are treated fairly. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:51, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

I just wanted to say: thank you for Wikipedia. It's a most remarkable project! It is the most amazing software project I've ever worked on. It will be wonderful when (and if) Wikipedia 1.0 gets released! Please, keep up the good work.

Unfortuneately, it's time for me to depart from Wikipedia. You probably don't know who I am, but I used to be an admin (well, I most likely still am at the time of writing, but won't be much longer) and contributor on many articles. Like exploding whales. But I'm leaving now. I just wanted to have the opportunity to express my gratitude for letting me contribute to this site and for making this whole thing possible! - Ta bu shi da yu 13:55, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)



Cumbey and SqueakBox Javier Solana feud

moved to subpage: /CASBJSF

Willy on Wheels

WoW is now running vandalbots. See User:Javabot, and the deletion log for evidence. The whole WoW mess has been escalating over the last few weeks, with WoW intensifying his attacks, and becoming more sophisticated in attack methods. More, better, reversion tools are needed. In particular, it should be possible for "revert" to delete an article where only a single contributor has committed entries, and the article is less than a certain time old. Developer help is urgently needed! -- The Anome 14:51, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't. This will have all sorts of horrible side effects. My two cents would be to give admins the power to revert all edits made under a single account, regardless of the nature of those edits, if the account is less than X hours old and/or has less than Y edits, with both fairly small numbers. Put in an additional limit to the rate of registering accounts under a single IP (say, one per hour, this should be plenty for users who come in with a mistaken/unwise account name). All of this is, of course, still gameable, and nothing will change that. We can only slow it down a bit, not eliminate it. Hmm, I get the feeling these ideas should be discussed elsewhere, and probably are. JRM 15:05, 2005 Mar 14 (UTC)

Wikispecies count

That's a fine question. A fine question indeed. I wish I had an answer to it, though. - UtherSRG 22:14, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

I'm afraid nobody is counting. Actually the contributors of the Tree of Life are working from topside downwards : Kingdom to Class, to Order, to Family and then to Genus. Species are only being dealt with if a particular species is important, or has some importance. Nevertheless the number of species already dealt with should be considerable and is growing rapidly. Even at this rate, it will still take several decades before we have covered the majority of species, even if the number of dedicated contributors keeps growing. This doens't answer your question, but may give you an idea of the enormous task we're working on with only a few contributors. JoJan 15:13, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
the database for wikispecies is available here. perhaps if i get some time later this week i'll come up with some good sql queries to figure out a count. --Alterego 15:58, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia MySQL warning

Warning: mysql_query(): Unable to save result set in /usr/local/apache/common-local/php-1.4/includes/Database.php on line 324 Error in numRows(): MySQL server has gone away

Backtrace: 

   * Database.php line 502 calls wfdebugdiebacktrace()
   * User.php line 452 calls databasemysql::numrows()
   * SkinTemplate.php line 254 calls user::getnewtalk()
   * OutputPage.php line 417 calls skinmonobook::outputpage()
   * OutputPage.php line 614 calls outputpage::output()
   * Database.php line 360 calls outputpage::databaseerror()
   * Database.php line 309 calls databasemysql::reportqueryerror()
   * SpecialWatchlist.php line 102 calls databasemysql::query()
   * SpecialPage.php line 309 calls wfspecialwatchlist()
   * SpecialPage.php line 220 calls specialpage::execute()
   * index.php line 101 calls specialpage::executepath()

Adraeus 01:38, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

About RickK, me, and user blocking

Note: Please read this carefully and thoroughly, as this is important.

RickK, one of the admins, blocked my former accounts "User:Hil Duff" and "User:Hil Duff star". He didn't give any reason why and totally ignored my comments on my talk page just because he thinks my user name would be something like imposting or vandalizing. I wanted to discuss things over with him, but he just deleted my account immediately without reason. I just want to be a happy Wikipedian here.

I AM NOT A VANDAL, and I won't be Hilary Duff, just Cool Cat886. I won't tell anybody that I am famous or a pop star. I just want to contribute in peace here, and YOU CAN BLOCK ME ONLY IF YOU SEE ME VANDALIZING OR ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING BAD, BECAUSE I DIDN'T. Would you support me and be my good friend, or should I just get blocked for eternity because I didn't do anything? Cool Cat886 07:20, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Abusive blocking

Hi Jimmy, I'd have preferred not to bother you on your user talk page for such a personal problem, but the situation give me no other choice.

My need

I need the intervention of an autority higher in the m:power:structure than the ones I'm in conflict with, which is I believe the reason why you are on top of that structure.

My story

Here's my story in its as succinct as possible version:

fr:wiki

I've been sucked in the m:wikipedia vicious circle on fr:wiki, I did my best to inform the fr:community about this, and about how the current fr:wiki is receding from the global wikipedia spirit. As a result of facts, my account on the fr:wiki is now blocked, and multiple IP that are not mine are also banned because I dared to apply Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. Which I don't really care about anymore; after what I've been through I don't have any more motivation to contribute on the fr:wiki.

meta:wiki/en:wiki

I wanted to write articles on meta about what I know of m:wikipedia vicious circle and how to end it, or at least to reduce to the max the phenomenon, and hot to prevent this to happen again. But I just noticed that my meta:account and en:wiki have been blocked too by a meta admin from the fr:wiki, with no reason given, but an email adress to ask for reasons. I did nothing blameworthy on meta nor on en:wiki as no one gave me any good reason to yet. These blocks are what i consider a good reason to behave blameworthy. I don't want to, and I wish m:wikipedia vicious circle will not follow me on each and every wikipedia where I've been bold enough to use the same nickname. That's why I'm asking your help to put an end to the vicious cycle phenomenon and to deal directly with the responsible persons about this no-reason given block of my account on meta.

ja:wiki

my japanese account is not blocked, the only reasons I see to this are either Anthere has no power to block me there, or she does not know/care about this account.

logging into a blocked account leads to automatic IP ban. which adds to the nonsense of "blocking at all cost" attitude.The previous IP I was using to write and edit this very message for this reason. WTF!, just WTF! Luckily an IP block does not block anyone in reality, which makes me ask myself, why blocking? and what blocking is used for if not newbie rejection and increasing authoritarian attitude based conflict intensity

Also to mention

I have to mention also that I've informed m:User:Jean-Christophe Chazalette aka fr:Utilisateur:Aurevilly of my intentions to sue the fr:wiki if the slandering of certains fr users against me were not removed in a reasonable delay. Ive also informed him that as a hacking philosophy supporter Timothy Leary defined cyberpunk information system conceiver/optimizer, I know some of wikipedia weaknesses and that I have ideas of how to help fix them, but if they insist on treating my person and my work that way, I would have no hesitation to use my knowledge of these weaknesses against the fr:wiki in legal action. I guess these informations may have played a role or not in my block.

:It seems like you're in contravention of the policy outlined on Wikipedia:No legal threats. Dtobias 21:17, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm very aware of what it seems, and that it is not what it seems, that's why I added this précision to avoid confusion between what it is and what it seems. this is no threat but information sharing, am i not right to ask for slandering removal ? is it not honest to say that you are ready to go to court if necessary ?

As many others contributors and contributors wannabe I just want to help a project that means something to me. I sincerely think I can help with the wikipedia vicious cycle, and its prevention, and BTW help contributors work in a better-if-not-good atmosphere.

Hoping to see an improvement in this situation. m:User:Izwalito en:User:Izwalito fr:User:Izwalito ja:User:Izwalito

GNU FDL/ GNU GPL and wikipedia

I'd like to talk about the use of GFDL on wikipedia websites with persons able to make decisions. I've got reasons to believe that GFDL is inappropriate to wikipedia websites and that GNU GPL should be used instead. By reasons, I mean practical reasons, common sense reasons and personal ideological reasons.

m:User:Izwalito en:User:Izwalito fr:User:Izwalito ja:User:Izwalito


Anthere's report on Izwalito matter

I took the decision of blocking Izwalito on meta and on the english wikipedia (he was already blocked on fr (not by me), but I extended the length of the block), after Izwalito informed Aurevilly of his decision to very probably sue w:fr:utilisateur:Floreal for defaming comments on the french wikipedia, as well as all those who might be able to delete permanently her comments and refused to do so, as well as his decision to sue the responsibles of Wikimedia projects for the website being run under the wrong licence.

I wrote those emails and I know what is said here is not what I wrote.

I believe this might concerns a serious number of people : Floreal, 5 board members of WMF, 9 board members of Wikimedia France, and the developer team.

it concerned a lot more than this, it concerned every single reader of the slandering who did nothing to remove it.

Since Izwalito was already blocked on the french wikipedia by general consensus and because of his legal threats which do not exactly show a very good spirit in the community, I have decided to take upon myself to block him in three places.

the general consensus has to be proven, I received emails from wikipedians saying it was abusive and unfair, and it was told by others on the pump. see upper about this threat misunderstanding.

To preserve a certain independance of decision, I also asked on the following projects that Izwalito be blocked as well : Ja.wikipedia, Zh.wikipedia, fr.wikiquote and en.wikiquote. Brion and Kate run a check to list his user accounts. As a steward, I could have made myself a sysop on any of these projects and blocked him myself, but I felt it might have been a bit too authoritative. Hence, I only did it on projects where communities have expressed their trust in me as a sysop.

could have asked ME for my accounts..., still don't understand why my account has been blocked on different wikipedia.these accounts are not me, blocking them seems pointless, as I don't need any account.

As a trustee on Wikimedia Foundation Inc and a trustee on Wikimedia France, I am also directly concerned by the legal threats, so I am currently discussing the issue with w:fr:utilisateur:Aurevilly who is a judge in France, as well as w:fr:utilisateur:Ryo, the president of Wikimedia France.

sounds weird that you're not discussing it with the main character of the story isn't it? sounds weird that you took action before the discussion came to a conclusion.

I also informed the board, to the best of the other board trustees availability. I had the opportunity to shortly discuss the issue with Jimbo this afternoon on irc. However, Jimbo is not much available, and it was my belief a couple of decisions (such as blocking Izwalito) had to be taken quickly. I consider that I could act so while Jimbo was missing.

why does it have to be done quickly? as the account is still blocked and I'm still not. This poos user account is innocent you know.

Note that I am fully aware Izwalito uses several ips, hence has is libery of edition and comments preserved.

Note that I am fully aware that I use only one IP as I own only one. But when I'm blocked abusively I don't hesitate to go elsewhere to protest against this abusive block and resume my contributor work. Note that my liberty of edition is not preserved and that's why I'm fighting for freedom of speech.

Anthere 00:36, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

PS : one more word about the reason why Izwalito has been blocked, repeatedly on the french wikipedia. Note that I am not very well versed on the topic, but that the block is quite widely supported.

quite widely among the sysops...

Izwalito, as a newbie, started translating english wikipedia rules and meta pages and tried to impose them on the french wikipedia (either, adding them to current ones, or replacing the current ones by the english rules).

how could I try to impose anything as I know it is impossible for a simple contributor to impose anything, and as I submitted those translations to translation verification and to community decision. I only created new article, I replaced no existing rule, you can check by yourself, it's all in my contribution history

He also moved texts, without any respect for history. After having been told not to do so, he went on doing it anyway.

I moved text (no plural), after having been forbidden in an authoritative way without any further explanation, I decide not to take account of this till someone explain me why. As no one tried to explain anything to me I had to figure it out by myself, and I did not went on as what I did after that was copy-pasting not cut-pasting. BTW I've witnessed those who forbid do what they forbid me to do, whihch lead me to think that something's wrong somewhere.

As he says himself, he has the mentality of a hacker. Add overflowing the pump, and very strong comments towards contributor (Floreal in particular).

I'm not responsible for the pump being overflowed, this phenomenon was already problematic before I create my account, my comments were towards contributors' comments not contributor (I even translated tthe wikipedia:no personal attacks articles which didn't exist on the fr:wiki. The Floreal thing was a on-the-same-level answer to a provocation from Floreal which I did because after being abusively blocked more than 10 times in 10 days and after sysops deleted hours of my work, and censored me, I started to act careless too, and to answer to provocation.

All this resulted in Izwalito being blocked or reverted many times.

chronologically, I've been blocked and reverted first and then I started to act like a fool, to be precise, all this started when a sysop made me lose 2 hours of work in a childish edit war because he thought he knew better than me.

Note that Izwalito continues editing under ip when blocked and does not hide himself in the least when doing so, making the block totally ineffective.

I'm honest why you should I hide what I'm doing? I am no vandal. Block is not totally ineffective, it worked perfectly in infuriating me. I don't know who you think you're fooling with this block thingy. IP is not a person, and blocking IP is not blocking the person using this IP.

The last block period came after he used comments considered unjustifiable on the pump.

From what I've read on the pump, some wikipédians think it's the block which is injustifiable and injustified. 8 days block for a sysop personal consideration (the sysop who blocked me knows personnaly the person who provoked my comment as he told me by email afterwards).

I never blocked him myself earlier, though I supported reversion if necessary.

this part I agree with.

The current block is an answer to the legal threats. Anthere

I have to remember that it's not a good idea to be honest, it will get me in trouble. Specially when I'm trying to find a way to avoid the inevitable through discussion. Next time I'll sue directly without trying to communicate as sysops block before talking.
I fully support Anthere. Angela and Anthere have the authority to act on behalf of the foundation in cases like this, and we should be glad that they are willing to do so. This is especially true in cases like now, when I'm in the midst of travelling and I am therefore not much available to be the heavy myself.--Jimbo Wales 01:32, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I wonder what a case like this means, and where is the common sense in letting someone involved in a conflict in charge of putting an end to the conflict. I feel concerned that common sense is sacrificed to personal reason. I also feel concerned that the project fondator is careless enough about the community to give blind trust to someone using personal attacks and not citing any in-context sources to expose facts. I thought what we should be glad is that contributors are willing to contribute, not that those in charge (or left in charge) are working unwillingly to put an end to the contributing will of one particular contributor. If not, no wonder that m:wikipedia vicious cycle exists and is hurting/crippling the project.
to avoid any more splashing through looking glass effect, (this discussion page has to look good) I m dealing directly with Anthere though email. Anyways ,you just lost one (more?) contributor through carelessness. my advice to you Jimbo, remember what has been done before and don't wander on the path of error, as there is only one error, to repeat them.
<update> as this article has been linked to from fr:wiki I've answered to anthere here also. Not a smart move I would say.
Why do you keep linking to m:wikipedia vicious cycle, a page which currently only says (There is currently no text in this page)? Dtobias 16:00, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
ask yourself what happens when principle of least surprise is not respected, I'll add the redirection that you could have add yourself. I'm not supposed to, I'm blocked, but as some seems to be unable to find information by themselves...
I'm supposed to be playing guessing games with alternate capitalizations in order to try to find an article that you could have linked to correctly in the first place if you were less careless? Dtobias 17:55, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
my previous comment about "some being unable to find information by themselves" wasn't referring to you, Dtobias, unless you are multiple, I don't know why you took it for you. it was referring to people I don't know, don't know where to find hence can't speak with, who are responsible for not respecting the principle of least surprise hence making this interlink appears blue and not red as it should hence preventing me from knowing that my link was leading to a no-content page, that I know would have fixed this problem if they knew about the problem hence are unable to find information by themselves which I condensed in "some seems to be unable to find information by themselves as it was a lot shorter and is not the matter discussed here in the first place. I'm not the person who wrote this article or named it, I do respect the principle of least surprise when I create articles (or should I say I did whan I created), and I expect others to do so. I didn't know about this capitalization problem. When I learned about it, I fixed it (although I'm multi-blocked), is it what you call being careless ? To answer your personal attack, If you were not careless yourself in the first place (takes about 4 seconds to copy-paste-search) , you would have found the article by yourself and could have fixed the redirection, and instead of thanking me for doing your job, you turn me down. happily there will be no next time, this time. I quit already.

Some clarifications about Anthere's report

Anthere distorts the chronology of Izwalito's story. At first, he was a regular contributor writing fine articles on video games for a few weeks. Then, he had an argument with one sysop which generated volumes of heated discussion. Concurrently or little afterwards, he started discussing policies on the Bistro (=VP) and elsewhere. He also began translating meta pages from en: and meta: to fr:. Two of these still remain: fr:Wikipédia:Vandalisme and fr:Wikipédia:Pas d'attaques personnelles. These pages were clearly marked as translations and in need of discussion before being considered rules.

The real problems arose when Izwalito tried to move a section between two pages. villy made a rollback, a short edit war ensued where Alvaro (another sysop) rolled back Izwalito as well while threatening to block him and then doing so. The following day, after Izwalito was unblocked, Alvaro reverted several valid contributions and deleted some newly created pages. A few days later, Izwalito reinstated one of his reverted contributions on the Bistro with what could be understood as an insulting edit comment, except that the actual insults were replaced by "******". He was then blocked for "insults". The following day, he got into an argument with Floreal, who made personal attacks against him (background note: before and after this, she's made several abusive comments on various users). He responded by an edit which was felt outrageous by a clear majority and was blocked for this for a week. This block has since been extended and is still enforced for reasons stated above.

I don't know who I'm writing this for, but I hope readers will get a clearer view of the events leading to the current situation. _R_ 04:20, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC) (fr:Utilisateur:R)

I think R report is relevant, but not incompatible with my report. R, the issue is not really about why Iz was blocked repeatedly. The issue ultimately is about Iz making legal threats to us. I indicated that I was not very much aware of all the troubles before the legal threats, but I trust the people who took care of it for the decisions they took. I only joined the issue when Iz decided to go legal. Your indications on what occurred before are very precious though as they provide another perspective. Anthere 19:47, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The point not to forget here is that I didn't go legal, but I m banned from all wikimedia projects no matter what, for bad behaviour. I only said I would go legal and I've been very clear about the reason: if no one wants to listen to me about the weaknesses I've found in the french wiki, I had no other choice than to draw attention on those, which I did. Banned means everything anonymous that could be related in any way with something I could have said is deleted, reverted, removed from the fr:wiki, the funny part is that stuff I've added from IP is still there and stuff from friends of mine or other people I don't know has been removed. I've been watching the block logs and I noticed that people are being blocked because they are supposed to be me. I've shown how to use public proxies to edit when you're blocked, so now fr:wiki is blocking public proxies, and at least one regular user is complaining about not being able to contribute anymore. Ever heard of "the most secured door is the one you can let fully open ?". Amazing among all, the GDL has become a copyright on the fr:wiki. I guess Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure? doesn't ring a bell for them. I don't know why I still care, could it be because they don't ? There are times and places where knowing what others don't and trying to share it with them is a severely punished crime, same goes for being different, thinking different, not sure an encyclopaedia is supposed ot be that kind of place though. User:Izwalito

A Question

Do you know where I can find a List of countries by size of military?

Answering questions like this one isn't Jimbo's main job around here. I'm copying your query to Wikipedia:Reference desk#Armed forces, where you have a better chance that someone will tackle it. JamesMLane 05:10, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Help Wikipedia fr

Wikipedia fr has a big problem with the freedom of religion. I wrote several articles on different religious movements. I got harsh response by multiple reverts. There is no discussion only reverts and blocking of the pages after an edit war of reverts. Specially dfficult are teh pages about Science chrétienne=Christian Science and Mary Baker Eddy

my user name in fr.wikipedia.org is Friends--80.135.92.217 10:58, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)


France seems to have a problem with an outbreak of secularism amongst its political leaders. But rather than being simply 'secular' i.e. non-religious, it is actually being manifest in a way that demonstrates antipathy towards religion. This is very interesting because, whilst it is all done in the name of unity, it seems to go against the constitution of the country, i.e. liberty, fraternity and equality. I am not going to cite any examples, for fear of reprisals and increased suppression of religious freedom.

However, in contrast with the slant towards 'uniformity' under the guise of secularism, France itself is full of diverse cultures. The people of France welcome and celebrate diversity and freedom in many forms, from art to music, from sport to opinions and attitudes. French people are kind, loving and generous, and yes, they also have many religious holidays that are recognised by the state. So what is the next step? Banning of religious holidays because they are manifestations of religious differences which only divide? So... rather than being neutral administrators, secularists are forming their own religion, the religion of the state.

Perhaps this a possible explanation for the problems you have been experiencing. Regards (anon) 217.205.243.240 15:16, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

don't make confusion between fr:wiki (wiki francophone) and french wiki (wiki français). fr:wiki does not rely only on France but on any place speaking french (such as Canada, Belgium, ...). However your analysis of France going against its own principles is quite true, and it is quite true too that fr:wiki goes against wikipedia principles (I m Izwalito from the previous msg), but I also noticed that USA are going against their own constitution for quite a time (France is kinda following the american way), and others countries as well. WTF is going wrong with the world ? Anyways back to the subject, the example given by friends is not isolated on the fr:wiki, what to do when you are facing this religion of state as a single contributor ? and what is left to do when the head of state says he's not available and gives his blind trust to state ?
Friends is clearly a POV-pusher. His harsh treatment has a lot more to do with this than with issues of religious freedom. _R_ 04:23, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Maybe. When he said "Wikipedia fr has a big problem with the freedom of religion.", I thought he was talking about freedom of religion! How stupid of me! However, maybe you're right, or also right! User:217.205.243.240 217.205.244.105 14:28, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

All I can say is: look at the articles' history and talk pages and see for yourself. _R_ 15:35, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Autofellatio

hello Jimbo. If you can be bothered, please make a statement on Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Invalid_VFD, I think that the kind of "Jimbo said"-exegesis we are caught in is rather silly, and it seems your opinion on the case would be appreciated. It's about the infamous Image:Autofellatio.jpg again, which is doing another round on WP:IfD. dab (ᛏ) 09:17, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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