User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Continued: civility and team spirit

Civility I asked some candidates for arbitrator the following question: how do you feel about applying the principles that we use for BLPs (Biographies of living persons) also to editors: "a high degree of sensitivity", "attributed to a reliable, published source", "written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy", "the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered"?

Team spirit I like to see in the Main page's (frequently discredited) DYK section 1950s American automobile culture, the result of admirable teamwork begun here (where some may not exactly expect civility) ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:04, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Great collaboration from great editors. Something we should all look at and see the true sprit of Wikipedia.--Amadscientist (talk) 05:27, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Now archived, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:09, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I enjoy the collaboration on my proposal of a new infobox template for a rather complex topic, to be considered, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:19, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I joined a project now that applies the principles summarised above, Editor Retention. I feel that we are losing the best. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:27, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I would like to encourage Jimbo and all editors who read this to join the Editor retention project! Well worth the effort and we can use the help there...as well as new volunteers at Wikipedia:Dispute Resolution Noticeboard!--Amadscientist (talk) 04:45, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

My personal efforts started when BarkingMoon (talk · contribs) left. I didn't get far, some people still don't believe that he even exists. I was more successful with Khazar2, Tim riley and Dr. Blofeld, some pillars of Wikipedia ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:05, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Discontinued: I thank Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs) for living (not speaking) civility, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:46, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Since Wikipedia itself isn't a reliable source, applying BLP principles to editors would mean that we could no longer draw conclusions based on an editor's Wikipedia editing. Moreover, even if Wikipedia was considered a reliable source, it would still be WP:SYNTH to combine several edits by an editor and decide that the editor is being disruptive. We'd have to find a source stating that the editor is disruptive before we could state that ourselves.

Currently this is permissible because BLP states that "Although this policy applies to posts about Wikipedians in project space, some leeway is permitted to allow the handling of administrative issues by the community". Your proposal would end that. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:36, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I can follow. I don't talk about the so-called disruption. I talk about saying something about an editor without sources for it, without saying it's POV not facts, without regard to how it harms him, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 00:43, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Using your suggestion we can't say anything about an editor. It's not just that we can't talk about his private life--we can't even talk about his on-Wikipedia activities, since Wikipedia isn't a reliable source (and even if it was, we wouldn't be permitted to draw conclusions about it). Ken Arromdee (talk) 07:41, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I would be fine with not saying anything ABOUT an editor, but talk TO them. Look at Malleus Fatuorum: much has been said about him, I went and proposed an idea to him, he implemented a sample, asking the main author politely if it was acceptable, and then did the major change work, assisted by RexxS. I would like to see more in that spirit, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:10, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I would be fine with not saying anything ABOUT an editor

That would kill our ability to discuss a user's behavior. We couldn't even template a known sock-puppet by that rule. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

So? - Let's do content. - (why "kill"?) - less radical: we can discuss users, but should be careful and keep in mind that they are living persons who could be harmed, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

For example: BarkingMoon (mentioned above. I invite you to look at his contributions first, neatly arranged on his user page, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:36, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Should there be some extra care regarding those of us who choose to use our real names? Clearly anything said about me has different real-world consequences than something said about a user posting under a pseudonym. Then again, I chose to reveal my name, so it could be argued that any consequences of that decision are my own doing. It works the other way as well; my actions here are more likely to result in real-world consequences than the actions of a pseudonym. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:12, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the normal fair treatment out of respect for human beings is enough for you and me: no twisted words, no discrediting, no unsupported bias spread, - you name it, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:15, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Peace music I liked to see in the Main page's (frequently discredited) DYK section Leningrad première of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7, announced on my talk as Peace music, on the human spirit, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:18, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Peace --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:08, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Kazakhstan government support for Kazakh Wikipedia

I'm closing this discussion because it has reached the point of the absurd. I have responded to the last comments which were made, so participants and other interested parties can look at that. But I'm going to insist that this discussion, if re-opened, be premised on "Assume Good Faith". To avoid an edit conflict I'm going to stop here but I'll write more in a minute. My position on freedom of speech is very well known and quite clear. It applies worldwide, as I regard the freedom of expression as a fundamental human right. I have always fought for freedom of speech and will continue to do so. My position on working with companies and organization in difficult jurisdictions is, I think, thoughtful and nuanced. To my knowledge, the Foundation's position is more or less the same. It is entirely possible that we would end up disagreeing on some specific issue, but in all the cases that have come up so far, we have not had that problem. And I rather expect any disagreements to lie in borderline cases. In Kazakhstan, there is a great group of volunteer editors - just like you - who are working in a nonpolitical way with their own government to transition an older encyclopedia into Wikipedia, as well as to recruit quality volunteers. Like many people, I have concerns about potential problems, but so far I have been pleased with what I have seen. When I go to Kazakhstan, I will do the same thing that I do everywhere I go: I will speak with the highest officials who will meet with me and try to convince them to respect the fundamental human right of freedom of expression. I will speak to the media, both in that country, but also outside that country (particularly dissident press if it exists elsewhere) about the issue. I will meet with ordinary Wikipedians and ask them with the situation is (with the help of a professional translator or fluently bilingual trusted Wikipedian if my advance research suggests it is necessary, which I think is true in Kazakhstan). I think my approach is the right approach, but I also think there are legitimate questions that could be asked. I often ask them of myself. When I went to Saudi Arabia, I spoke openly about freedom of speech and human rights - particularly the rights of women - and told an all-male audience that it was offensive that women were excluded from the meeting. (They were in the next room listening in!) In this case, I deeply regret having been in that situation in the first place (I did not realize the audience would be totally segregated in that way), and if I am invited again to Saudi Arabia I will insist on different arrangements being made or I won't do a public lecture. The part of this discussion that veered into the absurd was this, for those who didn't read it. One commenter raised the question of Tony Blair's consulting in Kazakhstan and him attending my wedding. That's just totally weird and irrelevant. I have nothing to do with his consulting in Kazakhstan, and I have many political (and religious) disagreements with him, which I'm quite open about. I have lots of friends, many from difficult countries, many who are politicians, and I don't necessarily agree with everything they say (nor do they agree with me). But frankly, my personal life has absolutely nothing to do with Kazakhstan!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:46, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Jimbo, could you tell us something about the relationship between Kazakhstan's government and the Kazakh Wikipedia? The reason I am asking is these articles: Press freedom in Kazakhstan: Keep it official. Independent blogging under threat (The Economist). Wikipedia founder to visit Kazakhstan in 2013 (Tengri News). Former Prime Minister Karim Massimov, currently chief of staff of the President's Office, who is mentioned in the Economist article as the country's foremost blogger, is mentioned in the second article about your "expected" visit as a prominent supporter of the Kazakh Wikipedia. Andreas JN466 02:21, 20 December 2012 (UTC) I guess you should ask Rauan Kenzhekhanuly directly instead of Jimbo, if you haven't already. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 02:42, 20 December 2012 (UTC) I second this. Rauan will know more than I do. As far as I have been told so far, there are no particularly difficult issues with neutrality in the Kazakh Wikipedia, but I'm open to evidence. (Notice that I didn't say that there are "no issues" - in every language there are issues. As far as I know, the Wikibilim organization is not politicized. In my visit to Kazakhstan I will of course stress the importance of freedom of the press and encourage more openness.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:26, 20 December 2012 (UTC) From the English Wikipedia article: "Eventually, the state-supported Samruk Kazyna Foundation sponsored the expansion, with 30 million tenge spent in 2011 for paid editing, digitalization, and author rights transfer." 30 million tenge = ~$200 000 (US). Kazakhstan's nominal GDP per capita is $11,167, less than a quarter that of the States. So big bucks, relatively. Maybe it was started by bureaucrats who want nothing more than to aid the spread of the Kazakh language online. However, Kazakhstan ranks 154th out of 179 countries in the Press Freedom Index, on par with Pakistan, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, and Rwanda. They are also ranked "Not Free" in the Freedom in the World report. Who knows. But has the Wikimedia Foundation ever had experience of a government of this nature wresting control of its national language's encyclopaedia? Is there anywhere non-Kazakh speaking concerned editors can go to keep an eye on what's going on? Cheers, PhnomPencil (✉) 03:32, 20 December 2012 (UTC) Your implication of Kazakh Wikipedia's contents is affected by the sponsorship from Kazakh state-supported entity is rude. You need concrete evidence before asking the question. If you can prove that many prominent Kazakn Wikipedia articles have broken the neutrality pillar, by all mean, complain to WMF, not beating around the bush. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 04:12, 20 December 2012 (UTC) I disagree of course with your assertion that the matter should not be discussed. I think this would generate more debate if it weren't from a region famous for being considered obscure, and sponsorship by the PRC gov't, I believe, would be put under the microscope as a matter of course. Probably no harm would come from sponsorship of editorship from Beijing, but a discussion on the matter, in my subjective opinion, would be healthy. It appears we are at odds over this. And I'm not making a formal complaint, I'm just informally asking if anyone knows more about this. Because I'm interested. It's a discussion. We're all adults here. I'm commenting here again, though, just to clarify that I'm aware the volunteer editors of the Kazakh Wikipedia spend their time there for the same reason we do -- they want to expand the breadth of knowledge for the greater good -- and I want to emphasize that in no way am I criticizing them. I'm only interested in the paid editorship of articles sponsored by the Kazakh government. If it looked like I was tarring them, I sincerely apologize. PhnomPencil (✉) 05:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC) I'm not against discussion. Paidediting is only a fact, but it is not the deciding factor that Kazakh Wikipedia would go the wrong way. I prefer starting a discussion after someone has provided concrete evidence that Kazakh Wikipedia is in neutrality crisis. By that I mean quotes from disputed Kazakh Wikipedia articles along with faithful English translation, not assumption over a fact that paidediting is plaguing Kazakh Wikipedia. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 06:35, 20 December 2012 (UTC) The amounts have gone up, PhnomPencil. According to this article, In 2011 Samruk Kazyna Sovereign Wealth Fund allocated a total of $204 million to develop the Kazakh-language Wikipedia. This year, another $136 million will be earmarked, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing the Fund’s Press Service. According to Majilis (lower chamber) deputy Murat Abenov, “the project needs fresh authors (…) The Project is being run by the non-profit WikiBilim organization. None of the staff was paid a salary: they did it voluntarily”. Thanks to the Samruk Kazyna’s financial support, the number of entries in the Kazakh-language Wikipedia had reached 125 000 by the end of 2011, with the number of registered users mounting to 14 550. The editorial staff was increased from 4 to 250 people. The Kazakh-language Wikipedia raised from the 127th to the 35th place in the rankings of countries”, the Fund’s Press Service announced. According to the report by WikiBilim, from June 16, 2011 to December 31, 2011, a total of 71 contracts were signed with a raft of writers, editors and translators. Besides, in 2011 and 2012 a total of 22 000 volunteers have been attracted. I assume the use of the $ symbol in that news article is an error, and that the amounts are in Tenge (₸). The fundraiser banners recently proudly proclaimed, "we take no government funds". Andreas JN466 15:33, 20 December 2012 (UTC) The official website of Kazakhstan's prime minister states, "“Kazaksha Wikipedia” project is implemented under the auspices of the Government of Kazakhstan and with the support of Prime Minister Karim Massimov, head of “Wikibilim” public fund Rauan Kenzhekhanuly said in an interview for PM.kz site." Rauan is the current Wikipedian of the Year. For comment on Tony Blair's and Alastair Campbell's involvement with the Kazakhstan government, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/27/nick-cohen-tony-blair-kazakhstan and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/8857689/Oil-rich-dictator-of-Kazakhstan-recruits-Tony-Blair-to-help-win-Nobel-peace-prize.html (and I can't help but note http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2214123/Wikipedia-founder-Jimmy-Wales-marries-Tony-Blairs-diary-secretary-star-studded-ceremony.html ). Andreas JN466 16:38, 20 December 2012 (UTC) For those of us not well versed in bizarro conspiracy theories, can you please explain what the hell that is supposed to mean?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:34, 21 December 2012 (UTC) Sure. Here is a Telegraph article for example, which describes oil-rich Kazakhstan as a "post-Soviet human rights desert" and wonders, just like the Guardian article above, just what on earth Tony Blair is doing lending credibility to a regime like that. It also points out that there is an entire circle of figures around Tony Blair who have joined him in this endeavour: It's not just Blair but some of his closest confidants who are working in Kazakhstan: Alastair Campbell has been spotted by the FT flying back from the capital Astana, Jonathan Powell (appropriately the author of a book on Machiavelli) is also apparently involved. Former BAE systems Chair Sir Richard Evans is now Chairman of the state enterprise Samruk, worth a staggering £50 billion that in turn has hired Lord Mandelson for speeches. It so happens that it was widely reported in the media (including the article linked above) that some of these selfsame people were prominent guests at your recent wedding. Now, given Kazakhstan's human rights record, it seems incomprehensible to me why the Kazakhstan government should be welcome to finance the development of the Kazakh Wikipedia (which to a significant extent consists in paid editors transferring the content of the state-published Kazakh Encyclopedia to the Kazakh Wikipedia) – especially given the fact that recent fundraising messages stated that "We take no money from governments". It is incomprehensible to me why the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan, a state widely described as a dictatorship, with a President that has been in power for 22 years, and keeps getting re-elected with 95% of the popular vote, should provide a "content and quality review process" for the Kazakh Wikipedia. Is there any other Wikipedia where a national government entity fulfils this sort of function? What is even more bizarre is that you declare the person leading that effort Wikipedian of the Year, as that would imply that Kazakhstan is a model to be followed for the Wikimedia movement. Now, it is clear that the Kazakhstan government uses its involvement in Wikipedia and the "Wikipedian of the Year" title in its PR work. Tony Blair and his former spin doctor Alastair Campbell – both of whom reported in the media to be part of your social circle (see e.g. [1], [[2]) – are accused by papers across the political spectrum of lending credibility to a post-Soviet dictatorship. When faced with otherwise incomprehensible actions – why would Wikipedia want to lend credibility to a dictatorship with such a poor record on press freedom and human rights? why would Wikipedia want to accord such a state a role in the "content and quality review process" for one of its projects? why would Wikipedia hold up such an arrangement as a model? – it is a quite natural tendency to somehow try and make sense of them. Andreas JN466 14:26, 21 December 2012 (UTC) Funny. I never recall that the mission of Wikimedia Projects is to promote human right or democracy. Even a suspected paid-advocacy in English Wikipedia is inspected from the said article first, not the background of the involved entities. Have you ever read a Kazakh WP article carefully to inspect their neutrality? I dare say no. So why all these unfair treatments to the Kazakh Wikipedians that assuming they're incapable to run a good neutral WP? Just because they don't enjoy better freedom of speech than yours? -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 15:04, 21 December 2012 (UTC) "Even a suspected paid-advocacy in English Wikipedia is inspected from the said article first, not the background of the involved entities." That is decidedly not the case, on a frequent basis. Please don't make me provide 6 or 7 recent examples. -- 2001:558:1400:10:A833:D4C1:F23A:26FD (talk) 15:10, 21 December 2012 (UTC) According to Freedom House, Even as officials adopted social media for their own use, promoting state programs and confronting local authorities with incompetence, the state has increasingly contested internet freedom and online alternatives to state-owned news outlets. The internet was accessed by 34 percent of the population in 2010. A 2009 law classified websites as mass media outlets, giving the authorities greater latitude to shut them down under vaguely worded extremism statutes or in the interests of state security. Doesn't sound like an ideal environment for a "free" enyclopedia to me, but maybe Well, I guess they will make an exception for Jimbo, hm? Attaboy. --Janneman (talk) 16:34, 20 December 2012 (UTC) it is a difficult environment there, to be sure. I do not think they will make any exceptions for me, but I also expect them not to arrest me for criticising their track record on freedom of speech issues. I have spoken publicly against censorship in China, Saudi Arabia, and so on, I usually make sure the American embassy knows when I am visiting a difficult jurisdiction.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:41, 21 December 2012 (UTC) While I hope that you will find the courage to speak out against censorship in Kazakhstan as well, I find it hard to square the Foundation's Values with its apparent, active collaboration with its government. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it very much looks like, thanks to WMF's arrangements with Samruk-Kazyna and Wikibilim, the Kazakh Wikipedia is now teeming with paid editors, busy spreading state-sponsored content; 30 million tenge spent in 2011 alone. And bearing in mind Kazakhstans record on human rights in general and the freedom of information in particular, I have a feeling that this content will not "empower and engage people" in Kazkhstan and provide an alternative to their government's propaganda. What with "we take no government funds" indeed? And in 2009 you proclaimed: Just imagine the disaster for our reputation. Are we free and independent scribes doing our best to record all human knowledge? Or are we paid shills. I know what I choose. Yes, imagine. You are helping the Kazakh regime whitewash its image. It's a disgrace. --Janneman (talk) 15:20, 21 December 2012 (UTC) The Wikimedia Foundation has zero collaboration with the government of Kazakhstan. Wikibilim is a totally independent organization. And it is absolutely wrong to say that I am "helping the Kazakh regime whitewash its image". I am a firm and strong critic. At the same time, I'm excited by the work of volunteers, and I believe - very strongly - that an open and independent Wikipedia will be the death knell for tyranny in places like Kazakhstan. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it is absolutely silly to suggest that I'm in any way actively supporting tyrants.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:33, 21 December 2012 (UTC) Great to hear, Jimbo. I know the belief may be, "Well, this is better than watching the Kazakh Wikipedia languish like many other language projects", and overall I think what's happening there is great. And it's important to point out there has yet to be a single instance reported in this discussion of censorship. A pragmatic balance has to be struck, and I'm glad you're going to stand up for free speech during your visit. We're not all pouncing on this just for the chance to criticize, for many of us it's about the free flow of information, even if it seems a bit nosey. I obviously assume you know better than any in this discussion so far about the inner workings of that project, and your actions in the past have given me trust in you doing the right thing if any potential issues arise. PhnomPencil (✉) 15:44, 21 December 2012 (UTC) I've actually been eyeing up Kazakhstan for some time to better cover some of its small towns which are missing enmasse. Although the main towns have population data from old Soviet censuses, I've been looking forward to some up to do population data on every village/ Would be good if the Kazakh government could do a census and publish data for all villages and then work with individuals to get articles put on Kazakh wiki with data and then on English wikipedia.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 18:44, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I dare re-open this discussion because I think this is a serious issue (and I am not the one who raised questions about your personal life, nor do I intend to). I am willing to assume Good Faith, but I also beleive that in this instance it has led to Poor Judgment and may set a dangerous precedent. I am not exaggerating. I find it hard to believe that the sudden surge in the Kazakh wikipedia is due to "volunteers". Where did the 30 mio. Tenge that Samruk-Kazyna pumped into the project go if not into paid editing? Some of the new content is lifted straight from the "official", regime-approved Kazakh national encyclopedia. What we have here is basically a hostile takeover. Imho the appropriate response to that kind of content, and the way it is funnelled into Wikipedia, would be "thanks, but no, thanks". That is, the WMF's response. Instead it is being touted as a token of the success of the Wiki principle. I find it hard to swallow that. --Janneman (talk) 16:27, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I question your assumptions here, and think you need to talk to Kazakh Wikipedians. This is not the first time that an older encyclopedic work has been liberated by donating it into Wikipedia. As I say, I remain open to evidence rather than scaremongering. Go and ask the Kazakh Wikipedians what their experience has been. As I have said, the kind of thing you fear is absolutely a concern in situation like this, but in fact, we don't have evidence of there being a problem. (I'm sure there are many problems with the existing imported text from the old encyclopedia, but for the first time, people can come and update and fix that stuff.

It's perfectly valid to raise the question, but not ok to slander good volunteers who are on the ground fighting the good fight for progress. Talk to them and see how they think it is going.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:18, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Jimmy, you can't ask them without potentially putting them in an untenable position. If they are being rewarded with free laptops for writing what a government-backed organization rates as "satisfactory" articles, that government-backed organization will obviously know exactly who they are. I know you mean well here, and I'm all for engagement (and against embargoes), but this approach might not be ideal. Even Tony Blair, your friend and a man with far more diplomatic experience than you have, unwittingly became something of a pawn in the regime's suppression of dissent. If one of these local wikipedians ends up "disappeared", what will you do then? --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 16:08, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Given the status of Kazakh national encyclopedia, it should be considered "reliable" in certain topic. I see no problem to cite regime-approved Kazakh national encyclopedia which can be proven invaluable for many Kazakh articles. If the neutrality is questionable, it can always be fixed by providing opposing claims with another reliable source. All we need is to teach the Kazakh Wikipedians, not denying or rejecting it entirely just because it receives support from a country lacking freedom of speech. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 17:29, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree, although caution against complacency. But the main thing we need is information from the Kazakh Wikipedians. Barring that, this is all speculation. Based on what I know, the situation is well in hand, but I welcome new evidence.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:34, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

as far as I can see, the brave volunteers on the ground include the Kazakh National Encyclopedia “Kazakhstan” (provided all own content under CC licenses), the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan (provides content and quality review process), the Ministry of Education and Science (provides us organizational support to involve Kazakhstan universities and colleges to Wikimedia projects), the Ministry of Communication and Information provides organizational support to involve IT companies and universities as well as traditional media support), and the International IT University (provided technical support, internet access, summer student internship etc.). Since you seem to agree with me that Kazakhstan is a tyranny with serious human rights and especially freedom of speech issues, don't you think that this company is most unsavory? No scaremongering here, the problem is intrinsic and self-evident: What you will get is a state-sponsored, state-controlled Wikipedia. And this should be strongly discouraged and opposed, rather than encouraged by WMF or yourself. --Janneman (talk) 17:40, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

This does raise some red flags. Questions:

1. What was the money actually spent on?
2. Who founded the Wikibilim NGO, and is it really independent of government?
3. Who is being encouraged to edit the Kazakh Wikipedia, how are they being encouraged, and what risks (given the country's human rights record) are they potentially exposing themselves to if they end up contradicting the official line?

Rd232 ^talk 17:54, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, here's some more info from WikiBilim itself:

During the press-conference on 16th of June 2011 Head of Samuryk-Kazyna National Foundation Mr. Timur Kulibayev announced their intention to support Kazakh Wikipedia and WikiBilim Public Foundation. In order to increase quality of articles and the number of active editors Samuryk-Kazyna and Nokia Kazakhstan launched two wiki-contests. SMK granted 100 laptops to Wiki contest winners for 100 people who are to write 100 articles each within a given time frame and a satisfactory level. Nokia Kazakhstan granted 50 mobile phones to authors of featured articles. Furthermore, WikiBilim Foundation applied to Local Wikimedia Chapter status. Application is in progress. wikibilim website

So we have Timur Kulibayev (son-in-law of the President) and CEO of Samruk-Kazyna (major Kazakh sovereign wealth fund) sponsoring a Wikipedia-editing contest run by an NGO that wants to become the Kazakh Wikimedia Chapter. I assume you were aware of this, Jimmy; does it sound right to you? Rd232 ^talk 19:28, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

In addition, the comment from Jayen466 you deleted pointed to this article which suggests Kazakh government interest in using Wikipedia for PR: using forensic investigative techniques, EurasiaNet.org also has uncovered evidence that suggests PR firms may have massaged Wikipedia entries in ways that cast the Kazakhstani government in a better light. Rd232 ^talk 19:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

For what its worth here I don't think that accepting grants or funds from the Government is in itself bad. I think there are a whole lot of things that Wikipedia could do with the money and a whole lot of things we could give for the money. For a example Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikispecies have a lot of good information on the planets Flora and Fauna. There is a lot of information that could be added or expanded using funds such as automatic creation of some of the missing articles using bots based on Government databases. These include those at the National Institute of Health, National Archives, Smithsonian, Libarary of Congress and a whole lot of others. Additionally, we could also house and make available a lot of open source imagery through Commons, rather than scatter them out on Government websites. There are plenty of other examples too. So I don't think that taking government money or be given a passing governemtn endorsement are at all bad not do I think it in any way encrouches on anyones freedom of speech or our ability to meet our projects mission and mandate. Kumioko (talk) 19:56, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

You really don't know what's going on here, do you - comparing scraping from US databases with a Kazakh government Wikipedia-editing drive? Such naivete would be sweet, if it didn't potentially endanger Kazakh Wikipedia editors. Allow me to spell it out: the only way the contest winners will be able to get laptops is by giving out their real names. And that's assuming that however people are being attracted to editing doesn't involve that to begin with! Given the nature of the Kazakh government and its clear willingness to use Wikipedia as a PR tool, this is all quite dodgy, frankly. I really wonder what a human rights NGO like Amnesty International would have to say about all this; is it too much to hope that Jimmy has approached them, or might do so now? Rd232 ^talk 20:29, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, it is not "too much to hope" at all! This is exactly my approach. I haven't worked with Amnesty International in particular, although I will at your suggestion look into how strong their presence is in Kazakhstan. This is who I have spoken to, and they will be helping to facilitate meetings with various people when I am there.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:57, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

OK, good. I'm sure Open Society is a useful contact, but for the concerns I have, I think organisations like Amnesty or Human Rights Watch would be better. Rd232 ^talk 01:25, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

3 weeks ago, I spoke at a fundraiser for Human Rights Watch, and introduced Kenneth Roth and George Soros. I've never talked to people from Human Rights Watch about Kazakhstan, but will email Kenneth now to see who I should talk to there. Thanks for the suggestion, a rather obvious one that I should have done myself.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:17, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Well I think that in some cases like the one you pointed out its not good. I was only indicating that just getting money from a government (like in the form of a grant) is not in itself negative. I do think in the scenario you mention that editors should consider it something like spam in handing out their personal information. Just don't do it. Kumioko (talk) 23:02, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I was hoping for some more clarification here. Rd232 ^talk 21:26, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll try to answer your specific questions as best I can, but for some of them, I don't know the answers. Before I go into specifics, though, I'd like to repeat that I think we should not be complacent and I think it's very valuable to engage in this kind of discussion. I also repeat my statement that a bunch of English speakers who haven't talked with the Kazakh Wikipedia community are likely to jump to all kinds of mistaken conclusions. To get deeper answers, we'll have to ask them.

1. "What was the money actually spent on?" - I do not have a lot of insight into that. It's an organization not under our/my control. I'm unaware of any complaints about their spending. I assume like any small nonprofit organization, they have had their fair share of ups and downs, but I know nothing about the specifics.

2. "Who founded the Wikibilim NGO, and is it really independent of government?" - I think that Rauan is the best person to ask for the full founding story, but it was founded by Rauan and Marat Isbayev Hairullauly. Rauan is a regular at Wikimania, so many people have met him. He's a really smart and really nice guy. How independent are they from the government? I think they are as independent as is possible in their legal environment. I'm sure that Rauan could tell us more about what regulations they are required to follow, and how government restrictions may or may not hamper their work.

3. "Who is being encouraged to edit the Kazakh Wikipedia, how are they being encouraged, and what risks (given the country's human rights record) are they potentially exposing themselves to if they end up contradicting the official line?" - Again for specifics, we will need to ask Rauan for details, but their outreach efforts are, as far as I know, exactly the same kinds of things that have been done all over the world in free and non-free media environments: going to conferences, doing events at Universities, trying to get press coverage, organizing sponsors (such as Nokia in this case) for contests, etc. I expect that the risks they face are not dissimilar to the risks faced by people in many difficult countries (China being a prominent example). These are my heroes.

A question that wasn't asked, but which I think should be asked: "How should the Foundation, and the movement generally, approach dealings with potential chapters in countries where approval from an authoritarian government must be granted before the chapter can exist at all?" A good example is China - it is not possible to have a chapter in China without an official government representative (this is true of all civil society organizations there). Within the Chinese community this has been the subject of much discussion and debate, and I was asked (and agreed) by them to hand a letter to the relevant minister about whether he would give approval (he did not).

I think this is a complex question because there are so many variables in place. We can certainly stake out some easy positions, but there will be a lot of difficult "middle ground" positions. If, in order to have a chapter in Kazakhstan, the Foundation would have to agree to censor Kazakh Wikipedia, then we should refuse. That one is easy. If, in order to have a chapter in Kazakhstan, we would have to deal with an organization that is clearly under the control of the government, then we should refuse. Again, easy. If, in order to have a chapter in Kazakhstan, we have to accept that the chapter, although independent, will have to deal with a very restrictive environment overall, and will not be able to approach political matters at all, but the chapter will be able to assist in getting scientists and academics and smart members of the general public to help contribute, then... well, that depends on a lot of complex variables. Which situation are we in here? I don't know yet, but these are the kinds of questions that have to be asked and answered before we can approve of the chapter.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:46, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughtful reply. In navigating these tricky waters I would strongly urge the Foundation to seek assistance from human rights experts like Amnesty and others who can draw on in-country knowledge. There is a real potential to end up doing harm here and the Foundation is unlikely to have the expertise to properly evaluate the risks associated with individual country projects. Having a guy who's "really nice" is no guarantee of anything now, is it? Relying on impressions like that alone would really place all the cards in the hands of a foreign government potentially trying to abuse Wikimedia/Wikipedia for its own goals. More generally, more transparency on how Wikimedia handles problem countries like Kazakhstan and China would be a good thing. Rd232 ^talk 18:34, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know how helpful would be by inviting human rights group into this matter except for quoting their existing statistics which have been posted in this talk page many many times. To address the problem, you need Kazakh editors to report the actual issues of Kazakh WP they already have, assuming you cannot read Kazakh language at all. Relying on foreign human rights group is not going to get us to anywhere except for speculating their situation via data which barely related to Wikipedia editing affair, this is NOT evidence. The whole point is to educate Kazakh Wikipedians the importance of neutrality and avoiding paid-advocacy. If the problem exists, you need concrete evidence to point it out to the Kazakh Wikipedians. Quoting the bad human rights records of their country and tell them "you are likely to break the pillars of Wikipedia" is down right assuming bad faith and uglily rude. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 23:33, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Sameboat, I think the more important issue is to make sure that a WMF-supported (or at least "WMF-approved"... kinda weird semantics here) organization isn't being used to control or oppress young people in Kazakhstan that want to contribute to Wikipedia. It's something that requires careful thinking, reflection, and planning, which is what we're not seeing much evidence of here. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 00:04, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you are willfully ignoring the evidence.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:14, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Did Jimbo really ban someone from this talk page for asking questions about this issue? If so, is this eerily similar to how the government of Kazakhstan treats internet dissidents? Cla68 (talk) 01:26, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

No, I didn't anyone from this talk page for asking questions about this issue. I banned someone from this discussion for making outrageous and idiotic insinuations that were bringing down the quality of the discussion for everyone. And there will be no apologies for that. Asking questions is fine, but having them answered and continuing to mislead people is not fine. A discussion that assumes good faith is one thing; blatant trolling is another.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:14, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Free speech. You don't enjoy the freedom of expression in Wikimedia projects granted by First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Every user absolutely enjoys the right to handle their own talk page however they like (e.g. hiding or removing unwelcoming messages) as well as the right to expression. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 02:04, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Johnny, you should know that "supporting or approving" the relationship between WikiBilim and Kazakhstan Government associate doesn't make WMF (or Jimbo himself) automatically approving paid-advocacy. All I demand is evidence of the ultimate result of paid-advocacy, namely the article content itself, which you have not yet delivered a single example from Kazakh WP. If you're not capable to do so personally, you are in no position to analyze or judge it loudly based solely on the journals and reports from secondary/tertiary sources which are never meant to be absolutely neutral. You may demand investigation, but this is the end of your part. Quoting the human rights record of Kazakhstan repeatedly without actually knowing their cultures and/or language only upsets the Kazakh Wikipedians. They know too well how their country goes. They're not blind or deaf. They don't need you to tell them their country's issues twice and more. P.S. I personally have little faith in such kind of partnership as well, but this is not the reason WikiBilim or Kazakh Wikipedians deserve an unfair assumption over concrete evidence. Never make moral judgment. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 03:52, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Sameboat, I don't speak Kazakh. (Assuming you do) would you be able to ask the people at WikiBilim if they could provide an English translation of Kazakh Wikipedia's BLPs of Nursultan Nazarbaev and Karim Massimov? I'm fairly sure no one's impugning the motives of the volunteers, by the way. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 15:51, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Neither do I. Rauan Kenzhekhanuly should be the appropriate person you can ask for. You pretty much got the rough idea the minute you look at kk:Нұрсұлтан Әбішұлы Назарбаев and kk:Кәрім Қажымқанұлы Мәсімов. One thing I must stress, however, by knowing the nature behind Wikibilim, it is impossible for them to adopt and execute every single word of the neutrality policy from English Wikipedia immediately. (And sadly I still don't see the KK interwiki link in WP:NPOV.) You have already learned that they might face the consequence for being absolutely neutral within their country, which I believe could be life-threatening in some extreme case. But this shouldn't be the barrier to stop them from learning the system of Wikimedia projects. Learning the Wiki syntax takes time as well as learning Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Since there is no deadline and things can always be fixed in a Wiki project, there is always a light for Kazakh Wikipedians to adhere to our standard, when the restriction on freedom to expression loosened up a bit, and this is what Jimbo is trying to help. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 17:05, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll have a look. This is a very difficult situation. It's good that the encyclopedia Kazakhstan has been made available, and it will make a good base on which to build Kazakh Wikipedia, and it's great that the government is encouraging your academic institutions to contribute. My problem with this situation is only that the Foundation is funding and seemingly recognising as a de facto chapter an organisation that is being paid by the government. I'd like to see the chapter-recognition process proceed, but the Foundation should be prepared to withhold recognition and further funding until Wikibilim ceases accepting government funding. At that point, if the Foundation is satisfied with Wikibilim's fitness as a chapter, they could supplant the forgone government funding. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 06:44, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Is there an equivalent of 2011_Mangystau_riots in the KZ Wikipedia? If not, what would happen to an editor who tried to write it? Blocking and banning is one thing, but other things can happen. I can understand those wanting to help by supping with the devil, but the devil always has different ideas. 86.169.113.255 (talk) 17:21, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm reluctant to reply to a troll's question, but the answer is yes, it exists. If looking for an interwiki link begins with "kk" is that difficult to your brain, I express my deepest regret to such incapability. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 17:35, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

What does Wales think about the fact (according to his LinkedIn profile) that in the same month Rauan Kenzhekhanuly created the WikiBilim Public Foundation, he also made himself CEO of the Bilim Media Group, which claims to run "the first commercial e-learning platform in Kazakhstan"? This sounds like Roger Bamkin and the Gibraltarpedia fiasco, all over again. -- 68.87.42.110 (talk) 16:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you seriously need to get an outside expert fluent in Kazakh to look over some of the principal articles. Looking at the article on Nazarbayev, using a very rough online translator, the largest section of the page appears to be titled "reforms" and seems to be a glowing description of all the things he has done for Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. My reading of the online translations suggests that it talks about him building international ties through Eurasec, the SCO, and other such groups; improving education; instituting the government; building up the economy, with some mention of possibly saving it from crisis; and there is one translation that appears to be saying he instituted democracy. I am obviously just going off a garbled online translation, but some of the other content leaves little hope for this being anything other than a vanity page for a dictator. One of the other sections is a list of quotations, most of it nationalist talk about the Kazakh language and Kazakh people. There is plenty of cause for concern here.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:41, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Statement from WikiBilim

Dear friends, On behalf of WikiBilim Foundation and community gathered around the organization I’d like to add perspective to the discussion. My name is Rauan Kenzhekhanuly. I am co-founder of WikiBilim foundation – non-profit organization based in Kazakhstan, which aimed to the development of Kazakh language content in the Internet. Unfortunately, this debate and publications followed are making doubts and concerns around our activities. I sincerely hope that the information below will shed some light on them and answer all the questions. First of all, WikiBilim’s mission goes far beyond Wikipedia itself. Our goal is to contribute to the well being of Kazakh language, it’s development had been restricted during the Soviet Union. Our attention to Wikipedia and other multi-language open knowledge platforms based on the strong believe in the power of technology and particularly in the power of the free knowledge and the Internet as a great tool to support native culture, mother tongue and modernization of the country we live in.

In order to be brief I’d like to list our partners and projects we run:

Donors of WikiBilim in 2011-2012:

1. Open Society Foundation (http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org)
2. Wikimedia Foundation
3. Sovereign Wealth Fund Samruk-Kazyna (http://sk.kz/?lang=en)
4. Altyn Kyran Private Charity (Kazakhstan)
5. Ministry of Culture (Kazakhstan)

Projects we run:

1. Kazakh Wikipedia (goal: building strong Kazakh Wikipedia-community)
2. Open Library of Kazakhstan (www.ikitap.kz, goal: making available all the books in Kazakh language free and easily accessible)
3. Google Translate + Kazakh (goal: adding Kazakh language to Google Translate)
4. Creative Commons Kazakhstan (goal: promoting the CC licenses in Kazakhstan)
5. Bringing TED Conference in Kazakhstan (goal: translating TED talks into Kazakh and broadcasting them on national TV)

(WikiBilim has formal cooperation agreements and mutually trusted fruitful relations with all of above mentioned organizations)

I got passionate about Wikipedia during my study at Harvard University. There is an article in The Harvard Crimson, which may provide answers to most of the questions raised in this discussion about Kazakh Wikipedia project particularly.

I’d like to clarify few very important points:

1. Despite the fact that WikiBilim is supported by the government, among others, the government representatives never intervene in our projects with any conditions such as censoring or editing articles.
2. Winners of the contest (by Wikibilim) mentioned above are the ones who write 100 articles on topics they like. Authors of the best article contest are chosen by the community of Kazakh WP. WikiBilim never pays for writing specific articles on certain topics.
3. The money received for the projects has been spend only on community building activities, such as seminars, trainings and conferences at the university campuses all over Kazakhstan (over 100 events in two years). For instance, the biggest event we held was the first Turkic Wikimedia Conference in April 2012, Almaty (Kazakhstan), which gathered people of most Turkic nations (Kazakhstan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan. Turkmenistan, Bashkortostan, Saha-Yakutiya, Tatarstan).
4. WikiBilim was proud to accept articles from Kazakh National Encyclopedia donated by the government, which is around 50 000 articles. We never regret accepting this kind of help from government, because thanks to that Kazakh WP received larger attention of the potential audience and the chapter got natural growth of the articles. Currently we have over 200 000 articles (2 year ago the number of articles were around 7 000). Today Kazakh Wikipedia receives over 8 million page views per month.
5. Wikibilim never use Wikipedia pages to advertise anyone. The only return that the government bodies asked for was mentioning its participation in the development of Kazakh WP, which we do with gratefulness.
6. WikiBilim deeply regrets that this situation caused inconvenience to our supporter and great friend Mr. Jimmy Wales. From the very beginning he has been supporting us in bringing Wikipedia culture and it’s values in Kazakh society. Thanks to his help today Kazakh WP has over 20 000 registered users who share the value of spreading free knowledge and understand what it is to be a Wikipedian.

Finally, we are really surprises to find ourselves accused for being a tool of the government. Frankly speaking we thought we are using the government to develop Kazakh Wikipedia ☺.

Here in Kazakhstan we have been criticized for being too pro-Western, if not pro-American. Some of local journalist already called WikiBilim members the CIA agents ☺. Allegedly, WikiBilim administrated by the US government in order to promote Western style democracy in Central Asia. Can you believe it? ☺

Now, some of you guys accusing WikiBilim for making Wikipedia a tool for authoritarian regime. My point is that your perspective (WikiBilim serves authoritarian regime) sounds as nonsense as the views of the local journalists (WikiBilim serves US government). We do have our own mission – we work to develop our mother tongue and to promote our native culture, and we will be using any appropriate tool to do it as effective as it is possible.

Hope that this response made the situation clearer. Thanks for your understanding and we would be happy to provide you with more information in depth about our activities.

Rauank (talk) 02:22, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Could you explain why the article on Nazarbayev appears to contain no criticism of your country's president and just glowing endorsements of his contributions to Kazakhstan? Is the Kazakh Wikipedia's bio of Nazarbayev one of the articles copied from the Kazakh National Encyclopedia?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:36, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

WikiBilim is responsible for spreading knowledge about Wikipedia. We meet people and explain what is WP, what are the rules and principles of article writing, as you know those rules are common for everybody. We do encourage people to be active editors, but we don't ask people to write articles on certain topics or to write them in certain way. We don't have list of articles that should be revised for lacking flattering remarks or criticism. If you insist we can consider creating that kind off list to make sure that there are appropriate portion of criticism in each article, but I am afraid that also would be against principles of WP. Believe or not, but we live in a country where people can go online and express their opinion. Please, bear in mind that people here just getting aquatinted with the WP and other technologies, and I do believe that at some point all the articles in Kazakh WP will meet standards you know. Wikibilim is working to make it true asap. Kazakhstan is not perfection yet, there is no perfect country. Every country and society has its own face, one can not expect that the county with totally different culture will meet all the standards he or she consider right. As far as the article you mentioning, it is based on few sources, including National encyclopedia, Forbes magazine and some other resources. As you can see, It is open to be edited by anyone. Probably thanks to your note someone will decide to make a critical review of that article, if not I will definitely mention your concern during my next training session and will encourage editors to develop the article. Hope you are satisfied. Rauank (talk) 05:22, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Could you please explain what does it mean: "WikiBilim is supported by the government"? How exactly the government "supports" WikiBilim? Thanks. 71.202.123.14 (talk) 02:52, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

As you probably aware, Kazakhstan is still under transition from Soviet Union to democracy and free market. 90% of schools and universities still belong to the government, most penetrated media recourses as well belong toe the state, unfortunately there is no self sufficient publishing market in the country yet, so big encyclopedias published by the government. in order to promote WP and make it widespread we needed support of the government. For absence of misconception, it was WikiBilim who approached the government and asked for help.

How exactly the government "supports" WikiBilim?

1. The government decided to publish all 10 volumes of national encyclopedia under CC license and donated it to the WP. Please note, that next edition of the paper based national encyclopedia will be based on the articles edited by the community.
2. In order to explain what is CC and promote free content the government invested in translation and publication in Kazakh of Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig and seriously considering putting CC in the formal copy-write law.
3. the government ordered to the ministry of education to open access for Wikibilim for seminars and training in university campuses, moreover under our request the ministry working on using WP as a innovative educational tool based on the american experience
4. the government opened access for Wikibilim to all kind of media to spread the information
5. without that support Samruk-Kazyna wouldn't donate to development of WP, by the way currently we are preparing full financial report on fund usage by WikiBilim.
6. the government opened national TV channel for TED talks broadcasting

Rauank (talk) 05:53, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't need your money - so why does it keep pestering you?

On Wikipedia's own donations page we learn of a moving story of a student in Agnam-Goly, a Sahelian village in north-eastern Senegal with a population of 3,143 inhabitants, who expresses how he'd love to give money to the foundation."I wish I had money to donate to Wikipedia," writes Adama Diop.Does he know wealthy Westerners are using the donations to buy cameras and travel to pop concerts? Or that the foundation has more cash than it knows what to do with? 71.202.122.192 (talk) 18:46, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm disappointed in The Register. The tone is incredibly negative, but at the same time he admits that much of what the foundation is doing is "eminently sensible". The things that he is criticizing seem to come at the chapter level and are relatively small expenses. He doesn't even both to try to understand why we might be interested in getting photos of politicians or concerts. And then there are some things that are just silly: "Few politicians or media figures now dare criticise Wikipedia" Hah! GabrielF (talk) 19:03, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Wikimedians do not need money to get photos of politicians. They could simply email to the politicians or to their offices, and get as many pictures as they want together with the permissions for using them.

I think that the point "Few politicians or media figures now dare criticise Wikipedia" has some merits. The foundation has became a very powerful organization, and the Wikipedia community has a deadly weapon to use against notable persons who dare to criticise Wikipedia - their Wikipedia entries. I know, I know, there are polices like BLP and no original research, and everything should be sourced, and so on, but truth be told there's no policy that could prevent an experienced Wikipedian from changing an article the way he wants it to change especially with the Foundation on his side.71.202.122.192 (talk) 19:23, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually WP:BLP is much better policed than you appear to think it is. Unless you care to give us some examples? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:32, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Remember that even, if BLP is fixed the fix could come after other sites picked up a wrong version. There are plenty examples of users using Wikipedia entries to defame their opponents:Here's one, or you may want to read this and this: "Vandalism of conservatives’ Wikipedia pages is nothing new. " 71.202.122.192 (talk) 19:50, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm well aware of Johann Hari; I was hoping for examples about "an experienced Wikipedian ... changing an article the way he wants it to change especially with the Foundation on his side". --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:10, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not at all disappointed in The Register; Orlowski has been writing this sort of thing on a regular basis for quite some time now, so it's not at all surprising to see more of it. He can't even get his basic facts right (what sort of journalist takes a screenshot of the subject of his article then blatantly mis-labels what the screenshot is showing?), so I imagine there are now very few people out there who still take him seriously. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:13, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Well there are 100+ comments on the article that are not positive towards WP, and most are double digit liked. It seems that in the UK at least, OW's article is chiming with what a number of people think. I also note that he's picked up on the Google connection and the WP blackout too. John lilburne (talk) 21:51, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

There is n connection between Google and the blackout. None. Please stop repeating that nonsense.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:56, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it was just a spontaneous burst of emotion by the community and the hundreds of IPs not seen before or since had no effect on the outcome.</sarcasm>--Wehwalt (talk) 08:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

You keep repeating this meme but never with even the slightest shred of proof. And anyway, what would this have to do with Google? You might plausibly (but wrongly, I think) argue that Reddit users came and voted in our poll, overwhelming the community, but again, that would have nothing to do with Google. (And, it's false anyway. If you think you have evidence for it, please produce it. Notice that I've been asking for this for a long time, and you've produced nothing. It's easy to do - go tally the votes again keeping track of user edit counts, admin status, etc., and bring back the results.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

See SPA Tagging at Wikipedia:SOPA initiative/Action. Editors were told not to tag single-purpose accounts – i.e. accounts that had made little or no contributions to Wikipedia apart from voting for a blackout – as is standard for all sorts of ordinary community !votes such as article deletion, requests for comment, and so on. I think this is the only community poll where admins were told that votes by IPs that had never before contributed to Wikipedia should count the same as those of established contributors. Given that there were pointers to the discussion in places like Reddit, it is hardly surprising that there was a large influx of IPs that influenced the course of the discussion as well as the final result. Which is all the more noteworthy given that this was one of the most important community votes ever, which forever altered the perception of Wikipedia as a neutral reference source and turned it into a political player. In addition, we have to remember that Wikipedians were told that SOPA was a threat to the existence of Wikipedia. Tim Starling, one of the Foundation's most longstanding employees, later said in public that this was quite simply untrue. "Maybe SOPA was a "serious threat to freedom of expression on the Internet", and worth fighting against, but it wasn't a threat to Wikipedia's existence." I believe him. Andreas JN466 13:10, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

And you think Starling's opinion as a non-U.S. programmer is more important than the many lawyers including Godwin and current Foundation Counsel who looked at it and said there was a clear liability to sites including Wikipedia linking to infringing content, why, exactly? 67.41.200.185 (talk) 14:45, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Tim commented on the technical measures that compliance would actually have involved, and on whether they would have brought Wikipedia to its knees or not. His answer to that was an emphatic No. He is more qualified than most to assess that, because that is the sort of work he has been doing for Wikimedia, for longer than almost anyone else. Andreas JN466 15:46, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure, so when rights-holder at domain name D gets a ex parte declaration that all links to courtesy content at D are an infringement of their copyright, and we are then obligated to remove all links to D, we can make a bot to do that? That's not a threat to the existence of the project, unless you believe that an essential part of the project is the quality inherent in the editorial judgement of volunteers without arbitrary deletions by bots. 67.41.200.185 (talk) 02:03, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

The current General Council wrote that if we stretched the meaning of a "search engine" to breaking point, such that wikipedia was classed as one, then conceivably wikipedia could be obliged to remove links. The removal of links would come as a result of a court order which could only be made in relation to non US sites, whose primary purpose was the distribution of counterfeit and pirate goods. So 67.41.200.185 just how many links on wikipedia are to pirate goods? The targets of SOPA were ad agencies like double-click (Google) who place adverts on pirate websites alongside downloads for films and music. Wikipedia would not have been affected at all. Those that thought it would, were manipulated into defending the ill-gotten profits of mega-corporations, tax avoiding and criminal ones too (in the case of Google). What is coming to light is the extent of the crony capitalism and sweetners that Google were spreading about, they spent $9million in lobbying congress and the senate during that period alone. John lilburne (talk) 08:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm perfectly willing to accept that you were the dupe in this rather than the dude. The idea sprung from a small group "Fight for the Future" that suddenly arose with a $300,000 donation from Media Democracy Fund which is basically a middle man for other donors. A week later "Fight for the Future is at a meeting at Mozilla with Reddit and Google planning strategy, the day later $500,000 was donated to wikipedia, and posts by members of Fight for the Future are appearing on Reddit.

And we got on Reddit that Friday. And it was tricky to get on Reddit even—Reddit is just this beehive of anti-SOPA sentiment but at that point really wasn’t woken up to it. I remember sitting down at the keyboard and thinking, ‘Okay what will get people’s attention?’ The post I wrote was something like, ‘The MPAA will soon have the power to block American’s access to any website unless we fight back’—comma—‘hard!’ And that was the post—that post got to the top.

What percentage of Mozilla income comes from Google it used to be 90%? And what is the likelihood that a small organisation suddenly gets a $300,000 donation and within two weeks is talking to gathering of the valleys biggest players? John lilburne (talk) 09:49, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

It is absolutely false that "the idea sprung from a small group 'Fight for the Future'. The idea sprung, as far as I know, from me. Me personally. I do not know anything about "Fight for the Future", nothing about "Media Democracy Fund", nothing about Mozilla, Reddit, and Google having any sort of planning meeting, etc. Sergei's personal donation came with absolutely no discussion of any kind about SOPA - he does that from time to time, and this was routine - he's a longstanding fan and supporter. To repeat, nothing about our blackout had anything to do with Google donations. It was never discussed, never implied, never hinted at, nothing. Sergei's donation was normal for him and totally unrelated to SOPA. If Google donated money to "Fight for the Future" in the hopes of getting Wikipedia to shut down for a day, that'd be a pretty stupid way of going about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Mike Linksvayer is on record for saying it was discussed on the 9th of December at the Creative Commons Board meeting chaired by Brin's mother-in-law. Following that he starting sounding out the CC community on the 14th of December. You started sounding out the wikipedia community on the 10th of December. IIRC with references to the reddit community, the reddit community having been prompted into a blackout suggestion by those at the Google, Mozilla ($300 million deal from Google mid December 2011), Reddit execs, and Fight for the Future meeting on the 16th of November. As I said the 16th of November meeting appears to have been a get together to discuss how to get the various online communities to protest SOPA with site blackouts. Meanwhile Google also spunked $2.5 million in direct lobbying of congress in the month before SOPA. One shouldn't be seen getting into bed with criminals, and tax avoiders. John lilburne (talk) 10:58, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Why do you think listing a bunch of random facts that have nothing to do with anythinghelps your case that Sergei's donation had anything to do with the blackout? I particularly like (ha) the way you write as if these are in some way contradicting anything that I've said. Let me go through this step by step for you. "Mike Linksvayer is on record for saying it(what? SOPA? blackout?) was discussed on 9th of December at the Creative Commons Board meeting chaired by Brin's mother-in-law." I was not at that meeting, and I was unaware (and still am) of the contents of whatever that conversation may have been. But it is hardly surprising that the CC board would be discussing a major threat to Internet openness.

"sounding out the CC community on the 14th of December" - unrelated to Wikipedia and again, so what?

Reddit community - I don't read reddit, I was not involved in those meetings, that has nothing to do with me or Wikipedia.

Your theory is just not at all consistent with the facts. Sorry. You're trying to make the case that the Wikipedia blackout was prompted by Sergei's donation, or perhaps the other way around. That's absolutely false.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:11, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

It is an acknowledged fact that a blackout of internet sites was discussed at the Mountain View meeting on the 9th of November with Google, and a strategy devised to employ the various online communities, those at the meeting have also taken credit for manipulating the reddit community by planting posts on the site. The Creative Commons community was drawn in to it at the Board meeting on the 9th of December, on the 10th of December you were broaching the idea of a wikipedia blackout. Various commentators here say that the community vote in favour was suspect, with a large number of IP votes. Note that the reddit community was manipulated with posts by those with an undisclosed interest in the subject. Additionally the Google shill organisations were also involved in the enterprise spreading FUD across the internet. The main beneficiaries of a SOPA defeat were Google, and it is not far fetched at all to conclude that the communities were played by Google, using those that were favourable to them, and plying a little money in various places to keep every one sweet, or at least non neutral. I'm sure that no one came up to you and said here is 500K now blackout wikipedia, nothing so crass was done. But consider this, given what we know about Google manipulating governments, that Google wouldn't play you too, given the $billions that are involved in shady Google ad networks on pirate sites? John lilburne (talk) 13:16, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

"Sergei's donation was normal for him" – erm, no. It's the only time the Brin Wojcicki Foundation made such a donation (though it's true that Google donated $2M to the Wikimedia Foundation in 2010), and the timing, just after the spontanous and successful Italian Wikipedia blackout, has quite naturally caused speculation that people thought hey, what worked in Italy might work for SOPA too, and that Brin wanted to encourage, or express his gratitude, for the political support. Andreas JN466 12:47, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

It is not the only time that Brin has donated - there was another donation this year, in fact. And yes, it's perfectly ok for people to ask the question, but when it has been answered firmly and clearly, and zero evidence is offered, it's time to drop it. The Brin donation was neither an encouragement nor a thank you for the blackout. Sergei has been a friend and supporter of Wikipedia for years.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:53, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I did a search for any mention online of any other donation by Brin before I posted above, and could find none. Would you have a link?

There is circumstantial evidence. The sequence of events was as follows:

• October 4 to October 6, 2011: The Italian Wikipedia community spontaneously decides to black out the Italian Wikipedia, to prevent an Italian law from coming into force that would have given individuals defamed online a guaranteed right to reply. The proposed law is withdrawn, and Italian press credit the Wikipedia blackout as successful in having prevented the enactment of the law. (Italian_Wikipedia#2011_mass_blanking_protest)
• November 15, 2011: Wikimedia spokesman Jay Walsh announces that Wikimedia supports American Censorship Day, a protest by Google, Google-sponsored groups and other web giants against the proposed SOPA anti-piracy legislation in the US. ( http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/11/15/wikimedia-supports-american-censorship-day/ ) Whatever SOPA's merits and demerits, it is clear that enactment of SOPA would have cost Google billions. ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottcleland/2012/01/24/the-real-reasons-google-killed-sopapipa/ )
• November 18, 2011: The media announce that Google's Sergey Brin is donating half a million dollars to Wikipedia, via the Brin Wojcicki Foundation. ( http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/brin-and-wojcicki-give-500000-to-charity-behind-wikipedia/ )
• December 9, 2011: Creative Commons board meeting chaired by Brin's mother-in-law, Esther Wojcicki ( http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/30862 ). (You say you weren't there; but even so, it would not seem extraordinary to assume that you were in some way kept informed, given that you're a board member.)
• December 10, 2011: You first raise the topic of an anti-SOPA Wikipedia blackout here on this page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=465086832 ).
• January 16, 2012: After a rushed and externally canvassed community vote where – unusually for Wikipedia – votes by single-purpose accounts and anonymous IP addresses are allowed to stand ( Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive736#SPA_Tagging_at_Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Action ), English Wikipedia is blacked out for a day, in an action hailed as successful in preventing SOPA legislation, and forever changing the nature of Wikipedia from a neutral reference source to a global political player ... and incidentally also profiting Google to the tune of billions.

Again, when major policy changes occur in an organisation that benefit a third party, and that third party has just donated a large amount to that same organisation, people ask, cui bono. (Amazon's investment in Wikia, and their now being a payment processor for WMF is another such case.) That's just a normal part of scrutinising public organisations in a democratic society, and people always construct different narratives that appear plausible to them. Often, there is a kernel of truth in several of them. Andreas JN466 13:30, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

This sequence is incorrect. So, okay, I'll add some more data to the fire here, and this is ACTUAL data.... as many of you know, I ran the fundraiser in 2010-2011. The first mention that I have in my email inbox of a potential donation from Brin was... wait for it... January, 2011. These things don't happen instantly, as anyone who has dealt with major gifts knows. They require a long lead time. Rebecca HHandler, our former Head of Major Gifts, was working with Brin as far back as JANUARY to put things in motion for the donation you state. That's not unusual in the world of major gifts, at all. It's not unusual to court a major donor for YEARS. So, unless you're going to suggest that Brin was planning this in JANUARY.... I'm afraid your argument falls apart a bit there. Oh, and the decision to accept Amazon as a payment method? That grows from our hiring of someone to manage alternative payment methods around the world for us. She manages accounts with literally dozens of payment providers throughout the world, to optimize based on local usage. That decision was made in a vacuum, and I don't believe Jimmy was ever even consulted on that. He (quite properly) leaves the day to day management of the Foundation to the Executive Director and her delegates. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 18:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Sweet that it 'just happened' to be announced in time for the SOPA protests. Any way now that you are here how about telling us about the back room talks that were going on between the 9th and the 15th of November on arranging a coordinated protest against SOPA. Don't bother saying that none were as there is apparently a village pump thread that says there was. John lilburne (talk) 20:23, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

If there were such talks (which I doubt), I have no knowledge of them, and was not a part of them. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 07:18, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

From the village pump 15th November 2011:

We've got a number of large sites participating - Boing Boing, HypeMachine, and Reddit have all agreed to black out their logos. We are hoping Wikipedia would be willing to do the same. We actually spoke to Erik Moeller about participating, and although he said he would be happy to support in other ways, that we would have to ask the Wikipedians themselves if we could black out the Wikipedia logo tomorrow (or perhaps sometime in the near future - more on that later).

20 minutes later some from the WMF says that they are making a blog post, and two hours later reports that the blog post has been made in support. So it seems that prior talks were going on before 15th of November with senior people within the WMF, and there is also talk of planning further action to come. John lilburne (talk) 09:48, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

"Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation, I am more interested in why you were running around, giving more than 100 silly barnstars like this one? I mean you are getting paid from the money donated to Wikipedia to keep it running. Don't you have anything better to do during your working hours? 71.202.123.14 (talk) 19:11, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

<shrug> Some people liked the barnstars - turns out, people like being thanked for being involved - and some people hated them. In retrospect, would I suggest again that we do that method for thanking people? Probably not. Live and learn. Oh, and if you do the conversion, you'll see that that was given at 11:22 AM... on SATURDAY, January 21. Work hours? Well, yeah, I was working, but it was a Saturday. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 07:18, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:43, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

More than a hundred?!? Gosh! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:05, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

If you get big, someone's going to take a potshot at you at some point. It's inevitable. Doesn't mean we should ignore criticism, and in the past some of it's been quite fairly leveled, but a lot of it is half-true (if that) silliness. As to the allegation above that WMF would support deliberate defamation of critics, that could not only lose it 501(c)(3) status, but also get it sued into oblivion (and safe harbor protections don't apply if WMF initiated or approved the action). I don't always agree with WMF, but even aside from the fact that such an act would be a blatant breach of ethics for an officer of a charitable foundation, I think they're more than smart enough to know that would be a very, very bad idea. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:12, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I am sure that nothing was "officially" done and that there'd be nothing to turn over in discovery were suit brought. I consider WMF misguided, but they aren't dumb. However, that's not relevant to what may have actually been done.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

You are being obnoxious and you are factually wrong about all of this. Look at what you are saying: you are directly accusing me (and the Foundation) of not just lying, but lying and keeping things deliberately out of email in order to avoid discovery in case a suit were bought. That's just bonkers. A suit by whom, relating to what? Why on earth would we do that? You have absolutely no evidence, and the behavior you are suggesting has absolutely no precedence for Sue Gardner, for me, or for anyone else in any position of authority or influence here. You're just making up nonsense out of thin air.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:43, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

A statement "there'd be nothing to turn over" is the "then" to the "if". Please see the post I responded to for the statement on which mine relied, which I will quote from in part "As to the allegation above ... " My response was IF the allegation was true, then in my opinion there would be nothing to turn over anyway, based upon my knowledge of how corporations routinely act regarding correspondence. There is almost never certainty. Obviously my comment was not friendly, but to call it a "direct accusation" tempts me to want to cut and paste your last comments, though in the interests of peace I will not.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:57, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Why are you hinting that something is the case if you assert that the evidence that vindicates that position could not exist. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:43, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, this year's fundraiser just today matched last year's take, after only nine days of actually trying. Kind of hilariously, this was after the Fundraising Department explained in great detail how exceeding last year's take was unlikely. However, the Annual Plan was subsequently revised to project smaller fundraising growth this year than last, even though page views increased over the past year more sharply than in the previous three years (a flat slope on a semilog scale is exponential growth.) The Register is right to say that Wikimedia fundraising leaves much to be desired, but not in the way they describe. 67.41.200.185 (talk) 01:36, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes more than a hundred, but many are not anti WP, and certainly most are not "double digit liked" - I'm sure that many posts and likes are from "the usual suspects", but ultimately that sort of mud slinging only generates scorn for the slingers, or a defensive reaction. Constructive criticism, however, can actually change things. Rich Farmbrough, 05:27, 21 December 2012 (UTC).

And, with all that money, content contributors don't get any resources. I'm probably going to have to pay out of pocket for Washington Post and LA Times articles for improvement. Yet there's plenty of cash to blow on business cards. Where are our priorities?--Wehwalt (talk) 09:58, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

What are you asking for? That you get a free subscription to use as you want? That the WMF, not get copy paper, or pencils, until you get a free subscription? How would you getting a free subscription with WMF funds, but the WMF office not getting office supplies work in reality? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:25, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, yes. Yes, I think so. It's a good investment. Keep in mind that it's the ARCHIVES I want, not the funny pages "to do as [I] want". Do you doubt I would use it well? No doubt there will be money both for that, and for copies/pencils/business cards.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:00, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you should read the article (linked at the top of this thread: "But some of the spending has raised eyebrows. In the UK, the local chapter of WMF, Wikimedia Foundation UK, admitted to racking up a bill of £1,335 on business cards, calling it "a failure to make the most effective procurement choices". The UK foundation also found itself under close scrutiny after approving projects that personally benefited board members - which imperilled the foundation's hard-won charity status.". The WMF funds, particularly the ones that get "disseminated" to the local chapters, aren't being used wisely, and certainly aren't helping the content creators in any concrete way. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 13:25, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

"which imperilled the foundation's hard-won charity status" is just bollocks, as we call it in the UK. What Orlowski or the Register know about UK charity status could be written on the back of a small postage stamp. Unfortunately they are not the only ones to make ill-informed comments on this subject. (WMUK Trustee) Johnbod (talk) 14:17, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not getting a direct benefit from those business cards as I chose not to apply for a set. But if having business cards makes it easier for some of my fellow volunteers to build relationships with the GLAM community then we all stand to benefit. Building relationships with museums and other cultural institutions is an important part of the chapter's job, the UK chapter has a good record of that sort of outreach. If you aren't aware of the link between outreach to museums and content building then I suggest you read Hoxne Hoard or look at some of the large image releases that people from the European chapters have negotiated. If we are going to have wikimedians conducting outreach to cultural institutions then supplying them with business cards sound like a sensible investment. That said those sound like an unusually expensive set of business cards, I know there was a mistake that resulted in a batch being reprinted, but it is a lot of money and hopefully future years won't be as expensive. ϢereSpielChequers 14:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Was there design work involved? How many sets were made? How many cards in total? One type of bad argument is when somebody throws around numbers without units of measure. Jehochman ^Talk 14:13, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't know if there was design work, but this was a new initiative and will have involved cards for all who needed them and requested them. So I would anticipate much lower costs in future years as one would expect that some of the recipients will be using the same set of cards for some years. ϢereSpielChequers 14:32, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Won't last long if they are leaving them in phone boxes around Paddington Station John lilburne (talk) 14:36, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

John, I know this is a small part of the article and a tiny part of WMUK's annual budget, but it is the type of thing that people tend to repeat. And the whole business cards affair seems quite puzzling. As a trustee, can you clear this up here and now? Who got these seemingly expensive cards? Was it only staff? Staff and trustees? Any volunteers, and if so, who and why? What was the issue with the titles that caused the cards to be recalled? Business cards are readily available in a range of qualities and prices - why are these cards so expensive - who was the supplier? If you cannot answer these questions, perhaps Jon Davies can - would you ask? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 15:21, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Staff, Trustees and some volunteers (not me). There was then some concern over vanity titles on some of the cards so they were destroyed. Not sure if they were replaced, I believe so. Via the grapevine I know that several suppliers were considered and a selection made to obtain good quality but not overly pricey. I am sure Jon can explain more of the reasoning behind that particular decision. It was a minor mistake I guess. They could have got some shitty cards from Vistaprint for, what, half the cost, but they really are dire quality :) --Errant ^(chat!) 20:07, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I have some as a volunteer. I was asked by a staff member at WMUK (can't remember who) whether they'd be useful to help as a Wikinews contributor. I agreed and picked them up when I was next in London. Sadly, my involvement with Wikinews is less than I would have liked (family and work etc.) but I keep a few in my wallet. I do think that for people who are out-and-about taking photographs for Commons (or covering local news for Wikinews or whatnot) is that if, say, the police or security people challenge a person's taking photographs (which happens, has led to protests and which the government has recognised is an issue), being able to say "look, I take photographs to illustrate Wikipedia, if you don't believe me, here's a card, you can call the number and verify" is a very useful and close-to-zero-cost thing that chapters can do for volunteers. There's obviously some contention about the cost of the cards, but I do think that it is worth having. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:41, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

The cards would be useful to me, as well as other editors who routinely visit archives, and are faced with suspicious people wanting to see something in writing and who think I'm from WikiLeaks. (that happened to me at a New Jersey county historical society library). And in a nod to AlanScottWalker's comments, I'll pay for the blipping cards if someone is willing to make the arrangements (I no longer have email activated, but leave a note on my talk).--Wehwalt (talk) 09:06, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

• I see a lot of poor behavior on this page, and would urge those who are slandering, making legal threats and otherwise badgering Jimmy to drop it. (Note Wehwalt's not very subtle suggestion of a subpoena.) It may be fun to pursue conspiracy theories and play gotcha, but these games don't create value, and the people playing them merely damage their own reputations. Ask yourselves this question: on the whole, for all the money WMF takes in, do they deliver good value? I think you will be hard pressed to find a charity of similar size that does so much good for such an amount of money. Jehochman ^Talk 14:13, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

SB Johnny: Apart for the non-sequitor in your comment, spending other peoples money usually does raise eyebrows. "Wisely", is of course in the eye of the beholder, but that does not explain how handing out free subscriptions to individuals to use as they want adresses anything. If the people in Britain don't want to support all that, they won't. Every organization has critics, but the WMF's critics seem particularly inept. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:22, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

It was subtle enough to escape me ... subpoenas aren't discovery btw.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:19, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Hmm? Both the subpoena duces tecum and the subpoena ad testificandum are used as discovery devices in many common law jurisdictions. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:16, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Depends how you view them. I tend to view discovery as much more between the parties. But in any event, I'm trying to convey that I certainly had no such intent. Jeez.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:26, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

• I cannot understand why Jimbo takes such pride in being the one who sprung the idea of the site's blackout. That blackout was nothing short of political campaigning - not a traditional activity for encyclopedias, and an absolutely improper activity for the tax-exempt organization.71.202.123.14 (talk) 17:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
  • "absolutely improper" is supporting political candidates. A small amount of lobbying is OK - see 501(c)#Lobbying. Incidentally, do you really think this is the first time in history an organisation behind an encyclopedia has done lobbying? (Hint: Microsoft Encarta.) Rd232 ^talk 20:35, 21 December 2012 (UTC)
    • rd232,the Wikimedia Foundation is a privately owned foundation. "Private foundations that spend money on lobbying activity will incur an excise tax on those expenditures; this tax is so significant that it generally acts as a lobbying prohibition.In addition, a private foundation does not qualify for section 501(c) (3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly referred to as lobbying). Legislation includes action by Congress, any state legislature, any local council, or similar governing body with respect to acts, bills, resolutions, or similar items (such as legislative confirmation of appointive office), or by the public in referendum, ballot initiative, constitutional amendment, or similar procedure.A foundation will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges members of the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the foundation advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation. 71.202.123.14 (talk) 02:24, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
      • How oddly misleading of the IRS. The excise tax only applies on amounts exceeding permitted lobbying spending limits; and only if the organisation has elected to use the expenditure test (which WMF probably hasn't, so it's a vaguer "substantial" test); and it's only 25% anyway. [3] [4]. You do know the WMF has actual lawyers who get paid to worry about these things, yes? Rd232 ^talk 04:39, 22 December 2012 (UTC)
        • Then you should probably fix the article you linked to in your prior post because it states: "In contrast to the absolute prohibition on political campaign interventions by all section 501(c)(3) organizations, public charities (but not private foundations) may conduct a limited amount of lobbying to influence legislation." So as you see according to this article private foundations are not allowed to conduct lobbying at all. 71.202.123.14 (talk) 06:11, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

People still argue about JFK and lots of other things, and there is no chance that those with an agenda will change their views. Throwing mud because of a personal political outlook or a personal history can be fun, but too much of it is an abuse of the open nature of Wikipedia. Many good editors agreed with the blackout, so please rewrite history on another website. Johnuniq (talk) 23:19, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Those that refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. John lilburne (talk) 23:39, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Having taken no position on the SOPA blackout, and still having no position on the SOPA blackout. Being doomed to repeat the SOPA blackout is, well . . . so? Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:23, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

SOPA/PIPAThis user supported the SOPA/PIPA blackout!

I took a position.--Amadscientist (talk) 07:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Merry Crimbo, Jimbo and thanks for an awesome year of Wikipedia-ing and for going with the community consensus on SOPA! --W.D. (talk) 12:35, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Hear, hear, merry Christmas :) – SJ + 12:30, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

MMA on wikipedia.

There needs to be new policies and guidelines regrading MMA. The ones that we have now clearly arent working, and MMA related pages which are notable keep getting deleted by this kid named Mtking. JonnyBonesJones (talk) 20:37, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

No, he doesn't mean the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Johnbod (talk) 20:43, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The specific MMA that is being refered to is Mixed Martial Arts Hasteur (talk) 21:39, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Ani#JonnyBonesJones. I'd agree that there needs to be something done regarding MMA-related articles - possibly invoke WP:IAR, delete the lot, and salt. Far too much drama over far too little of even remotely encyclopaedic interest... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:51, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I humbly request that IAR not be invoked at this time as there are good proposals coming from the MMA Wikiproject talk page to help clarify what is and is not appropriate for Wikipedia. "Baby with the Bathwater" and all that hooey for why carpet bombing from high altitude is not appropriate (i.e. UFC 94 as a exception to the "it's all bad" argument) Hasteur (talk) 21:41, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

While I have absolutely no interest in MMA, never watched one, never plan to, that's my choice. However, it is clear that many people care about the events, and therefore, we ought to have coverage. There are legitimate debates about formats, but suggesting that they should all be removed is not reasonable. As noted below, there's an RfC to work out the details, that's the right approach.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 13:22, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

• Some people simply don't get the concept of notable. Being condescending towards someone who actually does by calling them "this kid" pretty much negates your argument. we have just had to implement restrictions on MMA as a whole due to this very same type of editor as the OP (who by the way, has now been placed under those restrictions and is currently facing a community-imposed block from the project) (✉→BWilkins←✎) 20:52, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• It should be noted that the community recently passed a set of General Sanctions authorizing administrators to have a lower threshold on disruptive behavior with respect to MMA articles. I suggest that the community solution be given time to work prior to invoking the Appeal to Jimbo Hasteur (talk) 21:45, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
• JBJ is complaining that "MMA related pages which are notable keep getting deleted," yet he started Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sako Chivitchian, proposing deletion of an MMA article. Disclosure: I have !voted "keep" and have edited the article in question, but as no one supports deletion at present, I hope this comment on the irony of JBJ's post won't be seen as canvassing. EdChem (talk) 22:24, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

• • The MMA community appears to be working on an RfC as well, so it looks like the combination of sanctions and willingness to put this in front of the entire community has the situation better than it has been in a while, which is still not great, but at least there is a little momentum in the right direction. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:39, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Free speech only goes so far

Jimbo, could you please respond to this article? Thank you. --BookCook (talk) 01:45, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I have, in detail, elsewhere on this page. Let me summarize, though. I have taken a very strong stand in favor of freedom of speech and transparency in government. My work has taken me all over the world to meet with Wikipedians, NGOs working to build civil society, and government leaders. I am always consistent in my message. In China, as one example, I have had multiple meetings with the relevant minister, always urging more openness and emphasizing that the right to self-expression is a fundamental human right.

I am planning a trip to Kazakhstan in 2013 (specifics not fixed yet) which I think will be similar to my trips to China to meet with government officials there. I will meet with local Wikipedians, I will meet with civil society groups, I will meet with the press, and I will meet with ministers. Everywhere I go my message will be the same.

I have concerns about the ability of Wikibilim to be an independent and effective chapter in their legal environment. I have the same concerns in many other places around the world. But I'm a person who believes in evidence, and in taking risks to help bring about freedom of speech in various places around the world. I think Wikibilim is trustworthy, and so far, we have no one producing evidence that they are doing anything that is materially different from any other chapter. If we start to hear bad things, then we should react. I continue to say: we should not be complacent. But neither should we be paranoid lunatics.

The article you reference attempts to turn this work entirely upside down through a completely laughable "conspiracy theory" type argument. Tony Blair has been criticized for taking a role advising the Kazakh government. Tony Blair is my wife's former boss and came to my wedding. Therefore... Jimmy Wales is a corrupt bastard who doesn't care about freedom of speech. It's a totally stupid argument. If anyone has a beef with Tony Blair about anything, they should write to him about it, not me.-Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:36, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

My reading of Andreas's article is that he's suggesting you might be naïve, not corrupt or involved in a conspiracy. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 12:53, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo, how could you care about freedom of speech and human rights in Kazakhstan, China or elsewhere, if you do nothing to support freedom of speech and human rights here on Wikipedia? Wikipedia is a tyranny on its own, I mean the way people are treated here, don't you see it Jimbo? 71.202.123.14 (talk) 17:22, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Amazon Associates experiment. Part II

Back in 2004, on the behalf of Wikipedia you signed up for an Amazon Associates account, as part of short-lived fund raising experiment. The associate code was added to this project page on January 20, 2004, and then was removed from this project page on June 20, 2004. In the first three days of the experiment you earned 34 cents. And you conclude the end of the experiment.

On my personal experiment with Amazon Associates, this month I made already $16 from 14 sales (2.5k clicks. Conversion: 0.65%). With the size of Wikipedia, and the amount of links to Amazon it has (because it is used as a realiable sources for Music, DVDs, etc) I think it could make $50.000 monthly easily (number out of thin air). I suggest you give it another try, but this time with a real experiment.

Adding a link in an obscure part of Wikipedia will not give us any useful information on how much can the Wikimedia Foundation raise. I propose replacing all existing Amazon links with the affiliate link. This work could be done by a Bot.

It would be great if Wikipedia becomes self-reliant without ads, or at least without having to be so aggressive in asking for donations. Last inquiry on this subject (three years ago) got archived without a reply. Just give us an "ok" and we will work on this. (Also please make sure you still have access to the AA account.)

I also would like to know what other editors think of the idea.--Neo139 (talk) 02:57, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I would like to know what other editors think of the idea. This would be a Foundation decision, not my decision, but the Foundation is extremely unlikely to do it without the broad support of the community. Just the other day, there was a rather heated argument here on my talk page about Amazon, but I said then and will say again now, that was really not so much about Amazon but about a particular editor engaging in his usual sort of campaign against me. I'll just stay out of the debate, but I encourage the community (always) to talk about this and similar things in a spirit of thoughtfulness.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:39, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

The annual begging bowl is simple and transparent, and very reassuring to me and I'm sure many others. Personally, I'd prefer to stick with this funding model until it stops working. (Even then, if/when charity dries up, I'd first question the reason behind that before looking for ways to fund this project that don't depend on the goodwill of our readership.) --Anthonyhcole (talk) 13:10, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

The issue has been in the past that the work to reward ratio is horrid where we need to add the "Amazon code" for the referral payment to hundreds of thousands of links. I suggest that WMF ask the techies how difficult it would be to insert the referral code automatically when people click on a valid ISBN in a list of references, offering them the chance to buy the reference given - this would not entail adding the sekrit Amazon referral code to each book listed on all of Wikipedia <g>, but simply adding it automatically into the HTML code sent to their computers (potentially sending them to the "correct" Amazon site for their location, with correct currency etc.) This would also make clear that it is not an advert for Amazon, which I would oppose. Collect (talk) 13:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

My initial reaction is to counsel against it, but my conclusions are in no way a negative comment about Amazon - I'm a very regular customer, and I patronize a blogger who is an Amazon Affiliate. My main concerns can be summarized as:

1. Why Amazon?
2. How would it be implemented?

For the first, I trust that Amazon is not the only company with such a program. What if loyal customers of several of thousands of other companies want to add an affiliate link? We aren't going to do them all, so how do we choose? An individual blogger can make this decision easily, but a community would find this decision unwieldy, except for one possible answer (don't do it).

If by some miracle, the first hurdle is overcome, where do we place the links? Instapundit is an affilate, and intersperses his blog entries with links to Amazon sales, and occasionally specifically implores uses of the option. I can't image that this sort of direct appeal would be appropriate for Wikipedia (but I know it is effective). If links such as these are place in article space - a firestorm. If placed in high traffic Wikipedia space, probably the same. If placed discretely out of site, then what's the point?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 14:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

The links would be invisible unless and until a reader clicks on an ISBN (my concept) and "no" links to Amazon would be visible as such except through the ISBN. The (astounding) idea is that folks who click on an ISBN might actually be interested in the book! And I would suggest that the WMF is well placed to negotiate a favourable commission superior to that received by a typical blogger. This might be a win-win-win situation for the WMF, Wikipedia readers, and Amazon. As an experiment, WMF might also see if other sellers of books providde a different commission, click-through rate etc. and such a test would be invisible to almost all Wikipedia users. Collect (talk) 14:21, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

1. Limiting it to ISBNs would cut the potential by a significant portion.
2. The community has already rejected that ISBNs should link to Amazon - many editors do so, and they get removed. Obviously, this isn't immutable policy, and the community might be persuaded to change their minds, but it is a significant hurdle to overcome.
3. I would suggest that it isn't obvious that the WMF could negotiate a commission higher than that paid to Reynolds. Amazon isn't simply interested in volume, they are interested in marginal volume. It is plausible that a niche blogger drives traffic that might not otherwise consider Amazon, and it is possible that paying the WMF might be viewed as payment for sales they would get otherwise. I don't know this for sure, but my point is that it is not as simple as comparing volume.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:38, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Two things:

1. Adding links on the ISBN is one thing which could be debated after we agree on using Amazon affiliate ID on links that are already being used on articles as a reliable source. While promoting Linkin Park discography to featured list, I had to use Amazon links sometimes because I couldn't find any other reliable source. This kind of links are already on the site, hundreds of thousands of them, and raising some cash out of them won't hurt anybody. The ISBN thing, is a step further, which of course I support, but requires a new debate.
2. Living in a place where you go out, walk a few meters and start seeing poverty, I get other sense of when charity is really needed. If someone is old, homeless, ill and can't work, then he needs help. But if some PhD in Physics is laid down in the street asking for money, then he doesn't needed it, he just need to get his ass out to work. Because he could be self-reliant if he wanted.

Well, the same applies to Wikipedia. Wikipedia could make money by itself, but because we will not use ads, we ask for donations. But when someone points out a method to raise money without using ads, it gets some resistance from some editors (talking in general, not you guys :) ). So it looks to me that some people want WMF not to be non-profit, but anti-profit. Because they reject money unless it comes certain way. Don't be mistaken, WMF can be non-profit and still get some cash from Amazon Associates. This will make the annual donation campaign much shorter and less agressive (which is a good thing).--Neo139 (talk) 16:16, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

• I have long said that ISBN numbers are nothing but product-selling barcode numbers for publishers and that they should not be used on Wikipedia in any form. Serious scholars or interested readers can easily find anything they need in a library based on author, title, and publisher, there is not a single valid reason to clutter footnotes with ISBN gunk. Moreover, the idea that somehow $50,000 a month is impressive to the Wikimedia foundation is comical, they waste approximately twice that much on the problem child WMUK operation alone. Carrite (talk) 16:45, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
• This proposal, let's not kid ourselves, is a total abandonment of our "no advertising" rule. Just because we have a myriad spamlinks buried in articles, does not mean that it is a good thing: WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS and all that. Obviously, as a part-time bookseller, this one particularly offends me; but I'd say the same thing if you proposed doing the same thing for Netflix in movie articles, the Catholic Church in religion articles, etc. We're an encyclopedia, or we're a catalog service: the transition is up to the community. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:04, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

So now a reliable source like Amazon.com is not only no longer reliable, but a spamlink?. If so, consider adding it to the blacklist. Also I didn't know a featured list could fall under WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. That news to me. This type of arguments are good to illustrate the anti-profit mindset I'm talking about. Its ok to say $50.000/monthly is comical, but then do not ask me to donate $5 with a HUGE banner.

Also I want to point out that not adding the affiliate link produces the exact same outcome as adding it, earning $50.000 monthly, and then donating that $50k to Amazon. How clever is that?--Neo139 (talk) 18:46, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

In what strange alternate universe is Amazon.com a reliable source? In this one, it's notorious as a venue where the spammers compete with the slammers and the vandals and the ideologues. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:47, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

• There is a slippery slope here, and arguably we already slip a little down it already with commercial sponsors of Wikimania and similar events. My preference would be that we stick to charity donations as our funding source. We know it works, the potential donor base is growing year on year as our readership continues to grow, and at some point our costs should stabilise or even start falling as the cost of IT hardware is falling faster than our databases are growing. If we start getting short of cash then there are easy ways to generate extra - decentralising our fundraising for example so that we take advantage of things like Wikimedia UK's ability to claim back UK tax paid by donors on their donations. ϢereSpielChequers 19:48, 24 December 2012 (UTC)
• Agree with WereSpielChequers. Let's draw as bright a line as is reasonably possible. The Amazon idea and big Google donations make me nervous, given human nature, and I'd rather see the WMF funded by many small donors than a few big ones. It may be worth looking at a cap on donations so that there is no undue influence. And by the way, Merry Christmas Jimmy, and everyone here. Jusdafax 20:55, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

SP email

Jimmy, the subject line is "Invitation to comment in the Signpost's 2012 retrospective", sent 13:34 UTC on 22 December. Please let me know if you can't locate it. I sent a back-up to Topher at around the same time. Tony (talk) 11:48, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Here we go

Jimbo, remember I warned you about the Streisand effect yesterday? I wish you'd listen. 71.202.123.14 (talk) 14:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo, please keep banning people from your talk page who ask you awkward questions. It's the deceptively easy thing to do, right? Cla68 (talk) 15:05, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Also in the Telegraphy: [5] The immediate reason for Kolbe's ban was his statement "note reports earlier this year that Kazakh PR agents are suspected of having manipulated Wikipedia entries on Kazakhstan: [4] The Kazakhstan article does not even mention the word "dictator[ship]" You said he was making "outrageous and idiotic insinuations". 86.169.113.255 (talk) 15:08, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

It's well known that a user has the right to remove items from their talk page and most of us would do the same; one gets fed up after a while. Andreas's personal attacks did nothing but hurt the legitimacy of our reasonable concerns regarding the issue. You may think you're being a hero, but using an IP address makes you look like a coward to everyone watching. You should know that. PhnomPencil (✉) 15:18, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Who is PhnomPencil? 86.169.113.255 (talk) 15:26, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm someone who knows that in collapsing that conversation he included the words: 'But I'm going to insist that this discussion, if re-opened, be premised on "Assume Good Faith"', then continued to discuss the matter with those who were legitimately concerned, just not the ones using it as an excuse to give ridiculous accusations about some threadbare Tony Blair connection, hoping some shit would stick to the surface. I've also seen yellow journalism in action personally and think that it has a negative effect on our political discourse. Everyone who followed that thread knows what the real issue was behind the collapsing, and that his reasons were legitimate. The Kazakh government funds are an important issue, but let's keep to the facts. PhnomPencil (✉) 15:47, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Please don't call good faith contributors 'cowards'. And JN made no accusations against Jimbo, contrary to what you said. I am not him, by the way. 86.169.113.255 (talk) 16:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Nice try on making off-wiki canvassing by telling the media about a one-sided story. (A Streisand effect artificially manipulated LOL) Someone deserves to be honored and decorated on the main page. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 15:32, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Some awfully insulting things are said at Wikipediocracy about many people, and I'm very unimpressed by all of it. They should learn some manners and start treating their fellow humans with respect.

But we need their fearless scrutiny. We do have a problem with BLPs. Obviously. It is just wrong that we host the top search engine result for a living person's name and allow anyone to say anything they like about the subject until someone, after thousands of views, takes the trouble to correct it. Wikimedia Foundation preemptively recognising a government sponsored chapter candidate looks very wrong. The unfiltered pornography on Commons and here is ridiculous. We tolerate people of poor character for too long. The conflict of interest, financial management and effectiveness at Wikimedia chapters needs scrutiny.

Wikipediocracy is drawing these issues to our attention and then, when our response is inadequate, it draws them to the attention of our readership. You, the foundation and the chapters and projects need to start responding appropriately to these valid criticisms. We need leadership from you or the board on these issues. They all damage our relationship with our readers. Andreas is highlighting serious concerns. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 18:25, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Anthony, you are quite right, we should stamp out people of poor character as soon as possible! It's just tough deciding exactly which people that is. Merry Christmas! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:52, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Some cases are pretty straightforward. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 07:37, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Is it? According to this you are a very good candidate to be stamped out because of your poor character. 71.202.123.14 (talk) 02:35, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Excellent! So that's at least one person on the list. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:13, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

To Jimbo Wales and family!

A happy holiday and a joyous new year! Be safe, be well and be happy!--Amadscientist (talk) 23:59, 24 December 2012 (UTC)