User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

Proposed template

Here is a template proposed to attach to blocks based upon violation of a sanction. The idea is to advise an admin passing by that it is off-limits to overturn the block on their own initiative. It includes this language:

"Administrators are prohibited from reversing or overturning (explicitly or in substance) any action taken by another administrator pursuant to the terms of an active arbitration remedy, and explicitly noted as being taken to enforce said remedy, except: (a) with the written authorization of the Committee, or (b) following a clear, substantial, and active community consensus to do so. Any administrator that overturns an enforcement action outside of these circumstances shall be subject to appropriate sanctions, up to and including desysopping, at the discretion of the Committee."

This wording is transferred from the so-called 2008 decision. I personally view the so-called 2008 decision as an illegal power grab by administrators disenfranchising the WP community at large, and imposing a vague ruling that can be interpreted and administered only by a certain elite group (the "Committee") with no review of their objectivity and judgment. In particular, this group conceivably might apply this ruling even though no sanction has been violated, because it is up to them to decide whether or not that has happened. Any administrator of the view that an error has occurred now must appeal to the "Committee", and not to the WP community at large.

It also is their prerogative to judge whether a so-called "clear, substantial, and active community consensus" exists, and no particulars are provided for making that judgment. For example, is "substantial" consensus a simple majority, a 2/3 majority, or is one administrator equal to 10 ordinary WP editors? When is consensus "clear"? If three oppose, two are in favor and 30 undecided, is that "unclear"? Is an editor "active" that never writes an article, or never holds office, or shows up just for this vote? Are decisions subject to open vote and argument, or just "Committee" edict?

What is a "written authorization"? How is it arrived at? Is it a majority vote of the "Committee" on a WP page like a WP:A/R report with community input?

What "Committee" is this (the "Sanctions Administration Committee"? The ArbCom?), and how are its members selected? How are its decisions appealed?

The adoption of a vague ruling such as the 2008 decision is not OK and has very far reaching ramifications for the entire operation of WP. Brews ohare (talk) 22:03, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

As an experiment, you could start your own website with your own detailed constitution to ensure open access with total fairness and civil conduct at all times. Meanwhile, Wikipedia needs to make the occasional decision (at ArbCom) with an appeal process (at ArbCom), and not have endless drama all over the project. If admin X thinks admin Y has a totally mistaken view regarding an ArbCom decision, admin X should take it up with ArbCom, not just overrule admin Y (see the new {{Uw-aeblock}} for a very reasonable process). Johnuniq (talk) 01:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that the Wikipedia administrative system is set up to ensure fairness by the potential for unblocking. Administrators act on clear-cut cases only, because they don't want their blocks overturned. The ArbCom 2008 decision made it so that certain blocks (those persuant to ArbCom decisions) are essentially immune from review. This makes users susceptible to abusive blocks.

Wheel warring regarding ArbCom decisions was no more common than wheel warring in other matters. There was no reason to impose a new rule regarding reverting ArbCom enforcements, and it is causing problems now. It is important to stop concentrating powers in ArbCom, and to have some healthy checks and balances: that means no blocking without unblocking.Likebox (talk) 02:48, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree. I just wrote a related comment in the Arbcom case, before reading this. Hans Adler 08:46, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

One could perhaps also think about having a truly independent ArbCom appeals system. When you set one step in the direction of impementing a legal system where judicial decisions are to be respected, it is perhaps inevitable that all the other steps will also need to be implemented, including setting up an independent appeals system. Sometimes the way a sanctioned person has argued is used against that person. That suggest we may need to use dedicated Wiki-Lawyers to represent people at ArbCom cases. Count Iblis (talk) 13:40, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

A independant review is always good. I have little faith that the "independant" review will remain that way for long but it could delineate what is and isn't a acceptable enforcement. The alternative is letting people run over the project roughshod with no proper review of their actions, wait I am describing wiki as it is now, scratch that. It will also help keep them honest, as much as possible at least. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 15:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

• No, no, I think we should accept at face value Brews' assertion that this is illegal. Then we can ban him under WP:NLT and end the stupidity. Guy (Help!) 16:18, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

If you're feeling froggy go ahead, it won't make you feel better about yourself. I'd say it would make as much sense as everything that has been done to him so far, which is none. Why should things change? Hell In A Bucket (talk) 19:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

In ordinary circumstances, one would take the notion that a threat is involved as facetious. However, this is Guy. Brews ohare (talk) 22:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

You might try, at some point preferably before the heat death of the universe, applying some critical faculties to the debate above. To repeat my previous point: you are going about this not just in the wrong way but in the way which is probably, of all ways, least likely to succeed. In your haste to dismiss all dissenting opinion as motivated by evil the whole bloody bunch of you have ended up looking like mad, raving zealots, so it's not really a huge surprise if onlookers decide that's because you are mad raving zealots. Feel free to continue ignoring this message but remember what Einstein said about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. OK? Guy (Help!) 10:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The correct thing is to do the same thing over and over again, and to never again contribute technical content to the project until you get different results.

There are only two kinds of knowledge in the world: there's fluff and then there's hard knowledge. There's a lot of fluff here, and you guys argue about it incessantly. It's a sentence or two, maybe a paragraph, summarizing some sources about something inane, and this stuff goes by fine under the current bureaucracy. Fluff is what most people know, and fluff has next to zero value.

Hard knowledge is correct technical content, of which you have hardly any. You have infraparticle, BKL singularity, SO(10), and that's about it. You used to have a little more, but people get rid of it, because it is hard to verify by casual inspection, and requires deep thinking. This stuff is not fluff, and getting this stuff better known is pretty much the only nontrivial thing Brittanica, did.

Everybody who acquires such technical knowledge wants to pass it on to everybody else, so lots of it should be here. But it isn't here. That's because nobody who has worked hard to acquire such technical knowledge wants to deal with the pointy-headed bosses that naturally take over most human endeavors. These people reveal themselves with the following list of symptoms:

1. Focus on deletion (creation is hard)
2. Have no technical knowledge at all
3. Refuse content that is hard to understand
4. Ban editors that have a sophisticated point of view (thinking is disruption).
5. They apply for adminship, and get it

These noisy people were always here, but mostly they were easy to ignore, because they didn't touch pages with equations. If you allow such people to take over (and I fear they already have), then Wikipedia is essentially done. It will be a grab-bag of literature links with no real technical content, and it will be frozen in its present incomplete state. That's a shame, because that means that none of the real knowledge in the world will ever be here (here's 115 real topics in physics). No equations, no proof, no code? not real knowledge.

If you want technical content, you have to decide to have it, and to decide to carefully protect it. That means, have a special technical cabal, and let them do their thing. Those who do not contribute technical content always want to gang up on technical material, and exclude it in favor of fluff that they like politically.

The danger to technical material is never from crackpots (they are always outnumbered). The danger is the most naive process that excludes crackpots at the same time excludes technical people. Aside from the details of what they are saying, the behavior of the two is largely indistinguishable. They have the characteristics of the few trying to explain something to the many.

In order to exclude crackpots, but keep technical people, you have to respect technical work. That means you make a policy: understand what you are editing, which requires editors to learn what they read before deleting it. That's a minimal requirement, and for fluff, it goes without saying.Likebox (talk) 15:31, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Which would be fine if it weren't for a few things like: some of our most intractable POV-pushers have been experts, just experts with really off-the-wall ideas about something; experts rarely write for a non-specialist audience; experts routinely write for technical journals which positively welcome original research whereas we forbid it; and this is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit. I suggest you go to Citizendium, it is more to your liking. Not as successful, though. I wonder why? Guy (Help!) 17:33, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Citizendium has "expert certification" nonsense. I like openness. What I don't like is the tiers of power-hungry adminsitrators who ban people for expressing unpopular opinions. That's not openness.Likebox (talk) 22:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Now read that back. What you're saying in effect is that you want to replace a system where decisions are made by people with whom you disagree, to a system where decisions are made by... well, you, basically. The arbitration committee is elected, the successful candidates have wide support and an excellent reputation for considering things form the point of view of our core policies. Content is not decided by ArbCom, you can be 100% right and still be sanctioned for going about things in the wrong way if that wrong way causes friction. You have repeatedly argued that Brews is right, but ignored the fact that it does not matter whether he's right or completely hatstand, what matters is the effect of his editing patterns on attempts to build an encyclopaedia by people who are explicitly not required to be experts in the field. It's nice to have experts along to help us but as I've noted elsewhere experts also can have outspoken minority opinions on certain things; it's fine for them to use academic journals to expound those opinions but not Wikipedia. We have had experts who have been banned outright for resolutely failing to accept any mainstream view that conflicts with their minority opinion. It's not about right or wrong or being or not being an expert, it's about how you go about things. ArbCom saw Brews as being disruptive, what you have to do is go back to ArbCom either with a better case proving that he wasn't or with a system of restrictions that will allow the edits you want without the problems of disruption and wasted time that the existing restrictions are designed to control. You don't seem to be even attempting to engage in productive dialogue with the arbitrators, preferring to accuse all and sundry of incompetence, insanity and base motives and then acting all surprised when they push back or ignore you. I do not understand why you seem unable to grasp this, it is not, I think, so very complex. Assume good faith, never ascribe malice, ask nicely, pretend that the people you're dealing with are intelligent human beings (because in fact they almost always are). Guy (Help!) 10:43, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Personally, I edit primarily technical articles, such as flashtube or laser pumping. I've found it to be a very easy and rewarding experience. Unlike scientific articles, tech articles only concern themselves with how, and don't really go into why. Experts should definitely be involved. However, most problems I see when experts work on these types of article is that they don't explain it for all audiences, just scientific ones. Also, experts will often try to meld their own theories into articles, or try to portray a theory as a fact. A good example of this is glass transition, liquid, solid and related articles. I think that any article, especially a scientific one needs to be written as clearly as possible on various levels so as to be beneficial for elementary school students as well as college. Zaereth (talk) 18:23, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think tying experts to POV-pushing is productive. I would like to see concrete statistics that prove that experts are more inclined to POV pushing and original research than non-experts, in Wikipedia. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 20:41, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Please don't get me wrong. I only edit articles in which I have some expertize. The lure of OR and SYN is tempting, and we're all just human. Mistakes happen, even from the best expert. The problem is not so much POV pushing as it is bad writing. Those well versed in the language of math are not always so fluent in words, and visa versa. This can make it very hard for people of various fields to work together. I have no "concrete statistics," (if such an oxymoron exists), but am working from my own experiences here. In the edit-war spanning the above mentioned articles, I found it very disheartening when the editor, whose expetize I admire, refused to even acknowledge that a mere writer like me could help, refusing to discuss hardly anything at all, even with other experts in his field. Zaereth (talk) 21:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

No, Zaereth. I was not replying to your points. So it is my turn to tell you don't get me wrong :) I actually agree with your points. They all make sense to me. I'm just trying to make the point that we should not treat experts a-priori as suspects for this or the other wiki-fault just because they are experts. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 21:53, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, sorry Dr.K. Actually, I agree with that very much. Zaereth (talk) 23:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

(deindent)Experts who work in academia usually have a point of view to advertise. So what. There's nothing wrong with that, so long as the opponents are welcome too, and everyone adheres to NPOV. I don't believe that too many experts was ever a problem.

The central problem is that it is very difficult to protect technical content, because there is no requirement that a person who verifies it understands it, and the requirements of sourcing are interpreted by many people to exclude mathematical prose altogether. You can't write equations or proofs without doing what looks like OR to administratively minded editors. You have to check the equations against each other, you need to make sure that each one follows from the last, and you have to make sure that the imagery in the equations flows smoothly, just like in a novel.

Checking technical presentations requires reading the sources with understanding, and checking mathematics for accuracy, and for parallels with the source. These are nontrivial tasks, equivalent to proofreading for non-mathematical texts. Doing them is orders of magnitude more difficult than the analogous process for non-mathematical texts.

Instead of doing this, it is much easier to delete mathematical content on OR grounds. That's what happened at infraparticle. I won't mention other pages so that they won't be attacked.Likebox (talk) 22:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree, that the math is very important. My point is that, so is the translation, and the best way to protect it is to make us understand. I'm actually interested in infraparticle now, but can't make much sense out of the article. I'm sure it means a lot to those with some background knowledge. A scientific article like this should have a nice, simple lede written at about a sixth grade level. Then a more comprehensive intro, written at about a tenth grade level. Then the college level stuff, math and all. Readers with no expertize in this will feel little less like they've been thrown head first into a MIT class if there is a build-up to it, and with some understanding, will be less likely to mangle the article. Zaereth (talk) 23:22, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

You are right, and if I had more expertise in the subject, I would do it. But I am confused by some points in the article--- the unconventional use of the term "superselection sector", and what is the density of states at finite infinitesimal photon mass. I put these concerns on talk, but good luck getting an answer. There are only a handful of experts in infrared behavior. That's why this article is important--- it actually clarifies an academic topic that is hard to get clear info about.

The reason I bring this up here is because the methods of Wikipedia have been broken regarding reasonably high caliber mathematical content, like this, stuff that not everybody has heard of. Any mathematical argument can be verified from first principles, so if it is correct, and it can be found somewhere in the literature, you would think it should be Ok here. Nuh uh. A consensus can develop that such material is OR even when there are sources, just because the arguments don't seem to match exactly, or the material seems strange and "smells like OR", because it is full of unfamiliar mathematics. This happened to me a couple of times, and I just assumed it was because I am a dick. But now it happened at other places, so I know it's a systemic flaw.Likebox (talk) 07:55, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

You're missing a pretty fundamental point here, I think. The idea is that Wikipedia should be understandable and editable by those who do not have a PhD in the subject. If people who don't have a PhD in the subject cannot see how a particular statement is supported by the sources, it will look like a novel synthesis. We don't allow experts to create such content and tell us it's fine from the background of their expertise because we don't know if they are mainstream experts or experts who have come here to fix the pressing problem that the world has not yet recognised this new and fundamental truth. And believe me we get a lot of that kind of experts. Guy (Help!) 11:01, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Mike Handel - blatant negative BLP hoax made DYK

Jimmy, if you are unaware of this, I'd like to bring it to your attention. If I don't, the press will.

I've opened a review at: WP:ANI#Mike Handel - blatant negative BLP hoax made DYK!.

Really, really, troubling. If action is not taken, the next one won't be a hoax.--Scott Mac (Doc) 13:14, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Fascinating and sad. I'm really proud of some aspects of the saga, and obviously not at all happy with others. I think one of the key things that can be done here is a ramping up of the courage of the OTRS volunteers and others who are enforcing BLP policy. I'd like to emphasize that those who did good work here could have been much more firm without any fear of harm coming to them, because they will have my full and complete support up to and including summary desysopping for anyone standing in the way of good BLP work.

Next week I will be running a second round of the informal poll that I started about the German version of Flagged Revisions - I think that's an important piece of this puzzle. But it is worth noting that this particular hoax, because it was deliberate and staged over a long period of time, would not have been prevented by Flagged Revisions.

Empirically, though, I think that most problems of this sort would be caught by flagged revs. The fact that a sophisticated and dedicated person who understands sourcing and is willing to lie and manufacture fake news articles, etc., can hoax people is interesting but likely to be extremely extremely rare in any circumstances. My point here is that we need to think about how to deal with stuff like this (mostly through strong strong support from the "machinery of state" which means admins, ArbCom, and me in defense of BLP enforcers) AND not let this distract us from serious problems that are empirically much more common, which is random driveby attacks that don't get caught quickly enough.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The case in point is rare. But it does show weaknesses in the system. It is unbelievable that DKY doesn't actually factcheck - they just check that reliable sources are provided, not that they verify the content.

On the wider point, it the not just that reviews happen, it is the quality of the review that matters. That's part of the problem with flagged revisions applied widely. The wider you apply it, the lower the quality of the review. silly vandalism will get caught, biased or untrue BLP claims with squidgy referencing, not so much. It is the later and not the former that actually damage our subjects. "Joe is a wanker" is not libellous or particularly damaging, "Joe is undischarged bankrupt" when he isn't is. I've put down my thoughts at Wikipedia:Targeted flagging if you're interested. But, any flagging proposal will have my support.--Scott Mac (Doc) 15:49, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. Progress will come through both software and policy. But while this case points to some easy fixes to policy, there's also a deeper and more philosophical question relating to "inclusionism and deletionism" and one reason why as Wikipedia has grown larger and larger, I have become more deletionist. This incident confirms, more clearly than any other that I have seen, something I have been saying for awhile that it is absolutely not possible for us to responsibly have BLPs on marginally notable people. I strongly support that we look at notability policy and tighten it quite severely, especially for BLPs. If a subject isn't notable enough to have reliable sources that are easily checked, then we shouldn't have an article about that person at all. And we absolutely cannot accept negative BLP statements from reliable sources that can't be easily checked. Note: obviously, this is not a blanket prohibition on sources that can't be found online - but sources that independent third parties can't easily check need to be treated with extreme care, and only in specific rare exceptions (for example that multiple trusted Wikipedians have looked it up at the library for themselves to confirm it, etc.) can we accept them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:01, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Mr. Wales, first of all. I think that your post here is exactly and entirely spot on. Second, I would like to comment that your remark about flagged revisions is somewhat inaccurate. It is true, to be sure, that flagged revisions would not have prevented the DYK hoax from occurring, but they would have kept out the worst part of it, the murder allegations. In a sense, there was a double test here. The second part of that test involved adding the murder allegations from another account and without any sources several hours before the Handel article was scheduled to appear in DYK. The account used to do this had no previous article-space contributions (and thus was not auto-confirmed). Thus, flagged revisions would have caught these edits. Because there were no flagged revisions and also no process to check DYK articles that have been approved in between approval and being linked from the main page, the article entered DYK with unsourced defamatory material added by a brand-new user. This, in particular, is something that could happen to any BLP on DYK and did not rely on false sources of any kind. Thus, flagged revisions would have done something here. David Lindsey (talk) 16:09, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes. As useful as flagging might be, it isn't a panacea. My problem for a long time is that Wikipedia only looks at verifiability when considering whether to write about someone, it doesn't consider maintainability. That's the elephant in the room. In the old days, one could optimistically point to m:Eventualism and state that wikipedia is a "work in progress". We were optimistic that an increasing userbase would sort the problems sooner or later. That's rather discredited now - articles increase users less so. So we need to look at maintainability. Just because a neutral verifiable article can be written on many things, does not mean it will be written. We need a dose of realism.

I'd suggest that WP:BIO needs looked at, and in particular WP:PROF and WP:ATHLETE. They all need a considerable rise in threshold. We can be inclusionists elsewhere, but we need to restrict BLPS to articles which will be of interest to enough wikipedians and knowledgeable readers that less obvious untruths will be spotted.--Scott Mac (Doc) 16:13, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

When you talk about support, people who post in the BLP noticeboard find little or no admin support because admins read AN and ANI and not much else. Sole Soul (talk) 16:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a problem that can be easily solved. Let's generate some ideas about that. My point is, if the problem were "admins don't care" then we would have a huge structural problem with admin elections requiring major constitutional changes. But if the problem is "admins care, but they don't hear about the problems in a timely fashion" - we can solve that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:28, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

The issue is not that "admins don't care", but that "the limited number of admins who work on these issues simply don't have enough time to deal with all of this if they are doing it alone". A lot of the work to be done can be done with the editing button, and nothing else is necessary. Administrator assistance is actually very rarely required when dealing with BLPs. NW (Talk) 16:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

It is not that simple, you will face arguments like the ones MuffledThud faced, it is very frustrating. Sole Soul (talk) 16:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, this is a whole lot of fear mongering. This whole thing clearly falls in the category of "if you try hard enough, you can break into any bank, and kill any person". Sure there was a mistake here and there, but this would have been brought to light in the end. I read this today, and that scared me more than this story. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 17:32, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

A bank that's been broken into and does nothing to change their security systems and procedures is unlikely to retain too many customers. MLauba (talk) 18:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Precisely. At the same time, of course, we shouldn't optimize against this particular sort of attack, which is always going to be relatively rare, and lose sight of the kinds of attacks that are empirically a much bigger issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:01, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Again drawing parallels from the real world, when a breaching experiment is being conducted on purpose to test an organization's security, adjusting to meet the exact precise threat used by the breaching party isn't going to yield tangible results, but there are indeed a few lessons to be drawn from this incident. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, while we're focused heavily on BLPs these weeks, WP:CCI is a constant reminder that we have a huge on-going copyvio problem that poses similar legal and ethical challenges that could be mitigated in part by broadening measures being considered for BLPs only to all articles (not to mention that text copyvio cleanup is done by a tiny fraction of the amount of people working on BLP issues). MLauba (talk) 22:22, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

It isn't just WP:PROF and WP:ATHLETE that need tightening up. There are a couple other categories we tend to turn a blind eye to, such as Category:Internet personalities, or seiyu with long lists of credits but no actual third party biographical coverage. We also frequently look the other way for a musician who has an obscure charting album but lacks biographical coverage. JBsupreme (talk) 20:15, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

• I once stubbed an atrocious article after a BLP noticeboard report and was reverted by really a good intended admin, I gave up. Sole Soul (talk) 20:27, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a symptom of a fundamental mistake in the way we approach WP:V. It shouldn't be about articles being verifiable, but about articles being verified. Eventualism was a fine philosophy when we had millions of articles to write, but is not so hot when you have millions of articles already written an in desperate need of attention. "It'll be fixed eventually" was a reasonable mantra when we were just starting, but we're there now and it's time to fix. — Coren ^(talk) 20:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

A comment about Admin involvment and BLP protection, as NW said, if and when there is any Admin action required as far as BLP goes, there is always one there to do the needed, without fail. The majority of issues can be dealt with by uninvolved editors enforcing simple policy and guidelines and the edit button. Off2riorob (talk) 21:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree about WP:ATHLETE. There are some obscure events in some sports, which border entertainment, e.g. bodybuilding (and I'm not talking about the top events there) which auto-qualify someone for a wiki page in the absence of independent coverage. There was also a problem with female curling in the US, where the top amateur event (the nationals) allows write-in; because of the low participation there are no qualifying events etc. I've already started a discussion at WT:BIO. Pcap ping 22:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

We almost managed to wipe out the ridiculous auto-entitlement in WP:PORNBIO where a single center-page in an issue of Playboy (aka Playboy Playmate) qualifies someone for a wikipage as well. But someone objected at the last moment: Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#Outcome. There's now a RfC on this Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)#RFC: Every playmate is notable that needs closing. Pcap ping 22:21, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I had forgotten about that one. I need to start documenting and tracking all of these WP:BLP loopholes.  :-( JBsupreme (talk) 22:24, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

• These hoaxes are stupid and prove nothing, except that we live in a society where there is trust, and those who choose to breach that trust may do so. I could walk into the local mall right now and start shooting people. Billions of people in the world have the freedom to do the same. But I don't, and they don't. Every once in awhile, someone will start shooting. We could stop all such events through various means, such as shutting down all malls, or putting metal detectors at every mall entrance in the world staffed by a security guard team. Any very competent editor, as the one who slaved over this hoax, could replicate this hoax. I guarantee that no matter what barrier we erect, some very competent and determined editors could evade it if they wished. Seigenthaler level events could happen every day, if people so chose. But they don't. Jimbo, just keep in mind that the people who are the most persistent and vocal on BLP issues are well-intentioned, but not necessarily right or reflective of even a majority view. As someone who has reviewed 100s of unsourced BLPs in the last six weeks (because I took the protestations in good faith and seriously), I have found that 99%+ are completely noncontentious and generally accurate. I agree that BLPs should all be sourced, but whether they are purportedly sourced or not has nothing to do with the case of a determined vandal.--Milowent (talk) 22:43, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

  Well keep in mind that On Wikipedia previously reported that only 33% percent of BLP subjects consider their articles as mostly of entirely "fair and accurate" and 26.7% consider the articles "significantly inaccurate or unfair". So there's a huge problem coming from somewhere. HH Nobody (talk) 23:12, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

  And "On Wikipedia" is a reliable source for these statistics because... ??? Pcap ping 23:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

  Because they actually went out and surveyed BLP subjects instead of just sitting around speculating idly. The sample size was small, though, so you're right that there's probably a substantial margin of error. HH Nobody (talk) 23:47, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

  Even with a small sample size, those stats don't shock me. I suspect newspapers would get similar ratings if any studies have been done. Because no one knows someone like they know themselves, both objectively and subjectively.--Milowent (talk) 02:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

  If someone breaches our trust, that slowly erodes our remaining trust in other users. Actually, my reaction at this point is that we should stop trusting contributors. Maybe WP:DYK shouldn't feature any living people any more. It's a little bit cynical on my part, but when people are willing to conduct breaching experiments so they can get some media attention, and they pretend that the breach is OK on their part and that Wikipedia is irreparably flawed, then Wikipedia needs to raise its defenses. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 23:19, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

  And then the terrorists win.  :-) --Milowent (talk) 02:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

  "Media attention"? Did I miss something? This seems to only be on their blog, not anywhere in the media. I don't think anyone is getting any "media attention" as this is really not newsworthy at all. HH Nobody (talk) 23:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

  I meant that he was seeking media attention (or any other attention), not that he's actually gotten any yet. --Elkman ^(Elkspeak) 23:58, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

  @HH Nobody: All of your 13 contributions are about posts on ON Wikipedia. Are you affiliated with them? Note: I think it is a great blog. Sole Soul (talk) 00:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Noise

Even by the standards of this page, the noise-to-signal ratio of the current version is extraordinarily high. The page is also unusually long, with unusually long threads (and these have the highest noise content). Does anyone keep statistics on these things? Has anyone looked for a correlation with the full moon?—Finell 04:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

The point of this page is for getting attention and mobilising rather than hammering anything out.... YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 04:39, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I actually find the page to be unusually informative today. One man's noise is another man's signal, I suppose. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:43, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

March is Women's History Month in the United States

Hi Jimbo,

I would like to highlight that March is Women's History Month in the United States (and maybe other places, too.) And March 8 is International Women's Day.

National Women's History Project's 2010 Theme is "Writing Women Back into History" and I think that is a good reminder that Wikipedia English has quite a few gaps in our coverage of topics including gaps in our coverage of women.

For example's many articles about woman's role in military history are missing.

• Women Airforce Service Pilots--A number of these women are notable because of there achievements in the area of aviation and service in WWII. I found a large amount of material quickly available on Ann Baumgartner and Mildred "Micky" Axton, and I suspect there are others WASPs waiting for an article. They all are to receive a Congressional Gold Medal on March 10, 2010. *The Library of Congress Veterans History Project may have some leads, too. *Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps and Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service are other examples, and there are many more.

• Women and Social Movements in the United States is a resource about U.S. women's history.

• Biographies of women.

It would be great if you created or expanded one or two biographies about women this month. FloNight♥♥♥♥ 07:25, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Poll

Hi, about the poll, your close seems to suggest you'd like the opinion of as many users as possible. I was thinking that 4-5 days seems very short, as users are not always quick to comment even if aware of a poll, because they want to think about it a bit further, esp. when they didn't participate in prior discussions (which were almost a year ago). Furthermore, as you can see, this kind of polls has a tendency to attract many supports in the beginning then much more opposes than initially. I would suggest for the next poll a duration of 2 weeks and much more advertizing, otherwise in my opinion, it wouldn't be representative enough of the community. Cenarium (talk) 15:31, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with you. This was just a snap poll to gather a sampling of opinions. Even the next poll will not result in any actual action on my part. I want to explore our options, together, in a thoughtful and non-confrontational manner. What I will be doing this weekend is categorizing by hand some of the major views to try to craft something that will answer objections. That, too, will be a short and informal poll, to see to what extent I have been successful. Any poll resulting in any sort of action will be clearly marked as such and advertised quite broadly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:51, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

That's great, thanks for the clarification. Cenarium (talk) 15:51, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for doing what you did.

Hello Mr Wales,
I am writing this to say a little bit of my appreciation to you for founding and setting this wonderful project (perhaps one of the most influentual projects of the 21st century). Wikipedia has helped me a lot with my school work and it has also expanded my knowledge of the world around me. I can't really imagine (or has ever imagined), what this world would be like with Wikipedia. I am a newbie myself with editing, even though I have using the site for so long. I hope that Wikipedia will grow to become the largest website-in term of capacity-in the world (I don't think it's not far off now :)). All in all, I just want to express to you my appreciation of the work you have done, just nearly a decade ago, and I hope that Wikipedians and the website itself, will strive for the better in the near future, and for decades to come.
Thank you very much, Mr Wales. Sp33dyphil 04:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Question

Since you founded Wikipedia, maybe you can answer this question:

Why are we called "Users" here? After all, we don't "Use" Wikipedia, we edit it.--RM (Be my friend) 16:49, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyone who uses the site is a user. One who edits is an editor. "Editor" has a different meaning with FlaggedRevs though, so I try to avoid that term. Reach Out to the Truth 17:27, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

There is also (and probably primarily) the fact that, in computer science terminology, "user" is the name given to specified identities as recognized by the system. A user is what logs in, has permissions, etc. This is similar to the common usage (one who uses), but not identical — many of the users of Wikipedia aren't users in the computer science meaning, and indeed many of our editors aren't users either. — Coren ^(talk) 17:42, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia system calls for a new TAB

moved here from Talk:Jimmy Wales Tarc (talk) 17:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Hello Jimmy!

Wikipedia article calls for a new tab called for example "narrative", because there is the other side of the coin: the kind of information one cannot find any references, as it is more like self-educated knowledge.

For example aerodynamics: airfoil. One could write a long article about the topic but he/she is still inable to explain the idea "by heart" because there is no references - except if he/she writes a scientific article about the explanation of airfoil" before writing the "explanative" wikiarticle.

the new tab could be placed in between tabs "article" and "discussion" and included in every wikiarticle. it could contain completely different point of view than the main article or a narrative where the ideas in the main article are explained 'by own words'.

thanks for reading. --86.50.34.133 (talk) 10:05, 8 March 2010 (UTC)