User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Verifiablility not truth proposals are back again.

See Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability.

And there's still people arguing that if a secondary source says a phrase was first used in 1947, and we find a primary source that used it in 1945, we must keep the secondary source. Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Ken, thank you for bringing that sort of example to my attention. It's a good one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

And now one person is saying "I didn't mean it that way, what I meant is that we shouldn't include either date". But there are also references to another person who actually does mean it, in a case where the secondary source says 1909 and primary sources are from before 1909. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

That VNT issue is going to be in eternal Purgatory unless the WMF does something about it. It's not like we don't actually have a good policy wording about that issue in WP:OR. We do: "Appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, and these are general rules. Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate on any given occasion is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, and should be discussed on article talk pages." ¶ It's just that VNT is now a cheap beer advert that's distorting Wikipedia's core mission. WP:5P layers NPOV on top of V and of OR as the real content goal. And IAR is parallel to NPOV. One can't possibly claim that writing an article according to a rigid set rules "this type of source always beats that other type and VNT is supreme" is actually based on 5P. But VNT has come to represent the transcription-monkey and for-dummies rule-set approach to writing articles. It's damaging both internally in terms of the enormous waste time around itself and its misapplication, and externally in terms of misrepresenting Wikipedia's goals and machinery. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:47, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I have to chime in and second this. I understand the VNT principle is to keep WP grounded in reality and not people delusions of what the "truth" is. But sources that meet WP:V and even WP:RS can also be deluded, sometimes about things that are obvious/common knowledge. So in such circumstances, do we put what every reasonable person knows to be the case, or what some outlandish source says, that is somehow not WP:FRINGE. I've argued before that at some point there needs to be a bar set - a threshold / standard of sanity, for inculsion, that in the ultimate calculation can only determined by thoughtful, common sense editors, using their brains and WP:IAR where appropriate rather than blindly following some dogma to the letter but not the spirit. i loath the day when wikipedia becomes nothing more than a simulacrum of simulacra. we can do better than that. things like WP:FRINGE and article talk boilerplates and FAQs have often been the saving grace, but that's not always the case and there remain many instances of buried treasure and the like that will remain presumably until a very small select few editors very stubbornly and dogmatically applying VNT and some convoluted policies they made up themselves but think they didn't -- expire. things like that are very frustrating to everyone. and i think having improving on that core philosophical idea of what an encyclopedia is and how it works -- something a bit more discursive than just VNT -- can go a long way in alleviating those kinds of problems. Kevin Baas^talk 20:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Agree too. How the recent poll, in which over 400 editors participated, with close to two-thirds (276 vs. 149) supporting, came to be closed as no consensus and no change will always remain something of a mystery to me. --JN466 23:12, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I think that close was in error. It applied the wrong principle. It is not necessary to have 2/3rds majority to make a change to a policy page. It's valuable to avoid voting as much as possible and actually let the wiki process work, i.e. consecutive edits by people of good faith seeking a compromise that takes into account to the maximum degree possible the valid arguments on all sides. When we vote, we end up with this sort of absurdity, i.e. that we have a policy that a very strong majority of people don't approve of, to which there are perfectly valid objections which are not being answered. It's wrong.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I once saw an MfD with something like 80-90% in favor of keep, but the closing admin closed it as a delete because though those in favor of deletion had stronger arguments. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:35, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

That can be ok, of course. Obviously an admin better have a really good reason, and ought to expect people to challenge it and question why. In a case like this, though, the close didn't take a side, it just said "no consensus". And there are thoughtful people with thoughtful arguments on both sides of this question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:33, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

As one of the closing admins, I did look at the numbers first of all and thought it was a clear situation. Indeed, when I first saw HJ's conclusions, I voiced my concern that a no consensus was not the right decision. But after reading the votes - a very large proportion of the supporters either supported with provisos or stated that they didn't like it, but vaguely preferred it to what we currently have.

When I weighed up the arguments behind the votes, it was clear to me that there wasn't consensus for that specific proposal to be enacted, but there was a very strong belief that something had to change. I'm confident that something will change on WP:V and soon.

Wikipedia isn't a democracy. We don't work by pure numbers, we work by consensus. There's an argument that consensus doesn't scale - I don't agree with it, but it's a valid argument. Perhaps we should have a different way of changing policy, but that doesn't mean that closes made under the current system were in error. Worm^TT · (talk) 16:31, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

There's another example at BLP. It doesn't sound like it until you think about it.

[[1]]: BLP subject's wife says "I can send you a marriage license or birth certificate which demonstrates that your article has the wrong name in it."

The reply: "Sorry, we need a secondary source for that". It's actually another case of VnT misuse--it doesn't explicitly invoke VnT, but the idea is still that we cannot prove that a currently-used secondary source is wrong by using a primary source, which is what a lot of VnT misuses boil down to. Ken Arromdee (talk) 06:49, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I have a cunning plan...

I decided to write this ditty
For I have a plan (tis pretty)
But sadly my verse is shitty
Neither well formed nor witty
So I will start again... Dear Jimmy:

Here's my plan. Wikimedia foundation buys subscriptions to various academic journals on behalf of Wikipedia editors (as a group).

Certain editors are approved to use these subscriptions. Admins automatically, plus other users who have specific plans for them - I don't think the permission should be granted automatically, but by a process similar to RFA. The presumption should be in favour of users being given access.

Then you have a check in/check out system. Basically a user in said journal using category can "check out" a subscription to a journal, and use it either until they check it back in, or till it expires after 4 hours or something. In this way, not many subscriptions would be needed.

This will aid enormously with sourcing and research. It will be relatively cheap. I don't really see any downsides (until you put the journals out of business!) - what do you think? Egg Centric 17:13, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

It won't be cheap, Egg. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 08:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

That rather depends on what one means by cheap. I expect that an alpha version of this could be done for something in the reason of £10k a month. Now, while you or I would have considerable difficulty (or at least I would - you may have won the Euromillions last week ) in coming up with that sort of cash and carrying on our lives as normal, it could certainly be done by the foundation. Or perhaps Pearson or someone would like to sponsor it... Egg Centric 12:41, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Individual subscriptions can't legally be rotated like this (unless WMF works out a special arrangement with the journal, which is possible but seems unlikely). The closest real-world alternative would be an institutional subscription. These subscriptions are not cheap but from my understanding of WMF finances they could afford institutional subscriptions to a selection the top journals, if they consider the idea worthwhile. I'm not convinced myself, since it's possible for most folks to get access through libraries and such. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:36, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Do you realize that academic publishers will never give out this kind of group subscription which is obviously going to devalue their copyrights? ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 20:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Publishers are profit-driven businesses. I'm sure a creative deal could be worked out. Somebody with recent university library experience would be ideal to negotiate on our behalf. Boris, my local med library has all but ceased buying in hard copies of journals and textbooks. They allow visitors to access but not borrow their hard copies, and visitors can access some of their subscribed online journals, but no textbooks. This is now beginning to seriously impact my ability to edit medical articles. And not having to travel across town to check a source would be fantastic.

All the content we want for turbocharging scholarly article-writing is sitting there, a few key-strokes away, just waiting for someone with authority, charm and creativity to open negotiations. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 23:44, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I've made similar suggestions in the past. The fact is that each citation of a scholarly paper in Wikipedia actually drives traffic to the paper's publisher; it's a win-win. See Casper Grathwohl's comments about traffic to Grove Music Online (a site by Oxford University Press) here. --JN466 09:23, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Yep. The heightened likelihood of us linking to their text and driving traffic to them should help in the negotiation. They won't just give it to us, and it won't be cheap. It's a significant budget item for tertiary institutions. However, it would multiply my output by a factor of five or ten, and make the work much more satisfying. You can get off-the-shelf ebook library services that just plug into your institution website. The two universities I patronise (ECU and UWA) use Ebook library and there are several others. As for journal access, if we're going to do this, we might as well subscribe to the same package of journals that top level universities subscribe to. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:44, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Declining number of editors and donations

Here are some reasons for the declining number of editors, and for the difficulty in getting enough small donations each year without longer and longer fundraising periods:

The lack of enough moderators and arbitrators drives away editors and donations. More info.

Non-admin closures of articles and categories drive away editors and donations. See also.

Rude or speedy deletions of articles and categories drive away editors and donations. See also.

User:Timeshifter/Userboxes

One thing that may change things over time is more community understanding of these problems. Hopefully, more community understanding will generate more support for change to occur. Userboxes are one way to help initiate discussion. --Timeshifter (talk) 15:39, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm intrigued by the 2nd userbox. How exactly do non-admin closures drive people away from the project? Wouldn't they have no impact because non-admins can't close deletion or category discussions as delete? I would have thought deletion would be more likely to scare people away than closing a discussion as "keep" or "merge", or have I completely misunderstood? --Mrmatiko (talk) 16:43, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

More to the point, these userboxes seem to be expressing opinion as fact. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow. That's the first time I think anyone has suggested that having hundreds of arbitrators would be a positive change. Risker (talk) 16:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand the first box, but the 2nd and 3rd are spot-on. We could add the tolerance of incivility from the regulars. Yopienso (talk) 17:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I will keep that in mind the next time I delete articles such as Allah and his jews, Justin Bieber Sucks, Wikipedia:Jack off, or my favorite, John R. Niggerlover. --MuZemike 17:40, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I am always fascinated by the idea that new editor retention is the fault of New Page Patrollers. It isn't our fault that newbies create articles that look like shit, and it's not our fault that someone chose to write about their kindergartener or spam their resume 9 times (I am not making these examples up). At my RfA, people commented on the fact that I was the first NPP admin candidate in a long time, and that my kind is a dying breed; when you're on the receiving end of the comments that we're baby-mutilating deletionists responsible for most or all of our editor retention problems, it's not exactly surprising. Of the very few who stick with it, most of us either never become admins after we lose it once or twice or we eventually leave Wikipedia. It happens that I like being here enough that I can put up with it (there are a few things that make all the downsides more than worth it), but I'm sick of people who've clearly never done NPP bitching about how evil we are. I've said as much to Sue Gardner (not my most tactful moment, but it got the message across), and though I and a few other users came up with a solution, it wasn't implemented, so we were left with the status quo; what else do you want us to do? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:15, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

The Blade, please review this advice. I find your comment, "It isn't our fault that newbies create articles that look like shit," as failure to uphold the fourth pillar. Yopienso (talk) 02:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

It's simply WP:SPADE. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:31, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

It's borne of a year and a half of witnessing the same story replay itself; I know it's not the nicest way of putting it, but I've found in that people don't take it seriously if I don't use a little extra emphasis every once in a while. And while I try very hard to assume good faith with people who are merely misguided (although even that wears on you after a while; if you don't believe me, tell me how you feel after cleaning up the 10th Indian/Pakistani village article you see), people like this or this (the article was mistagged A7 at first, it was a rather vicious attack page) don't need anything but a swift block and a template showing them out the door. In addition, as is apparent from my comments in other fora, I'm still unhappy about the outcome of this, which would have alleviated much of the problem. Instead of having that since August or September, we're spinning our wheels looking for a more complex, harder to implement solution. If I sound extremely frustrated about this issue, it's because I am, and while I'm all for civility experienced editors need to vent too sometimes. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the specific number of "hundreds" is somehow strange, but a faster and more efficient resolution of arbitration cases will certainly be benefitial. FkpCascais (talk) 18:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I too agree that 2 and 3 are valid. Add to this the distasteful RFA process, the bitey attitude of many of our editors, the assumptions of bad faith of good faith, etc. It tries the nerves of many editors. Not to mention the massive IP blocks that are in place including the one blocking the IP series of the entire Department of the Navy including the Marine Corps. --Kumioko (talk) 18:24, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm with The Blade on this one, of course; I'm still surprised he passed RfA, given some folks' attitude to those of us hardened enough to actually do NPP (a/k/a "drinking from the Magic Firehose of Sewage"). Could someboy create a userbox that says, Blunt or speedy deletion of worthless articles and categories drives away spammers, cranks and vandals? --Orange Mike | Talk 20:05, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I am also. Nice to see we have at least one Admin who came up through NPP. I think good editors are driven away by bad editors (in my experience at least). Dougweller (talk) 20:33, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

True. To dig up Jimbo's old metaphor: just because we don't cage people in in our restaurant doesn't mean we are obligated to let them go on rampage if and when they pick up the knife. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 20:41, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Err... have you looked at the donation-statistics over the years? 2007: $1.5m, 2008: $4.7m, 2009: $8.5m, 2010: $14.5m, 2011: $18m... Doesn't exactly look like there's something "driven away," does it? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 18:27, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

According to their latest financial report WMF has cash and investments on hand of about $17M, roughly equal to a full year of expenses. And contributions exceeded expenses by a very comfortable margin (about $23M and $18M, respectively). So the argument that contributors are being driven away is untenable in both relative and absolute terms. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 18:43, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Active editors over time.

Thanks, you two, for the stats. This article has a timeline chart of active editors over the years: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-12-26/Opinion essay. This table has monthly page views for Wikipedia over years: Page Views for Wikimedia, All Projects, All Platforms, Normalizeds. Here are fundraiser stats over years: Fundraiser statistics - Wikimedia Foundation. It looks like the total monthly page views for all Wikimedia projects in all languages has almost doubled in around 4 years. Pages now have more images, audio, and video. People viewing Wikimedia pages are more widely dispersed. This wider distribution of the viewership increases server, hosting, maintenance, and staffing costs beyond just the number of page views. More and more video hosted on Wikimedia servers add a considerable burden to the system over time due to the high bandwidth needed for video.

We need a lot more money for all the Wikimedia projects in all the languages. It seems like we never have the money to develop global, integrated watchlists that work well. Nor do we have the money to develop a quality visual editor. Wikia has tried for years, and their visual editor is very inadequate. I am an admin/bureaucrat on a Wikia wiki. With the declining number of active editors on Wikipedia I see a lack of quality in many articles. I don't see that great of an increase in small donations this year. We have some large donations. If those are taken out of the fundraising total this year, it puts the number and total money from small donations in a different perspective. I think Wikimedia is losing its creative juice. I find it less and less interesting to edit here. Registered vandals waste my time. Arbitration is very inadequate. I tend to post and run more, because registered vandals make editing such a pain anymore. We need hundreds of arbitrators. We also need more developers. More volunteer arbitrators could be found. More year-round MediaWiki developers costs money. I don't think donations will ever be enough. See Wikipedia:Advertisements for various ideas. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:18, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, that — is different from what you started out with. My conclusion is that we need alot more enforcement, and more stringent rules to fight the vandals that are annoying you so much. As for arbitrators, I don't know what that would do. Do you really believe that the kind of people who don't give a damn about coming to a consensus will suddenly be all tame and nice just because someone with an arbitrator-hat or medal tells them to? And what the heck do you want gimmicks like global watchlists for? Is it really so difficult to have two or 3 tabs open simultaneously? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

You obviously are a newb as concerns the longstanding request by many people for integrated watchlists. We need hundreds of more arbitrators to settle edit wars. We need more money. We still do not have watchlisting of talk page sections. That is something people have wanted for as long as I have been editing on Wikipedia. Developing that requires money for developers. How can you settle article editing disagreements efficiently if you can't see when there is a reply on a specific talk page section? For busy article talk pages with multiple sections it is a basic need. --Timeshifter (talk) 02:30, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I fully agree with Timeshifter, as many articles are stuck in long-disputes and POV-pushers too often abuse and get to remove good editors because of lack simple and faster arbitration tools. For exemple, a RfM takes often months to be accepted, takes too much time, and when it is concluded, it lacks means to enforce decitions. My experience with it ended up being quite painful, where 2 years were lost with the same issues still being unsolved. This ends up being frustrating to serios good-will editors (not to mention possible scholars, who certainly don´t want to loose time with editors gaming the system and no one to enforce policies and decitions). FkpCascais (talk) 03:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how more Arbiters of the current breed would settle edit wars (which often at least start as content disputes, although they sometimes turn into personal vendettas). Arbitration as done on Wikipedia is not arbitration in the classical sense. In theory, it does it handle content conflicts. In practice, it sometimes does so in rather arbitrary and unpredictable ways (pun noted, but not intended). Mostly, arbitration has evolved into a petty crime court of last resort, which mostly deals with fairly minor and, in the end, not very consequential violation of WP:CIV. Arbiters have a hard job, and they provide a useful service, but arbitration as a process is far from where it needs to be to settle long-standing content disputes (which are often rooted in real world conflicts). I don't know exactly how and where we should evolve our dispute resolution process, and how to manage to resolve content conflicts in a way that is both encyclopedic and consensual, and that avoids WP:RANDY as well as truth by committee. But simply adding more Arbiters is not a constructive step. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

My first reaction is "You're kidding, right?". We have enough arbitrators? Allowing content disputes to go on for years is a good thing? By the way, I updated the userbox. Separating civility issues from content issues might be a good thing to do. Maybe use different arbitrators for each. That of course would require more arbitrators. But the bottom line is that most arbitration concerns content in the end. Truth by committee is better than truth by whoever edit wars the longest. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:32, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

I would also like to thank the new page patrollers and admins like MuZemike and The Blade who spend quality time repelling nonsense. I don't do NPP but I spend time combatting vandalism, spam and other misguided stuff, and I am convinced that the most important factor is speed. If a spammer/vandal/troll gets a link (or better still, a page that is indexed instantly by Google) to stay for even a couple of hours, they think their time is very well spent, and they are encouraged to repeat the process indefinitely. Removing their nonsense immediately is the only way to convince them that Wikipedia is not a ripe fruit waiting to be plucked. There are two points of reality in the three user boxes above: First, a small number of marginal new articles are deleted too quickly, and the speedy delete notices are too stupifingly bureaucratic (in a small number of cases where the editor shows promise). Second, it takes far too long to get relief from problem editors who are not clear vandals or other really blatant trouble makers. It should be far easier to get a temporary topic ban or page protection (of the right, that is, established version)—yes, wrong bans/protections would occur, but that problem would be far better than the current problem where good editors are driven away by misguided nonsense. If a page were protected to the wrong version for a month, at least the good editors would have relief, knowing they can turn their attention elsewhere while engaging in a limited amount of discussion regarding the problem page. Johnuniq (talk) 22:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

You and the other veteran editors/admins here certainly should know what you're talking about. I agree speedy deletions are often necessary and helpful. Rudeness never is. A good friend of mine is famous for his speedy deletes but is always gracious and gives tips to those poor souls who have no clue what they did wrong. I did not mean to condemn such useful editing. Yopienso (talk) 01:23, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment. I tried wading through some of the various article creation proposals spread across multiple wikis. I believe that article creation should only be allowed for registered users after they have been registered a certain period of time, and after a certain number of edits. Rude and speedy deletion of articles occurs for many articles created by new editors. Why put them through that grief? Let them learn about wiki culture a little bit first. Trying to figure out the various article creation proposals is difficult. Trying to follow the discussions is even more difficult. Why do people insist on using obscure wikis like the meta wiki, the strategy wiki, and Mediawiki.org? They have much less participation than the English Wikipedia. Without a global watchlist it is difficult to follow the multiple discussions. Also, I find that the outside people hired or consulted by the Wikimedia Foundation are out of touch with the reality of editing. It reminds of how Wikia hired some bean-counters, and outside CSS experts, and tried to revamp Wikia for more ads. But the hired guns had little editing experience on wikis. Ruined Wikia. I feel some of the same cluelessness from some of the consultants to the WMF. Excuse my bluntness, but it is extremely frustrating dealing with people who are newbs, and those same people are trying to improve the article creation process for newbs. --Timeshifter (talk) 05:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

For articles created by unregistered editors, how about creating some sort of sandbox articles waiting to be patrolled first before turned into articles? In case of everything being OK, the patroller could have the possibility of taking it to the next step and turning it into an article, but, in case of having problems, leaving a note at the "article-candidate" about the necessary improvements (including links of policies and time limit for the improvements to be performed), or simply explaining why the articles fails and deleting the sandbox after a few days.

About the foundraising issue, I honestly doubt that the newcomers make any important part of the donators. I would rather guess that well established dedicated editors make much more contributions, am I wrong? Is there any study avaliable about the type of editors and their contributions? FkpCascais (talk) 06:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

You mean a bit like Articles for Creation? --Mrmatiko (talk) 08:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

We direly need a tutorial for new editors. I propose two levels: one for people like me who just edit existing articles and another for those who intend to create new ones. We should all be required to walk through a tutorial and pass a simple quiz before being unlocked to edit. I sure learned some things the hard way. This would pose no difficulty to the savvier newbies, as they could quickly check off the correct answers if they really are so smart. Here is a case in point; this happens all the time and most certainly discourages new editors. Yopienso (talk) 08:28, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

From my personal experience, tutorials suck (or at least requiring them would suck); for instance, when I play a new video game, I want to play the game and not sit through some tutorial or "Level 0". I certainly wouldn't want to take any quiz on basic gameplay stuff. Why expect the same here? --MuZemike 08:33, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm proposing a one-time tutorial and quiz for first-time editors. Allowing those who think they don't need it to hit an override button could work. The quiz would be on the six bulleted points on the welcome template. A first-time editor experienced with wikis elsewhere could skim through that and hit the button. He/she should still have to read the Pillars and understand WP:VNT, WP:COI, and WP:PSTS before being unlocked to edit.

What I find so senselessly sad is the wanton flouting of the 4th Pillar; it does keep new blood out. If editors received basic instruction and demonstrated competence before being allowed to edit, we would have much less frustration among the established editors and virtually eliminate the vandalism by kids who would never bother to take the quiz. (No, it would not eliminate all vandalism, but would prevent "joy-riding.") Yopienso (talk) 09:18, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

It would be quite easy if talk-page and main-space edits could be sorted; then require new people to have a certain number of talkpage edits before letting them loose on main-space. One learns much more from the discussions than from some tutorial. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:32, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

We experience here Orwellian practices like arbitrary destruction of content, even if it is legitimate. http://www.wikinfo.org is much better and allows things banned here like original research, fringe theories, etc... Wikinfo plans to import Wikipedia and expand it in directions disallowed here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.22.141.217 (talk) 09:23, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Is that why it shows a 503 right now? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

It's the middle of the night in the USA; I'd guess they're just down for nightly maintenance.

So, do you think there's merit in pursuing some sort of "licensing" before editing? I would think a new editor would at least have to say (truthfully or not) that s/he had read this page. Or is this impossible drudge-work I'm proposing? Yopienso (talk) 09:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

(Asking me? My suggestion is above. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:53, 31 December 2011 (UTC))

Yes, asking you. I can't tell if "It would be quite easy if talk-page and main-space edits could be sorted" means it's easy since the edits can be sorted or if it's difficult because they can't be sorted. User:Timeshifter makes a good argument. I'm serious; if you are, too, I'd like Jimbo and page-watchers to hear a concerted voice requesting basic training for first-time editors, thus reducing frustration and saving time on all sides; I would do well to get my "certificate," too. (Now, that's an idea as the very first level for WP:SVC.) Don't know what to suggest for unregistered users. Yopienso (talk) 10:12, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I wasn't clear: I'm against tutorials; I never learned anything from any tutorial. I am serious though about the idea of requiring new people to engage in talkpage-conversation first and learn from that. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 10:16, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Wikinfo's back online. And I'm over and out. Zzzzz. . . Yopienso (talk) 10:37, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

While I agree that there should be some form of barrier to article creation, having some extra requirement before editing would prevent wikipedia from being the encyclopedia where "anyone can edit almost every page". How would you accommodate IP editors within this idea? --Mrmatiko (talk) 10:42, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Not at all. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 10:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Can you just confirm which part of my comment you were replying to please. --Mrmatiko (talk) 12:30, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

The "accomodating IPs"-part. We're talking about article-creation here, and they can't do that anyways. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea of a tutorial being offered when a new article is started (a tutorial for all editors). But I believe that an editor should be able to override the tutorial completely if they so choose. Tutorials turn many people off. I think the main way to limit the biting of new editors, and the overwork of new page patrollers, is to only allow articles to be created by editors with a certain number of edits and after a certain period of time after registering a username. --Timeshifter (talk) 18:42, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

A fine tutorial has long been offered, as well as a detailed guide to writing a first article and a most helpful primer (an essay to guide the perplexed). Since all Wikipedians (despite accusations of troglodytism and worse) are modern human beings, most of us never look at it.

Quote from WP:CREATE: Articles may only be created by registered users. If you are not a registered user, you may either register now or ask for your article to be created at Articles for Creation. I suggest we further require either hands-on training, as those who hate tutorials prefer (which takes longer), or a quiz for the more academically-minded, which requires plowing through instructions and internalizing them.

This, I suppose, makes me an evil, undemocratic pedant, like all those horrid officials who insist on licenses to drive, to own weapons, to marry, etc. Time, however, has proven that building a wall and inviting the whole world to write on it results in a great deal of graffiti.

Happy New Year, Jimbo and all Wikipedians!! Yopienso (talk) 19:41, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Going back to Timeshifter's last comment for a second, we did propose what you have recommended and got consensus for it; however, as we all know the WMF vetoed it. --MuZemike 19:45, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I kinda disagree with Timeshifter´s last proposal. It would basically mean that new users would have to vandalise some existing articles before having the right to make their own masterpieces :) I´m exagerating, of course...

I fully agree with MuZemike that large tutorials suck and they will end up being ignored. What I propose is much more simple, that in cases of new articles being OK, there wan´t be necessary doing anything; however, in cases of new articles having flaws, the patroller will provide only the necessary recomendations.

Happy New Year to all! FkpCascais (talk) 19:56, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Click: Test article 2. It suggests reading Wikipedia:Your first article. I think that article should open up anytime anybody clicks a redlink. At the top of that opened article would be a link called "Skip this article, and go to the edit window." --Timeshifter (talk) 22:48, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes!! Here I go labeling myself as a pariah--I created one article years ago as an IP to demonstrate to my students why I would not allow them to use WP. (Then I got hooked.) Now I don't even know how to start an article! (Gulp.) But having that header pop up takes care of the trouble we're addressing here. The only refinement would be to have a radio button or box to click saying the new editor has read the heading. That makes her/him responsible for its contents without forcing a tutorial or wait time. Yopienso (talk) 00:07, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe. The bottom line is that NewPages will still be full of junk. Anyone with a minimal amount of braincells has looked at a few given articles and will probably have noticed the refs and formatting that most of them have. I, at least, concluded from that (before I even started anything here) that that's what I will be expected to produce. Alas, there are people whom this logic escapes. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:59, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

To be fair, I don't mind cleaning up some of the formatting, because it can be extremely confusing (just figuring out how to put the infobox in on Noh Poe, without the pushpin map, took me 30 minutes); however, the vast majority of the time I share your disbelief. That's why I waited 10 1/2 months to create a new article, because I wanted to be completely sure I knew what I was doing. I don't suggest that long of a time to wait, but... well, my position on that is above. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 05:16, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Editors for hire

Hi, JW. I'm looking at what you said a few years ago about editors hiring themselves out to write articles for the hiring organisation. It appears at that time you rather strongly considered the practice somewhere between unseemly and corrosive. That is more or less my opinion, though there are obvious questions of how it can be policed if the editor involved doesn't disclose. Has your opinion changed? I'm looking at WWB Too (talk · contribs) in particular. At least he's disclosing that he's being hired by various companies and individuals to write or edit "their" Wikipedia articles (here, here, here, and here, for example), but…h'mm. It appears the community has struggled with the question of whether or not this sort of hired-gun editing is acceptable, so far without consensus. I ask you for your current opinion primarily out of curiosity over whether and how it has changed since your earlier statement on the matter, and without intent to use whatever comments you might have to whack anybody over the head, about the ears, on the kneecaps, or on/in/around any other body parts. Happy gnu ear! —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C19:47, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

My view hasn't changed at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:35, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll leave space for Jimbo to reply, directly, above here. However, before letting this topic ramble too far on assumptions, let me repeat that Jimbo said: the COI editors should limit edits to talk-page comments only, and not edit the articles directly. The COI editors need to wait to convince other volunteers, on volunteer schedules, to voluntarily modify articles to state COI-fostered claims. It is not acceptable to play some implicit-consensus games, such as, "If no one objects in 2 days, I will edit the article to state this is the best product since sliced bread, and buy 10 or more for maximum benefit". Please read other editor comments below. -Wikid77 05:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

WWB Too is always very up front and honest about any COI he may have, as he completely was in this case. He is a wikipedia contributor in good standing since 2006. I have worked with him previously and he is a good NPOV writer that closely considers policy. Youreallycan (talk) 19:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, count me as curious, too. As Youreallycan notes, and Scheinwerfermann at least acknowledges, I always disclose my involvement where client matters are concerned and, as a matter of course, seek consensus on Talk pages before considering direct edits. I'm very careful and cautious in this regard—in fact, I wrote a favorably received COI compliance guide earlier this year.

That said, I am well aware that the spirit of Wikipedia is in volunteership—and I have been a volunteer here myself since 2006—so I am respectful of the fact that editors will sometimes be skeptical of this activity. In the interests of transparency, I keep a list of past client projects on my user page to make it easy for anyone to see what articles I've been involved with. My goal is always to make Wikipedia better, and I believe any fair appraisal of my work in this regard will find this to be the case.

Actually, regarding your (Jimbo's) comments from 2009, I very much agree with them, and consider my work along these lines to be consistent with your suggestion: "Now, could it be perfectly fine for someone to set up an independent writing service for GFDL / CC BY / CC BY-SA content, to be posted somewhere else, and for completely independent wikipedians to find it useful in some way? Of course." I think that describes my approach very well. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 22:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm very reluctant to even create the appearance of bringing a contretemps onto JW's or any other uninvolved contributor's page, so I will keep my comment here narrow and brief: I don't understand how your activity can accurately be described as writing and posting comment somewhere else for completely independent Wikipedians to incorporate in articles. No, you are writing Wikipedia articles for hire, right here on Wikipedia. Is it possible one or both of us is misunderstanding what JW meant? —Scheinwerfermann ^T·_C03:04, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

As long as you're asking, I may as well answer: the somewhere else in this case is my userspace, where these drafts begin and remain until completely independent Wikipedians agree to their inclusion. I aim to follow all Wikipedia policies and guidelines as I do so, with special care given to WP:COI, WP:SCOIC, WP:PSCOI and WP:PEW. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 03:27, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Well WWB Too I looked at your work for one of clients, Cracker Barrel. I'm not Jimbo and you didn't ask for my opinion, but I'll give it anyway: what you are doing is really wrong and bad and you should stop doing it.

After looking at this article, I'm just really mad at you, and just generally appalled. Rather than going medieval on you here I'll continue over at your talk page.

As for the rest of you, it's appalling that this kind of whitewashing of egregious corporate malfeasance (and for pay!) is tolerated, at all. It's just horrible. Herostratus (talk) 08:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I've reviewed three of WWB Too's articles and they seem to me to be neutral in tone, well referenced and balanced. What they are certainly not are whitewashes, as for instance Herostratus would have us believe. I fear it is true to say that unpaid editors can have far greater and more deleterious biases than do the better of the paid editors, and that we might do best to concentrate on worrying more about the content of the article and the approach of the editor, and less about seeking to stigmatize the input of paid editors merely because they are paid. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and I am sure that Rupert Murdoch would attempt to maintain the illusion of NPOV, at least for a time, if he were to somehow purchase editorial control of Wikipedia. If paid editors are allowed free reign on Wikipedia, it will not be long before they dominate Wikipedia. Being paid for their editing, they will be able to spend far more time and effort supporting their client's interests than volunteers will be able to spend defending Wikipedia's impartiality. This is a slippery slope, and the final result could be the end of Wikipedia as we know it. Ebikeguy (talk) 17:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree in part. This is why paid editors don't (and shouldn't) have "free reign"—expectations for such editors should include disclosure, a high standard of behavior (and perhaps guideline familiarity), and a strong encouragement to seek consensus before going beyond non-controversial edits. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 19:06, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, WP has a history of editors paid to represent the disreputable as reputable. This is not a thought experiment, we've been on the slope for a while already. Ironically, at least the paid POV pushers are forced to do a better job "sourcing" their content under the guise of credibility to collect their paychecks. The issue is how long will reputable editors stick around to counter questionable (at best) content in areas of contention where opinion is elevated to the same level as fact--since WP policy explicitly states that it does not matter whether or not something is true (meaning simply factual, not arguing over "truth"), only that it is sourced. Ye reap what ye sow, folks. PЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 22:15, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

• Slippery slope and crack in the dam: Fostering a culture of paid-editing is more likely to be a crack in a dam, breaking wide-open to a flood of self-promotion edits. Look at the ocean of adverts in Google Knol, to the point that many common subjects were written as short introductions to long commercial ads. It obviously did not matter to enough Google Knol editors that the whole place was swamped with commercial ads, regardless of whether the claims were sourced, or even still current claims made against competing products. Meanwhile, the long-term WP editors are likely to react poorly, if they think Wikipedia is becoming overrun with self-paid adverts to be updated and polished by time-consuming volunteer efforts. Few editors I have met want self-written vanity pages to be left in Wikipedia, and I have seen them WP:AfD-axe such articles in recent months. I wish volunteers could adequately police self-promoting editors, but volunteers cannot even fix claims that some former religious leader was the "most influential person in leading people to salvation" during 1950-1970. Wikipedia is not staffed with enough people to moderate self-paid claims in numerous articles. -Wikid77 05:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Am I a bad person? I stumbled across this discussion, because I am a paid editor. I was never paid for editing WP. Since age 16, I was paid by newspapers, magazines, advertising agencies, publishers. They paid me, because I did a good job. I did not have to sell my soul, I simply had to write well. Until I did read these pages, I never thought I was a bad person for accepting the money.

Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. “Can” – yes. “Should” – no. You should not edit Wikipedia if you don’t know the difference between “it’s” and “its,” if you consistently spell “their” as “thier,” if you are an all-around lousy writer. Good writing is a gift, and not all are gifted. There are people who have something to contribute, but due to their nonexistent writing skills, they better don’t. It is perfectly OK for those to pay a writer to do a better job.

What we have here is a case of no good deed going unpunished. So there is an editor who fully disclosed that he was paid for writing, and he gets nailed to the cross for being honest. His offence? He broke a rule that never existed. There is no policy against paid writers on WP. The statement by Jimbo Wales was a statement by Jimbo Wales. It was not carved into two slabs of marble and carried down Mount Sinai. It was part of a veeeeeeeery long discussion about paid editing, which ended inconclusively. Instead of a policy, an essay was written.

That essay says that paid editing “is not currently prohibited on Wikipedia. The community has to date, attempted twice to ban the practice, with the outcome twice being no consensus. It is however been made by consensus that editors who are paid, represent a clear Conflict-of-Interest and are Strongly Encouraged to state this on WP:COIN what articles they are being paid to edit and declare whom they are working for before doing so.” It’s an essay, not a policy. Usual disclaimers apply.

If there is a need, we can reopen the issue of paid editing, with the goal of finding a policy. I recommend caution. Disallowing paid editing will not stop paid editing. It will simply drive honest paid editors underground. WP already is being edited by reams of undeclared PR agencies, lawyers, “company employees in their free time,” and what have you. I would rather deal with someone who openly states that he is doing this for a meager living than be flummoxed by an army of irregulars and their sockpuppet drones.

I don’t think we are having an issue with money changing hands. We are having an issue with WP being abused as a propaganda instrument. WP should not be abused for advocacy, paid or free (the latter can sometimes be much worse). There already is a policy for that, we don’t need a new one. BsBsBs (talk) 15:37, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Now, wait, some spelling errors are OK. At the WP:GOCE Guild of Copy Editors, we deal with many thousands of grammar or spelling errors, often correcting 50-150 per article, in many cases. It is a staggering amount of work, but I say let a subject-matter expert expand an article, even with spelling errors. -Wikid77 12:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if you're a "bad person" BsBsBs. There's good and bad in everyone I guess. I do know that User:WWB Too is a corrupt hack. He might be kind to animals or have other redeeming qualities, though, and I don't think casting these issues as "not a bad person" is helpful.

I don't know if all editors in the "Wikipedia COI community" are corrupt hacks, but I don't see how they couldn't be. How many are willing to fairly present negative information about their clients? I don't mean "Yeah I'll put in some of the bad stuff so I look fair, and because it's going to go in anyway, so might as well be my weasel-worded minimize-the-harm version". I mean actually doing it fairly and correctly, featuring it if its called for, adding important and damning details, and like that.

If they don't, they're bad Wikipedia editors and should be shown the door by Wikipedia. If they do, they're bad PR people and should be fired by their clients. Either way they shouldn't be here, period.

One of the problems is that it's practically impossible for humans to be fair-minded in this way. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it". You know, if someone is signing your checks and helping you feed your family, well of course he's a fine fellow. Of course all those bad things they say about him are overblown. It's only fair to clarify this. You see what I mean? It's only human to feel this way.

Public relations is an honorable profession. Trying to persuade the New York Times to cover your client's speech is honorable. Hacking into the New York Times database to alter the coverage of your client's speech isn't. Do you see the difference? One is fine and useful. The other brings disgrace to you, your profession, and your client.

Gaming the fact that Wikipedia is volunteer-written and has an open database isn't an excuse. If you pervert the essence of what the Wikipedia is for, for personal gain, you're hacking our database. You should probably stop doing that.

Incidentally, you're exposing your client to opprobrium by doing that. We're a public charity. That taxpayers aren't supporting us so we can whitewash the facts. Paying someone to corrupt our database is shameful and might be illegal. You want to expose your client to that kind of ignominy? Maybe you don't care.

Driving bad things underground is a good thing. It is an excellent way to minimize bad things. It doesn't eliminate them. That it doesn't is an argument could be used against all laws and so is essentially a nihilistic argument.

Declaring one's COI does approximately nothing. If I declare that my COI is that I'm a flaming nutcase and hate Jews, is then OK for me to write "Jews did 9/11!" into an article? After all, I've declared my COI, so no problem! Not having a COI -- as in, not editing the Wikipedia for pay -- is what's called for here.

Sorry to be harsh but this is bad bad bad and a potential "game over" for the Wikipedia if this gets out. This is much much worse than if we accepted advertising, for instance. I see a lot of honeyed words surrounding a lot of weak arguments and bad behavior. Furthermore, there is apparently a self-sustaining "COI community" here. They're clever and ruthless (after all, they're professional writers and their livelihood is at stake, so why wouldn't they be) and there are also a lot of editors who think that whitewashing malfeasance is not a big deal. I think this is weak-minded, but between these two elements we are screwed, I would say.

I'm not sure what can be done about this. I certainly can't compete with paid editors and corporate bankrolls. I have my own job. Jimbo probably can't do anything. ArbCom can't set policy so they probably can't do anything even if they wanted to.

It's sad. It's a nice project and a nice website. It's just sad to see it go down this path. Herostratus (talk) 04:01, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• Calling someone names is bad, uncivilized behavior. It also automatically disqualifies everything that follows. Lose your cool in a discussion, you lose.
• There is no policy against paid writers on WP. If you don't believe it, read this long discussion from 2009, where everybody from Jimbo on down weighed in and which led to no policy.
• It's not game over. There had been two official attempts on bannig paid writers, both fizzled. The game is still on.
• Read the essay on the topic. It was triggered by the discussion. The editor in question seems to have followed the recommendations of the essay to the letter. Executing someone for violating rules that aren't there, and for observing recommendations that are there is lynch mob behavior, plain and simple. BsBsBs (talk) 07:23, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

The above is a classic evading-the-message response. Do you have anything to say about the points made? Johnuniq (talk) 07:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no need for a point-to-point rebuttal if the premise is wrong. The correct premise is that there is no policy. No policy, no violation. End of story. Calling someone names totally closes the subject. Stringing someone up for a non-existent crime is lynching. BsBsBs (talk) 09:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Well perhaps "calling someone names" is a civility issue, but there is a long-term precedent, "If it's true, it ain't libel" (search in Google or Bing). The recent concerns of COI editing have included contacting other editors to support the fight, and then when those editors badger opponents with multiple, repeated talk-page demands, then not stating that such badgering was out-of-line nor apologizing for contacting them to fight. Those actions seem corrupt. -Wikid77 12:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

In regular life, the "truth" defense works only with slander or libel. It does not apply to insults. In other words, even if the other person is an asshole, you can't call him one. By claiming that it is the truth, one is simply perpetuating the uncivil behavior. Also, badgering has nothing to do with being corrupt. If it would, hordes of badgering edit warriors on WP would be corrupt. cor·rupt, adjective: Having or showing a willingness to act dishonestly in return for money or personal gain. BsBsBs (talk) 14:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment. Last time I found Wikipedia in the news, I posted the link here on Jimmy's Talk page and eventually someone told me to post these links on Wikipedia:Press coverage 2012. This time I added the link there, and just found this discussion. At any rate, I watched C-SPAN this evening, and WWB/William Beutler was being interviewed about his work on Wikipedia on the Q&A show. You might want to watch it here, includes transcript. 99.50.186.111 (talk) 03:46, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, thats a really interesting and well presented interview. William's blog is also worth a look - http://thewikipedian.net. Rather than attempting to vilify people like this, who are upfront and intelligent proponents of the project, the project would do better imo by employing them. Youreallycan (talk) 12:42, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Great interview, sure, but having paid editors here is really the opposite of what the project is about. The articles in question (Association of Global Automakers, Cracker Barrel) both read like marketing blurb and WWB Too has now moved on to spending incredible amounts of time following up and making sure that the articles conform to his bosses' desires. I have a full-time job and a wife and school and don't have the kind of time necessary to protect articles from yet another problematic user with an agenda - a user with waaay much more time available than the rest of us. For instance, the majority of the sources used in AGA are not available online (at least they're not linked) - it smells to me as if AGA simply handed WWB Too a pile of articles that they liked, and then asked him to write a nice article for them. And naturally no one can then demand that he somehow find new articles, especially on a topic which doesn't interest him, but on a topic about which he is writing only because he is getting paid for it.

I really find this a threat to the entire project. If being a skilled WP editor means that you can then become available for hire to push various companies agendas, then I don't see how there can be any room for independent thought left. But I really don't have time to deal with this kind of nonsense, something I thought we were protected from here at WP. I would rather edit an interesting article than spending hours trying to display the obvious bias in a bland-as-pudding article about a crappy restaurant and a crappy lobbyist group. Here in Wikipedia, an editor for hire is worse than no editor at all.  ⊂| Mr.choppers |⊃  (talk) 15:37, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, you guys. I am disappointed to learn that User:WWB Too is a paid editor. He posted to my talk page and, call me dense, even with his disclosure there I didn't guess. Based on information in the video, he expects to earn his living doing this. Gee whiz, a lot of us (including Wikipedia) could use a source of income, but he was Johnny-on-the-Spot. I urge Jimbo to post his preference. Mine is definitely to keep this place all volunteer. -SusanLesch (talk) 17:47, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

From the look of the whitewashing job for Academy of Achievement that WWB Too is proposing on your talk page, as well as the article that began this discussion, it appears that he is being paid primarily to rewrite articles on organizations that have things they would like to hide from the general public. WWB Too uses his expertise to write articles that appear to conform to Wikipedia rules, while removing all the "bad stuff" that his clients would rather not see. This is truly deplorable, and I reiterate that it is a slippery slope into a Wikipedia that is dominated by spin doctors and other PR professionals. As a professional journalist who understands the difference between promotional writing and objective writing, I beg my fellow members of the Wikipedia community to prevent this from happening. Thanks, Ebikeguy (talk) 04:51, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	Hello, Mr. Wales! I just want to show my appreciation for you, because you founded Wikipedia, and because I find you a good man. I do not know you personally, but I still get the feeling that you must be a great person! That's why I'm giving you this kitten! I hope you will come to have a great year in 2012! Greasysweet (talk) 22:39, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

That's one funny shaped kitten! :) the wub "?!" 01:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

What are you talking about? All of the cool kittens look like that these days! ~~ Hi878 ^{(Come shout at me!)} 01:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, most of the kittens look like this! My cat looks like this, by the way. This is not a barnstar at all! :) --Greasysweet (talk) 11:13, 1 January 2012 (UTC) -

File:Cat tapping.gif	The Confused Yet Philosophical Kitty Barnstar
	Hmm... I'm not convinced with this star shaped cat stuff, but let's see how I feel after a little nap... Happy New Year.

That's Kevin, the always patient cat - he felt compelled to respond... (I am but his posting servant) Begoon ^talk

Who would you be more likely to give money to?

Hmmm… Now that I think about it, maybe what the project needs is a cat mascot: Libraries have lions, so it's only fitting Wikipedia should have a cat. Commons could have a contest: $5 donation, and you can submit a cute picture of your cat in the hopes it will be this year's WikiKitty, appearing on all our fundraising banners (and yes, I'm pretty sure that's legal under non-profit laws, within reason…). --Ludwigs2 22:58, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey, that's actually a brilliant idea. Come to think of it, that's actually one of the most awesome ideas I have ever read. It is an idea Wikimedia really should consider, as it sounds very realistic. --Greasysweet (talk) 10:14, 2 January 2012 (UTC) -

Consensus

Jimmy, I'm still waiting for your clarification on what "consensus" means. In practice, such as this example, it's an Admin's unilateral decision. Doesn't like the result? He "relists" it for "a more thorough discussion". Apparently the "new decision" was based on one (1) comment posted by someone who couldn't be bothered to read any previous comments in this so-called "discussion". So once again, I ask what your definition of "consensus" is. Perhaps some day you'll explain. I live in hope, though not in expectation. 99.50.186.111 (talk) 04:38, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Deletion review process is that way... Or you could, you know, just ask him to reconsider? J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:47, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it's not supposed to be ""that way. It's supposed to be by consensus, using the usual dictionary definition. Also, your name does not appear to be "Jimmy". As for the Admin concerned, note how he then "implemented" this change - here's an example. He claims in the edit description he was removing the one (1) template per that "consensus". In reality, he deleted every single news media collection. We have PR people at work in Wikipedia, desperate to "cleanse" their articles of any further reading material which might not reflect the point of view they've carefully provided in the body of the article. Why is that being ignored? And why else would we have this determined attempt to delete these news sources? How many examples of this do I need to provide for this to be recognized as a serious problem? 99.50.186.111 (talk) 05:00, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

That admin, User:Plastikspork, tends to delete many minor templates very quickly, perhaps too obsessively, and that can be quite alarming. However, he has listened to reason in the past, if you "just ask him" to reconsider. This is just a problem of balance: we need more people to delete thousands of low-use templates, but not go overboard and delete new-idea templates so quickly. In this particular case, perhaps Template:CNNtopic and several others could be replaced with just "one template" passing "CNN" as another parameter. I hope that clarifies why the rapid removal of templates has been happening. -Wikid77 14:56, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It is not my job to instruct an Admin on his responsibilities. The clue is that the other Admins refuse to address his actions. If that doesn't worry you, it should. As for multi-item templates, I might agree with you in principle but in reality they end up like this and this. Are those examples of "listening to reason"? Even if "kept" their use is effectively blocked, so there's no point in having them. What I'm saying is...there's no difference in how single v multi-item templates are treated. 99.50.186.111 (talk) 03:18, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to be clear: it doesn't matter whether or not someone's name is Jimmy. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 05:03, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It is common practice after deleting a template to remove all transclusions, to avoid having things like this: Template:Non-existent page show up in articles. That part is nothing strange. I have no idea why he deleted the other templates, but again, you can always. just. ask. him, rather than speculating wildly about his "nefarious" thought patterns (for which you have no proof, as mind reading is not currently possible). Also, you should know that there is little chance that Jimmy Wales will intervene in something like this. I can almost guarantee that he will do the exact same thing that I did - namely, ask you to talk with Plasticspork, and then go to DRV if you cannot agree with him. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 05:18, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

And another thing: How does removing (what appears to me as) random external links in any way shape or change the content of an article, much less push a point of view? That makes utterly no sense at all, unless the external links are directly contradicting the content of the article. I see no reason to believe that CNN would say significantly different things about Ahmadinejad than our article does. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 05:23, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for making such absurd excuses for the actions of yet another Admin acting outside his remit, and above his pay grade, and repeatedly. (Wikid finds this "alarming", yet blames me. iow, blame the victim and excuse the perpetrator. Over and over and over again.) Thank you for focusing on the person, not the problem - quite un-Wikipedian. Thank you Delanoy for your amazing claim the article says the same thing as Aljazeera, Dawn, NYT, WSJ, Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, and CNN. If so, this is the very first time all those news media sources have agreed on anything regarding politics and/or political issues. This is the purpose of Further readings links, yet you are adamant in your claims this is about something else. Says it all, really. I'm not so naive and ignorant to believe there's one and only one "correct view" to be expressed n these Wikipedia articles, and I'm 100% sceptical of the motives of anyone who claims there is. Delanoy pretends I'm making direct accusations against a particular Admin. I am not. I am pointing out a pattern of specific actions by several people, none of whom have come up with a rational explanation for what they've been doing, which would include how removing this material helps our readers and how keeping it in causes serious, perhaps irreparable, harm. None. I don't agree that the purpose of Wikipedia is provide articles which say, in effect, "this is what we've decided is all you need to know about a topic, so we're going to actively and purposely discourage you from reading other points of views because we're right and they're wrong if they disagree." The purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide information to contribute to the education of others. Education is not about providing one point of view, by the consensus of one, five, or hundreds, but to provide a starting point and encouraging readers/students to continue with their own research. To purposely discourage this is the opposite of education and brings up questions about the purpose of Wikipedia. 99.50.186.111 (talk) 19:32, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

However, reality confirms that people love to add external links, and the best way to do that is to create a template to make a particular external link appear to have an official status so other editors won't wonder whether WP:EL applies. Google was invented for a reason, and if anyone wants a bunch of external links they can easily find them without relying on Wikipedia. There are many hundreds of people who try to add external links all the time, and a strong pushback is required to keep the place under control. Johnuniq (talk) 21:24, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing your antiquated view of search engines, their use and results. Try reading The Internet Bubble by Eli Pariser for one problem with your idea. Then, try googling Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and get back to us on where those news collections appear in the SERPs. That should show you a second problem. Still, I'm interested in why you are so against major international news coverage collections ("a strong pushback is required to keep the place under control", in your words) as External links. What sort of "control" do you have in mind? You didn't address that question at all, let alone the definition of "consensus" as practiced at Wikipedia. 99.50.186.111 (talk) 03:27, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Getting back to the main question, I'd love to hear Jimbo's answer. What is consensus on Wikipedia? I can say (as someone who has studied consensus democracy academically) that consensus decision-making in its analytical sense does not exist anywhere on project, except possibly in quiet corners where no one is looking, or in the internal dialog at ArbCom (I don't have access to their internal discussions, but their results often appear to be what I would call consensus-based). For the most part, the term 'consensus' is only used on project to rationalize authoritative decisions, sometimes justifiably, but more often not. I've put some effort into trying to tighten up the consensus process to approximate what the term means in real-world contexts, but that has always run into stiff resistance. If there's a particular sense to the term on Wikipedia that's different than the scholarly usage, it would be helpful to know what it is. --Ludwigs2 22:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, apparently "consensus" includes claiming agreement on decisions far outside of the topic and discussion of it. Check Plastikspork's diffs each of which he describes as "External links: remove per WP:TFD outcome for template:CNNtopic)". Every single one also deleted every single major international news collection, not just CNN. No accurate description, no discussion on the Talk page, nothing but unmitigated arrogance and game-playing yet again. I will not make claims I can't prove, but this didn't surprise me in the least because User:Russavia, the originator of the request to delete the CNN template, started out wanting to delete all these collections here. User:Collect doubled down and even deleted the person's official website, insisting it was "irrelevant" to the subject(!), and also deleted several other links. That was later "resolved" by Collect by deleting everything except the person's official website, not restoring even the original BBC, Worldcat and Charlie Rose (interview) links. (You remember Collect. He lectured earlier that the only problem was that I refused to "engage" with other editors when they deleted these links.) Incredible, imo. Still Assuming Good Faith? No possible collusion, offsite or on? 99.50.186.111 (talk) 20:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Quick question...

I thought this was Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, not just certain people. I couldn't tell since I get bullied on this thing left and right from my rather minor edits. What's up with people on this thing trying to boss other people around? I seem to be confused with what this website was originally about, my mistake. Divine intervention? --97.100.176.192 (talk) 19:46, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

"The encyclopedia that anybody can edit" does not mean "the encyclopedia that anybody has the right to mess up in any way they feel like". The aim, after all, is to build an encyclopedia, not to promote the cause of freedom. Looie496 (talk) 15:12, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

So now that you've left GoDaddy

...where have you headed now?

(And by the way, Happy New Year.) --Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 21:46, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Friendly notification regarding this week's Signpost

Hello. This is an automated message to tell you that, as it stands, you will shortly be mentioned in this week's 'Arbitration Report' (link). The report aims to inform The Signpost's many readers about the activities of the Arbitration Committee in a non-partisan manner. Please review the article, and, if you have any concerns, feel free to leave them in the Comments section directly below the main body of text, where they will be read by a member of the editorial team. Please only edit the article yourself in the case of grievous factual errors (making sure to note such changes in the comments section), as well as refraining from edit-warring or other uncivil behaviour on project pages generally. Thank you. On behalf of The Signpost's editorial team, LivingBot (talk) 00:03, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Did someone just tell the founder of Wikipedia to be sure to refrain from edit-warring and or other uncivil behaviour? Mugginsx (talk) 17:44, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think a bot would be classified as a "something", not a "someone". Neutron (talk) 22:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Copyright law and the Internet

You might find these resources to be interesting.

• Copyright Matters: Digitization and Public Access
• Twitter (“CopyrightOffice”)
• U.S. Copyright Office - NewsNet Issue (number)
  

—Wavelength (talk) 18:06, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think she's back

I think the person that uses the account SlimVirgin may be back, but using other accounts at WT:V, WT:Consensus, and WP:Consensus. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:12, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

If you have a concern about editors using multiple accounts , and any checkable evidence the place to report is WP:SPI. Youreallycan (talk) 00:16, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Problem with anonymous IP editor on Kobe Bryant sexual assault case article

Happy New Year, Jimmy. I hope my past mistakes do not preclude my asking you for advice on a troublesome matter. I'm having some difficulty with a problem IP editor with a history being blocked for edit warring, and who seems to have difficulty following WP:AGF and other guidelines, in regards to his insistence on adding the name of the woman who accused Kobe Bryant of rape some years ago to the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case article. I'll try to summarize in five succinct questions:

1. BLP policy clearly states that Caution should be applied when identifying individuals who are discussed primarily in terms of a single event. When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context. This description would seem to fit the name of Bryant's accuser quite clearly. Because of this, and other arguments brought up during the discussion on that article's talk page, as well as other precedents such as Star Wars Kid, which omits the name of that subject's name even though it appears in sources that are cited in that article, I removed the accuser's name from both the article and the talk page. Was I correct to do so? The other editor, 70.245.209.94, argues that the article talk page discussion shows only five people in favor of omitting her name, and eleven against it. Now putting aside the fact that I count it as four to six, and not five to eleven, and that this is a problematic endeavour when some editors participate from anonymous IPs (which could allow single editors to chime under different ones), my understanding is that while we do build consensus, editorial decisions are ultimately not based on voting, particularly when policy is clear. Am I correct in concluding this?

2. Editor 70.245.209.94 takes issue with the phrase "widely disseminated" by arguing that her name has appeared in The New York Times. Now I apologize to have to ask you this, since I think this is obvious, but since he insists on splitting this hair, I want to make sure that you agree with my response: My understanding of the phrase "widely disseminated" means that her name is mentioned commonly, across many news publications, particularly reputable ones, to the point where her name becomes a household name, at least at the time that the case first made news, and not that it is merely reported in one publication, even a widely read one like the The New York Times, since that would mean that "wide dissemination" essentially has the same meaning as or criteria as the Verifiability Policy. Am I right here?

3. Editor 70.245.209.94 continues to include the name of Kobe Bryant's accuser on the article talk page, and the IP talk page. If you summarily agree with the above that removing her name is necessary, then is it a blockable offense for someone to continue mentioning her name on the talk page in new talk page messages? And if it's not so clear-cut, would that mean that it's okay to mention it?

4. Editor 70.245.209.94 repeatedly violates WP:AGF by accusing me of harboring a bias against Bryant, that arguing that omitting the accuser's name implies guilt on Bryant's part (even though it's common for reputable news organizations to omit the names of alleged rape victims). Although he continued to do this during his block, I decided not to extend the block or ask another admin to do so because I hoped that I could show him how assuming intent on the part of someone, without eliminating other possible motives, is an ad hominem logical fallacy. He responds that "ad hominem is not a logical fallacy if it is to establish bias". My efforts are probably futile, so I need to ask, if an editor continues to violate AGF with repeated accusations, is this a blockable offense?

5. I know that talk page etiquette allows editors to respond to other editors' messages by placing responses to certain passages in the middle of the first speaker's message-- that is, responding to a sentence or comment directly after it. I dislike this practice, as it appears to mutilate my messages, and makes it difficult to discern the authorship of the individual messages at a glance. When this happens, I tend to remove the responding editor's responses and place them after my initial message. Is this acceptable? Shouldn't the initial editor have some say in that? If so, and editor 70.245.209.94 continues to mutilate my messages, is that a blockable offense? Nightscream (talk) 04:59, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

The name should be included; a long paragraph going on about the accuser's admission to "lying" when neither her handwritten letter nor the paragraph blurb introducing it in thesmokinggun.com puts it that way (the two sources), not so much. I made an edit to that, but the rest of the article could bear checking. Wnt (talk) 16:27, 3 January 2012 (UTC)