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| <font color="tan">(please insert unseemliness here)</font>
| <font color="tan">(please insert unseemliness here)</font>
|}--[[User:Great Ceasar's Ghost|Great Ceasar&#39;s Ghost]] 07:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
|}--[[User:Great Ceasar's Ghost|Great Ceasar&#39;s Ghost]] 07:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

:The above user is Judd Bagley or a minion. Any assertions, particularly of what others are alleged to have said, need a sack of salt and some amazingly good citations. (ps: Fuck off, Bagley.) - [[User:David Gerard|David Gerard]] 12:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)


:Even if not to be reported on in the ''Signpost'', it's worth being formally investigated by the Foundation since it's the next [[Essjay scandal|Essjaygate]]!--[[User:Rambutan|Rambutan]] ([[User talk:Rambutan|talk]]) 09:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
:Even if not to be reported on in the ''Signpost'', it's worth being formally investigated by the Foundation since it's the next [[Essjay scandal|Essjaygate]]!--[[User:Rambutan|Rambutan]] ([[User talk:Rambutan|talk]]) 09:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Revision as of 12:21, 11 September 2007

Welcome to The Wikipedia Signpost's Tip Line. There are two ways to leave tips:

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Not every mention of Wikipedia in the media will make it into Signpost. Consider editing Wikipedia:Press coverage or Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source so we have a comprehensive record. Template:SignpostNavigation

A story about Wikinomics has been published in The Guardian. Here is a section mentioning Wikipedia.

When "web gurus" like Tapscott start hyperventilating about the new economy, a common reaction is uneasy scepticism. An economy, surely, has to be built on real things - bricks, and bread, and pints of milk, not just Facebook, MySpace, Second Life, Wikipedia and blogging? Man cannot live by social networking alone. So it is to Tapscott's credit that the idea he calls "wikinomics" - he is, after all, a web guru, and seems unable to resist buzzwords - goes back to 1937, and to a young socialist academic born in Willesden.

It later goes on to say…

The natural tendency, in a book such as Wikinomics, is to exaggerate for the sake of making an impact. But the signs are there. Take the Chinese motorcycle industry, which has tripled its output to 15m bikes per year over the past decade. There aren't really any Chinese equivalents of the big Japanese and American firms - Honda or Harley. Instead, there are hundreds of small firms, many of them based in Chongquing, the world's fastest-growing metropolis. Their representatives meet in tea-houses, or collaborate online, each sharing knowledge, and contributing the parts or services they do best. The companies that assemble the finished products don't hire the other companies; assembling the finished product is just another service. A "self-organised system of design and production" has emerged - the kind of system we usually associate with phenomena in cyberspace, like Wikipedia, or software released without copyright, so that others can tweak and improve it, such as the web browser Firefox. The Chinese motorcycle industry, in other words, is "open source".

…and later…

What if the "rise of the amateur" is just a passing phase on the way to something far more radical? After all, there's a major economic problem with Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace and the like: people contribute to them without any financial reward, even as the content they contribute makes millions of dollars for the sites' owners. That may not matter on a small scale, but it's no way to run an entire economy: at some point, people are going to need money for food and mortgages. Most of the "amateurs" who make up the blogosphere, for example, are only amateur in their capacity as bloggers. They're professional bankers, or nurses, or technologists, or students, or something. Doing things "professionally" is how people stay alive: we can't afford to be amateurs all the time. If the new online world relied on amateurs, there would be a limit to how far it could expand.

Although it is better if this article is read in full. These are just the bits that mention Wikipedia. The full article can be read here, but you need to register with The Guardian before you can read it. ISD 07:51, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's funny that they include us in the comment "After all, there's a major economic problem with Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace and the like: people contribute to them without any financial reward, even as the content they contribute makes millions of dollars for the sites' owners." Neither the WMF nor Jimbo makes millions of dollars out of WMF projects. And the other problem is that this is just a different form of commerce for those firms that do make money: in essense, people are contributing to these websites for free but they still receive a service. For YouTube it is free space for uploading images, for Facebook and MySpace they gain access to other people and get a wider circle of "friends" than they would otherswise get. Seems to be missing the point a bit. Just because they don't get monetary reward, doesn't mean that they don't get something. Perhaps they should read Barter? - Ta bu shi da yu 09:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Software tests accuracy of Wikipedia entries"

Partly WP in the news, partly news related to WP. The lead paragraph in the CBC online article is:

Because anyone can edit Wikipedia, the web encyclopedia's reliability varies wildly. Now a computer science professor hopes to give users a better baloney detector: software that flags questionable lines in Wikipedia entries.

([1])--Bookandcoffee 20:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Asahi.com, the internet version of Asahi Shimbun

[2] Asahi Shimbun has a article on wikipedia, and is questioning the reliablity of us. According to the article, Shizuoka Shimbun copied directly off wikipedia for one of its articles. If anyone could read and translate Japanese better than me, it would be a great help. --Hirohisat Kiwi 00:56, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Paris conference

The first French language Wikipedia conference is to be held in Paris next month, organised by the French WMF chapter. Some from the English Wikipedia are attending. Perhaps you could do a piece on this? The goal is (rough translation) "to explore concrete problems : How can we attract specialists who can guarantee the quality of a large number of articles ? How can make users more aware of the importance of reliable sources? ... The conference wishes to bring together scientists, teachers, experts and all contributors who care about the project." Walkerma 09:21, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe next week? Ral315 » 04:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikirage

Wikirage is the latest and greatest Wikipedia data mining tool. This tool lists the pages in Wikipedia which are receiving the most edits per unique editor over various periods of time, such as over the last hour. With such fast editing, rollbacks, 3RRs, valdalism, etc. are likely. This site seems like a good, constantly updated watch list that may be used by admins and others to assist where needed. There is a write up here. W3ace developed the tool. He's been discouraged by Wikipedia (see this), but thinks that Wikipedia "can serve as an fantastic way to study human nature and how the non-tech world interacts with Social powered media." A little WikiLove may help get this talented person back into contributing to the Encyclopedia. -- Jreferee (Talk) 17:34, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Asahi.com again

[3] Asahi.com is now mentioning the fact that Japanese government workers were deleting information that was not in their favor about their workplaces on the Japanese Wikipedia. The ministries have decided to warn the workers of "using ministry computers for other than minitry work". There were also notifications on ministry workers adding bad comments on some of their enemy senators. According to the Asahi Shimbun, a program named Wikiscanner identified the IP addresses. --Hirohisat Kiwi 01:49, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Music and videos

Tim Starling turned-on Mediawiki support for ogg vorbis and theora. This should make integration work a lot more nicely in the future. The video and audio templates are being changed right now, so there might be some technical difficulties on that front for the next few days. Tim suggested reading the thread at Wikitech "Video/audio player extension now on test.wikipedia.org" and http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:OggHandler Raul654 07:56, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why would they cover video/audio support now? :-/ Signpost did not do so several other times when I asked. --Gmaxwell 08:06, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
At one point I tried to contact you via your talk page and on IRC, but you weren't there and I published without it. I have covered at least a few audio/video issues in News and Notes, including the in-browser audio-video player introduced a few months back, but I usually don't give things their own article unless 3-4 paragraphs of copy can be written about it; in most cases, audio/video can't generate that kind of copy easily. Alternatively, feel free to write a story about anything you find notable in that field or on the MediaWiki/toolserver/technical side of things; I'll admit that I'm not that smart when it comes to the audio/video issues, so I can't write intelligently about the technical side of it, while you probably could, and I'm sure a lot of people would be interested in reading about that side of it. Ral315 » 20:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In a related story, I got permission this week from a music professor, John Mitchel, to include almost 100 of his professional cello recordings. (Here are the additions to my master list) This should substantially improve a number of our classical music and related articles Raul654 07:39, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

2 million articles

Once again, there was a huge rush as the 2 millionth article approached. The winner was El Hormiguero created by User:Zzxc. Ones created at the same time were:

Herrín de Campos created (1999980)
Thomas Scudder Page created (1999981)
Midorino Station created (1999982)
Josh Newman created (1999983)
Geria created (1999984)
Barren River created (1999985)
Kenkyu-gakuen Station created (1999986)
Gatón de Campos created (1999987)
Louisville Clock created (1999988)
New York State Route 631 created (1999989)
Spring Creek Correctional Center created (1999990)
United Kingdom local elections, 1997 created (1999991)
Pennsylvania Route 924 created (1999992)
Simon M. Kirby created (1999993)
Varney, Kentucky created (1999994)
Special:Ancientpages. 08:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Misato-chuo Station created (1999995)
Oklahoma State Highway 116 created (1999996)
Llano de Olmedo created (1999997)
George Davida created (1999998)
Nagareyama-​centralpark Station created (1999999)
El Hormiguero created (2000000)
Sum of absolute transformed differences created (2000001)
Audio boot created (2000002)
Famous Pacific Shipping created (2000003)
Kashiwanoha-​campus Station created (2000004)
Terrence Webster-Doyle created (2000005)
Satellite Analysis Branch created (2000006)
Lomoviejo created (2000007)
Offline File System created (2000008)
Theatre Academy (Finland) created (2000009)
Niddrie Primary School created (2000010)
Magar class created (2000011)
Japan's Imperial Conspiracy created (2000012)
Jerusalem bus 26 bombing created (2000013)
John Jay Park created (2000014)
Sebastian von Hoerner created (2000015)
Langayo created (2000016)
Møhlenpris created (2000017)
XT technique created (2000018)
Nick Blackburn created (2000019)
Kapa moe created (2000020)
Where did the numbers (1999980 to 2000020) come from? Greenshed 08:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Someone was kind enough to log it - http://wintermaple.com/wiki-madness.html Raul654 08:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But wasn't El Hormiguero created long ago? --Camptown 08:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It had deleted revisions which Alkivar restored. Raul654 08:52, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It shouldn't be regarded as a new article in that case... GhePeU 08:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It was new at the time it was created (Alk didn't restore the revisions until after the article was recreated), so that makes it a new article in every meaningful sense of the phrase. Raul654 09:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good. A TV show would be far more interesting as the 2,000,000th article than something abstract & esoteric. Since this TV show still makes new episodes, and its characters make commentary about current events, we'll hear from them about Wikipedia in due time. Most certainly, many more will watch this show as it gets uploaded onto Youtube and elsewhere for all Wikipedians to see! =) --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 09:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, as much as I'd like to have the honor have having made the two millionth article, I don't see much popular appeal in something that esoteric. —Dark•Shikari[T] 09:09, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yea. Some stuff just has no popular appeal.. For example, Encyclopedias. Oh wait. --Gmaxwell 09:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's interesting how another railway station almost became the two millionth article. --ざくら 09:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The creator of the log is the same person who has created the article El Hormiguero. Another reliable source? --Emijrp 09:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the log above has been reversed! Look here, while it's still under 2,000,500 articles: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Newpages&namespace=0&limit=500&offset=0 --Let Us Update Special:Ancientpages. 10:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mmmm, a bit weird... --Emijrp 10:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is User:zzxc, and I was the one whose script created the log data posted above. This was automatically generated by a script every ten seconds, which was checking special:log and special:newpages to keep the count in sync. (I took an MD5SUM of each page that was created or deleted to keep track of which had already been counted) This data can be verified by checking the actual logs on Wikipedia for the article order. Apparently, the official logging was down for some reason, so my unofficial logging script was used. This raw logging data was being downloaded in real-time many times per second by people in the chat room. I was quite shocked when everyone in the channel started saying that mine was the two millionth article. When I created the script, I never expected that the numbers would be used for anything important - I created it simply to give unofficial "interim" milestone articles. It does appear that this page of the data was reversed, due to the actual page processing order being backwards - there are 50 articles per page.
With articles constantly being created and deleted, it's hard to determine which article is two million. It was even harder for me to create a script to do just that - without database access - in 20 minutes. The difference made by reversing pages of data is most likely low. I didn't notice this at first, because I was querying fast enough that I only got a few new articles on every special:newpages request. Someone can include the entire log data as retrieved from me, for future reference. (Please don't link to my server, at it is hosted on my home Internet connection. With so many people downloading my data all at once, my Internet connection was near saturated - thus delaying the script's page retrievals.) Again, I was never expecting this data to be used as official data. The script that generated this data was created in about 10 minutes for the express purpose of generating realtime article counts and preliminary milestones (100 away, 200 away, etc). I assumed that the Mediawiki developers would be logging it using the "million.log" hack they used last time. I started to do a complete rewrite of my logging script based on the data from irc.wikimedia.org, but I ran out of time before the two millionth article was posted. EDIT: I wasn't logged in before. Zzxc 10:41, 9 September 2007 (UTC) (EDIT 2: cleaned up the posting. Zzxc 10:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC))[reply]
The call is already made for your data to be the official one (on the main page), but it would mean that the 2,000,000 article, technically, could possibly turn out to be the wrong one... - Mailer Diablo 10:55, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I took out the article from the Main Page, might be better to wait for WMF to make the confirmation first. - Mailer Diablo 11:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Verifying which article was "the" true two millionth article will be quite difficult, since no server logs were kept. Since article text changes so often, one would have to unwind every change to the database to see the value of goodarticles at the point each page was added. I'm guessing that the position wasn't shifted much, as El Hormiguero seems to be in the middle of a "flipped" page. In the end, it was picked by consensus in irc the best article created around the two million timeframe. I guess WMF will have to sort things out... Zzxc 11:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If no logging took place officially, then my guess is that WMF might not pick any individual article, just the milestone... - Mailer Diablo 11:37, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The official logging was down for some reason? Are you sure the devs weren't trying to tell people to ignore the 2 millionth article? :-P Nil Einne 11:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have logs of the wikimedia IRC channel (which can probably be taken as scripture) and information saying that the article about 50 beforehand was Castronuevo de Esgueva - the log, part of it, is at User:ST47/2E6, if someone wants to look through to figure it out. Remember that the article count only looks at articles with links. --ST47Talk·Desk 12:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I find it quite unlikely that the person running the counting script is also the person who hits the 2,000,000th article. Something spooky here. --192.176.237.2 13:03, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked at it, and due to the uncertainty in my method, it most likely is:
04:21 <@rc> Japan's Imperial Conspiracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%27s_Imperial_Conspiracy) N http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%27s_Imperial_Conspiracy * Gwern * (+7595) Created (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AES) page with '{{Infobox Book | name = Japan's Imperial Conspiracy | title_orig = | translator = | image = | image_caption = | author = David Bergamini | illustrator = | cover_art...'
Or not too far after that one - best that someone else have a look, of course. (crossposted from WP:AN) --ST47Talk·Desk 13:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


For a definitive answer, we will have to wait for the database logs to be replayed to the moment of the two millionth article's creation. Attempting to find the "true" first 2,000,000th article without a mediawiki hack or replaying mysql logs is a useless effort, as it is impossible to get the live GOODARTICLES count or monitor pages that are turned into redirects, or linkless stubs expanded into articles. To attempt to solve this problem, I've reanalyzed my own log data. (I can provide the very messy javascript to anyone who is researching this... just leave a message on my talk page) Since every page of data from special:newpages was "flipped", all that should be required is to identify which entries are part of the page containing 2,000,000 - and simply flip it back. My script was producing article counts that mirrored special:statistics at about 100 articles before two million, when I last checked it. (I manually synchronized the number with special:statistics to make it as accurate as possible. It is easy to determine when this happens, as the article in my log count jumps for no reason. None of these manual synchronizations with special:statistics occurred near the time of the two millionth article. My log data was posted in realtime every ten seconds, so many people would have downloaded the sequential data before the article count was two million, proving that I couldn't have modified the data after the fact. Still, the data was wrong due to bad logic in my hastily written javascript, and I feel bad for this data having mislead people. Here is the relevant portion of my log data:

Before 2 million

Barren River created (1999985) Kenkyu-gakuen Station created (1999986) Gatón de Campos created (1999987) Louisville Clock created (1999988)

The "page" with two million, identified by comparing this to special:newpages and finding the "ends"

  1. New York State Route 631 created (1999989)
  2. Spring Creek Correctional Center created (1999990)
  3. United Kingdom local elections, 1997 created (1999991)
  4. Pennsylvania Route 924 created (1999992)
  5. Simon M. Kirby created (1999993)
  6. Varney, Kentucky created (1999994)
  7. Misato-chuo Station created (1999995)
  8. Oklahoma State Highway 116 created (1999996)
  9. Llano de Olmedo created (1999997)
  10. George Davida created (1999998)
  11. Nagareyama-​centralpark Station created (1999999)
  12. El Hormiguero created (2000000)
  13. Sum of absolute transformed differences created (2000001)
  14. Audio boot created (2000002)
  15. Famous Pacific Shipping created (2000003)
  16. Kashiwanoha-​campus Station created (2000004)
  17. Terrence Webster-Doyle created (2000005)
  18. Satellite Analysis Branch created (2000006)
  19. Lomoviejo created (2000007)
  20. Offline File System created (2000008)
  21. Theatre Academy (Finland) created (2000009)
  22. Niddrie Primary School created (2000010)
  23. Magar class created (2000011)
  24. Japan's Imperial Conspiracy created (2000012)
  25. Jerusalem bus 26 bombing created (2000013)
  26. John Jay Park created (2000014)
  27. Sebastian von Hoerner created (2000015)
  28. Langayo created (2000016)
  29. Møhlenpris created (2000017)
  30. XT technique created (2000018)
  31. Nick Blackburn created (2000019)
  32. Kapa moe created (2000020)
  33. Green River Correctional Complex created (2000021)
  34. Laguna de Duero created (2000022)
  35. New York State Route 598 created (2000023)
  36. K-3 (Kansas highway) created (2000024)
  37. Banda Station created (2000025)
  38. Medina de Rioseco created (2000026)

The page after two million

Battle of Nihriya created (2000027) Minami-Hashimoto Station created (2000028) New York State Route 825 created (2000029) Oklahoma State Highway 113 created (2000030) Viikki Campus created (2000031) Luther Luckett Correctional Complex created (2000032) Aoi Station created (2000033) Matilla de los Caños created (2000034) Gulf crayfish snake created (2000035) Rokucho Station created (2000036) Matapozuelos created (2000037)

Thus, we at least know the result is somewhere in that second page of 38 entries. Flipping that page around we get...

The page with two million, flipped via OpenOffice Calc (The original number is in parenthesis, the reordered number is at the end

Medina de Rioseco created (2000026) 1999989

Banda Station created (2000025) 1999990

K-3 (Kansas highway) created (2000024) 1999991

New York State Route 598 created (2000023) 1999992

Laguna de Duero created (2000022) 1999993

Green River Correctional Complex created (2000021) 1999994

Kapa moe created (2000020) 1999995

Nick Blackburn created (2000019) 1999996

XT technique created (2000018) 1999997

Møhlenpris created (2000017) 1999998

Langayo created (2000016) 1999999

Sebastian von Hoerner created (2000015) 2000000

John Jay Park created (2000014) 2000001

Jerusalem bus 26 bombing created (2000013) 2000002

Japan's Imperial Conspiracy created (2000012) 2000003

Magar class created (2000011) 2000004

Niddrie Primary School created (2000010) 2000005

Theatre Academy (Finland) created (2000009) 2000006

Offline File System created (2000008) 2000007

Lomoviejo created (2000007) 2000008

Satellite Analysis Branch created (2000006) 2000009

Terrence Webster-Doyle created (2000005) 2000010

Kashiwanoha-​campus Station created (2000004) 2000011

Famous Pacific Shipping created (2000003) 2000012

Audio boot created (2000002) 2000013

Sum of absolute transformed differences created (2000001) 2000014

El Hormiguero created (2000000) 2000015

Nagareyama-​centralpark Station created (1999999) 2000016

George Davida created (1999998) 2000017

Llano de Olmedo created (1999997) 2000018

Oklahoma State Highway 116 created (1999996) 2000019

Misato-chuo Station created (1999995) 2000020

Varney, Kentucky created (1999994) 2000021

Simon M. Kirby created (1999993) 2000022

Pennsylvania Route 924 created (1999992) 2000023

United Kingdom local elections, 1997 created (1999991) 2000024

Spring Creek Correctional Center created (1999990) 2000025

New York State Route 631 created (1999989) 2000026


This would seem to indicate that my article (El Hormiguero) was about 15 off from the two million mark. If we want a definitive answer, though, we will have to replay the mysql logs. Personally, I think it's good to not know the exact number, as it gives us flexibility to choose the best article of those around the two million mark. (In fact, I believe that this is what was done for El Hormiguero - it was the best article among those that were in the range of being two million. It was just a fluke that my data said that it was identically two million.) Zzxc 16:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yet another update... Even though I corrected the "page flipping" in my log data, it should be noted that there is still the matter of synchronization of the "goodarticles" statistic from special:log. I synchronized my script, which was using special:newpages and special:log, to the special:statistics data at about 1999000 articles. At this point, I left it alone to ensure an uninterrupted recording of the two millionth article. However, since my script did not adjust its count for existing articles becoming redirects (or other pages with no links), redirect pages becoming articles, pages being moved into or out of the main namespace, or whether new pages contained any links. I was working on a much better script (with perl and irssi) using the irc feed to produce a much more accurate number, but we hit two million while I was about halfway finished. As such, it should be noted that these numbers give a good ballpark figure of which articles qualify to be the two millionth, but even the corrected data may have an error of 10 or more articles in either direction. The important thing with these milestones seems to be to have a good article around the two million point, rather than an attempt to analyze things perfectly to get the first article that caused 'goodarticles' in the master database to be >=2000000. The link to the original, raw uncorrected output of my javascript is here: [4] If anyone needs the javascript that produced that data, leave a message here and I will leave it on your talk page. Zzxc 02:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia deletes about one article for every three created. Even assuming you know the number of articles at a specific point of time, then to accurately advance the total you need to add creations and subtract deletions to figure out the change in the total number of articles over time. Not that it matters all that much. The "1 millionth" article was designated by taking an interesting article created at near the right time and simple asserting that it was good enough, even though some post-hoc analysis suggests the article that truly pushed the tally to 1 million may have been off by 20 or so entries. 76.231.189.193 04:07, 10 September 2007 (UTC
Just to clarify, my script did track page deletions and page creations. However, it suffered from the limitations mentioned in my post. Zzxc 04:44, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
NB: this was removed without explanation earlier.

I imagine that the rather heated deletion discussion - tying into the "BADSITES" Arbitration matter - plus the actions of the principle users concerned, the protection of the article by its creator, the semi-protection by another, the stubbing, destubbing by a different admin, etc., will be rather interesting in news form.--Rambutan (talk) 06:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this would be an unwise choice that would needlessly inflame passions and hurt feelings, considering the larger context of things. Phil Sandifer 15:29, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think in "the larger context", the fact that this battle between a handful of people is having so much effect on all sorts of Wikipedia policy issues is newsworthy, as is the continued attempts to sweep the whole thing under the rug. *Dan T.* 15:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hear, hear. The debate closed, with the verdict of redirect to Overstock.com. As the deletion lister, I'm perfectly satisfied.--Rambutan (talk) 15:55, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Judd Bagley article debate is part of a major controversy in Wikipedia, not just concerning the BADSITES debacle, but also efforts by many Wikipedia administrators to suppress any mention of Bagley's website in Wikipedia, the allegations that at least one prominent Wikipedia administrator is engaging in bad faith actions and is being protected in doing so by other administrators, that a journalist was editing and protecting his own bio article on Wikipedia and that Wikipedia administrators were knowingly allowing him to do so, and the criticism of Wikipedia administrators and editors in off-site sources. If there isn't an interesting story here that's worth investigating and reporting on, then I don't know what is. Cla68 16:38, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Suppress any mention of Bagley's website"... I wouldn't say that's true, but go for the story!--Rambutan (talk) 16:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, believe me, it's true. I have some painful, personal experience with it. See here. Cla68 17:10, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. This is a major issue. But on the other hand, Bagley's website says some deeply unseemly things about a number of editors. And while I think there are contexts where discussion of it cannot be avoided, this isn't one of them, and I see no reason to step into it. Phil Sandifer 21:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to wait for the outcome of arbitration, after all of the factors have been weighed by the appropriate body? DurovaCharge! 02:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly, but I suspect that the arbcom is just going to rule on the narrow issue of whether NPA applies to thea rticle space. Phil Sandifer 03:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The scary thing is if anything on Judd's website proves to be true. If so, this could be the most serious threat to the credibility of Wikipedia since the Essjay fiasco. Especially since it involves an admin who is responsible for writing most of Wikipedia's current policies plus one of the few oversight admins. The lid is finally starting to open on the story and we'll have to see what happens. Cla68 04:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A quick review of the site reveals much unseemliness, indeed! I propose documenting each unseemly thing. Let's use the following chart, listing each of the 11 Wikipedia editors mentioned on the site, together with the claim made of them, what, if any outside confirmation might exist to support the claim, and then a column dedicated entirely to that which is least unseemly! This should be fun! Have at it!!!
Editor Claim Reality Unseemliness
User:Mantanmoreland has a COI problem Fred Bauder confirms (please insert unseemliness here)
User:Lastexit is a Mantanmoreland sock (now inactive) Fred Bauder confirms (please insert unseemliness here)
User:Tomstoner is a Mantanmoreland sock (now inactive) Fred Bauder confirms (please insert unseemliness here)
Fred Bauder exists Fred Bauder confirms (please insert unseemliness here)
User:Jayjg oversighted embarrassing User:SlimVirgin edits recovered diffs confirm (please insert unseemliness here)
User:FloNight exists FloNight confirms (please insert unseemliness here)
User:Cla68 Proposed the article on Gary Weiss for deletion nobody denies (please insert unseemliness here)
User:Jimbo Wales Deleted the record of the Gary Weiss deletion debate Jimbo admits (please insert unseemliness here)
User:SlimVirgin Has a name in real life unconfirmed (please insert unseemliness here)
User:WordBomb is upset about most of these things his blog confirms (please insert unseemliness here)
--Great Ceasar's Ghost 07:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above user is Judd Bagley or a minion. Any assertions, particularly of what others are alleged to have said, need a sack of salt and some amazingly good citations. (ps: Fuck off, Bagley.) - David Gerard 12:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Even if not to be reported on in the Signpost, it's worth being formally investigated by the Foundation since it's the next Essjaygate!--Rambutan (talk) 09:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to strongly oppose this. There are a number of editors who I know aren't happy about being stalked or harassed. I've personally been listed wrongly on a website - Perverted Justice - because I'm an admin who did something they don't like. It's not pleasant, and it's not something we want to promote. Please, let's not write about this one. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Does everybody get a free pass from having to face exposure of one's misdeeds by screaming "harrassment!" and "stalking!", or just those with status in the favored clique? *Dan T.* 12:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]