User talk:Jimbo Wales

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How do you feel about articles that reveal the plot of books? Doesn't that take away from the creators?

Curious about your opinion about articles revealing all the key plot elements of a book and how it ends, such as in The_Hunger_Games#Plot. Are people less likely to buy a book if they know everything about it? Does it not ruin the surprise and thus enjoyment for those that would later read it? Is there any encyclopedic reason to reveal that information instead of a brief overview of what the book is about? Dream Focus 08:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

See WP:SPOILER. The consensus from past discussions on this issue is that articles should have plot summaries, and that a disclaimer should not be necessary.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:01, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The spoiler policy was introduced through massive abuse of the rules, including using an automated tool to change 20000 articles contrary to principles about not using it for controversial areas. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:26, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't know, some people hate to have plots spoiled and some don't mind. I used to refuse to see a movie if I knew the ending. I even tried to avoid watching trailers for that reason--so I think people who really hate spoilers will probably know to avoid reading the plot sections of our articles. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:11, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

• Formerly (in 2006, as you may recall), WP had "*** SPOILER ***" warnings (now forbidden) in sections where the plot resolutions were revealed (typical in sections named "Summary" or "Plot"). However, the ban on spoiler warnings was naive, because many film/book articles have listed characters described by plot events (such as "became king at the end"), and those should also have posted **SPOILER** tags (now even forbidden in "List of characters"). Meanwhile, the plot-spoiling in many cases has reached the intro line, "This mystery is about 2 mismatched travellers who eventually meet, but one dies on climbing the 3rd mountain, then the other marries someone else anyway". So, you're thinking, How is it that people could spoil the plot in the first sentence? The practice is unfortunate for people who only wanted a vague idea of whether a murder mystery would be fun to read, or the names of actors in the film, not how it ended (and all plot twists) in the first words about it. This whole issue of spoiler-warnings is an area where the quality of book/film articles could be improved to discourage revealing the plot resolutions outside of the "Plot summary" sections. The fantastic benefit about the *SPOILER* warnings (now forbidden) was that they could be put at the very start of an article if the whole article was intentionally written to spoil the plot for all other readers. I, personally, never agreed to ban the spoiler tags, and obviously, they should be reinstated, now that people understand that wp:consensus is about compromise with everyone, rather than rules declared by a majority who responded before the vote was shutdown ruthlessly. So, thank you for asking about this issue, and perhaps Jimbo will have some time to offer advice about how to improve the situation. It is an issue akin to revealing a company's proprietary secrets or an illusionist's techniques, except that the secrets are revealed according to a planned release, rather than not at all. As for writers who want to avoid WP spoiling their stories, it might be necessary to write books in part-1, part-2, part-3 plot installments, because the Internet will not allow secrets to be kept for long. The problem is far beyond the scope of Wikipedia alone. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article about Agatha Christie's 1952 play The Mousetrap has been the subject of enduring debates and edit wars over this issue. It has even been the subject of a New York Times article.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 17:16, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

For those readers who care, the information can be in a show-or-hide box, where it is hidden by default.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh no, they kill Old Yeller behind the barn! Oh no Eli is blind! Oh no, Jesus is crucified! (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 17:34, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

If someone looks up an encyclopedia article on a book or film they have not yet read or seen, then that is their problem, really. Same with those who Tivo television shows; if they go looking on popular entertainment websites before they get around to watching what most of the country has already seen, that's their fault. Tarc (talk) 17:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

A Wikipedia article is not a review intended for someone to read to decide whether to enjoy a work. It's intended to describe the role the work plays in society, its content, structure and impact - for example, it could serve as a starting place for scholars interested in writing about the work. Spoiler warnings make this very difficult, as suddenly editors have to be conscious at every point in the article of whether they're spoiling or not, and contort the structure of the article to condone it off into labelled sections. In brief: this is Wikipedia, not Wikireviews - the latter role is served pretty well already by IMDB. Dcoetzee 17:48, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

While I feel plot details are an important part of articles and am opposed to spoiler warnings feeling that ultimately people have to take care when reading articles on subjects they don't want to know about, your comment is incredibly country(American?)-centric. Broadcast dates for TV series can vary significantly from country to country. On some occasions, even American series are broadcast elsewhere before being broadcast in the US. Depending on local laws and the availability of the TV series in other media, it may not even been possible for people to legally watch a series without doing something stupid like flying to another country to watch it. So while 'most of the country has already seen' something, it hardly surprising if plenty of people in other countries have not. It's still their responsibility to take care when reading, but it's not just people recording stuff causing problems for themselves as you seemed to imply. Nil Einne (talk) 06:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

• What about my original question? Is there any encyclopedic reason to reveal that information instead of a brief overview of what the book is about? It doesn't seem to serve any purpose. That New York Times article has a good example of this problem. Someone hears about a play and wants to know what it is, how long its been around, its reviews, is it worth seeing, etc, but they certainly don't want the mystery ruined by the ending revealed to them. I read news articles about the Hunger Games film based on the book, saw the official Taylor Swift music video for a song she made for the soundtrack, and looked up information to see what it was. I would've rather not have seen the last sentence in the plot section reveal the ending to me. Does ruining the surprise help the article be more encyclopedic? Dream Focus 21:48, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  Completeness is important to an encyclopedia, DF, and readers' ability to enjoy or not enjoy an outside work is, well, outside our purview. Not our job. Our job is to inform, not to tantalize people into consuming media. To go a bit reductio ad absurdum for a moment, if we're not willing to provide complete information on a book because someone might not know the ending, why would Smallpox not also end coyly before informing the reader that global eradication was successful? The ending of the history section there - the fact that humans "won" the "conflict" with the smallpox virus, is as much a spoiler as the ending of The Mousetrap, and probably nearly as many people read that article while not knowing the fate of the smallpox virus as read the article about The Mousetrap without knowing its famous ending. Why would we be willing to provide complete information for one topic (say, medicine), but not another (say, a super-famous play)? A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:59, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  Hopefully most people can see the difference between a complete historical article and one about a work of fiction that doesn't just give out historical data about it along with critical response and whatnot, but instead goes into great detail about its plot. Mentioning the plot in such detail isn't something that has any educational value at all. Dream Focus 22:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  am I the only editor here who finds it absolutely hilarious that this particular editor is championing a threshold of "any educational value at all." be applied to Wikipedia content? -- The Red Pen of Doom 22:01, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

  If we are going to be concerned with any potential loss in profit from "spoilers" appearing here, then we also need to offset the free "advertising" we give from being linked one of the top trafficked websites. -- The Red Pen of Doom 22:21, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

  Endings, obviously, are an important part of most works - especially those where the ending is surprising. My rule of thumb: might a scholarly article on this topic mention this aspect of it? If so, we should discuss it. Dcoetzee 02:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

  "Mentioning the plot in such detail isn't something that has any educational value at all" - be sure to point that out to the students who try to use Wikipedia to study for literature exams. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:47, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

  It's not just students either. I'm sure I'm not the only one who checks out articles and decides they either don't plan to watch/read/whatever the subject or does but doesn't care if they find out about the plot and would find the article woefully incomplete if it doesn't tell them about it. (Or I'm watching something bur decide I don't want to watch to the end and just check out our article.) If you want more detail, the article may not be enough, not the fault of wikipedia, but for a simple overview it should be. To give an example, it would be rather bizzare if Romeo and Juliet doesn't actually describe how they both commit suicide in the end and would clearly fail to inform our readers. In fact, even the discussion mentions it. For something like The Mousetrap mentioned above, or as Dcoetzee mentioned, any surprise ending, the ending itself is usually fairly notable, so failing to mention is a clear failing of wikipedia. (We also get similar complaints with stuff like magic tricks although in that case we often don't have any sourced info on how it's done.) Nil Einne (talk) 06:38, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Why would a scholarly discussion of any work of fiction fail to discuss the climax or ending of that work? Wikipedia is intended to have an educational purpose, not to serve as an advertising medium. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:50, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Being "educational" or not is a very arbitrary or abstract concept particularly in Wikipedia. As long as there's no law preventing we "spoil" the whole plot of the fictional work, whether it damages the work production or its audience or not does not concern us. (I do know that some video game publisher does request video site like Youtube to ban ending spoiler video within a set time-frame. But I suppose it is not law-binding and merely restraints their adv investment to the said site if not complied.) -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 03:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Response to NYT piece on SOPA

I'm sure you've seen the Cary Sherman piece in the NYT. I was discussing it on Slashdot and someone suggested you ought to write a quick response to the NYT piece, specifically the implicit charge that Wikipedians were 'misled' over SOPA/PIPA. As the commenter says on Slashdot, they'd probably publish it. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:18, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, as that piece is nearly a month old now, it seems unnecessary to respond to it directly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:21, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

The misrepresentation in that piece is annoying. We didn't protest for our right to "sell stolen goods" - though copyright is not a workable system in the digital age, and that metaphor should be rejected. We protested for our right to be able to say that there are people selling stolen goods somewhere in plain sight of the police, without being prosecuted in their place. Wnt (talk) 01:15, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

"We did not protest for our license to pirate copyrighted texts". Denial is not just a river in Egypt.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 14:09, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Your post indicates the precise problem -- that is your assertion that copyright is not a workable system in the digital age. I suggest that such is not a quote which one would like the NYT to pick up on, and is absolutely one which Jimbo would be extraordinarily ill-advised to use as an arguemnt in any venue. Wikipedia has far too many copyvios (inder the guise of "fair use" such as in Charles Lindbergh where one editor asserts that "fair use" trumps "copyright" in any case. ("Always there was some new experience, always something interesting going on to make the time spent at Brooks and Kelly one of the banner years in a pilot's life. The training is difficult and rigid but there is none better. A cadet must be willing to forget all other interest in life when he enters the Texas flying schools and he must enter with the intention of devoting every effort and all of the energy during the next 12 months towards a single goal. But when he receives the wings at Kelly a year later he has the satisfaction of knowing that he has graduated from one of the world's finest flying schools." [24] "WE" (p. 125) used as a caption for a picture of the book cover). Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:00, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not the Wikipedia spokesman - I'm sure Jimbo will be more diplomatic, but I have no patience to pretend that copyright can be salvaged in the long term. It can't. Not unless every single computer drive in the cosmos is under the constant and eternal vigilance of the Copyright Police, unhindered by encryption, anonymity, or the risk that someone other than the registered owner is able to pick it up and read something on it. We need to come up with a new way to reward authors that is not infinitely inefficient. I've suggested ideas about that here before. In the meanwhile, I don't think someone who has a search engine or an encyclopedia should have to deal with a constant stream of court orders telling him not to say what people are talking about on the Web. Even by the analogy of theft, it's not the responsibility of the guy owning a bar to stop every customer from saying to the others that there's some guy down by the docks selling stolen jewelry who the police already know about and can't stop themselves. And that's what SOPA was going to force the non-profit organization owning Wikipedia to do - to comply with court orders by hiding edits by individual writers that talk about where some material is available online at sites which are not prosecuted and might not even be illegal according to their local sovereign national authorities. It was censorship, pure and simple, even if you don't count copyright as censorship. Wnt (talk) 17:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

The kickback is going to be that for $500,000 wikipedia sided with those profiting from the sale of counterfeit drugs. John lilburne (talk) 19:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

• FIXED as essay WP:Overquoting: Well, at least I have created a draft essay, WP:Overquoting, to explain problems of quoting sections which are too long. That essay should help reduce borderline copyright infringement, where editors seem obsessed to parrot massive tracts of text into articles. The problem might be an issue of fandom, or perhaps some think that quoting from an expert might be viewed as "more scholarly" or have weighty impact to force ideas into an article. I hope other editors will feel free to expand that essay WP:OVERQUOTE (or any others) with better ideas to reduce the problem. -Wikid77 18:13, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
  • I already added Wikipedia:Quotation#Copyrighted_material_and_fair_use long ago. Dcoetzee 23:36, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
    • • That particular post, however, implies that the limit is generally over 400 words (the claim is that it is an "extreme example" to find that 400 words is a copyright violation). I find such a statement to be a bit improper for Wikipedia, as Wikipedia can be used commercially, and in one commercial copyright case a single sentence was found to be a copyright infringement. Collect (talk) 13:39, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Cite? If the courts have seriously started copyrighting sentences, we don't need another policy, we need another country. Wnt (talk) 22:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Even just phrases -- see [1] Copyright Protection for Short Phrases. Collect (talk) 23:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

People who want a "word limit" before copying becomes copyvio are not going to find one. It's extremely dependent on context. The point of the "400 word" citation was to point out that copying a very small portion of a work (<1%) could still be a copyvio. Please feel free to expand Wikipedia:Quotation#Copyrighted_material_and_fair_use with citations to other relevant case law. Dcoetzee 23:23, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

One defining line is whether the infringement in any way affects the value of the work to the copyright holder. Best practice on Wikipedia is to use nothing which is not of specific value to the article in which the quote is used, and where other wording would not be of use to the article. My response, moreover, was addressed to an editor who seemed predisposed to allow all "fair use" despite this best practice. Collect (talk) 00:22, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Well... copyright is a fine system for the modern age as long as we as a society update it from time to time to keep pace with technology. It would be politically risky for Jimbo or anyone representing an important content organization to argue that the law needs to be changed to facilitate their mission, and in fact the law is just fine as it is. DMCA is part of copyright law, and it gives Wikipedia and other user-submitted content sites the room they need. Sure, Wikipedia hosts a fair amount of copyright infringement, and it is not illegal under the law for Wikipedia to do so. We have our community methods for catching and getting rid of it, and as a backstop there's the notice and takedown provision under DMCA. The essay seems like a good start, but there's no word limit for copyright infringement. AFAIK the 10 words, 10%, and 30 seconds guidelines are completely arbitrary - if anyone knows of a legal basis that would be useful. Anyway, WP:QUOTE has a lot of good stuff, it's well thought out. Although we'd do well to keep a wide margin around copyright infringement and avoid legal grey areas, and overly long quotes are unencyclopedic to boot, I wouldn't be so sure that very long quotations is a copyright violation in the first place. In this order[2] a US district court recently ruled that somebody posting an entire news article to a comment page, with attribution, was protected by fair use. That's on appeal to the 9th circuit, although it's not clear that a ruling will come out. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:35, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Please make images a privilege not a right.

Now I am not super computer savvy but I'm under the impression, which I obtained many years ago, that hosting images costs vastly more than hosting simple text. So when I see something like this, as a donator, I get quite upset. Images don't need to be something that every single article needs. Even a strict or corporatist notability requirement doesn't seem to deter hundreds of relatively unknown bands from making pages full of images. Their only claim to legitimacy seems to be having a few lines about them in different language wikis which I assumed they google translated or being indie/vegan - which to me is a rabid cultish sub-culture that is detrimental to the project as a whole(both inclusion and deletion). I see this as a big problem and my suggestion is to make images a privilege especially for those "15 minutes of fame" articles. Privileges to post an image should either be thru a paid service or certain amount of acclaim. I see mindless deletion of articles as stupid as mindless inclusion of images to this encyclopedia.24.4.67.101 (talk) 09:05, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Christ almighty... Just looked at The Mountain Goats and noticed that a band of marginal notability has its own template listing FORTY NINE child articles. That, IMO, is more of a cause for concern than the amount of images. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 09:26, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Things have moved on since the days of dial-up Internet access and people expect some images in articles. The question of notability for The Mountain Goats is a separate one (I'd never heard of them, but with over 3 million articles this is unsurprising).--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I think what 24.4.67.101 is driving at is that some individuals/organisations may use the Commons and then Wikipedia as venues to distribute images for their own self-promotion - instead of putting up an album on Facebook, they put it on here where it can be seen by (potentially) far more people. We may be at the point now where a Wikipedia article is worth more to a band than a write-up in a major magazine. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 11:44, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

The sources in The Mountain Goats are not strong, and many articles about pop groups have been deleted for this reason. On the issue of excessive data use, a few images are not a problem, but Wikipedia has never been heavily involved in hosting videos because they are much more bandwidth intensive.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Pitchfork search results for Mountain Goats This is actually a great little group. Quirky, narrative-type songwriting, I've enjoyed these guys for years. The Interior (Talk) 15:15, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I hadn't heard of them either, tbh – too busy listening to Grandaddy, who've just reformed! :D For a few shows, at least... Nortonius (talk) 15:20, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Glad to hear it, Sophtware Slump was a great album. The Interior (Talk) 15:28, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand your concern about the images. There are only three in that article, that doesn't seem excessive to me. The notability issues are significant, though - take the article on one of their recent albums, The Life of the World to Come (album). According to that article, it peaked at number 110 in the album charts and the article makes no other assertions of notability. How is that a notable album? I suspect speedy deletion is the correct way to deal with most of the articles about this band. --Tango (talk) 16:01, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Notability is in terms of substantial, third-party coverage (in this case Spin and Pitchfork), not Billboard stats. Please let us not use Billboard stats to determine our music coverage! The Interior (Talk) 16:16, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Those are just reviews. They review pretty much every album released. That doesn't constitute substantial coverage. High positions in the charts or winning major awards are the main ways an album could be notable enough for its own article. If you want to establish notability based on news coverage, you would need much more than just reviews in online music magazines. --Tango (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Spin and Pitchfork review pretty much every album released? That's news to me. [3] is an interview, not a review. The Mountain Goats have played live on national television three times, and six of their songs have been used in two fairly popular television series. They are so far beyond garage band status that this whole section should be archived. 71.212.231.71 (talk) 02:12, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

An awful lot of bands play live on national television and an awful lot of music gets used in television shows. This group may themselves be somewhat notable but that doesn't mean that they warrant FORTY NINE articles! This band exemplifies a wider problem with music articles - the editors who create them seem to think it's acceptable to churn out as many pages as possible, regardless of propriety or quality. The result is that instead of having a single good, informative article there are twenty (or 49) lousy articles that serve no purpose whatsoever except existing (and appearing on "my creations" sections of userpages). ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹^Speak 02:53, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with Tango on the images. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the use of images in that article. The ridiculous number of articles dedicated to the band is another issue though. If the band itself is notable (I wouldn't know), then most articles could probably be merged into a discography child. Resolute 16:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Your impression is many years out of date. Images cost more than text, yes, but they're still cheap. At a guess, I'd say that the three images on that page cost Wikipedia at most a dollar per quarter-million pageviews. --Carnildo (talk) 10:49, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

As an aside, I'll note that the three images on the page total 36 kB (14.3 kB, 9.1 kB, and 12.6 kB), whereas the HTML for the article is more than twice that, clocking in at 82 kB. If we dropped all the images, we'd only be shaving about 30% off the downloaded file size. Most images displayed in our articles are reduced-size and reduced-resolution thumbnails. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Adding images and having them in articles is a privilege. However, downloading all of them in one huge file dump is a fundamental human right. Has Wikimedia Foundation ever fixed whatever problem it is that's been preventing the media downloads from happening for several years? - Wikidemon (talk) 05:40, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Is Jimbo listening?

I haven't seen his name here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.11.71.124 (talk) 04:39, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

You haven't looked closely enough - he does respond here occasionally, and I suspect he reads a lot that he doesn't bother to respond to. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:48, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Every user in Wikimedia has their own freedom to decide if they want to respond to the messages in their talk page. And this is no exception for Jimbo. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 05:06, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

...even when he's been asked directly to respond, regarding issues about which he has expressed concern, so it seems! Nortonius (talk) 10:56, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo is not dead, but he has been quiet in the last few days. If he were dead, his article would have been updated by now:)--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:03, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

"Shout more loudly, for he is a god; either he is conversing, or he has stepped aside, or he is in a journey, or perhaps he sleepeth, and must be awakened." Sorry, couldn't resist.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:15, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

What is it they say in the movies? Something like "it's quiet, too quiet – the natives are restless!" ;op Nortonius (talk) 11:18, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I actually was on vacation last week and did not look at this page much. I do try to read everything here, and I do try to respond to direct inquiries. Often, though, I find that inquiries are well-answered by others and then in those cases I may choose not to respond. It has happened that people have gotten upset about that, thinking that I was ignoring or evading their question, when I was just thinking, oh, the question has already been answered. I try to avoid that but it sometimes happens. In any event, I'm back from vacation now, and should be here on this page quite a bit this week.

[Addendum]: Nortonius, I followed your link but I'm unclear what your question is exactly. I recommend that you start a new discussion here with a precise title, and a precise question, including direct links to any background reading I should be aware of, and avoiding or explaining acronyms as much as possible. You mention, for example, an "NPP Proposal" and discuss policy around IRC, but I'm unsure what you are asking specifically.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:32, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah yes, holidays! I'd forgotten about those. ;o) Did I miss an "out of office" message or something? Sorry if I did. I wasn't so much "upset" as deflated, especially when the thread in question went to archive; I'm still low on steam for all sorts of reasons, however, but thanks for the suggestions, I'll try to work something up if need be.

For now though, a specific question is, would you be inclined to comment at Wikipedia talk:IRC/wikipedia-en-help? Discussion there concerns a perceived need for the live IRC channel "en-help" to be explicitly controlled by the WP community, as opposed to the group who run it, vs. a view that "it ain't broke so don't fix it" (though I don't mean that to be a demeaning characterisation); it was started by Chzz (talk · contribs), who has withdrawn from WP until en-help's relationship with WP is clearly defined, with the WP community in control (that's how I understand it: look at his current talk page). An issue here is that "en-help" is effectively advertised from within WP, for example in numerous, heavily-used "help" templates, even though it seems not to be part of, or controlled from within, WP. Discussion has pretty much ground to a halt, with strong emotions being expressed, and I'm hopeful that a clear contribution from you might give it direction.

The quickest way for me to explain what I mean by "NPP proposal" is to point you to the lead article in this September 2011 edition of The Signpost, which refers to "a heated altercation between English Wikipedia community members and MediaWiki sysadmins". It seems to me that all of these issues are related, indicating a worrying disjuncture between the skills and experience of the voluntary WP community, who are contributing freely to a free encyclopedia, and have their own, empirical understanding of "what really makes WP tick", and the perhaps inevitably more business-minded plans of the WMF; and, I'd like to hear your views on that.

Short of me starting out on a whole new explanation, could I ask you to have another look at the original thread on your talk page (its final form is here, though it sounds like you already found it)? It did grow rather long, but it includes lots of diffs and other links which I would only repeat if I started again here – but feel free to ask for further clarification…? If I can't supply it, I'm sure there are people who can.

I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I were to say that we're talking here about some fundamental issues for the future of WP, as it has to do with satisfaction among WP editors new and old, and new article creation; and, apart from anything else, I imagine that you'll know plenty more about what's gone on and what's being planned than I can, so I'd appreciate your input. Especially since, as far as I am aware, no-one from WMF was inclined to contribute on your talk page in your absence. Thanks for your time. Nortonius (talk) 16:06, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Ok. On the IRC issue, I can say this: I strongly support that all the IRC channels should be firmly under general community control, and I'm happy to take whatever action I can to ensure that this is the case. I also think that the current status quo is not particularly broken, though I could be persuaded otherwise. That latter opinion of mine seems to me to be mostly irrelevant, it isn't up to me to decide lots of micromanagement details about IRC. I think it is within my remit to defend, strongly and using whatever influence I have up to and including contacting the Foundation and Freenode, to ensure that the community has an appropriate voice.

On the NPP issue, wellllll, it's very complicated. I think it unwise for us to continue with a process which has provably failed more than once: software design by committee. That does not mean that the community should not request features and have input, obviously! But in the case of Flagged Revisions, we ended up with a failed-ish design (still supported by a strong majority of the community) and find ourselves in a worse position now largely because we designed the feature by committee and it ended up a horrid Frankenstein's monster. I will study the link to that that you just gave me and see if I have any more useful thoughts!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:16, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Jimbo, much appreciated! :o) Understood about the relevance of your opinions, micromanagement surely is up to those directly involved; understood too about "software by committee", except, as I understand it, the essence of the NPP proposal was a very simple one. I see that Okeyes (WMF) (talk · contribs) has described talk of this as "rehash[ing] old issues", and I mean to respond to that, but I believe the "issue" itself remains pertinent: why else would WMF be developing Wikipedia:New Page Triage? Otherwise, to me, it's all complicated, I've just tried to explain my concerns as best I can, diplomatically, and in hope of getting some movement in the specific areas which I indicated. In the meantime, I look forward to reading of any more useful thoughts you may have. Nortonius (talk) 13:47, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

This just highlights IMO one aspect and reason that editors seem to be fleeing Wikipedia at an unprecedented pace. In the last month we've list more than a dozen experienced and dedicated editors including Bishonen, Chzz, Kumioko (that's over half a million edits between them) and a pile of others. All for slightly different reasons but at the core of it are issues of incivility, equal treatment of editors and a return to the old days when people generally assumed good faith and hadn't yet been mentality of "if I haven't seen them here before then they must be a vandal of some kind" or "I must protect my articles". 71.163.243.232 (talk) 23:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I will agree that if the first thing a new editor encounters is a full-fledged attack from a Wikipedian well conversant with acronyms and who considers the topic protected and theirs, you will not keep that editor long. I am uncertain what the answer is, if such editor has protective friends, especially admins who think WP:INVOLVED is for the peons.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:02, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately it happens all the time here. Even to experienced editors. I have seen several conversation recently regarding entrenched editors running off editors as well as a couple new editors giving up in frustration. There was also a conversation recently from an IP that said they were considering editing but there's just too much drama and incivility and they don't want to get involved in that. I gave up on my username myself and only edit occasionally via IP. I honestly don't know how to turn things around at this point but if things don't change, before long, I fear we are going to read about Wikipedia in the history books. 71.163.243.232 (talk) 12:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo always listens to me. It's why he's such an awesome guy. The most interesting man in the world (talk) 02:28, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I would appriciate your input on this AFD

I may of tagged it to soon but I felt an AFD was warranted here is the article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_products_endorsed_by_Jennifer_Lopez. Thanks TucsonDavidU.S.A. 07:03, 5 March 2012 (UTC),

Never mind don't want to seem like I'm trying to swing the vote on it. TucsonDavidU.S.A. 07:25, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Just because you mention it here doesn't mean we're going to agree with you; in any case, a single strike isn't going to deter us. Wnt (talk) 17:29, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Useful rivendale bikes articles

Rrecent southwest durham blog — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.80.226.88 (talk) 08:43, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

How can I find this out?

How can I find out how many categories there are in Commons? How can I find out how many categories there are in English Wikipedia?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:28, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

commons:Commons:Database reports/Page count by namespace / Wikipedia:Database reports/Page count by namespace - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 12:31, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

(ec)There are now 850,875 categories on the English Wikipedia, including all the uncreated but populated categories (there are many thousands of those) (my count, no database reporrt that lists this apparently). Without the uncreated ones, there are now 824,783 categories on the English Wikipedia[4]. My search for it at least led me to discover that we have many, many cats waiting to be created, and many, many cats in articles waiting to be corrected to an existing one. Yet another thing on my to do list...

Further: there are apparently 1,904,529 categories on Commons[5]. Fram (talk) 12:43, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

How many top level or second level categories? After all "naked children" ought to be enough for most purposes without adding up "naked child standing up", "naked child stitting down", "naked child running", "naked child with legs apart", "naked child being molested (old drawing of)". John lilburne (talk) 13:35, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Putting aside the pejorative nature of this for a moment, "naked children" would clearly not be a top level category either. Wnt (talk) 17:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

I do wish you would stop impugning comments by shoving your own interpretation into them. There was nothing pejorative in the list I gave above. I could equally have exampled "Objects used as sex aids": 'Carrot used as masturbation device', 'Cucumber used as masturbation device', 'Corgette used as masturbation device', 'leek used as masturbation device', "nokia mobile phone used as masturbation device', 'iphone used as masturbation device', 'android phone used as masturbation device', 'toothbrush used as masturbation device', ... 'gerbil used as masturbation device' John lilburne (talk) 19:00, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

While I suspect I agree with whatever point it is that you are trying to make, the point is lost in the rhetorical flourish. Can you give real examples instead of made-up ones?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:08, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

In general the absolute number of categories is uninteresting other than to say "Oh wow we have N categories". As an OOP of some 25 years one always looks to deal with the most general classifications, one is always more interested in is the higher level categories than in the concrete classes. For example if I am looking for Diptera then whether or not there are 240,000 subcategories classifying all the various species isn't interesting other than as a simple numbers game. Similarly if I'm looking for Insects and wish to exclude all Diptera then I don't really care what subcategory or even what other categories an item is in it suffices that one of the parent categories is Diptera. So even if it is a dung fly predating on some other insect that Diptera is a parent of some category is sufficient to eith include or exclude. The categories simply allow me to navigate down to a specific type of image from the more general. And dare I say it if I'm looking for "forefinger" I don't usually want the items on the first page to be those images that in the past have been used as trolling images and as such are in the category "restricted images". John lilburne (talk) 13:17, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

• Top-level rank is somewhat subjective: As noted, the stratifying of categories is not "perfect" and a top-level category could be a category-page which contains no category links in the internal text. However, a redlinked category name has no "internal text" so would have no category links inside and appear to be a top-level category, rather than a sub-category name which was never described with a category-page. Perhaps a typical ratio could be calculated, such as "4% of many categories are top-level" by running statistical samples and counting how many of those were truly intended (redlinks and all) as top-level category names. Beware there seem to be many "categoryholics" who can put 9 items into 27 subcategories, as there is no physical limit to stereotyping or categorizing items into a billion invented categories. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:32, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

English Wikipedia has Wikipedia:WikiProject Categories, whose members are especially qualified to answer questions about categories in English Wikipedia.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:08, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

User:MZMcBride has or can create a report that shows the uncreated but populated categories. This would probably be a good bot task too IMO. Rich Farmbrough was doing this but I don't know if he still is or not. I also think that there are too many categories with few articles in them. I would recommend that we avoid categories with less than 5 articles. There are a lot of categories with zero or 1 in them that have been created also that can probably be cleaned up. Some are needed such as WikiProject Maintenance categories but there are a lot that have zoos by city or buildings byt city or county, that I think are not needed. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 13:49, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I hope you mean that the creation of the report would be a good bot task; the creation of the cats needs to be done manually or semi-manually, as many uncreated but populated cats are due to misspellings or indeed need to be upped to an existing parent category. On the other hand, many very small categories are part of a series of cats (e.g. a topic by country), and then you will nearly always get a mix of larger with very small categories, which isn't a bad thing. Fram (talk) 13:52, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Good points, I do think that some of the cats can be created automatically but until the report is created and reviewed its hard to tell if that would be a good solution so you have a good point there. On the removal of underutilized categories. I agree that in some cases that cats are useful, especially if its just a matter of the cat not being utilized. If its something like Zoos by state and then city though, for example, I don't think there is value personally, in most cases for creating a city level category when there will almost never be more than 1 or 2. In cases like this a state level (thats fifty categories right there) is sufficient. Again, just my opinion though based on something I also saw recently. I think we are starting to veer a little off topic though. Sorry I just realized it sounded very much like I was the IP above but I wanted to clarify that I also noticed the Zoo thing recently and concur it seems silly. I'm new so you'll have to fogive the lack of ettiquette and protocal. ShmuckatellieJoe (talk) 15:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Welcome! You shouldn't mind the protocol too much: as long as you are civil and have some patience in case of disagreements, you usually won't run into trouble here (i.e. on Wikipedia, not specifically this page). I generally agree with your points, but e.g. a category "Zoos in Luxemburg" is not so easy to move to a higher level as is "Zoos in Sacramento, Ca." (fictional example, haven't checked if either exists). This makes it harder to create general rules for this (and gives some unfair "advantage" to small countries, but that can't always be helped either). Fram (talk) 15:42, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks and althuogh I have seen a lot of discussions and evidence that would seem contrary to Wikipedia being friendly I am trying to keep my head down and and avoiding conflict. I sort of agree. For example Zoos in Washington DC only has 1 article but it would be hard to move it a level up. Zoos in Minnesota though for example is a bit of a different story for me. I see your point though. ShmuckatellieJoe (talk) 16:08, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

You are right that many corners of Wikipedia aren't really friendly, but in general, if you remain if not friendly then at least civil, and if you are willing to listen to advice, then even if some nastiness comes your way, most people will see that you aren't the problem or cause of it, and will try to protect you from it. It doesn't always work this way, and friendly, hard working, well meaning editors do get chased of by more unscrupulous ones, but this should be the exception, not the general rule around here. Of course, the more controversial the topic, the more heated the tempers often get... Fram (talk) 16:18, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Yay database reports! --MZMcBride (talk) 05:11, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Cluster search proposal

Is there any chance we can have a developer look at Niabot's cluster search proposal, please? JN466 00:15, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

hey new to board

Hey i am sam from pakistan i am new to this board hope i will particapte alot here sorry for bad english . :) Peace — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.214.169.123 (talk) 12:16, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

You might want to see this

Sir, I thought you might want to see this. It popped up on the India Mailing list. Pure Fiction. Do let me know what you think. -_Rsrikanth05 (talk) 05:34, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

This is really a very sad story. Although I joined in 2011, I used Wikipedia for over 7 years. Dipankan says.. ^{("Edit count do not matter")} 05:55, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, my main editing started around the time, he left. He was a guru to us, an inspiration. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 06:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunate, to say the least.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

This issue should be properly investigated/clarified. What do you think about this and this off-wiki comment? (Please, note the on-wiki diffs). --Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 11:04, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

• Paid-editing raises many suspicions: Suspicions are justified, when considering the long-standing tradition of (credentialed) judges as recusing themselves in cases involving a conflict of interest (COI). If court judges, who are professionally trained in objectivity and rules of evidence, feel compelled to avoid conflict-of-interest decisions, imagine the difficulty faced by any paid editor to be truly objective in writing about topics which might not even get articles (by anyone else) for years, if the paid editor did not POV-push the topic into view as a set of articles. It is sad for someone to try to ignore those problems of reality and wp:wikifinagle multiple accounts to pretend they are not paid editors. Maybe there should be some process to rehabilitate editors from ethical pitfalls, so that they do not imagine a criminal mentality, violating every rule, as being the only solution (it is not). Remember, even some former wiki-vandals have repented and become active anti-vandalism editors on English Wikipedia. Perhaps the moral of this story should be: "Get a regular job". -Wikid77 (talk) 16:09, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

• Let's talk about this particular case. I asked User:Tinucherian (who commented on this before) on his talk. Among other things he wrote: "Nobody wants to fight this case. The alleged institution (Indian_Institute_of_Planning_and_Management) has an infamous history of suing individuals for insane amounts, that too at the courts in the remotest parts of the nation." What does that mean to us? Should we fear the IIPM and let them do what they want? ... I don't want to accuse anyone of anything, but I don't like this story and the diffs provided. Vejvančický (talk | contribs) 17:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I was pointed to these posts by Vejvančický. Quite a read, whatever has been written. With respect to Nichalp or paid editing, it'll be good to have some investigation, if not for anything else but to weed out CoI editing (both positive and negative) from our project. As far as the institutional page mentioned above goes, I can't make out the clear issue. I haven't noticed anyone in the noted thread ever contributing to the article. I remember once when I left a comment on the talk page of the article, I didn't get a response for almost a year. The wait is almost similar even now. Rather than worry about alleged issues, it'll be good to have constructive editors contributing and making the said article a good article than argue in back-channels. As for the other issues, I'll surely welcome and forward any assistance required and also appreciate punitive action against attempted outing. Tinu Cherian (mentioned above) is a respected editor, so his views should matter. I noticed that he recently claimed on Twitter that he had been served a legal notice from the above mentioned institution because he apparently posted a screenshot claiming the head of the institution was a fraud. Then he entered into a Twitter slanging match with an expatriate girl-student of the institution, who apparently told him that after his comments against her, she'll approach Arbcom at Wikipedia to complain about him. Then some bloggers questioned Tinu Cherian why he was targeting the institution as they found it suspicious - to which he (I think) posted an elongated justification on the net. Then suddenly he did a volte face and said that perhaps the legal notice that he received was not from the institution. I'm not sure about the exact sequence of events but this is what I could gather. Rsrikanth05 who started this thread, was also recently pulled up for canvassing on Twitter during a respected editor's RfA in which he was the nominator (the RFA thankfully passed, without getting affected by Rsrikanth05's canvassing as Rsrikanth05 accepted the said canvassing and apologized appropriately). One of the editors that he had canvassed to on Twitter was Tinu Cherian. And the editor whose RfA Rsrikanth05 nominated was User:MikeLynch (a self-disclosed alias for an Indian name), who has for example 400 plus edits to an article like R.V. College of Engineering. Moving further, I think that this discussion can be taken up by Arbcom if they feel it's appropriate (although I doubt that they would), than continue in disparate threads. I would have really appreciated if the concerned editors like Tinu Cherian etc above had informed me in advance (like at least Vejvančický did the moment he found the thread) than continue discussions on their own for so long through off wiki channels. It would have led to an earlier resolution of this issue. Please feel free to contact me on my talk page for any support or assistance that you may feel is required of/from me. Kind regards. Wifione ^Message 05:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

MY sole intention of bringing this up here was to highlight the mud slinging done against a respected, reputed syspo, WifiOne. I do not understand why mine and Tinu Cherian's twitter accounts keep getting dragged in. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 09:40, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

How many articles will Wikipedia have in the future?

I don't know if it's been discussed before (probably has), but do you think it will ever get to a billion articles? Can we maintain enough editors to maintain a billion articles? Richard-of-Earth (talk) 08:07, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

The English language Wikipedia currently has around 3.86 million articles, and a billion is generally taken to be 1000 million, so there is quite a gap.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:10, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't personally think that we will ever get to a billion but I think that 100 million is probably possible. I heard recently that if you include all articles from all pedia's its something like 25 million now. When you consider that China and India have a billion people each and have been around a lot longer (thousands of years of culture each) and that the English Wikipedia seems to currently be mostly US related info, I think there is a good chance to get a lot more articles if we start gaining momentum in some of these other countries. Thats just my opinion though and I have only been editing for a week. On the second half of the question, unless things change, we can barely maintain the ones we have with the current number of editors. ShmuckatellieJoe (talk) 14:55, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Here's how to get to a billion. 4 million per language times 250 languages.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:23, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer and everyone's elses as well. It makes for good reading. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 20:45, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Histogram of projected growth in English Wikipedia, as new-article count per month each year.

• Long-term deletions seem to offset new articles: The logistical limit seems to be about 10-15 million articles per language. The most-likely scenario for Wikipedia growth will reach a period of "steady state" activity, where the net total of new articles created every day will be offset by deletions (or mergers) of older articles. See essay: "WP:Modelling Wikipedia extended growth". Currently, the growth of new articles has slowed from over 1,800 per day (in 2006), to less than 900 added each day in 2011. Meanwhile, long-term analysis of older articles finds topics which should be merged such as when "427 Pokemon articles" became a few dozen articles, or 9,087 soap-opera characters would get merged into a few lists of "minor characters" for each TV show. The logistical delay of deleting older articles, of marginal notability, leads to a long-term trend of eventually deleting many older articles to offset the growth in new articles. The long-term result would be a steady-state effect of almost zero growth, most likely an actual fluctuation of up/down periods, where sometimes more net articles would be deleted (merged) per day, then other times, more articles would be added each day, as a net total per day. Couple that activity with "re-creation wars" of numerous articles re-added each day when additional sources justified "individual notability" for the re-added articles. However, many of us might not live to see that era of steady-state Wikipedia growth, perhaps after year 2045. Again, the reason the growth would appear to halt would be caused by the backlog in cleanup delay for deleting or merging hundreds of the marginal articles per day, years after they had been created. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:00, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

If deletions/mergers are the likely fates of many existing articles then isn't it time-wasting to continue creating/expanding/improving new articles? It's the gungho deletionists which cause many editors to quit the project in frustration more than anything else.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:05, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately the same fate seems to be applicable to User accounts as well. Not counting vandals, we seem to be losing active contributors at a rate faster than we can replace them with new ones. I'm not talking about the accounts that do one or 2 edits and leave but the ones that stay and participate actively. Those are what we need to keep this place running. I think there are a multitude of reasons for this but civility is certainly among them as is the decreasing number of articles to be created. Additionally, it seems that some of our well intentioned policies sometimes gets in the way of common sense. For example if a user gets disgruntled and leaves and then creates another account to edit, then that account gets blocked as a sockpuppet or whatever (eventhough they are contributing positively) then that seems counter productive. This just happened a couple times recently and seemed a little strange to me. I don't think that any one thing is the magic button that will fix these things but there are several that need to be adjusted or redefined at the same time. ShmuckatellieJoe (talk) 17:22, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

• To avoid deletionists perhaps update mostly the major articles, where "Plato's Republic" needs extra text to clarify concepts for younger readers, or "Aswan High Dam" needs conversions for feet/metres or water-flow rates, or "Transistors" could explain why they changed the world, or "Fermat's Last Theorem" needs an explanation of why it took so many years to find a proof, etc. Think about explaining the major topics, with 6 W's (who, what, when, where, why and how) to new readers of English (or translate to a favorite 2nd language), then Wikipedia will seem magnificent for many years. Fighting over wp:Notability of new topics, to be deleted, is a way to be demoralized every day. Thanks for fighting, but rotate back behind the front lines for a while, into the Cathedral of Knowledge. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:33/20:04, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

• I am a deletionist. The delete votes I have cast recently, and AfDs I have started recently, are based on a strong belief that Wiki has too many articles which are simply not notable enough to be here. Wiki is not a repository for all random pieces of information to be stored. Wiki is not here for every niche interest to be covered in absolute trivial detail. We should focus on what we do well and do it better - be it local cuisine or important battles or parliamentary constituencies - and be far stricter in taking out what we shouldn't store at all - lists of perfumes advertised by J-Lo, would you believe. Deletionists are here to keep a check on the excess of trivia. doktorb _words^deeds 17:39, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I read on here recently and tend to agree that, notibility is subjective and should not, in itself, be the sole criteria to delete an article. I also think that your statement is a pretty obvious POV, which is ok, but also is an example of an extreme that IMO should probably be avoided in Wikipedia. BTW, I mean no offense by that, I only mean that we should not be deleting every article just because we individually don't think its notable. ShmuckatellieJoe (talk) 17:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

What "we do well" is to create - and reward - lots of new articles on trivia. (I'm as guilty as most other people - I do it because it's fun.) What we do very poorly is to improve the content of important articles. The difficulty is in translating the effort that people put into "their own" new articles into collaborative effort on major improvements to important, well trafficked, articles - and that seems almost impossible to achieve. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:03, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

• The world defines notability: In many cases, wp:Notability is determined by the world's attention span for a topic. So, if the world obsessed that, somehow, JLo's focus on perfumes had revolutionized some aspect of commerce, then that list of perfumes might generate a whole article about JLo's impact on commerce. For example, Cabbage Patch Dolls and the annual "trendy gift" for U.S. Christmas presents. Also compare the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill to the initial Macondo blowout oil-rig explosion that killed more people than most campus shootings: 2 separate events, because the underwater oil gusher could not be easily stopped after the initial explosion. That is why Whitney Houston's rendition of song "I Will Always Love You" is notable as being the top-selling recording by a female artist, even though the song was just one part in a list of Dolly Parton's songwriting efforts. -Wikid77 20:04, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Thats true, my only point was that, for instance, some might consider Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office to lack notability while others would feel the same about a multitude of other topics such as International football (soccer) players, Medal of Honor recipients, Pornstars, Flute players, High schools, etc. My opinion is that we should allow some flexibility in the notability criteria if sufficient references are available and perhaps based on some other criteria such as article activity, the amount of hits the article has (if that can even be determined), etc.. I do agree that there are limits to this argument and that not every conceivable topic (such as the average military veteran, police officer, Youtube videos of some kid dressed up as Darth Vader or singing horribly some song they like, etc.) has an article though. ShmuckatellieJoe (talk) 20:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

See User:Emijrp/All human knowledge.—Wavelength (talk) 17:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I first started editing at Wikipedia almost four years ago. What struck me then was the plethora of articles on cartoon characters, porn stars, various sexual acts, songs, relatively unknown entertainers and talk show presenters; yet missing articles on notable historical people, places, events, etc. IMO, this is one of Wikipedia's weaknesses. There are plenty of Wiki-Projects. The respective members need to work together to determine which particular articles should be expanded, improved, or indeed created. Some red links have been on articles for years.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:21, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I think reaching 1billion articles [notable ones] is no big deal. We need to concentrate on Quality, not Quantity. --Rsrikanth05 (talk) 09:45, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I started editing about four or five years ago too, and I have to admit that I never looked for the "articles on cartoon characters, porn stars, various sexual acts, songs, relatively unknown entertainers and talk show presenters" So, I have not taken any notice of them; perhaps, the sum of all human knowledge is what the user makes of it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:08, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Reply to Jeanne. I am just an IP editor (I was about to create an account but then I saw the Kumioko/WikiProject United States situation and decided against it) but I partially agree with you. Unfortunately, a lot of WikiProjects are no better than an inactive shell and efforts by editors to revive them, most recently Kumioko, are frequently met with strong opposition, article ownership and folks with their own agendas. This seems to happen over and over from what I have seen and read and when this is seen by others, although they might sign up to a project as a participant, don't want to get involved in the drama and constant bickering. IMO this is one of the prime reasons (of course not the only one) that WikiProjects frequently fail and go inactive because the members of the project are not allowed to decide things like what articles they want to add to the project, what priorities are, scope of the project , etc. So just because there are a lot of projects, few are truly active enough to really do much. Just my opinion but with rare exception (such as Biography and Military History) this trend seems to be repeated over and over. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 14:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Tony Blair Faith Foundation

I just posted to the talk page of the article with some edit requests from someone at the organization. The edits seem to be reasonable and the person who contacted me seems very interested in doing the right thing, and so I hope some kind people will help them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:43, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure the community will; however as I have noted on the talk page of the article, their hopes or desires for content are utterly irrelevant. Editorial consensus of what is or is not valuable in the article is what counts. Pedro :  Chat  20:40, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, you could probably have expressed that a bit more politely :S --Errant ^(chat!) 10:44, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Agree. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree, and would like us to discuss it further, but without reference to Pedro and this particular remark, since it's pretty minor. What I'm interested in is thinking about how to encourage a reduction in the "chip on the shoulder" hostility towards people who are trying to do the right thing. We want people to be transparent, open, and honest with us. We want to encourage people to engage in a good faith dialog with us. We want people with COI to generally avoid editing articles directly, but to ask for changes to be made. But unless we are kind and welcoming, and thank them for opening the dialog, they may just feel, "Good grief, I could have just created a throwaway account and made the changes myself, and no one would have noticed, and I wouldn't be subjected to this abuse."--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:42, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

The TBFF seems to resemble the United Religions Initiative (URI) in not distinguishing between true (God-made) religion and false (human-made) religion. If the TBFF does assert that distinction, or if the URI does, or if both do, then it might be possible to clarify that in one or both of the corresponding articles.

(Here are two rhetorical questions: If there is no God, and if all religion is human-made, then how does religion differ from philosophy? If there is a God, and if there is one true God-made religion, then how does it differ from other religions?—http://mlbible.com/ephesians/4-5.htm; http://mlbible.com/1_thessalonians/2-13.htm)

—Wavelength (talk) 17:24, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Strategic watchlist

I have prepared a list of items which I recommend for inclusion in every Wikipedian’s watchlist, so that everyone can follow important discussions and avoid disappointment. I might just as well have titled this section “Essential watchlist” or “Watchlist essentials” or “Watchlist recommendations”. To this list can be added entries from Wikipedia:Database reports/Most-watched users. Someone recently expressed disappointment at not being notified of SOPA and the blackout discussion, but I was informed because I had this talk page on my watchlist. I have not started a page called Wikipedia:Strategic watchlist, because consensus for its contents might be difficult to achieve.

Even if an editor seldom or never visits a particular page on that list, there might be an occasional opportunity for that editor to be helped or to help another editor because of a particular discussion. As always, section headings that are both brief and informative help an editor to decide whether to visit the discussion from his or her watchlist. If I see a section heading “Question” or “Arbitrary break” on my watchlist, I am usually not much motivated to click to find out whether the discussion is of much interest to me.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:37, 6 March 2012 (UTC) and 22:52, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Wow, that's a big list.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:17, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Way, way too big. Things like Wikipedia:Wiki Guides are even historical pages. And why would I want to have e.g. Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts on my watchlist? I may need that page occasionally (I never did so far, but anyway), but the chance that it will then be changed in the last three days (and thus visible on my watchlist) is minimal. So having it on my watchlist will not help me "being helped". Could it be of use for me to help someone else? Doubtful, since I don't even use them myself.

The same comments apply to many of these pages and to most of our editors. On the other hand, while you include some essays, some more obvious pages are missing, including Wikipedia:Five pillars, Wikipedia:Be bold, Wikipedia:Notability, Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and so on. I see no real value in trying to create such a list as part of the watchlist, it is more useful as part of a welcome template or something similar. Fram (talk) 14:34, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that there are a lot of good things to have on here like most of the Village pumps but I don't think the brand new editors need Village pump technical, Database reports, some of the Main page subpage and the like. I do agree that having a basic starter list would be very helpful to new users though so I agree with the suggestion in concept just not the final list. I think we should narrow it to less than 20 pages, maybe even 10. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 14:48, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Fram, for your constructive criticism. After reading it, I have added those five pages to my watchlist. I previously omitted them, probably because I assumed that they were quite stable and not subject to much discussion. Incidentally, a list of watchlist recommendations is different from a list of page reading recommendations.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:18, 7 March 2012 (UTC) and 19:43, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Deletion

[[6]] Kittybrewster ☎ 10:22, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

This would never have been an issue if Caroline Spelman had not applied for a court injunction .[7] There are no legal issues here, but it clearly fails BLP1E.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 10:37, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, good call. Looks like the discussion is going the right way.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:12, 7 March 2012 (UTC)