User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Pakistan

I remember bringing this up with you Jimmy a few years back and you said about organizing a cleanup. The problem has got too huge, 90% at least of Indian and Pakistan articles contain POV, unsourced poorly written material and ugly lists of schools and local "famous" taxi drivers. The average article is an embarrassment. Given the high computer useage in Indian and Pakistan and generally poor command of english and extremely slim chance sof the average IP/newbie writing something encyclopedic which is properly sourced I think we'd be better off incubating a high number of articles and only restoring once checked and put on watchlists. Anybody browse through the articles we have in the sub categories in Category:Populated places in Pakistan and Category:Populated places in India for instance and it'll have you shaking your head that we are hosting that sort of content. First I picked at random was Kulgam.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 20:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

First copyedit of Kulgam, expanded Karianwala: These Indo-Pak articles are common for the WP:GOCE editors, and are a known difficulty (aka "nightmare"), where editors try to just get the minimal coherence. Fixes can be done in 3 stages: first copyedit for 200-500 grammar issues, then cleanup names, and finally, consider sources which refute claims made in the text. The first edit of "Kulgam" had 230 changes, removing most wp:Peacock terms, yet some names were left lowercase, to consider place names versus lowercase foreign terms which need italics. However, for sanity, the first copyedit fixes the 200-500 grammar issues (+commas/dots). During a 3rd edit, then source footnotes can be added, or changed. When I expanded Pakistan article "Karianwala" (from text deleted as wp:OR March 2012), I paraphrased from sources, but remember, when in a rush, some copyvio text can be changed to a short quotation, so the re-stubbing of Karianwala was a sad case of over-deletion setting progress back a year. These articles require the "work" in why it is called "working on an encyclopedia". Estimate 1-2 hours to cleanup a non-stub town. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:13/00:24, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

As mentioned at that thread, I'm trying, and failing, to come up with any reason not to go through and delete these articles and make people restart from scratch. In many instances, a blank page would be much more helpful than someone writing about their BEAUTIFUL VILLAGE in ALL CAPS. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:59, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Now {fixcaps} can help edit those: After many such articles, I wrote the quick Template:Fixcaps to help reformat the all-caps text for easier editing. Just use {fixcaps} and reword the wp:Peacock terms:

• {{fixcaps|/BEAUTIFUL /VILLAGE in ALL /^CAPS}} → Template:Fixcaps

Then replace the glowing terms as less exuberant, as "Scenic Village in all CAPS" or such! -Wikid77 (talk) 07:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I tend to specialise in the Indic articles sphere and, yes, these things are dreadfully poor and not capable of being sourced in a meaningful manner except to co-ordinates (which may or may not be correct because the same village names often reappear in various parts of the countries). Alas, I've tended to hit the "populated places are inherently notable" argument, although I was involved when PMDrive1061 nuked a ton of Indian village articles last year. It is a real problem but I don't know what the answer is other than dedicated clean ups, which (in the case of caste/clan articles) have so far taken me around 18 months and results in a phenomenal amount of fighting, SPIs, semi-protections etc. - Sitush (talk) 21:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Isn't this part of what Wikiprojects do? There seem to be active Wikiprojects for both India and Pakistan. Neutron (talk) 21:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The Pakistan one isn't really active, and WP:INDIA is swamped with all kinds of awful problems. I'm more than ready to start going the way of PMDrive1061; seems like a perfectly good time to invoke IAR. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah Sitush, and we both want to see as extensive coverage of India and Pakistan as UK or USA as well, but the problem is too big, as you say 18 months just trying to sort out a portion of the clans which I also mentioned along with the villages and amongst the worst. I'm planning on a massive AFD proposal but I'll need help drawing it up. I genuinely believe that 90% of all articles on Pakistan and Indian are more problematic existing than if they were missing. I believe we have enough evidence that its not working to make at least an incubation of articles a valid option. Yes "places are inherently notable" argument is a problem but if we can provide enough example of all articles containing less than satisfactory content I think a lot of editors will see that this represents the toilet in the movie Trainspotting (film) of wikipedia's content. Cleanup and improvement is always the argument but given the lack of numbers working on thema and the sheer amount off watchlists I believe the problem needs to be blown up and new articles on the Indosphere strictly regulated. India and Pakistan are unique in regards to traffic.

@Neutron. Pakistan project only has one or two decent half decent editors, no more than the people commenting on this thread. You'd need several hundred to clear up the existing mess over at least a year or two and put all articles on watchlists to stop the germs infesting again. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I have been very disappointed in the past to see people immediately making assumptions when content (sourced or not) mentions some prominent families in a village in Pakistan, and they immediately assume it's non-notable. We have no idea if it is or not. How people in a culture like theirs think of what is important in a town is probably different. They may well have sources available, now or in the future. The unsourced material is obviously prone to hoaxes, but usually it is respectfully written, not a real BLP problem. Why not just leave it alone and wait for someone to solidify the information? Wnt (talk) 21:42, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not disputing notability of clans or villages. I'm just stating what is very obvious to the average visitor to the articles and that the average article really is a disgrace and would be better off incubated. Occasionally as you say it might be fairly well written but badly needing sourcing but even then often not verifiable.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we should recognize that there are places in the world where it's still 2001 on Wikipedia. This project didn't get started by people hacking away at anything that sounded a little bit off - it was started with very low standards, and people willing to improve things where they can. Wnt (talk) 22:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and its now 2012 and the vast majority of Pakistan and India articles if anything have got worse since the articles were started, attracting POV, poorly written, unsourced, inappropriate material. Most of them in the current state are better off as short stubs.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 22:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'm curious, why is this posted at Jimbo's page? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:36, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't know, but I should probably mention in a day or two, TopGun, Inlandmamba, and myself, are going to nominate Muhammed Ali Jinnah, which is a reasonably important Pakistan article, at FAC. So there is hope of bringing order from chaos.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:45, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not quite sure what your point is here, Wehwalt. Jinnah is certainly a subject worthy of much attention and quality writing etc but he bears no relation to the average Indo-Pak geographical/caste/clan stub etc, which is otherwise more often than not WP:PUFFERY or, less specifically, OED puffery. One high profile article among many thousands of utter crap does not an encyclopedia make. Although the situation was never great in my limited experience, it has deteriorated considerably since WMF decided to make their well-intentioned but hopelessly misguided "push" in India. As with any situation, some good can always be found and it is appreciated. But I can find more notability/more sources etc for the street on which I live - 30-ish houses than for most Indic "village" articles as currently presented. And mine is a typical Manchester terraced row of 1880s houses that really, really it would be mad for me to introduce as an article. Yes, systemic bias is an issue and there is a tradition of oral history, transliteration problems etc, but one of the core subtexts of that bias is the pride/POV etc in history and location that is common among the Indo-Pak contributors but rarely (imo) seems to amount to anything encyclopedic for the other 80% of the world's population.

I've not phrased the above very well and apologise in advance for that, but I stand by the guts of my statements. - Sitush (talk) 23:22, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

My hope is to have it be an example of what can be done, but I agree the articles on the wide spots in the mud in South India are a problem. Not sure if restricting article creation is the answer though.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm smelling a strong stench of bias here. Pakistan has 180 million inhabitants. India has 1.2 billion. Britain has 60 million - 1/3 of Pakistan, 1/20 of India. What would make your blocks more notable than Indian towns? Because they're a poor country you call these "wide places in the mud"? They're still notable - even if Wikipedia, so far, for some funny reason, hasn't really made itself popular over there. Wnt (talk) 23:39, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

(od) There's a tradeoff here. Obviously you're not going to find reliable sources for small villages in India the way you are for villages in the UK. But that doesn't make it any the less important for us cover these villages to the extent possible using government documents (perhaps, heaven forbid, even primary ones) and whatever local language newspaper references we can find online. Some of the material may turn out to be puffery, and we should delete any such material, but I don't like the idea of wholesale deletion of articles merely because we can't fix them. This encyclopedia is meant to be a perpetual work in progress and if that means carrying some poorly sourced and possibly puffed up articles for a while, then so be it. Somewhere along the way everything ultimately gets fixed but that will only happen if we have material to fix in the first place. --regentspark (comment) 01:46, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• Consider progress on "Gurdwara" and similar: Please remember that some months ago, article "Gurdwara" was a rambling mess, and even though people sometimes still append more trivia, the article was edited to become an interesting summary of a typical Sikh place of worship. The same goes for those villages, and their economy, and the sights of interest. They can be easily edited to reach tolerable levels of content. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

That's not it at all; it's that articles on American and British hamlets/villages aren't written by people unable to string a decent English sentence together and have no idea what goes into an encyclopedia. I've never seen anything outside of Indo-Pak village articles that look as absolutely awful as, for instance, Jayya; if they're out there, I'm more than happy to zap those as well. But the unsourced piles of puffery and promotion like he aforementioned page make us look bad if we allow such unmitigated shit to indefinitely lay around and cause problems from the already severely strained people desperately trying to beat some sense into the area. Sometimes, when content is completely worthless (as is the case here) it's much easier to start over again, so we should do it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm, are there really no generally accepted, even say encyclopedic, reference works on the Sub-Continent? It would seem that English speakers would have produced something on this area of the world in the last several centuries. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

"I'm curious, why is this posted at Jimbo's page?" Jimmy once said he would contact his friend in Pakistan and try to organize a cleanup. I came here hoping he would still do so. Care to respond on this Jimbo? C'mon regentspark and wn, I'm not disputing notability, I want Pakistan and India to have the same coverage as UK and USA. The problem lies in the fact that as Blade says many visitors have problems with writing half decent sentences in English, all unsourced and usually plagued with POV and CAPITAL LETTERS. When thousands of articles are that awful they present a major problem for wikipedia, its just not good enough. Yes, we are a work in progress but the sheer amount needing cleanup and virtually all content in them wiped clean means we'd lose little by deleting/incubating the articles and making a list of those to restart with sources and with some control.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 09:27, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I have taken a purely random Pakistan village stub, Batangi. It seems to be rather typical, with things like "[...]linked with it by an unmetalled road.", and "The people of the village are extremely hardy, simple, intelligent and brave. The unique example of their courage and determination is[...]". The second one I opened: Shawa. Yes, it has the ALL CAPS problem, with things like "the people of SHAWA are very keen to get higher education". Dastagir Colony contains many "famous" and "world famous" things apparently. These articles need some good solution, either massive cleanup or mass redirection probably. Fram (talk) 09:58, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Neither Batangi nor Shawa are that hard to fix. Took me a minute to clean up Batangi. Of course there will be unsourced statements, there just aren't enough sources, so we have to use some judgement in deciding which ones to keep and which ones not to keep. For example, do we know for sure that there is a chinese takeaway in the English village of Bussage? Not really, but there it is along with Ram's Inn. --regentspark (comment) 14:03, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Just to step back a bit, I looked at the (old versions of) the articles given as (bad) example above, and I thought they were net positives even then. I mean, there's useful information in there. For instance, the passage "The people of the village [of Batangi] are extremely hardy, simple, intelligent and brave. The unique example of their courage and determination is the road connecting the village with Abbottabad City which they built on self help basis in 1983." tells me that there is probably a road connecting Batangi with Abbottabad, which was probably built around 1983. That is useful to know. Granted, the intelligent and brave stuff is just noise, and definitely should go (and I greatly appreciate those editors undertaking the Augean task of cleaning these articles up), but I'm not seeing these articles as being worse than nothing. Herostratus (talk) 15:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I seriously don't understand how someone could think that the information that a road exists is worth the puffery. In fact, the road information is itself borderline, and I'd strip it out of most articles in most cases unless it were sourced (we are, after all, neither a directory nor a tourist site). And someone talked above about how the info isn't particularly bad because it isn't negative...well, I for one consider unsourced puffery to be about 80% as bad as unsourced criticism, especially since in some cases elevation of one group implies denigration of others. I'm not quite certain that tearing everything down is the right solution, but it should at least be considered. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, sure, I can explain. Let's assume that, for my purposes of researching Batangi, I want to know something about where it fits in the local communications net. In that case, information about its road connections is useful to me. In order to get that information, it is worth it to me to filter out the bits about intelligence and bravery. I don't see info such as transportation infrastructure as borderline. That its unsourced is an issue, true. These are different issues from the puffery, though. Herostratus (talk) 06:51, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

So, we now have a "cleaned" article, making all kinds of claims about the population and ethnic and caste aspects. Source? According to the 2007 election figures, only some 270 persons were voters for Batangi[1], which seems to include people from surrounding villages as well. On a population of 1000 for Batangi alone, this seems like a lot for a village which had in 1961 113 inhabitants[2]. Much of the information in the article can't be verified at all. Stubifying it to the bone seems to be the best solution. 08:26, 26 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fram (talk • contribs)

Maybe someone can contact every editor in Category:Wikipedians in India and every editor in Category:Wikipedians in Pakistan, and help them to use correct English and to follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines. As a useful intermediate step, they might be encouraged to become participants in Wikipedia:WikiProject India and Wikipedia:WikiProject Pakistan, and to follow on their watchlists the respective talk pages, where participants can be helped to use correct English and to follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines. See also: Category:Wikipedians in Bangladesh and Wikipedia:WikiProject Bangladesh; Category:Wikipedians in Nepal and Wikipedia:WikiProject Nepal; and Category:Wikipedians in Sri Lanka and Wikipedia:WikiProject Sri Lanka.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC) and 16:50, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

• Redirected "mohala" to expand as a mohalla: As typical for articles on emerging subjects, for a Pakistan town, there was the word "mohala" which Google suggested, "Did you mean: mohalla?" and so I created a redirect. As with the Sikh place of worship, "gurdwara", last year, some cultural terms are revealed to be major words once the meaning is better understood. Please note, the lack of quality text is not just in village articles, but occurs in many areas, depending on the level of expertise, where experts in a subject have been just as appalled about missing details (in "Duns Scotus" or "Abelard"), as compared to casual readers appalled that village articles contain sparse data. Consider the terms "carriage bolt" (in article "screw") or "unit testing" or "simoom" (was a stub for years), which were once hollow topics, with limited details during the first 5 years of Wikipedia. Check again, in another 5 years, for the level of details about the Pakistan towns. The more readable those articles become, the more likely they will be expanded. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Gibraltar hooks RfC

The Gibraltar hooks discussion is now an RfC:

• Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Gibraltar_hooks_RfC

Media coverage:

• "Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales Breaks Silence On Resurgence Of Promotional Scandal", The Daily Dot, 25 October 2012 --AndreasKolbe JN466 20:36, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Huh. I wasn't aware that I had been silent.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, the thread on the resumption of the Gibraltarpedia hooks was on your talk page for a week. You didn't comment on it, even though you commented on other threads. You were silent on it, until a journalist called the WMF about it to obtain an official statement. AndreasKolbe JN466 16:24, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I had already spoken about the whole situation. It's not "silence" to not comment on every little detail.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

This has really been bothering me of late so I'm going to get it off my chest, I'm being honest. I understand your concern about promotions and that it is wrong to think that wikipedia is somehow being used for promotional gain and that you see a need to send a message to the media that this should be strongly punished and discouraged, but I'm being honest that you've upset me with your attitude towards the people who are contributing to Gibraltar articles for free and are actually producing a lot of good work. Articles like Moorish Gibraltar, Trafalgar Cemetery and Synagogues of Gibraltar, how can you stand there and attack those editors and label them "ludicrous" for producing this content for wikipedia? Ludicrous that they are contributing it for free in such a hostile environment maybe. Regardless of what might have been reported between the government and Victuallers, a number of contributors to Gibraltar articles, myself included, are motivated by a project which attempts to provide a sound coverage of a place and believe the wiki city concept is a fantastic development and would like to see it replicated all over the world. If the front page of wikipedia is being used for "business" its a misguided one. The number of people who even notice DYK much less visit and read the articles represent a tiny percentage of daily visitors to the main page. A number of contributors, especially AC, Gibmetal and Prioryman, and myself have put considerable effort into producing articles which we believe improve wikipedia as a resource in the quest for providing knowledge long term, regardless of DYK. We work hard all year producing for this website, never see a cent, never even an annual email from you and the foundation thanking us for our efforts and you treat us like this. It bothers me that you clearly have no regard or respect for the contributors of wikipedia and are more interested in politics and your reputation and political/civil correctness than you are content. If you actually read some of these articles you'd see they are actually a positive thing for wikipedia and a net plus and given the fact that they are neutral, meet guidelines and encyclopedic. You've attacked these articles appearing as DYK to the media which is fair enough, I can see you feel it sends out a wrong message that wikipedia must not be manipulated. But at least acknowledge the effort that has been put into articles by contributors who are innocent of any "agreement" and believe it or not working for free and are actually increasing the value to wikipedia as a resource.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 09:21, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

"you've upset me with your attitude twoards the people who are contributing to the Gibraltar articles for free" - I have said nothing negative or even potentially negative about them, so I don't know what you mean. I thank people for their efforts all the time, I speak glowingly of our amazing community of contributors at every possible opportunity. Do you really want an annual form email from the Foundation? I don't see how that would even begin to express the genuine admiration that the people at the Foundation have for the community, and which is better expressed in a thousand much stronger ways all the time through their work to support us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. The impression I and quite a few people I know is that we don't feel really personally appreciated by you or the foundation for what we do, and as individuals. We admire what you did with starting the project and what is done to keep out advert and commercial enterprises but we in return keep the project developing and growing each year. You have often identified the small "core" team of editors who perform the bulk of the edits. I never see any general interaction with them/us aside from those who can attend wikimania or seminars/media wiki or comment here. A thankyou from you and the foundation personally sent out by a bot to our email address annually would make a difference I think. An email from you and the foundation, a personal newsletter at the end of the year saying about what happened in a given year, what has grown across wikiprojects and new schemes involved and a "thankyou for your part in this, keep up the editing in the new year, have a great 2013" sort of thing at the end of each year would improve how you and the foundation are perceived and make us feel more welcome. I'm not sure others here agree on this but I know many who do; I tend to view the foundation and the bureacracy on wikipedia as polarized from the content contributors, above us all, and given the perception I've seen from certain individuals seem to resent the way they don't feel supported and encouraged by the foundation to write for wikipedia and how they are powerless often to make good proposals. I want to see relations between the foundation and the more prolific content contributors on wikipedia improve, I feel as if the wiki politicians/bureacrats are more highly regarded than those who actually produce the goods on here and why we are really here.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 20:44, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Some of the articles have had sketchy sourcing, but otherwise I don't think anyone has really criticized the article writers. The problem is the selling of access to the main page, including stacking the DYK approval votes in order to get the articles approved and moved up in the line. Two different things. Cla68 (talk) 09:28, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

There has been remarkably little focus on the editors involved considering the circumstances Dr Blofeld. Likewise the quality of the articles has rarely come up. Its almost entirely been about the appearance that access to the WP main page has been sold. Where it has touched on editors, its mostly been confined to those who have either declared (or been found to have) a financial interest, or who have been evasive about their trips to Gibraltar. The remainder of the hard-working editors - the worst that could be levied at them is they are unwitting pawns for Bamkin and his close associates at WMUK who have picked up the slack since he stopped. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:36, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Over the million or so people who visit english wikipedia main page daily you'd be lucky if 1500 visit any one of the DYKs. Its merely the first step in the quest for improving content. The impression I've got is that Jimmy detests the fact that these articles are being produced regardless of DYKs and the fact that none of them contain "promotional material" and are largely historical in content and well researched and sourced of decent quality. As I say I understand why he does because he thinks its wrong that any wikipedia article or project should be connected to somebody else's gain, but I think it is wrong to discourage editors from improving wikipedia as a resource which these articles clearly do. I'd like to greater community/wiki involvement around the world and encourage exciting new projects to improve content and bring in new editors. Its only ludicrous because its a focus on Gibraltar only, if everywhere else was thrown in we'd develop massively as a resource. I've not contributed to many Gibraltar articles myself, only one in fact since the scandal emerged but I think you'd be right Only in death that there are more innocent people involved in production than you might think who are actually producing encyclopedic content which is beneficial in the long term. I appreciate that its a difficult situation but I've not been impressed by the way the feelings of the "unwitting pawns" have been treated over this.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 09:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

"The impression I've got is that Jimmy detests the fact that these articles are being produced regardless of DYKs and the fact that none of them contain "promotional material" and are largely historical in content and well researched and sourced of decent quality. " - It's easy to get any kind of impression you want if you simply make it up out of thin air. I have said nothing that could be even remotely construed as "detesting the fact that these articles are being produced".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:08, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

So if I was to fully expand the Algeciras article you'd welcome it, but you wouldn't welcome it as a DYK because it lies within Gibraltarpedia territory? You're confusing me. You called for a 5 year ban on articles related to Gibraltar didn't you?♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 20:51, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I think your perception of Jimmys comments is way off here. Gibraltar hired PR agents who made promises backed by access to WP as a marketing tool. If a competition was run merely to 'create' good articles on Gibraltar, no one would have really batted an eyelid. Jimmy would probably be the first to say more high quality and well sourced articles is a good thing. The existance of the articles has never been an issue. Its that the articles were being used as a marketing push. You seem to be very angry at the difficult situation its in now, but you should be directing that anger at the root cause of the problems. Not the people who are trying to clean up after it. Anyone who reads the DYK talk page can see that even the most strident of critics have for the most part, completely ignored all the editors who have contributed. I suspect because if we did start taking a look, it would end up in a frustrated screaming match of 'Why didnt you realise you were being used?'. Personally I would rather not say anything to a good editor than criticise them for being duped by a third party. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:53, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Duped or not, I've contributed to Gibraltar articles out of pure interest, I care about content. Admittedly I've always been curious as to why Victuallers was so keen and always imagined that there was some personal gain involved, but regardless of him, I think the work which has been produced with his involvement has been almost entirely satisfactory and does improve our coverage. Oh I did start accusing involved certain individuals and directed my anger at the involved parties initially and they swear to me that the situation has been completely exaggerated and overblown, I believe them. Regardless of what is going on in the background in Gibraltar if you simply browse through the articles created to date there is no real POV, no message saying "come to Gibraltar, we're the best in the world for tourists" but the quality is generally pretty good and almost entirely historical. Any visitor unaware of the background is not going to visit an article and think "oh yes that's an advert forcing me to book a holiday in Gibraltar". Culturally it is very interesting in my opinion and valuable for wikipedia to have articles like Moorish Gibraltar. We as a resource are the real winners over this.

I admittedly resent it to think that some people are being paid over their involvement and I'm not, but they deny it. I think too much importance has been placed on DYKs when alarmingly nobody really seems to have looked at the articles individually as components to improving wikipedia as a resource in the long term. I believe we benefit the most over it as a resource which is really all that matters. If a similar project preferably without "manipulation" was scaled worldwide imagine how much better off we'd be as a resource. If wikipedia and the DYK is genuinely being used as a marketing tool its a poor marketing tool and a very low percentage even notice DYK. None of the articles say "come to Gibraltar. We're the best". Content is neutral, largely historical and meets guidelines. If generating interest in it historically is the goal I think this is a good thing. Its a win-win situation. Monitoring of these articles are so tight now anyway, its hardly an ideal way to advertise Gibraltar is it? Maybe the government of Gibraltar and the cultural people involved with it are not entirely motivated by increasing tourism but genuinely want to improve the resources on the country? Has anybody considered that? A few of the people involved in the project like the director of the botanical gardens for instance seems genuinely interested in documenting the plants and things. Commercial gain aside, we need people like museum fellows and directors and such to work on wikipedia, anywhere in the world.. In regards to "Why didnt you realise you were being used?", aren't we all acutely aware that our free contributions to the website are being used? Few of us would edit people if we didn't get something out of it personally, the love of sharing knowledge and building a great resource.. Gibraltar is no different.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 10:09, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

As an outside observer, I haven't seen any criticism by Jimbo (or indeed anyone else) of the overwhelming majority of the editors who have contributed, or of the quality of what they have written. Admittedly, I haven't seen much praise either (unless you count DYK credits, which I don't) so I can fully understand why those editors are pissed off at what's been happening. But, the criticism is not aimed at them, rather at how DYK hooks on the main page have come to be used as a marketing tool. Personally I think it's all been more cock-up than conspiracy - I suspect that Victuallers never thought through the implications, and wasn't stopped in time - but it highlights the failings of DYK. There is a relatively small group of editors - Victuallers among them, and Blofeld - who seem to see getting a DYK credit almost an end in itself, as part of a never-ending competition. I admit that to some extent I used to think that way, but looking at some DYKs and hooks I became, frankly, embarrassed to be associated with the process. It often (not always, but often) has very little to do either with encouraging new editors, or with expanding WP's coverage in areas that are important for an encyclopedia to cover. It needs to be radically re-thought. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:42, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

"Victuallers among them, and Blofeld - who seem to see getting a DYK credit almost an end in itself, as part of a never-ending competition". Wrong. I've long been highly critical of DYK and I personally think it needs a major revamp with more encouragement to produce quality. I regularly make proposals to remove its petty rules and to focus on what is important, quality, not length of time duration of writing. I have proposed proper competitions with a monthly prize to get editors to produce content top no avail. I like having a bank of decent articles I can refer to but having an article on the main page has never been anything I've cared about, if you actually looked into the Gibraltarpedia pages you'll see I am not involved in the points competition despite have contributed a fair few articles. I agree, I don't like to think that people are being used or that wikipedia is being used as a marketing tool, but if you look at the actual product its productive to improving wikipedia as a resource. I'm not saying Jimmy has directly attacked editors, what concerns me most is that the editors behind the articles and the actual product itself has been overlooked and not taken into consideration because of the anger directed at Gibraltarpedia and DYK. Ghmyrtle, you were on good terms with Victuallers on Monmouthpedia I thought and produced quite a lot of content. I gather you were unaware of the background? ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 11:51, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, if I was mistaken in my suppositions I apologise. So far as I know, I am on perfectly good terms with Victuallers, Mrjohncummings, and yourself, on a personal level, as for that matter I am with Monmouthshire Council officers - my comments were not intended as any sort of attack on anyone. At the time Monmouthpedia was launched, what was the "background" I should have been aware of? The problems arose because there was too much emphasis in Monmouth on the idea of competition, over sheer numbers of articles produced, which led to separate articles on topics of very marginal notability, purely intended to boost numbers rather than value for readers. More importantly, Monmouthpedia was then deemed to be a "success" (according to what criteria?), and used as a launching pad for what could be, and was, seen to be a marketing initiative in relation to Gibraltar. That was a mistake, and steps need to be taken to ensure it's not repeated - including a shake-up of the DYK process, which we agree on. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there is a danger of too excessive coverage, I agree. Some of the Monmouthpedia articles did seem borderline notability but my general opinion was that they were all well sourced and appropriate and I like seeing detailed coverage of places. Yes, more effort should be encouraged to be put into quality. I recently proposed that DYK revise and change to X 2 expansion only for core articles. I expanded Marrekech from practically scratch and it has been rejected from DYK because it "breaks the rules", not long enough or done quick enough which is wrong, is 100 kb!! but its not Gibraltarpedia which is solely to blame... A way to deal with this problem is to both revise the DYK process and to beat the commercial exploiters at their own game. If the foundation funded a monthly prize awarded to editors for getting core articles up to GA status at least the focus would be wider and might encourage more editors to produce decent content and nothing "sneaky" would be going on and we'd benefit having important articles showcased on the main page and brought up to a decent status. But any proposal is ignored, even the "add new GAs to DYK" was blown out. People generally don't like change and because a consensus is rarely ever formed our growth and continued improvement is being stalled. I'm sure Jimbo himself must exasperate at times that attempts to reform rarely has the success he has wanted.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 13:41, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

The fundamental difference between us is that you think competitions on WP are a good idea, and I think they are, generally, a terrible idea. Ghmyrtle (talk) 15:30, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Whatever motivates editors to produce good content which meets the guidelines...♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 15:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you think editors need a dual motivation to write articles, i.e. prizes AND a slot on the main page? I don't think so. My impression was that it was not the authors who pushed the articles at DYK, but Roger to begin with, until the scandal broke, and now Prioryman. You yourself complained about Prioryman's role in this. AndreasKolbe JN466 17:05, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

press briefings

Note - I've moved this down to its own heading as it's an important issue. Prioryman (talk) 21:43, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Important note: I wrote to Jayen466 privately to point out that if he was responsible for that news story appearing, it is not helpful for him to do that sort of thing. His view appears to be that getting negative press about the Gibraltarpedia situation is essential in forcing positive change. My point to him is that doing such things (emailing reporters) is not at all helpful. The Foundation has already hired an outside firm for a full investigation, and the community is discussing the ramifications and what is to be done about it. If every little comment I make ends up in the press, then my very large influence on the community and on the press becomes part of the problem, and I am therefore incentivized to be quiet about things that I'm passionate about. That's wrong, and I won't do it.

I thought a private note to Jayen466, with whom I agree on this any many other issues, to encourage him to be a better ally would be a useful thing to do. What was his response? To send my private note to a reporter, who is thinking of publishing it. In the interest of preventing any sort of stupid press based on misquotes, I'm going to publish the entire thing myself right here:

I'm not sure if you had anything to do with this:

http://www.dailydot.com/news/wikipedia-jimmy-wales-influence-scandal/

but since you were interviewed, I'm guessing you might have.

It's already hard for me to weigh in forcefully on internal issues due to the possibility of

press coverage of what should be an interesting and thoughtful internal debate. It's especially

hard if people are cultivating that sort of press coverage.

There is no positive benefit to press coverage like this - it doesn't help Wikipedia to improve."

Andreas, you should apologize to me for this breach of etiquette.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:39, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I'll gladly apologise for hurting your feelings. The fact is, though, that nothing about Gibraltarpedia was being addressed, as with so many other longstanding issues. We had one Gibraltarpedia hook a day, and neither you nor anyone else did anything. Secondly, you left out a bit of the e-mail: the subject line. It was, "How sometimes you aren't as helpful to me as I would hope." (There was no salutation, and no signature.) If Wikipedia has become a commodity to be purchased, and you are powerless to change it, then the public deserves to know it, as they see your face and hear your voice a great deal, and may reasonably assume that Wikipedia is run according to the ideals you represent to them. Regards, Jimbo. AndreasKolbe JN466 19:18, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

"nothing about Gibraltarpedia was being addressed" - false. If you don't even start with the truth, then it is hard for us to take the rest of your nonsense seriously. That I didn't respond promptly to one of your demands during my honeymoon? I make no apologies for that. Your aggressiveness is inappropriate.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:37, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I know there is an investigation of WMUK. That is not in question. I was talking about the resumption of Gibraltar hooks on October 12, at a rate of one a day (6 in 6 days). It is still going on (even if it's less than one a day right now), and I don't think it is going to stop. AndreasKolbe JN466 20:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed, people are permitted to write articles related to southern Spain or northern Morocco, and yes indeed, they are allowed to submit them to DYK if they meet the criteria for DYK (for now, they require two reviews instead of one). Your attempting to pressure Jimbo to change that (both directly and indirectly) is not going to achieve anything. The Wikipedia main page is not censored - not by your political agenda, nor by anyone else's. That's not going to change anytime soon. Sorry. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:09, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to the club, Jimbo, of people whom Kolbe has tried to screw over. He has been carrying out a campaign of hostile press briefings against Wikipedia, and against both me and you personally, concerning Gibraltarpedia. A few days ago he wrote a very nasty piece on Wikipediocracy that was directed against me in particular, giving among other things my real name and profession, which are totally irrelevant to any issues concerning Gibraltarpedia. He's been shopping that piece to multiple journalists who have previously run articles critical of Wikipedia, such as Andrew Orlowski. He's shown himself to be as little concerned with your privacy as with mine. He is of course lying when he claims that "nothing about Gibraltarpedia was being addressed". It was the subject of multiple discussions on Wikipedia talk:Did you know prior to the current RfC (see [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]). What he really means by "not being addressed" is that at each decision point a substantial and sometimes overwhelming majority of editors have disagreed with proposals to ban Gibraltar-related DYKs. The fact is that Kolbe is willing to cause any amount of damage in order to bully and intimidate Wikipedians into doing what he wants. Can you honestly think of another example of an editor who has tried to get his way in a community discussion by carrying out a systematic off-wiki campaign of hostile press briefing? This isn't just inappropriate; it's a betrayal of Wikipedia's most fundamental principles of civility and collegiate interaction. "Editors should interact with each other in a respectful and civil manner", as WP:5P says. Prioryman (talk) 21:43, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, God forbid somebody should think doing paid marketing projects through Wikipedia should be the problem, eh? AndreasKolbe JN466 21:54, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Prioryman, coming from you, accusing another editor of "willing to cause any amount of damage in order to bully and intimidate Wikipedians into doing what he wants" is hypocritical. Every time I've read a discussion about Gibraltarpedia, I see you charge in, accusing, baiting, bullying, wikilawyering, derailing - anything and everything to protect Gibraltarpedia. You're practically running a clinic on how to eliminate opposing views in Wikipedia. Considering the extremely tendentious nature of your editing (including your refactoring of this page!!!), I don't know why you aren't topic banned yet. --JaGa^talk 23:06, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I did not give Prioryman's profession on Wikipediocracy. It's readily apparent to anyone who googles the name he has claimed as his own here on this site, but it was certainly not included in my post. AndreasKolbe JN466 00:14, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

What the hey is going on here? Why is Prioryman splitting off conversation on another user (Jimbo's) talk page? Shouldn't this be up to Jimbo? And even worse, why is he splitting it off and placing it under a clearly insulting and WP:BATTLEGROUND title? Did Jimbo approve or have any say in what Prioryman called this section?

I've kept the split but I have changed the title of the section.

More generally, this follows up on the heels of Prioryman outing users (see block log), falsely accusing JN of running "hate sites" [13], insulting people based on their profession [14], referring to fairly innocuous comments of others as "drivel" simply because he disagrees with them, referring to other people's comments as a"frothy mixture" [15] in an obvious allusion to you know what, and referring to other editors as "maggots" [16]. At this point it's painfully obvious that Prioryman is here to perpetuate a WP:BATTLEGROUND on Wikipedia and his actions and statements have well crossed the line into the "disruptive" territory. A block + topic ban from referring to certain people is in order. Volunteer Marek  21:56, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

@Prioryman you edited under your real name . Jayen is one of the most decent supporters of the en wiki project that I have ever come across - there are as we all know - lots of messed up issues on the project - Jayen works hard to save the project from such problems - Youreallycan 21:57, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I didn't, and I deeply deplore the toxic way that Kolbe has addressed this issue. I'm all for robust and honest discussions on-wiki. But trying to bully and intimidate people off-wiki, through his thoroughly nasty forum and his campaign of press briefings, is way over the mark of what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Prioryman (talk) 22:14, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I have to put down a contrary view here. Although in the beginning I was supportive of Andreas, and pursued my own pressure against the Gibraltarpedia project due to the problems highlighted, we have since diverged in viewpoint. I find some of the lengths he goes to extreme and discouraging to positive change. I've said this to him before: spinning minor issues into major stories simply makes people nervous and secretive. Some aspects of the community are less open due to the way this pressure has been applied. Multiple editors I've talked with have expressed fear over contributing in case any idle remarks are seized upon and splashed across the news somewhere. I have to question, in such a situation, what the intent is - to improve Wikipedia or to "bring it down". And lets be honest here: although I also think Prioryman has been troublesome to the opposite extreme, Andreas is not clean of misbehaviour to varying degrees.

At this stage his campaign is actually harming efforts to bring light and clarity to various project and aspects of the community, because people are battoning down the hatches and casting out those who wish to honestly raise important questions, but have the misfortune to be associated with the more extreme campaign. At this stage I am deeply disappointing in both "sides" of this affair. --Errant ^(chat!) 22:09, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

You forget that there is a third side to this affair: the public. The public has a right to know what goes on here. AndreasKolbe JN466 22:11, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

The public doesn't decide what the Wikipedia community does. The community does that. Prioryman (talk) 22:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course. Press coverage is just that: you can ignore it, and carry on as usual. But you should not begrudge people knowing what is happening. If the Gibraltar hooks are continuing, after all the scandal, the public has a right to know, and reporters have a right to cover it if they think it of interest. AndreasKolbe JN466 01:59, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

OH YES THEY DO! They decide it via laws passed by legislature and by general opprobrium. The reddit community thought they were immune from outside influence they were wrong. Free speech doesn't govern this website economics does. Currently it exists on public donations, if those dry up becuase the site is seen to be being governed by yob culture, then it either becomes inthrall to advertisers, or a wholly owned subsidiary of Google (same thing really), or dies. Your choice. Carry on. John lilburne (talk) 07:30, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Sure, I agree. However, I think you are pushing an extreme, or rather selective, agenda in what you push on the media. And that is even worse because you are abusing public trust in the media: something I personally find abhorrent. You've avoided the point though; now the criticism is levelled at you, I am sorry, but I expect the same clarity as I did (and admittedly didn't get) when questioning others. --Errant ^(chat!) 22:20, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I would like Wikipedia to conduct its business morally, and ethically. But where and if it does not, I would like the public to know about that. Does that answer your question? AndreasKolbe JN466 01:59, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

If you can convince the press that it is indeed a minor matter, that it is indeed the pushing of an extreme then whatever influence Andreas may have will vanish. However, at the moment the press does not feel that this is a minor issue or an extreme point of view, but one worthy of writing about. Additionally if say politicians are found to be manipulating articles, or outside PR types are doing it, or some campaigning group is doing the same then they inevitably attract opprobrium from the wikipedia community, and I believe the term meatpuppet is used to describe them. Lets suppose that Monsanto was running a competition for the best article on their products, extra points if you managed to get an article on the front page. No one here would be defending it, so if not Monsanto why Gibraltar? John lilburne (talk) 06:46, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo, Prioryman, if Wikipedia's handling of this issue was upright and effective, then there wouldn't be anything for the press to report on. Criticizing the whistleblower is lazy and dishonest. You both should know better. Fix Wikipedia's issues first, then perhaps you might have a moral standing to criticize Andreas. And Prioryman, the WMUK is a charity and the WMF is a non-profit, so yes, they do have public accountability. Cla68 (talk) 22:28, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Our handling of this issue has been and continues to be upright and effective, and yet it's still easy to generate headlines about it. This is particularly true if I comment forcefully on the issue, because for better or worse, the press is always interested in what I have to say about Wikipedia. Andreas is simply speaking falsehoods when he claims nothing has been done about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:33, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

The project does appear to have done things to address this and that is great , especially the cash control issues - Jayen's comment as I saw it was more about the way the front page is still being used by these guys - Youreallycan 22:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

And it is worth saying that Gibraltar-related DYKs are super problematic and should stop. People wanting to beat me up personally about it should remember that I'm on my Honeymoon and have been extremely clear about what I think should happen. My point is: if you agree with me and want to help me root out this kind of problem, then giving me additional headaches dealing with trolling and inaccurate media reports ("Wales: Let's ban Gibraltar-crazy Wikipedians for 5 years") is not really helpful. This idea that you have to cause a stink in the press in order to get things done is cute and I can understand a sort of appeal to it. But it's just not true.

If you want to help root out problems like this then the first thing you can do is recognize that we who are sensible are also in the majority. The storyline that the Wikipedia community is insane and you have to act like a jerk to get something sensible is just wrong. We who are sensible are in the majority. Make thoughtful and reasoned arguments, and make other good editors aware of relevant discussions, polls, and votes. You'll get the right answer every time that way. Acting like a troll or warrior just wastes everyone's time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:45, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry I was not more mindful of the fact that you might have been on honeymoon. As I said, I saw you comment on other threads, like the Prem Rawat one, and assumed you chose to ignore the Gibraltarpedia one. You're currently at a board meeting though, right?

My comment above was indeed about the ongoing product placement on the main page, which is continuing with impunity. There was another Gibraltar hook on the main page today. That makes 10 in the past 15 days, if I am not mistaken. That is a higher rate than the one you called "absurd" a few weeks back. Editors said in so many words, now the press aren't looking any more, we can start up again.

I do not agree with your assertion that "we who are sensible are in the majority". People like Mattbuck are running Commons, as per the thread above, which is about to be archived. They see nothing wrong with keeping an anonymously uploaded image of "silly kids ... fucking" (that was the literal file name) on Wikimedia servers, without the slightest bit of evidence that the "kids" concerned are of age, and have both consented to the upload here. And without knowing that the girl is not being harassed by an ex-boyfriend. Teenagers have killed themselves over this sort of thing. Is this sensible? You know and I know that if DC had not made a complaint about the "silly kids fucking" photographs here, on your page in a different project, those photographs would still be gracing Commons. (Which, actually, they do: because they are still on the server, visible to all administrators, including teenage ones.)

Is it sensible that Commons refused to ban a contributor with a conviction for distributing child pornography, who was inviting dozens of other users of unknown ages to send him nude images of themselves? Is it reasonable that the Wikimedia office was forced to intervene? When you went into Commons two years ago, the community rose against you, with 405 editors in favour of stripping you of your founder rights, and 125 against (me among them). Have I and others not made reasoned arguments about the state of Commons? It has not made any difference, and the situation festers on year after year.

When you wanted flagged revisions installed, the community rose against you. We still have regular defamation cases like Sarkeesian and Levy hitting the press. Is that sensible? When you said you were in favour of an image filter, the community rose against you. When, after you voted to rescind the image filter resolution, you said here on this page, What I think we can do is convene a small group of people (design by massive wiki discussion tends to suck) to design a very lightweight solution, taking into account and resolving genuine and thoughtful objections, and hold a project-wide vote to get a clear instruction for the Foundation. I am confident that this can take place relatively quickly., you gave up after just two days. You were not in a majority with your proposal (or perhaps you never intended to follow through on it).

You speak of a bright line for editing by PR people to the press, but this is not what is happening here on the ground. Not least in Gibraltarpedia, where consultants for a paid publicity project are openly editing articles a client wants to have on Wikipedia so they can better market themselves as a tourist product. What is the difference between that, and the PR department of Mercedes editing our Mercedes articles, perhaps starting a competition to go with it, and nominating their work for the main page?

As far as the DYK hook question is concerned, most editors seem to care more about being able to get whatever article they want onto the main page, and about maximising their DYK count, than about avoiding the impression and reality of product placement. The RfC on the Gibraltarpedia hooks stands 42 to 30 in favour of "business as usual", with up to one Gibraltar hook a day. We may be on the same side in those disputes, but that side does not look like the majority to me, Jimmy. AndreasKolbe JN466 01:47, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Kolbe is indeed mistaken about the frequency of Gibraltar hooks (not "starting with the truth" as Jimbo would say). Wikipedia:Recent additions shows which articles have appeared on DYK. In the last 15 days we have had the following Gibraltar hooks: Main Guard (26 Oct), The Rock Hotel (24 Oct, hook did not mention Gibraltar), Trafalgar Cemetery (21 Oct), North Front Cemetery (19 Oct), Flat Bastion Magazine and Rosia Water Tanks (17 Oct). (Note that the last 3 were articles that had been held up due to the earlier month-long moratorium). To get the higher figure, Kolbe is counting articles that are not about Gibraltar and whose hooks make no mention of Gibraltar. Over the course of the last week, we have had three Gibraltar-related DYKs, compared with (for instance) 26 DYKs on mushrooms in the same period. Prioryman (talk) 01:59, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Prioryman, you cannot count. In addition to the six you list, on 15 October we had Rosia Bay and Nun's Well, on the 13th we had synagogues of Gibraltar, and on the 12th we had Gibraltar F.C. That is 10, and that is without counting José Cruz Herrera (26 October), which cites and mentions his museum that is a stone's throw from Gibraltar airport. If you include that one (and it is certainly within the scope the government of Gibraltar is paying for), it's 11. And for God's sake, the Rock Hotel is in Gibraltar. AndreasKolbe JN466 02:05, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

You're right, I missed those last few. Apologies. However, North Front Cemetery, Flat Bastion Magazine, Rosia Water Tanks, Rosia Bay, Nun's Well, Synagogues of Gibraltar and Gibraltar F.C. were all articles that had been caught up in the earlier moratorium and were in a backlog awaiting release to the Main Page. Clearing the backlog meant that for about a week only (12-18 October) there was an average frequency of about one article daily. The backlog has now gone and the frequency has fallen further; it is now down to one per 1.75 days over the last week (19-26 October). and is likely to keep falling, given the relatively slow rate of reviewing at the moment. Claims of "swamping" were silly before and are even sillier now. As for José Cruz Herrera, who didn't even live or work in Gibraltar, the hook for that one was "the Spanish painter José Cruz Herrera worked in Casablanca for much of his life, where he was a prolific painter of scenes of Moroccan everyday life". You've rightly been ridiculed for claiming that this somehow promotes Gibraltar. Prioryman (talk) 02:18, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the apology. You say it is down to "one per 1.75 days", but that is still higher than the widely reported 17 per 31 days we had in August, the month where these hooks were at their highest previous frequency, and which Jimbo called "absurd". On your last point, the Gibraltarpedia scope the Gib government pays for specifically includes La Linea, where the museum is located. It is no different than if the museum were, like the Rock Hotel, in Gibraltar. It's all part of the augmented reality experience that is the whole point of this project. And it would be a great project, and would not have attracted opprobrium, if we hadn't had the undue DYK promotion (and the conflict of interest, of course, although that was really an off-wiki matter). AndreasKolbe JN466 02:58, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah, the very fine Rosia Water Tanks. Those are like, historically significant water tanks, right, that were demolished a great many years ago, and whose site is now a building site for low cost housing? And Andreas is really telling us that mention of such a non-existent facility is going to draw tourists to Gibraltar? (Or Morocco, or Algeria, or Egypt, or who knows what on earth now...) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:05, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

They were of great local historical interest, and the subject of a preservation effort. There is a nice website about them on the net (which I noticed our article failed to include in its external links). AndreasKolbe JN466 02:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I don't think labeling the outside inquiry into WMUK's operations as an "investigation" is accurate. It's a business consultation. Consultants usually take a different approach than investigators. Cla68 (talk) 02:13, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo, thank you for the comments you have made in relation to Gibraltarpedia and related issues. Like Jayen466, I am disappointed that the community did not act more swiftly and decisively to contain the damage and address the underlying issues. As a result of that failure, I fully expect that there will be more questions raised and more news stories between now and next year when the independent reviewer's report is released. It is often tempting to think of you as someone who get broken things fixed, but you are neither the community nor the WMF. Jayen and I should look elsewhere for action and I, for one, will continue to press the community to more fully examine the situation. I think your opinion on this is clear and your comments have been strong, and I thank you for that. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:13, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Could the Wikipedia community ever get something wrong?

Jimbo writes: "The storyline that the Wikipedia community is insane and you have to act like a jerk to get something sensible is just wrong." AndreasKolbe writes: "When you went into Commons two years ago, the community rose against you, with 405 editors in favour of stripping you of your founder rights." So, Jimbo, if the Wikipedia community is sane, you should agree that your founder flag should be removed, or maybe in your particular situation generally sane Wikipedia community got it wrong?67.169.11.52 (talk) 04:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Not that your argument would be sound even if they were the same community. Wikipedia is not Commons. --Onorem♠Dil 05:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I am very sure that at least 50% (probably more) of the users who supported the removal are members of the Wikipedia community. I'm really interested in learning Jimbo's opinion about this. 67.169.11.52 (talk) 13:25, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Sane people make errors sometimes. Even me. The argument that this is in any way relevant is, as already pointed out, completely unsound.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:55, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course sane people make errors sometimes, but my question is not about individual sane people, and not even about you. I asked, if you believe that the Wikipedia community could make errors. Did the Wikipedia community make an error, when it voted for the removal of your founder flag?67.169.11.52 (talk) 02:35, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you'll find that Ben & Jerry's, Toni & Guy, and Flora margarine, are all Unilever and scandalous behaviour in one branch will taint the rest. A current example would be Vanity Fair people are quite capable of walking up the chain and back down some other branch. There are numerous articles on this site which do the same. John lilburne (talk) 07:02, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Jimmy, if I translated Algeciras from Spanish wikipedia and wrote an GA quality level article on it (its a core article and within the scope of Gibraltarpedia) would you be opposed to having it appear on the front page even though I have nothing at all to do with whatever it going on behind the scenes in Gibraltar. I genuinely would like to see the article improve as its the birthplace of my guitar hero and one of great historical interest so do you discourage me from doing so?♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 20:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

If you did it completely independently, because it's the birthplace of your guitar hero, then I would think we could make an exception. That's not really the point of any of this. The point is that there has been a quite justified public scandal about someone acting as a trustee of Wikimedia UK, and representing himself to the Foundation and others as such, while simultaneously acting as a paid consultant for someone seeking permission to use the logo for the Gibraltarpedia project, and while simultaneously and vigorously promoting DYK hooks within the community for his client, with what many feel are insufficient disclosures. (I could be much stronger, but that's the mildest way I know to put it.) If other people are doing other unrelated things that happen to be in the same area, then thoughtful judgment calls can be made.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:55, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I understand, and its far easier to say all Gibraltar articles are banned for 5 years full stop. But there is a lot of potential difficulty with such a strong repression, one which in fact goes against our very core values of providing knowledge and freedom to edit. That is, in doing so you inadvertently are discouraging any editor, newbie or innocent veteran who might happen to want and improve an article with the Gibraltarpedia territory, which may be very valuable like Algeciras and saying they have no right to e credited with a DYK with it purely because a small group of people might be attaching a commercial value to that territory. But I understand that simply being "Gibraltar" you automatically assume it is part of a puppet game to advertise. But amid this Gibraltar scandal I think you've overlooked that some of the contributors were actually innocent and contributed to them in the spirit of wikipedia and have sadly been lumped in and regarded as money thirsty traitors to wikipedia, when they weren't even aware of what was going on and contributed to content in the way you'd normally be very happy for them to do. Most of us work independently on wikipedia, and to automatically assume that anybody creating an article within the Gibraltarpedia territory (which also includes Algeciras and Tangiers, two core articles on my list of priorities to develop, is being paid and all part of a scam is wrong. But its as Mr White from the Bond series said "Its knowing who to trust", and I can see why you feel very let down by certain individuals. But the proposal is essentially punishing the people who are not involved in it and are genuinely inspired by projects like Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia as a wiki-real city interaction development.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 16:17, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Contests

The "ban" being reactive, over-broad, and unresponsive to the Pedia content issue, is likely doomed to failure (it also has that "ban" label). If the issue is the running/rules of contests and the awarding of prizes, funded by whomever, those issues are what should be addressed, directly, by Pedia policy. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:39, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

COPPA rules

This seems like something we should be looking at. Any help with analysis of what is going on would be appreciated.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article "Children's Online Privacy Protection Act".

—Wavelength (talk) 23:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I can't see how those changes would be upheld in court... another case of politicians who haven't a clue what the internet is and probably has never used it before trying to make rules and regulations for it.. i think. lol. — raekyt 02:39, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

To add, it says they're thinking of expanding the "information" you can't collect from children to include IP addresses, this is a huge issue. Every webserver in existence logs hits with IP addresses, as a backend server log thing. That coupled with any website that accepts user-input and stores it logs that with IP addresses... If that rule is implemented and upheld in court every webserver will need special rules or special versions written that doesn't log the initial hits IP address, presents every user with a COPPA notice before they can proceed, and not log any entry hits to the COPPA page, which is pretty much unfeasible and would break the internet as we know it. — raekyt 02:49, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

It's not a big deal. If I'm reading the proposed changes correctly, it wouldn't affect us. They're not substantially changing the definition of "website aimed a children" for our purposes (Wikipedia could possibly be considered to host "content aimed at children" (defined as "persons 12 and under" for these purposes), because it's a general-purpose encyclopedia, and general-purpose encyclopedias have always been read by clever 11 and 12 year olds and we should expect this. However, we are not considered a "website directed at children" since we are mainly targeted at older people. Disney is beating the drum for websites like ours to continue treating as children only persons who self-identify as children, and "The Commission finds merit it Disney's suggestion" (ya think?).

(As an aside, our continuing to promote initiatives aimed at promoting Wikipedia in schools which could include middle schools is (among other bad things) foolish and dangerous as it exposes us to being defined as being a website directed at children and we should cut it out, in my opinion. I suppose we won't, though.)

If we were defined as a "website directed at children" the we could no longer "collect" IP address (if all this goes through). Editing could probably be considered an integral part of using the Wikipedia, and when you edit we do collect (and publish!) your IP address (if you're not signed into an account).

(A case could be made that certain articles (My Little Pony or whatever) constitute a "section of the website directed at children", in which case we'd have to handle those differently. But that's always been true, and IMO that'd be a very weak case (because while My Little Pony is about a subject that might interest children, the article itself is not pitched toward children specifically), although you never know. But if it such an assertion did carry, we'd have to no longer collect and publish IP addresses for edits to those articles, probably, which in practice would probably mean for the whole site I guess, which would be huge deal.)

There's a bunch of other stuff, but I think that the issue continues to be that we must never allow anyone who self-identifies as 12 or under to publish any information, or edit under a username, that could be used to track that person in real life. Which de facto we do now. So I'm not seeing anything to worry about. Herostratus (talk) 03:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I believe that page is written by bronies - what that's a blue link? Rich Farmbrough, 02:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC).

Wikipedia has Category:Children's websites, and apparently those rules would apply to (not necessarily only) those websites.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I would say there is nothing to worry about when it comes to wikipedia, the proposed rule operates on a per site basis, the only hook that could reasonably catch Wikipedia is the posibility that Wikipedia may attract a disporportionate number of children under 13 relative to the general population, but as we don't require age data we don't know, and without knowing, the rule doesn't seem to apply. The whole thing is stupid, and if it somehow did apply to wikipedia would be blatantly unconstitutional, but I think the risk there is small. As far as school outreach, I doubt it would result in so many under 13 editors as to be a problem. Monty₈₄₅ 20:23, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

We do have b:Wikijunior which is aimed at kids up to 12. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 04:34, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm well Wikijunior could be a potential problem then. It could reasonably be considered to be a "section of a website directed at children". (I'm not familiar with Wikibooks and maybe it's mainly directed at parents and teachers, and/or -- for editing purposes, where the IP addresses are collected and published -- at adults generally). Not being any kind of expert on these matters, I wonder if we could just ignore this unless and until an order to stop doing that came through, at which time we could take down Wikijunior (only; not all of Wikibooks) while we figured out what to do. Herostratus (talk) 00:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Italian wikipedia proposed blackout again

Bill #3491. Same old thing Italian Senate is proposing, discussing law on removal of content per request, big message on it wiki.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 17:03, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is a link to Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera (version of 15:39, 12 October 2012). The shortcut is it: from English Wikipedia. Here is a copy of the English version of the public notice.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:46, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

At this rate, we'll be going out whenever the wharfies do, in sympathy.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:01, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Here are links to related archived discussions.

• User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 85#Italian wikipedia entirely blocked (4 and 5 October 2011)
  • User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 85#Changes to it:WP statement (5 and 6 October 2011)
  • User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 85#Now what? (5 and 6 October 2011)
• User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 85#Italy redux (6 October 2011)
• User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 85#Italian WP unblocked after 16 million forced pageviews (6 and 7 October 2011)
• User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 85#"Carpe diem. Seize the day." (7 October 2011)

—Wavelength (talk) 23:11, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Here is a permanent link to the page with the English version of the 2012 public notice.

• Wikipedia:Comunicato 24 ottobre 2012/en - Wikipedia (version of 19:15, 26 October 2012)

—Wavelength (talk) 15:38, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Before we all get worked up, do we have any indication how much Google is donating this year? John lilburne (talk) 16:42, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Not enough to get content contributors JSTOR, apparently. Perhaps we should black out until Google gives us more money? Just as good a reason as last time.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:17, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

The WMF could buy JSTOR access at full price with the change from the sofa in the lounge. From here: JSTOR's price calculator it looks like full-run access for all journal collections for nonprofit institutions is about $120,000 per year. JSTOR seems to charge for Canadian, US, and international access separately. That's about $360,000 per year, then, worst case, less than one percent of the WMF's projected budget for this fiscal year. Why don't they just buy it? — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 18:35, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

They were trying to get a grant last I heard. Penny wise and pound foolish. I have JSTOR through a local library, and it is a very good resource. It's like WMF just can't get past the "crowdsource" model, which I see Jimbo still uses in requesting info about COPPA elsewhere on this page. A few resources tossed in the right direction can yield a lot more in the way of article quality which they supposedly wring their hands about. All I know is that TCO and I did a lot of work last November in finding out how it could be done (cheaper than what you mention thoguh I'd have to look up our research), kept Philippe informed, and he asked us to keep quiet about it so he could work on it, and it got hijacked apparently to the Communications Committee (I know Raul654 (inactive) was involved with that) and nothing's happened in months.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:53, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Do we need 'Did you know' anyway?

Do we? Obviously not. We don't need it to fulfil our role as providers of an online encyclopaedia - it would still be an encyclopaedia without it. And we could surely find something else to fill a DYK-shaped hole on the main page if we chose to. So what is it for, exactly? What would we lose if we did away with it (other than a focus for unnecessary drama)? Personally, I'm of the opinion that it serves no useful purpose whatsoever - there are plenty of ways of drawing attention to article content that don't involve extraction of dubious out-of-context factoids just for the sake of it. So, a challenge for those who like it - imagine that we didn't have a DYK feature on the main page - what arguments would you make for one to be included? What would it add to the Wikipedia experience for our readers, and why shouldn't we use the space for other content instead...? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

• DYK seems to have two points. One is to highlight novel and entertaining facts. The other is to display new content. The latter is useful because it exposes the new content to many eyes. For example, the lead DYK is currently Bad Pharma — an article which I started and another editor expanded. This is about a recent polemical book which claims that "medicine is broken". This is obviously a strong and significant claim and so it's good that this content is brought to the attention of many readers. It seems to be of more general interest than the current FA, which is about a comic book. The FA is, by definition, already well scrutinised and so putting it on the front page is just bragging. There's a place for that but, as Wikipedia is far from finished, we need to stimulate interest in incomplete articles too. Warden (talk) 08:11, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

OK but incomplete articles are an invitation to edit. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:21, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

We should use the Main Page for editor recruitment. There were only 12,633 new English Wikipedia editor registrations in September 2012, the least since 2005.

If you actually wanted to encourage editing with the front page, you wouldn't put things which were recently expanded or improved, but things which need to be, such as WP:TAFI. Paum89 (talk) 14:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

• The question puts the cart before the horse. You say we could fill the hole with something else, Andy. So suggest what would replace DYK that would be better. Resolute 20:13, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
  • {{TAFI blurb}} Paum89 (talk) 21:17, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
    • Ok, so instead of a series of one sentence factoids from random recently expanded articles, you wish to replace with a series of one sentence factoids from problematic articles? And, obviously, we are going to ignore all of the previous complaints about putting unsourced, possibly policy violating material on the main page? I have to admit, I am not seeing that as being any sort of improvement for our main page. I do, however, wish you well with the TAFI project. Resolute 22:09, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
      • Since when are articles which need improvement "problematic"? They are opportunities! Something with as many views as the Main Page shouldn't be used to let experienced users gloat and paid editors earn their COI moneys. Why isn't it being used for editor recruitment? Paum89 (talk) 22:19, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

The real problem with DYK is that many of the hooks just aren't hooky enough. I would rather relax all the other requirements about newness of articles etc., in favour of really surprising facts. (Made up) Example:

• Sminoddia purpilla (a species of rush moth) ranges over much of the Australian outback.
• Sminoddia purpilla (a species of rush moth) has a tongue three times its own body length.

To me the first is only interesting if you know a lot about rush moths.

Sometimes wording can help - suppose for example that the every other rush moth species has a tongue less than 0.1 mm long, whereas S. purpilla has a 0.5 mm tongue.

• Sminoddia purpilla (a species of rush moth) has a tongue that can be longer than 0.5mm.
• Sminoddia purpilla (a species of rush moth) has a tongue more than five time the length of any other rush moth species.

Rich Farmbrough, 22:08, 27 October 2012 (UTC).

Which one are you suggesting is more interesting than the others? Paum89 (talk) 22:21, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Clearly the second one in each pair. Rich, I agree with you. Sometimes it's not easy to write interesting hooks, and writing good hooks is something that needs some experience to do. I've written over 100 DYKs so far, and some of them have been among the most-read DYKs of all time. My five top DYKs got over 150,000 page views between them, and there were two factors that helped with that: (1) all but one appeared at the top of the slot with a picture - any DYK that does that gets an automatic advantage - and (2) I consciously tried to go for hooks that would make people want to find out more. For example, for those five DYKs:

• The underground Fortress of Mimoyecques was built by Nazi Germany to bombard London with 10 shells a minute using the V-3 supergun. (51,700 page views)
• The only Japanese passenger aboard the Titanic survived, but was then shunned as a coward in his home country for not going down with the ship. (29,795 page views)
• Proposals to raise the wreck of the RMS Titanic have included filling it with ping-pong balls, injecting it with 180,000 tons of Vaseline or turning it into an iceberg. (28,526 page views)
• The Second World War Allies feared that Nazi Germany intended to use a secret underground rocket base in France to fire ballistic missiles at New York City. (22,000 page views)
• The severed head of Julia Martha Thomas, murdered, boiled and dismembered by her maid in 1879, was found next door to Sir David Attenborough's house in 2010. (19,400 page views)

I like to think that it's rather like writing a newspaper headline - you only have a few seconds to catch people's interest and make them read whatever's below the headline, or in this case to click on the link. It's not always easy to get it right. One thing I've noticed is that DYKs where the main link is at the front of the hook do better in terms of page views than those where the hook is at the back, so I now consciously try to front-load the main link and have as few other links in the hook as possible, to reduce the likelihood that visitors will be distracted from the DYK article. Prioryman (talk) 23:13, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I've kicked off a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Improving the quality of DYK hooks. Please feel free to join in. :-) Prioryman (talk) 23:24, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

• So, my perspective is very much "we don't need DYK....and we don't need anything to replace it".

  If we're talking about replacing it with something in terms of a metric for content creation or good work, I firmly agree we need an actual badge that says "this person did [a thing of value]". That we should work on. But in terms of sticking something else on the main page, not so much.

  Ultimately it boils down to this: Wikipedia's main page is outdated, filled with far too much information, and doesn't actually reflect the site. It's very much orientated as a biased public face: it's "here's what we've done", not "here's what you can do", which is great for readers but not so great for the potential editors amongst them. A lot of editors recognise that the main page needs a do-over - there's yet another redesign poll going on right now. But what those designs all ultimately suffer from is the obligation to keep every realm, every domain of information currently present on the main page on the main page. And this is because every represented segment (FAs, DYKs, ITNs) has its own advocates and its own people who stand to gain from keeping it around.

  This is not healthy - we should have a better main page, and we should have a more coherent set of metrics for the value of an editor's contributions. I'm strongly supportive of efforts to mark as historic or merely remove from prominence the DYK process, in line with these goals, and I'd be interested in seeing if anyone else is interested in working with me to look at the main page design without constraints of existing elements. Ironholds (talk) 01:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Someone should. How about replacing DYK one day per week with a link-heavy paragraph on getting started editing followed by {{TAFI blurb}}? Paum89 (talk) 05:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Noo! Link-heavy is bad; it gives people 100 different places they could head down into the labyrinth. And the problem with TAFI (as wonderful as it is) is that it's somewhat open-ended - what's the specific task people are being asked to do? - and also limited (one article for the number of readers we get is going to get overwhelmed). Ironholds (talk) 10:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Overwhelmed? The Today's featured article almost always is left unprotected, and even when it gets lots of misguided edits cleanup is easy. Test it and see, don't just assume. Paum89 (talk) 16:00, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Im rather curious as to why this discussion ws started here at all. What is the purpose talking about possible removal of a main page section here, rather then at WP:MAIN or WP:DYK? --Kevmin § 03:58, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Why? "Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates – he has an open door policy". Lots of things get talked about here. Jimbo has commented in the past regarding DYK. DYK seems once again to be a factor regarding the whole Gibraltar mess. Why shouldn't it be discussed here? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The Gibraltarfication of DYK is a Jimbo-level fiasco. Replacing DYK with TAFI or similar editor recruitment efforts is a Jimbo-level proposal which won't go over well at WT:DYK or WT:MAIN because the status quo's constituency are the only people who discuss things there. Refocusing the main page's 8,000,000 views per day on editor recruitment is more of a Foundation mission-level change far beyond the cosmetic changes contemplated on those pages. I'm sure it will need all manner of WP:CENT, watchlist notice, Village Pumps, and RFC treatment if it doesn't get shot down here. Paum89 (talk) 05:01, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The labyrinth (dozens, scores, hundreds, thousands???) of discussion pages are each controlled by small groups of volunteers emotionally vested in maintaining the status quo of each associated page in mainspace. With vogon-like officiousness, they ensure that the dreaded publicity of ongoing debate that would ensure broader participation is eradicated under Wikipedia's ill-conceived "anti-canvassing" rules. This page, fortunately, is essentially a place for macro-level debate and discussion of emerging problems. It is well watched by those holding the full range of perspectives on every important issue — and that's a good thing. Carrite (talk) 05:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Someone needs to identify (1) is the Main Page important? and (2) if it is, what should be highlighted on it? My view is that it is important, and we should highlight both excellent articles, and opportunities for new editors to become involved. DYK can at its best do both of those, but usually doesn't - there are far too many articles listed, and both hooks and content are too often poor or trivial. It should still exist in some form, but have many fewer and much higher quality hooks. It's at least as important to highlight areas where editors can contribute to articles needing improvement, and to guide new editors through some of the basic editing processes and guidelines. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:22, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

(1) yes, and (2), not sure. Steve Krug has some guiding design principles on "home pages". I really need to write about this. Ironholds (talk) 10:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• The format and content of the main page matters most upon mobile devices, which are increasingly the way that people access the internet. On my smartphone, the default view just shows the Featured Article and the In the News sections. Today, that is much more about the porbeagle than I care to know and so this wall-of-text format seems quite poor. Our default view ought to be more general and should provide an option for the reader to tailor the main page view to show the section(s) of their choice. Let the readers control this, not the editors. When the readership is able to vote with their feet, we will then be able to see what they want and use most. Warden (talk) 08:55, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

  I imagine we could do some A/B testing fairly easily (heck, I could do it in my spare time) and work out which sections interest readers the most. Ironholds (talk) 10:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

We need a mechanism, yes, which gets editors to produce new content or expands articles from a poor condition into something different. However critical anybody is of DYK and its petty rules and flaws, nobody can deny that articles initially need to go undergo expansion before they can develop to GA level. DYK serves as this at present but I personally would be very open to something to replace it, a times I find it exasperating, at other times it seems fine. But reform, whether its adding GAs, changing it from DYK? to article snippets or whatever is unlikely to forma consensus so I'm of the opinion the people with the power to make a change need to simply just to something to change it.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 16:04, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

"Welcome to the English Wikipedia mainpage, sponsored by Article Rescue Squadron..." j/k Actually, if you think about it, the Wikipedia mainpage is potentially an extremely valuable "ad space" for getting casual visitors clued in to editing at WP. Carrite (talk) 16:32, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

• A possible alternative universe - What would happen if we were to do a take on the famous "Google white front page"? WP has already got this going to some extent with the logo search page, but what if a truly vanilla "Welcome to English Wikipedia" page stood in lieu of the cluttered and controversial main page? Carrite (talk) 16:25, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

  Personally, I think that'd be too minimalist. Google is about going to other places: what you find through it is up to you, is dependent on your actions. Google is a portal to The Other. A minimalist page makes sense for this kind of site, particularly since it's the only service google search offers. Thematically, Wikipedia is different; we're made up of a large jumble of things, most of which can be stuck in two boxes; "passive content" and "active content". Passive is, well, reading - there's no interaction, it's merely a one-way thing. Page loads, reader reads. Reader goes to other page, reader reads. Active content, like contributing, or avenues to contribute, are a whole other shebang, and it'd be interesting to see that surfaced. Ironholds (talk) 17:07, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

  Y'know, I'm tempted to just call in a favour at work and go "[designer], please rebuild this with no preconceptions. Do a mockup, we'll take a look". Ahh, corruption :p. Ironholds (talk) 17:08, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

  Love this idea. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 17:33, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

  There is currently a straw poll on Main Page redesign which includes proposals for including editor recruitment text, e.g. Dr. Blofeld's proposal. Paum89 (talk) 18:42, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

  Indeed, but they all fail by including all the existing elements. The end result is that there's far too much stuff :(. We need to have someone just go "alright, ignoring the current design completely, how would I build it". I've got a few ideas of ways to massively reduce the size of existing elements while keeping them all in circulation, but that's sort of a half-solution. Ironholds (talk) 18:44, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

  Check out Nathan2055's mock-up, which is, I think, perfect. It is being unanimously opposed. It may be time for a wider poll on this question. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:49, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion give help for the Creator of Wikipedia (and for the Honoured doctor)

Hello,

Help is here can begin: Thank you! - 89.179.94.196 (talk) 19:01, 27 October 2012 (UTC).

On VK (social network) everyone gets info very quickly. The Hall - is not about me (but I can help, because I know about the mechanism of this situation good: I know Russian better and became member in the community not long time ago - including). During 2 hours (after good end of interaction with SPhilbrick) the Founder can easy leave the Hall (personaly). Section for candidates will be contain other info (better info, than now, softly speaking). This situation have relation to the human, who got the highest award from the president of Russia (he has great respecting in the scope of science and not only). Other competent sources were ignored in this sad situation (Russian admin Carn). I say this about the contribution of the professor on Wikipedia (detail has relation to his reputation). Thus, I wish create the favor for two people in the same time: the Founder of Wikipedia and the Honoured Doctor of the Russian Federation. List of the such people is here: Russian original. See:

Указ Президента Российской Федерации от 14 января 2006 года № 23
О награждении государственными наградами Российской Федерации
"Заслуженный врач Российской Федерации"
ЮДЕЛЬСОНУ Якову Борисовичу - профессору государственного образовательного учреждения высшего профессионального образования "Смоленская государственная медицинская академия"

English translation of the Award (source: Rossiyskaya Gazeta).

P.S. In this Ru article: Список заслуженных врачей Российской Федерации (Смоленская область) - must be made some changes (Яков Борисович Юдельсон) -. EN. Everyone can in any time. Kind regards! http://translate.google.com - 95.29.18.185 (talk) 20:59, 28 October 2012 (UTC).