User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Fixing broken 2013 RfA process

Yes, RfA problems again. I also tried a wp:RfA (aka "Request for Abuse"), after 8 years of waiting, and it was still as bad an experience as everyone has been warning:  block-log entries from 3-7 years ago were treated as if yesterday, and many insults were over-the-top. The quickest fix: as you, Jimbo, have suggested:

• Have a house of wikilords: There needs to be a system of appointed wiki-lords, as users given various user rights, perhaps selected by groups of similar-focus admins, to be rejected only by strong evidence of problems, and because wikilords are *appointed* then they could be unappointed, perhaps temporarily, at any time when their actions seemed to diverge off-course.

Currently, the RfA process seems like a "insta-poll popularity contest" rather than a "job interview" and the main focus directs people to issue judgmental decisions of Support/Oppose within seconds of starting an RfA page. Also, there are unusual cultural twists in RfA discussions, such as treating rebuttals to objections as being "badgering of opposes" rather than a logical discussion to clarify misunderstandings. Because I was a formal debate judge for years, I was not fooled to refrain from refuting incorrect claims (bottomline: debaters who fail to refute claims partially will lose a formal debate). Plus, of course, the RfA process allows the same level of insults as could be expected at wp:ANI, except each user's wp:RfA page is named with their username as an obvious, obvious case of "wp:Attack page". The whole process is completely awry, and I had to respond quickly to refute wp:NPA insults which would otherwise stand as accepted by begging the question. Anyway, the only workable solution, to the current judgmental RfA process, is to separate the interview-period from the judgement period:

• Split RfA into interview days versus judgment days: Hence, an RfA would begin with a questions-only phase of 4 days, as a job interview, with perhaps some competency tests depending on the stated intent of the candidate. Then, another period, of perhaps 4 days, could be the judgment period of Support/Oppose/Neutral.

The 1st, interview phase would discuss issues, and hopefully, follow "rules of evidence" (real evidence, not spin-doctored slants) to have specific diff-links; plus the focus would be on asking questions about the activities which the candidate would be performing. If the questions, or potential admin tasks, seemed too difficult, then the candidate could withdraw during the first phase. Then the 2nd, judgement phase could be longer if any insults were redacted meanwhile, by a neutral moderator, so that a candidate would not have to watchdog the RfA as being an outrageous personal attack-page during the whole time period. I was totally unaware that an RfA was like a wp:ANI thread open to insults, except with a person's username "flashing in lights" as a beacon to come see the insults by name. No wonder some people refer to the RfA period as a horrific experience, and as I said, if I had not been a debate judge for years, I might also have been tricked in allowing insults to stand, unrefuted, because of fear to avoid "badgering the opponents" who hurl unfounded insults. However, a separate "House of wikilords" would allow quick appointments, such as a request for 20 bilingual admins if an avalanche of new articles were created with non-English sources, pushing the limits of notability decisions due to a lack of other-language skills. Anyway, I would warn anyone, who plans an wp:RfA, to be prepared to defend yourself from over-the-top insults during the whole time period, and do not be fooled into keeping quiet to refute claims just to avoid "badgering of opponents" while insults are hurled without restraint. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:06, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh man, this is so sad. You were making such a good impression with your posts in #VE bad links on 22 September above, and then you go and spoil it with this section. If I got snowed that bad, I would step back for some serious personal meditation and reflection rather than come vent in this most public place. I see that apparently some admins have behaved so badly that they have been topic-banned; I didn't realize that. So perhaps life is unfair and there's a double-standard here, you'll have to deal with that. Maybe just focus first on getting that ban lifted first, before applying to be an admin? Hope you can apply for the template editor user right soon, good luck. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:57, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the words of encouragement, but other users have been coming to this talk-page, warning others for years about the RfA process, and the problems in the RfA process need to be pinpointed, in order to be improved. There have been prior discussions with vague details about various RfA experiences. However, in this case, I saw the distortion in progress, because I had lived the actual details for 8 years. Also, other people have warned there was discrimination against users with block-logs, and the attitudes should have improved by now, but I was even condemned for a wp:3RR block 7 years ago. Also, I had to remind people how I was strongly advised to retain my topic-ban about college student Amanda Knox acquitted of the 2007 Murder of Meredith Kercher (her British flatmate in Perugia, Italy), because many other users had been indef-blocked, and my topic-ban protected me from getting blocked along with them. Recently, long-term power user Rich_Farmbrough (WP's highest edit-count for years) was indef-blocked (site-banned) after users could not learn to work with him, and so that shows how anyone can be blocked despite the incentive to try to keep a valuable editor by finding ways to work together. If people cannot understand how that topic-ban has protected me during the past 3 years, then I wonder if they understand how to think like an admin, and how to use tactics to protect users from newcomers being secretly investigated for advocacy stopped by indef-blocks. Anyway, I just wanted to let Jimbo know what I saw in the rush-to-judgment of a popularity contest, which does not wait 4 days while discussing issues before entering an Oppose/Support/Neutral comment. Next time someone reports problems in the RfA process, then this can be a point of comparison. As for me, I am far too busy to perform admin duties at this time, so I am relieved that my RfA was closed early, and I just objected to the general RfA process. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:50, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Farmbrough is not "indef-blocked (site-banned)", he was blocked for 1 year, and as far as I know still can use his talk page. I admire the way he's conducted himself during the block. In contrast to another editor who a couple months ago was indefinitely blocked, email disabled, and cannot edit their own talk page. Please just stop digging your hole deeper. It's painful to watch. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:58, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, Farmbrough might have a 1-year block now, but I do not think anything has changed to work with him, so upon return he would get another 1-year block? ...as I said, "indef-blocked". His restriction of "no automated edits" was untenable, and when he violated it at the end, he made more than 1,000 repeated changes inside a page (sending a clear message I think), so I suggest a compromise where he might use automated edits but with a mentor to approve those edits, or reduce the scope of edits as needed, but not zero automation. -Wikid77 08:53, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

@Wikid77. RFA is a broken process, but not entirely the way you think. Old issues rarely cause opposes unless people have reason to think that they persist, one test of a good candidate is to be able to demonstrate how you've resolved such issues. The good thing about RFA is that it isn't a popularity contest, a sufficiently over qualified candidate can sail through with over a hundred supports, the vast majority of whom have never previously interacted with them. The bad things include the overreliance of the !voters on the Q&A section and simplistic measures such as raw edit count and length of tenure, combined with galloping standards inflation, but standards inflation re the most easily measured criteria. My fear is that good candidates are being deterred by arbitrarily high requirements for edit count and tenure, (as well as the occasional incivil participant) and that we risk bad eggs slipping through due to insufficient scrutiny of their actual edits. But the good news about RFA is that the long decline has bottomed out, after five consecutive years of sharp falls in the number of new RFAs, 2013 has already seen as many successful RFAs as 2012. RFA still has problems, we are a long way from being able to appoint as many new admins as we lose to retirement etc; So we are still heading towards a cliff, but are no longer accelerating towards that cliff. ϢereSpielChequers 07:01, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, other factors have shown a resurgence in Wikipedia activity, beyond more new admins, such as people asking why protected-template updates from 3 years ago did not get installed. Plus I imagine the VisualEditor did not hurt editor retention, because over 94% of editors avoided it each week. As for the RfA process, I see niche groups supporting a fellow editor, as a way to increase the support pile-on, and I think that might be an effective way to overcome judgmental restrictions; however, the danger is to promote a candidate with a secret agenda to use the powers in other ways. In cases of editors blocked for the Amanda Knox case, we see an unrelenting determination to thwart them, as evidenced in User_talk:Charlie_wilkes#Block where a responding admin refused the unblock request because his supporters all knew him from the same article, the only article (duh) where we all worked together, and he had provided reliable sources to disprove a claim how suspects lied about when they called police, as later refuted by sources. However, my RfA is an extreme case of someone topic-banned with numerous editors blocked, while trying to write about what was later confirmed in court. However, I think splitting an RfA into an interview phase, with later judgment phase, would give people more time to see the hollowness of several editors all blocked together who were later proven correct by court reports. Yet, insults about my knowledge of Wikipedia software, or misinformation, were likely too complex for RfA discussion and scary to others. Technical people need to be selected by a panel of technical users; otherwise it could be too confusing/boring for others to follow. But again, approval should be recommended by a random sample of users who review a candidate. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:53, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

@WereSpielChequers. Quoting myself on these things: Timbo's Rule 16. The slogan of "Adminship is No Big Deal" needs to be reestablished. Currently RfA is a 7 day proctological exam, conducted by a tag team of 150 people of differing intentions — some of whom wish to subject the patient's rectum to blunt-force trauma during the process. Only people who REALLY like proctologists would be advised to run. (July 2012) /// Timbo's Rule 17. Then again, proctological exams do help ward off certain types of cancer. (Oct. 2012). Carrite (talk) 17:11, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

There are a lot of misunderstandings about what is wrong with RfA. A truly huge amount of research was done into it at WP:RFA2011 that pretty well identified the real problems. Among the regular !voters (and this pool of editors changes slowly over time in a cycle of about 2 years or so) there are three main factions: Those who feel that every established editor should have the bit, those who think adminship in general should be abolished to be replace by some other totally different system, and those who provide well researched, objective rationales for their votes whether they know the candidate or not. The remainder and the vast majority is a very transient pool of people who have only ever voted on one or two RfAs. Among these are the ones who very often appear to fail to understand what adminship is all about and probably do little or no research and just pile on.

It's interesting to note that en.Wiki is one of the very few major Wikipedias not to have introduced a minimum requirement for voting at RfA. If it appears that the dearth of candidates seems to have bottomed out, this is possibly due to the fact that the traditional PA and incivility at RfA has somewhat, but not entirely abated. I think we should give it a little longer however before claiming the improvement as a clear trend. That said, whether we have enough candidates or whether RfA is really a 'horrible and broken process', it does do it its job reasonably well - if the very rare close calls demonstrate anything. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:27, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung, oddly we might agree on the close calls if not on the rest. I fear that RFA and especially its reputation is scaring away many well qualified candidates. Paradoxically the shift in focus of the RFA community from judging candidates on their edits to the Q&A section and simple stats such as number of edits and length of tenure may also be letting more bad eggs through. I've seen one admin from recent years be desysopped despite getting over 90% support. I doubt we have sufficient stats yet but it would be interesting to see if the last couple of hundred admins wind up with a lower proportion of bad eggs than the earlier batches. ϢereSpielChequers 18:53, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

• Well, I think a few troublesome admin promotions could be expected, and "people have a right to be wrong about a candidate" but they do not have a right to treat an RfA as a named wp:attack-page, so I will be more vigilant to check for attacks posted to future RfA pages and redact vicious insults, to be sure people provide adequate diff-links to support their claims. The more people who view an RfA as a cordial discussion of qualifications, then the better the chances for more candidates to apply. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:28, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

The systems that deal with the Admins and ArbCom won't be changed because they have become fundamental parts of Wikipedia and you'll never get a consensus to make significant changes. That's why e.g. the de-admining propsal failed. It's similar to why in the US Congress has a very low approval rating but any proposal to make even small changes to the system (e.g. term limits), is a non-starter.

Perhaps what could work is to make a copy of the entire Wikipedia (Wikipedia-beta) that has the same articles but which has a different Adminstrative infrastructure. Then, if over time the beta version is seen to work better, then one makes that the standard version and one can then try out some new experimental changes by creating another Wikipedia-beta. Count Iblis (talk) 18:06, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

It will be difficult, if not impossible, to change the RfA system as long as current Admins have a stake in keeping the standards high and the barriers to entry arduous. If there is a large enough group of Editors, they could impact how RfAs are done but I gather most do not even know about the RfA process, much less be aware that when there is an active one going on and how they can participate. Active Admins (I think there are about 700?) are disproportionately represented among users who weigh in on a RfA.

So, until those Admins realize a) that they are carrying too heavy of a load, b) that having more Admins will actually be a net gain to them personally, c) that for the future operations of en.wiki, more Admins will be needed as 1 or 2 new ones are added each month while more and more Admins become inactive, until these realizations happen, I don't think change is likely. And so, the number of active Admins will continue to drop and drop because fewer Editors want to subject themselves to the RfA process which often becomes more of a hazing than an informative interview. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:41, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Is it actually admins themselves being querulous on RFAs? Did the 2011 or any other study show this? - David Gerard (talk) 20:50, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Of the various RFA reform proposals I can think of one that tends to be opposed more strongly by admins than non-admins. I suspect this is the source of the "admins are blocking reform" meme, though I'd prefer a description of admins are blocking those proposals they believe would make things worse rather than admins are playing dog in a manger, but then I would wouldn't I. There was a study some years back as to RFA !voting by admins and non admins, as I remember it, it showed that admins at RFA were usually as supportive as non-admins. It would be good to repeat that, or at least to ask if anyone repeating that meme can point to an unsuccessful RFA that would have had consensus for promotion if all the admin !votes had been discounted. ϢereSpielChequers 23:26, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not believe that 'current Admins have a stake in keeping the standards high and the barriers to entry arduous' - this is most likely a myth put about (partly) by those who believe to have wrongly failed at RfA or wannabe admins who feel the criteria are too severe. Generally speaking, I think admins provide the most thoughtful and objective comments at RfA. Moreover, several of the admins who are most concerned with the dearth of candidates have been actively scouring the users for candidates of the right calibre whom they can nominate for some considerable time, not to mention Wikipedia:Request an RfA nomination - another project launched by an admin. The reading list at Wikipedia:Advice for RfA candidates includes all known users' RfA criteria, while VOTER PROFILES at RFA2011 has an enormous amount of research detail with a complete breakdown and analysis of who and how often users voted and whether they were admins or not, and the increase in participation of voters at RfA. Nothing has changed much since that time except that 100+ 'supports' are no way as rare as they used to be, but FWIW I suppose the regex could be re-run to update it. It would be good if people would refer to these important stats before positing hypotheses. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:37, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

In the 2011 study of votes, non-admins !voted support about 70% of the time, admins !voted support 76% of the time. (Support % calculated as Support divided by support plus oppose plus neutral). This pretty much puts a nail in the coffin of the idea that it is admins are the barrier to new admins.

• Here are the basic facts of life, which apply to the OP (and to me — assuming I wanted to run the gauntlet, which I don't — and to dozens of others in the same boat)... RFA is a supermajority process, which means a motivated minority can sink a nomination. If one makes noise about controversial matters, one builds up a little fleet of "opponents." Add a misstep or two on the block log and it's pretty much curtains for passing a RFA. It doesn't matter if a person needs some of the tools for their work and not others; it's a unified package that includes The Nuclear Buttons — block and delete — and there's going to be high scrutiny for that. That's fair, I reckon. Bottom line is this: if one wants to be an Administrator, one needs to be perfectly bland and to keep the block log clean, both. Is that a fully rational requirement? Not really. But it's a fact. That's show biz. If there actually is a shortage of admins either (a) more frenetic efforts will be made to find and recruit perfectly bland candidates; and/or (b) the nuclear buttons will be separated from the rest of the tool kit and a more "chill" process instituted in lieu of the current RFA process. If no such shortage develops, things continue as they are now, with all that implies. Yeah, it sucks if you need some of the administrative abilities for your work; no, it's not fair. But that's the way it is. Carrite (talk) 02:59, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

The thing about blocks, most legit reasons for a block raise a question of the blocked person's self restraint. If you couldn't restrain yourself when using the non-admin tools, are you going to be able to with them? I know that is a gross over simplification of the myriad reasons a person could get blocked, but it covers a surprising number of them. As for holding controversial opinions, most aren't much of an issue at RFA, instead, there are some RFA third rails, that can sink a request. The biggest ones are being overly deletionist, particularly with CSD, and showing authoritarian tendencies. Monty₈₄₅ 04:44, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Admin covers everything from gnome work with the mop to making immensely complex decisions where mistakes do huge harm to people. Those things need to be split. The latter needs a high standard. Current admins have been keeping that from happening.....with an obvious conflict of interest on that question, they shouldn't even be weighing on on that question. And the process should be changed to have the discussions center on the required qualities, not the current criteria which rules out anyone who has ever taken a stand which some involved people disagreed with. North8000 (talk) 15:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

BTW, having the new admin process broken means that the overall standard is "got in when it was easy" North8000 (talk) 15:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

"Current admins have been keeping that from happening" - so far the evidence is the opposite. Do you have evidence (e.g., verifiable statistics) to support your claim? - David Gerard (talk) 15:12, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

My experience has been that each time it is brought it I see an admin shut down the discussion with a comment something like "that is an old idea which has been already reviewed and rejected" . Or when the conversation starts on whether such is happening an admin can chill or kill it by implying that concerns are unfounded / improper to express unless the person expressing them meets the impossibly high bar of having "verifiable statistics" of that concern as you just did.  :-)  :-) What realistically could satisfy the criteria of "verifiable statistics" of such? Conversely I know that just expressing the concern does not establish it as fact. North8000 (talk) 15:33, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Verifiable statistics were cited above in this discussion, so I disagree that it's an "impossibly high bar", unless you more generally consider the general requirement to supply some sort of evidence for controversial assertions inherently flawed - David Gerard (talk) 17:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Now you just switched to a different more reasonable bar. ("some sort of evidence"). The only thing unreasonable thing is you incorrectly implying that I objected to such a reasonable thing. North8000 (talk) 19:38, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of what some may want people to believe, there is almost nothing in the admin toolset that cannot be undone with a simple reversion. Its just not that big of a deal. So there is no reason whatsoever with guarding it like the Crown Jewels. And even as hard as it is to get rid of a bad admin, if they misuse the block tool, they would probably get their access yanked pretty fast. So really, all the hyperbole about people getting into mischief if they had access to the toolset is just hogwash. With all that said, no one believes anything will change regardless of how many times its brought up until a crisis ensues. That being either no admins being promoted for a prolonged period or too few active admins to accomplish the necessary tasks (which really has been the case for some time now given the length backlogs at many of the venues). The bottom line is, unless the community decides it needs to change the process or Jimbo and the WMF step up, its going to stay broke. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 23:39, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Blocks and deletions can in theory be easily reversed, but few are and their effects are not so easily resolved. When we block someone or reject their contribution by deleting it we risk losing that editor, so it is really important that we keep the block and delete buttons out of the hands of those who would use them in a heavyhanded way. ϢereSpielChequers 09:12, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh please, there are already no less that a half dozen admins who delete mercilessly and no one is chomping at the bit to remove the tools from them. And as I already mentioned, if they abuse the tools then take them away. We are already driving away editors at an alarming rate. So the argument doesn't really hold water. Its just a poor justification for a bad policy. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 11:47, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

It wouldn't surprise me if we it was only half a dozen admins who are over eager with the delete button who accounted for a large part of the incorrect deletions at new page patrol. Though I suspect that incorrect tagging by some non-admins is as big a problem, maybe bigger - I'm pretty sure that merely tagging a goodfaith article for deletion is enough to drive away many newbies. Yes we are driving away editors at an alarming rate, roughly as fast as they are joining us. However whilst we can get a blocking minority, maybe even a majority to stop people who can be shown to consistently make errors in deletion tagging from becoming admins; I'm not sure we can get consensus to remove the bit from those admins who would be too deletionist to get consensus for the tools, and I'm not volunteering to monitor the deletions that others have done in order to address this issue. If someone does want to take this on, then the route is fairly straightforward, monitor enough deletions to spot the admins who are too heavy on the deletion button, politely raise the issue with them on their talkpage, and for those who don't come into line with policy escalate first to an RFC and if that doesn't work take it to Arbcom. ϢereSpielChequers 05:11, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

@North8000 I can appreciate that it might look like the current admins "got in when it was easy", criteria inflation at RFA means that candidates need far more tenure and edits than was required in 04/07. But tighter criteria only means higher standards if they are the right criteria. In my opinion the shift in focus from checking candidate's edits to weighing their edit count and giving them an open book exam on policy means that RFA not only deters a lot of good candidates, but is probably less effective at screening out "bad" candidates than it used to be. Better in my view to consider it a situation where RFA is so broken that it cannot appoint sufficient admins to replace those who we lose. ϢereSpielChequers 09:12, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

The current criteria doesn't mean higher standards, the current criteria simply means that one cannot get involved in administrative stuff (because much of it is controversial) until after they get the tools. In order to be an admin, editors have to plan to be one and carefully monitor their actions and their activity so they don't ruffle any feathers. All it takes is one misstep or to bump into an admin with a chip on their shoulder about some article they wrote ten years ago that they "own" and you won't get the tools. That is not how the system should work. RFA is a broken system and virtually everyone knows. Its time to stop justifying it and protecting it and fix it so I completely agree with your last sentence. Let's be honest. Any editor who has been here a few years or has a few thousand edits and has a history of knowing policy should be able to get the tools if they want them. If they abuse it then the beauro's can take them away. Its just that easy, bottom line. We need to let people help the project. Not give excuses why we don't want or need their help. This project needs all the help it can get these days. If that means the WMF and Jimbo have to get back involved with the RFA process for a while as a reviewer and hand out the tools then so be it. The community has shown that we can't do it effectively. Jimbo said a year ago he was going to do something, where is it? 71.126.152.253 (talk) 11:47, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Kumioko, your bitterness at the RfA process is epic. Naturally four failed RfA attempts[1][2][3][4] will do that. I think in your case the community performed effectively, keeping a moody and unpredictable character out of a responsible position. Thank goodness a simple calculation of edit count and time period are not enough to acquire the tools. Binksternet (talk) 12:08, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Yea, when you're pretty much the Buffalo Bills of RfA, it may be time to hang it up and quit trying. Tarc (talk) 12:28, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

@IP There are two controversial areas to avoid if you plan to run for RFA in the next few months; Anything that involves blocking or unblocking the regulars, and anything borderline at deletion. Other admin like activities, especially correct AIV reports and even cautious CSD tagging are actually treated as a positive. If a candidate has over 100 correct AIV reports the community won't oppose because they don't need the tools, for a candidate like that to fail they'd need a recent block or zero content contributions or some other reason to reject them. But candidates can and do get rejected for completely avoiding admin like activity, I don't personally agree with "no need for the tools" as a reason to oppose, however sufficient others differ that I'd always counsel any candidate to be able to demonstrate one or two areas where they are already tagging things for admins to action. But the reality isn't quite as bad as you seem to think, opposes over old grudges from more than a year ago need some sort of evidence that the concerns are still current, otherwise they carry little weight with the RFA crowd.

As for Jimmy intervening, I suspect that he's waiting for the system to more clearly fail first. All it would need would be the press noticing one vandal on a bit of a rampage during an hour when no admin was at AIV and the WMF will be pretty much forced to step in. My hope is still that we will be able to fix things ourselves without intervention from above, but I'm not putting money on it. When we do get a solution I agree with some of what you say, if we are going to work with the grain of the community we need to make the change so that RFA looks more like a less dysfunctional part of our system like Rollback, FAC or even AFD. First we should User:WereSpielChequers/RFA_reform#Agree_a_criteria_for_adminship\agree a criteria for adminship then in individual RFAs we discuss whether the candidate meets that criteria. Where I disagree with you is over making this about edit count and tenure, there are plenty of problematic things that we should check for at RFA. Alternatively we could unbundle a limited block right that restricted the blocking and unblocking of the regulars to crats and full admins. Do that and we could keep going this way for years. ϢereSpielChequers 14:33, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

While RFA is certainly not without its problems, if it's really as 'broken' and 'impossible to pass' as critics claim, how come two candidates passed with unanimous support in the past month alone? RFA has never been an obstacle for clearly suitable admin candidates. Most of the time, it does ultimately reach the right decision. The real issue is finding and convincing more suitable candidates to run in the first place. Robofish (talk) 20:42, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

It should also be noted that one individual who passed by unanimous support has never done much admin work. The don't comment at ANI, they don't work at CCI, TFD, CFD, AFD or Articles for Improvement. Neither really appear to need the tools and it appears that they are just hat collectors. I would be willing to bet neither one could edit very many of the protected templates or Wikimedia pages they now have access too. Both are ultra conservative and neither is likely to rock the boat or attempt any sort of real improvement to the structure or policy of the project. That's what got them promoted. They stay in their swim lane and don't upset the order of things. Its just 2 more editors who got promoted that probably won't even use the tools. The admin toolset is no big deal, it never has been and never will be. The reason we have all the back logs is because its been made into a cliche'. We need to get away from that and allow people to help. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 21:00, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Kumioko, I would worry about you engaging in wheel wars if you got some part of the tools. You have demonstrated a retributive personality, engaging in personal attacks and harassment. Binksternet (talk) 21:08, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Bullshit, being vocal against abusive users, several of which having the admin toolset and who their POV and violate policy is not harassment. Harassment is an admin that follows the same user around, watching their every edit until they find something they can block them for. I anyone here is harassing anyone its you constantly griping about my comments and making snide comments. At least I am trying to make the place better by advocating for change and bringing attention to the problems. What have you done? 71.126.152.253 (talk) 21:56, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Robofish, it's not the fact that 2 Editors successfully passed their RfAs. It's that if you look at past history (and I wish I had that table at hand), five years ago, there'd be a dozen successful RfAs and over a 100 new Admins every year. Old, inactive Admins are being desysoped at a rate of 5-10 a month so the increase in new Admins is not keeping up with the decrease in Admins. There are, what 1700 or so Admins on en.wiki and less than 50% of them are active? Regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with me about too high standards (especially compared to pre-2007), if you look at the trend, there will be fewer and fewer Admins as the months and years go by because they aren't replacing themselves.

And that is just taking into account Admins who are being desysoped because they quit back in 2010 and are part of the three years of inactivity desysoping plan. Every month there are currently active Admins who either get burned out or retire.

So, forget about the personalities that you may or may not disagree with in this particular conversation. The bottom line is that if these trends continue into the future, there will be fewer and fewer Admins handling more and more responsibilities. The workload and backlog will most likely continue to grow. As long as that is okay with y'all, you've got no reason to advocate for change. If you want more volunteers to help share the workload, pick up the slack, well, the ball is in your court. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:22, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed and there are about 1405 admins and the 50% number is roughly correct depending on how you define active. Also, its the same 50 or so that do the vast majority of the admin work. If even that many, probably more like 20 or 30. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 01:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes at any one time we rely on a small number of active administrators for most admin activity. But it isn't the same admins who are active each month, we have about fifty admins and former admins who have made over 33,000 logged admin actions each and hundreds more who have made over a thousand logged actions. My experience is that most active editors who become admins will go on to make a useful number of admin actions. That's why I don't regard "no use for the tools" as sensible reason to oppose, though I'm conscious that if someone doesn't make a coherent case as to what they will use the tools for they won't get through RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 12:29, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, ϢereSpielChequers, I've found JamesR's AdminStats interesting but I wish they were broken down by month and weren't cumulative...that would reveal more information about how many Admins were very active at different points in the year. I've posted questions on the Talk Page about this but it doesn't look like questions there get any response from James. It could be a system he set up a while ago that runs on its own. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:08, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Adminship table of yearly counts

Okay, here is the table I was referring to:

Successful requests for adminship on the English Wikipedia

Year	Month												Mean	Passes	Fails	RfAs
	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2024	2	2	0	0	0	2							1	6	3	9
2023	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	2	1	1	2	1	1	12	7	19
2022	0	1	2	1	1	0	0	4	1	2	0	2	1.2	14	6	20
2021	1	1	0	0	2	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	0.6	7	4	11
2020	4	1	2	0	3	0	1	1	3	1	0	1	1.4	17	8	25
2019	2	1	0	1	1	0	3	4	1	4	2	3	1.8	22	9	31
2018	0	1	1	1	0	2	1	0	1	2	0	1	0.8	10	8	18
2017	9	1	0	1	2	0	3	0	1	2	1	1	1.8	21	20	41
2016	0	1	1	1	3	0	2	1	1	1	1	4	1.3	16	20	36
2015	2	2	1	0	3	2	2	3	0	1	3	2	1.8	21	32	53
2014	3	1	4	3	2	1	1	1	0	0	5	1	1.8	22	38	60
2013	4	5	5	1	3	3	3	1	3	2	1	3	2.8	34	39	73
2012	1	3	1	3	1	1	6	4	0	1	5	2	2.3	28	64	92
2011	3	9	9	3	6	4	4	1	4	3	2	4	4.3	52	87	139
2010	6	7	2	8	8	6	7	13	6	7	4	1	6.3	75	155	230
2009	6	9	13	14	12	12	10	11	8	7	13	6	10.1	121	234	355
2008	36	27	22	12	16	18	16	12	6	16	11	9	16.8	201	392	593
2007	23	35	31	30	54	35	31	18	34	27	56	34	34.0	408	512	920
2006	44	28	34	36	30	28	26	26	22	27	33	19	29.5	353	543	896
2005	14	9	16	25	17	28	31	39	32	67	41	68	32.3	387	213	600
2004	13	14	31	20	23	13	17	12	29	16	27	25	20.0	240	63	303
2003	2	2	8	6	10	24	11	9	17	10	9	15	10.3	123	n/a	123
2002							3	4	0	0	3	1	3.7	44	n/a	44
Totals														2235	2455	4690

Key
0 successful RFAs	26–30 successful RFAs
1–5 successful RFAs	31–35 successful RFAs
6–10 successful RFAs	36–40 successful RFAs
11–15 successful RFAs	41–50 successful RFAs
16–20 successful RFAs	51–60 successful RFAs
21–25 successful RFAs	More than 60 successful RFAs

Notes

Originally sourced from User:NoSeptember/Admin stats#Year to year comparison of promotions by months, copied here and colour-coded. Updates from Wikipedia:Unsuccessful adminship candidacies (Chronological)

• Early 2003 from User:NoSeptember/RfA_chronological

Notes

References

See also

• Wikipedia:Desysoppings by month - similar list but for number of desysops per month

So, if this looks healthy, y'all, then no arguments from other people will convince you otherwise. These are the numbers. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:38, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Here's how the numbers look the other way around as well. — Scott • talk 10:54, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

For listings of desysoppings, see Wikipedia:Former administrators.

Desysoppings (removals of adminship) on the English Wikipedia

Year	Month												Monthly mean	Total removals	Total restorations	Total elections	Yearly change in admins
	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2024	7	7	4	4	3	5	—	—	—	—	—	—	5	30	2	6	-22
2023	104	2	1	4	3	8	4	4	12	1	6	3	12.6	152	4	12	-136
2022	5	7	4	5	8	7	3	3	3	11	4	11	5.9	71	8	14	-49
2021	5	6	3	2	10	6	6	2	6	5	6	7	5.3	64	4	7	-53
2020	10	3	4	3	4	3	4	5	7	5	6	4	4.8	58	7	17	-34
2019	4	12	6	4	10	29	7	4	3	3	8	5	7.9	95	28	22	-45
2018	6	9	6	8	5	6	0	6	7	2	9	9	6	73	13	10	-50
2017	5	9	8	9	8	1	9	7	6	10	6	0	6.5	78	23	21	-34
2016	9	9	4	10	5	6	10	7	2	13	6	7	7.3	88	15	16	-57
2015	11	8	7	6	11	4	5	6	6	10	7	4	7	85	26	21	-38
2014	9	5	4	11	0	4	4	8	9	7	6	13	6.6	80	16	22	-42
2013	10	8	9	7	4	6	5	5	4	7	8	9	6.8	82	28	34	-20
2012	10	4	23	22	15	15	10	5	6	5	15	7	11.4	137	42	28	-67
2011	1	4	2	0	2	2	230	2	18	7	10	4	23.5	282	26	52	-204
2010	4	0	2	3	4	1	2	1	1	2	1	2	1.9	23	23	75	+75
2009	3	2	4	1	5	6	3	6	5	1	2	1	3.2	39	28	121	+110
2008	3	4	3	0	3	2	5	0	2	1	1	4	2.3	28	23	201	+196
2007	2	4	2	1	9	3	3	1	0	2	4	3	2.8	34	21	408	+395
2006	1	4	1	1	1	2	2	2	6	3	2	5	2.5	30	9	353	+332
2005	1	0	0	0	1	0	3	0	0	0	2	4	0.9	11	6	387	+382
2004	1	2	1	1	0	0	2	1	2	0	1	0	0.9	11	2	240	+231
2003	0	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0.3	4	0	123	+119
2002	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	44	+44

Key
0 desysoppings	16–18 desysoppings
1–3 desysoppings	19–22 desysoppings
4–6 desysoppings	23–27 desysoppings
7–9 desysoppings	28–36 desysoppings
10–12 desysoppings	37–48 desysoppings
13–15 desysoppings	More than 48 desysoppings

Notes

Visualization

• Not even considering how many admins will tackle workload: The above table shows the impending doom, unless some tools are provided to non-admin users. There have been new admins this year, but not all intend to systematically reduce the wp:BACKLOG of admin requests, such as help with editing protected pages in CAT:EP. -Wikid77 (talk) 08:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Nothing short of a gigantic increase in admin numbers will fix this, because the reality is that admin work is mostly horrendously boring. The small number of Stakhanov admins doing a large amount of it have rare stamina and should not be considered the norm. There is only one way to radically increase the number of admins, and that is trust and understanding. Stop requiring admin candidates to be perfect individuals who know how to do everything and want to do it, and trust that they will do what they can, and when they can, and teach themselves to do the things they don't currently know how to do; understand that they may make mistakes, and trust that they will learn from them; trust them not to do any harm, and understand that it will be swiftly fixed if they do (it is virtually impossible to do any damage as an admin. In fact, causing damage gets more difficult with every single new admin). Without a radical increase of trust and understanding to sweep away the clutter and paranoia of what RfA has become, then yes, we are doomed. — Scott • talk 10:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

If the nine non-admins participating in this discussion were to run for office, we might get a boost in sales for the year. What exactly is stopping them? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:30, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Because most wouldn't pass. Most have tried and failed already. It should also be noted that if they ran under today's standards most admins wouldn't even pass. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 13:08, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง, that's funny! There is no way I'd survive an RfA! I've looked at your Criteria for RfA Candidates and they are completely intimidating. I think maybe 0.0001% of Editors would have even 50% of your desired experience on Wikipedia. I'm skeptical that there is even one candidate who could check off all of those items. None of your criteria are outrageous, it is just the accumulated number of qualifications, the sum total of depth and breadth of experience (with no false steps) that would eliminate almost anyone who would think about going for a RfA.

But I don't mean to single you out. You just wrote down how you evaluate candidates. Most people who participate in RfA probably have similar lists they just don't write them down. At least you are upfront about your expectations. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:28, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I doubt Kudpung expects every candidate to meet all of his criteria to get his support, and in at least one area he is probably stricter than the consensus. My own criteria are here, I've tried to indicate those areas where I would support, but not expect the candidate to pass. Conversely I am one of the most cautious !voters when it comes to deletion - on pretty much every occasion where I have been in the oppose section for someone who has passed RFA it has been because I suspect they might be heavy handed with the deletion button. I believe that hundreds of our 3,000 most active editors could easily pass RFA if they were to run. Hundreds more could pass in a month or two if they were to work on a few things or avoid the common RFA pitfalls, almost all could pass within months if they worked at it. Most of those hundreds would not get the hundred plus supports and zero opposes that some recent candidates have had - but that is part of the tragedy of RfA, it has acquired such a fearsome reputation that many don't run until they are ridiculously over qualified. ϢereSpielChequers 20:56, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Criteria too strict about AfD of creations: I think Kudpung's ideal rule is impossibly too strict for: "No CSD, PROD, or AfD notices for own creations 6 months preceding RfA". Many people create several articles during a year, and some people just send new pages to AfD without checking for notability in related sources. For me, I had former Template:Cite_quick sent to TfD once, where it survived as invaluable to correctly format article "Barack Obama" (+others) before the U.S. 2012 Presidential Election, but then re-sent to TfD #2, where it was axed (archived as {Citation/quick}) despite allowing more cites per page than the wp:CS1 Lua cites. So even when a page survives an XfD, it might be re-sent a year later based on questionable reasoning. Restricting an RfA due to other people submitting AfDs is too severe. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:21, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I have always openly admitted that my criteria are probably among the most strict, but as WereSpielChequers says, in reality I don't apply them that rigorously and I work on a basis of an aggregate (more activity in some areas compensates for a lack in others). I've voted on almost every RfA since February 2010, matched the result oveall in 82.62 of the times, and 32% of my votes were 'oppose'. I very occasionally do not vote on an RfA where the outcome is going to be blatantly clear. My supports have steadily increased since we began to get fewer SNOWS and NOTNOWS from inexperienced users, in fact over the last 100 RfA I supported it is 91.08%. One well known user has repeatedly made snide attacks around the site that I am hell bent on doing away with oppose votes altogether - this couldn't be further from the truth. Over the years I have canvassed dozens of users who meet my criteria and nearly all of them have declined for the same reason. I passed, (first time) my own criteria when I ran and although my own RfA was particularly nasty (at least one admin who voted there has since been desyoped) I passed with relatively flying colours. What we need to remember though is that many potential candidates have a successful career behind them, have grown a thick skin, and have nothing to boast about in the schoolyard.

What I look for in candidates are the things that possibly many voters find hardest to evaluate: interaction. with others, sense of judgement, and maturity. Like WereSpielChequers, I pay a lot of attention to a candidate's CSD/PROD/AfD work because this is one area where the tools are probably used most. Anyone who ran and failed and who persists in insisting that the process is broken is possibly harbouring a grudge, while others who feel they would certainly not pass although they may check the statistical criteria, may need to refine their interaction with others.

For those who are not yet aware, I first became interested in what admins are after having been bullied by a two or three which led me to find out why they had ever been promoted in the first place. Needless to say, some of them are admins no more. Among more recent desysops, I said the writing was on the wall quite a while back. What is not being mentioned here is the number of admins who have handed their tools in over the last 12 months (and we've lost another in last 24 ours). They were among our most popular and respected sysops. Something is clearly wrong. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:22, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

So in your opinion Kudpung. If an experienced, high output editor who most agree knows what they are doing, leaves the site because the community won't let them have access to the tools, is that a win for the site, or a loss? It seems like a loss to me. Since this happens fairly frequently after a failed RFA, it seems like its actually better that more don't try. Because if they did, we would probably have more leave when they find out what the community thinks of all their hard work and dedication to the project. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 22:56, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Based upon high activity at this page and at wt:rfa I thought there was interest in doing something about the problem. So I proposed doing something about it, either specifically:

• Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#A_Different_approach
  

or generally:

• Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#Any_interest_in_a_Wikiproject.3F.
  

The proposals were met by a resounding yawn (with minor exceptions). I now conclude I misread the sense of the community, and the community is very interested in whining, but not actually doing anything. Am I wrong?--SPhilbrick(Talk) 23:14, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

No I think you are exactly right. The community in general doesn't care and that has been a recurring problem for some time now. As has been mentioned before. The majority of those who pay attention to this problem are experienced users and most of those are admins, many of which don't want the system to change. I also think a contributing factor to the silence is that it has come up so often and had so little result, most probably feel like there is no point in commenting. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 23:44, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

@71.126.152.253 : "…high output editor who most agree knows what they are doing, leaves the site because the community won't let them have access to the tools…" are just throwing their hobby out of their pram. They are needed here and they have no reason not to continue providing good content. I do not belive that admins do not want to see the sytem changed or improved (stats please) - in fact most users who have participated objectively in such discussions rather than heckling from the sidelines are admins.

@SPhilbrick: "the community is very interested in whining, but not actually doing anything", There is certainly some truth in that - if anyone wants some stats, just count the comments over the years at WT:RfA. Some of the community does care though, and to reiterate for the nth time, ironically most of the actions for reform were launched and/or supported by admins and most clearly with a view to getting more new admins on board rather than excluding candidates as some contend.

If the community didn't care, there wouldn't be 2,821 watching the page at WT:RfA, 2,847 participants, and 64,213 edits on it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:12, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

If the community doesn't trust them, then naturally people aren't going to stay. This is a volunteer project and people participate where they are interested. If someone is interested in content creation then that's great, if they aren't interested in that area though and want to help out in other areas, then they should be allowed to grow and learn new things. Not held back out of Assumptions of bad faith. Anyway, I' obviously wasting my time with this argument. In order to be an admin one must set out a plan to do so and ensure they don't buck the system. The bottom line though is that the system is broken and needs to be fixed. I don't believe it will happen until Wikiedia administration reaches a crisis point (which can already be seen by the backlogs at many venues). So at some point the community will either need to accept help where its given or accept growing backlogs and a reduced service to the readers. When the community and the WMF starts to care about its readers again, then things may change. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 00:44, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, one of the requirements to the administrators is that they do not consider being an administrator to be the main motivation for their wiki presence. Bossing productive editors by the "career administrators" having little interests in building the encyclopedia is one of the main reasons of pushing productive editors out. One bad administrator can drive out plenty of highly productive contributors often leaving a whole subject area bare. People editing wiki are usually anonymous, it is normal to not trust anonymous people and we are putting a great deal of effort (at least in the article space) to build a system that usually does not require us to trust people but to validate their entries with reliable sources, it should not drive people out. Alex Bakharev (talk) 02:19, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think a lot of the current admins think like that. I could name several that rarely do anything else except admin stuff. Besides that's not really what I am saying anyway. If you tell an experienced editor enough times they aren't trusted and or wanted, they will leave. Its happened many times before. Its especially disheartening when there are so many abusive admins already who are allowed to keep the tools and when there are so many that just get the tools and never use them. Every month we lose more editors than we gain (in both inactivity and in desysoppings). It doesn't take a math wiz to see at some point in the near future that will be a problem. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 11:14, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Adminship broadens wiki access to protected pages

At the core of many frustrations is the lock-down of protected pages, where admins can access so much more. At the Help:Desk, it would be useful to look at a user's deleted article to explain, in detail, why it failed the WP policies for inclusion. Also, many, many thousands of templates are protected against update by non-admin users. Overall, as several people have commented: "This isn't a wiki any longer". Having to continually request permission (for *everything*) has turned WP into a bureaucracy of bureaucratic rules, which many of us have learned to tolerate, but it is not fun, no. So, many people leave due to restricted access to pages. Or, we try wp:RfA to get long-term permission to access Wikipedia as if it were still a wiki, rather than a system of expanding lock-down where templates have gone unfixed for years. Instead, a system of trusted-user levels should have been developed, early, to allow several levels of access controls to different types of protected pages. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:28, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree. Your assessment that this isn't a Wiki anymore nor is it fun is right on. I also agree that having multiple levels of access would be beneficial but I think we need to get back to a point where we trust our editors again. We have too much content blocked, too many Ip's blocked, too much beauracracy is needed to make a simple change and too much work for too few people. 138.162.8.59 (talk) 12:58, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Oversimplification misfires

The first oversimplification / misfire is to think that metric of any split should be by tools. In reality it should be by roles. Right now having the toolbox makes one the (only) type who can decide/close very difficult RFC's, decide difficult situations and decide to impose sanctions against editors. That combination with gnome tools/roles is absolutely crazy; the latter types of things should be split off by role/policy, not by tools in the toolbox.

The second oversimplification / misfire is thinking that there is only one dial (degree of easiness / hardness) that needs adjustment at RFA. What it really needs is tools to make it a qualities based discussion rather than the current misfire test which essentially is largely "have you avoided taking any stands that some people didn't like". North8000 (talk) 17:45, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Right now having the toolbox makes one the (only) type who can decide/close very difficult RFC's, decide difficult situations - I don't think this quite true actually. Non-admins can certainly close many contentious discussions, many of which get listed at WP:ANRFC. Personally speaking, I've done closes of contentious issues at Adolf Hitler, and Shooting of Trayvon Martin, and Monty Hall problem (a triumverate close) without any concerns from others about my involvement. Not many non-admins contribute there, maybe because they don't think they are allowed to, or maybe because they don't want to deal with with folks who disagree with their closes, or maybe they just don't feel prepared or have enough time to devote to the task. (Of course, not many admins contribute there, either). In any case, my point is that non-admins can definitely close contentious issues (except for deletion). I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 19:22, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Usually on those I've seen that for whoever it didn't go their way they say "we need an admin close on this" even though (given your experience) you probably did a wiser close than the average admin would do. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:53, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Antisemitism in the Foundation

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I just saw this post on Wikipediocracy about the allegations of the Croatian Wikipedia being co-opted by the far right, but what really caught my attention was this detail:

Extreme right-wing views can apparently be found even among the Wikimedia Foundation’s own staff. Its Education Program Consultant for the Arab World, Faris El-Gwely, sports a little green userbox with a black and white picture of Adolf Hitler on his user page in the Arabic Wikipedia. The Arabic text next to that image reads, “This user respects Adolf Hitler”.

The translated version of the user page in question can be found here. It is not the only userbox of concern as there is one stating "This user believes the existence of evil schemes to destroy Arab", another saying "this user stands violently against the Zionist crimes against the Arab people will never forgive them what they had done the displacement and murder, terrorism and rape of freedom and dignity of the Arabs", and one stating "this user is anti-Zionist". Now the last one would not be of concern on its own, but an "anti-Zionist" who "believes in the existence of evil schemes to destroy Arabs" and "respects Adolf Hitler" sure as hell sounds like a virulent antisemite.

I understand that many Arabs are bombarded with misinformation on certain points of Jewish history because of Israel, so finding this type of attitude on the Arabic Wikipedia should not be totally surprising, but it is a whole other kettle of fish for the Foundation's education program consultant to the Arab World to adhere to such views. This isn't some programmer or technical assistant whose actions will not have an impact on the content. His page has had those userboxes since before he started working with the Foundation so it is not as though this could not have been caught beforehand.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 16:53, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Is his position in the Foundation a paid one? If so no way will I ever donate money to the WMF ever again and I'm sure I am not the only Jew who will feel this way, and trust me lots of us will be hearing about this. The Foundation, I am sure is not anti-Semitic as a whole or in its decisions, however- if this is all true and he went through a venting process and hired and receives a paycheck, are you telling me at no point did anyone decide to check his page on Wikipedia to see what it said...? So, either someone's incompetence allowed him to be hired without removing that and repudiating the statement or even worse, the Foundation did not see it as a problem. IF what is written is correct about this individual- which is it? Incompetence or a belief that anti-Semitism is ok?Camelbinky (talk) 19:04, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I think this discussion should be moved to either Meta Wiki or the Arabic Wikipedia. However I have notified him on his talk that this thread took place. Looking at his talk, there may also be some backlash from the German Wikipedia. Ross Hill Talk to me!  23:53, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

• I also saw the post and am startled to see that a user who appears to be verifiably xenophobic/racist was employed by the foundation. Not sure what "cultures vary widely" by MZMcBride means. By the way, he still has a WMF account here: User:Felgwely_(WMF), and I'm not sure he no longer works for the foundation, I'd like to see some confirmation of that. He also has an active account here: User:Faris_knight, so this isn't just an editor on another project, he edits here. IRWolfie- (talk) 00:06, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• Even if he is no longer working for the Foundation it beggars belief that they would bring him on board for such a role without taking the most basic step of looking at his user page.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:08, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• I can confirm that Faris El-Gwely's contract with the Wikimedia Foundation ended on September 30, 2013. -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 00:16, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Why are indicators left on the account that he is currently employed by the WMF a week after leaving: User:Faris_knight? Are old WMF accounts like User:Felgwely_(WMF) not locked after contracts expire? Is this a WMF work twitter account (which is linked on his WMF account): [5] (i.e it certainly looks like a still active WMF account)? IRWolfie- (talk) 00:19, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Old (WMF) accounts aren't locked - mine from several years ago is still in existence and I can still log in to it, although Philippe did change my userpage to indicate I have no affiliation with the WMF. I don't think anyone systematically marks (WMF) accounts as soon as contracts expire. Practices have certainly changed since, but when I was an intern my (WMF) account wasn't properly marked as a (WMF) account until my internship was almost over, and it wasn't marked as no longer being an active (WMF) account for something like four months after that. I think people just occasionally go mark all the old accounts as being old accounts, instead of trying to do so as soon as someone's official affiliation ends. (N.b.: I have no knowledge of this situation in particular, I just wanted to point out that (WMF) accounts are not systematically locked or staff categories removed as soon as contracts expire.) Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:28, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

That would be a rather simple and helpful thing to make a policy of doing, if the (WMF) tag is intended to be in any way informative. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 01:40, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

@Ldavis: was the termination of his contract related to this issue? --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 01:40, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I believe the problem is wider than that. A few months ago one "smart" Wikipedian said: "What I wrote was that the Mrs Grundys of WP are a liability - and yes, as long as the quality of an article is good, I couldn't care whether the contributor is gay, a paedophile, has nasty toilet habits or is a supporter of the Taliban - and neither should you." I am not sure about pedophiles, but I know for sure that some Wikipedians are racist, some are members of such forums as stormfront, and some are simply dirty bullies. Sadly those are the ones who often participate in the so called Community discussions. Jimbo and the WMF are well aware about the problem, yet their trust in the so called Wikipedia community's ability to govern the site remains firm. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 02:41, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

24.4, you just wrote that "the ones who often participate in the so called Community discussions" are racist and/or members of such forums as stormfront and/or simply dirty bullies. That´s not polite and I don´t think it´s true. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:59, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

That is an incorrect summary of what was said. The editor said some, IRWolfie- (talk) 12:06, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for replying. English is not my first language, but I still think my reading is correct. 24.4 wrote that "some wikipedians are [bad things]", and that those "some" are "the ones who often participate in the so called Community discussions". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

English is not my first language either, but I have the same reading. --cyclopia^speak! 13:00, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• @24.4 With the quote you are comparing gay people to paedophiles and Taliban, etc, which is highly offensive and homophobic. --Space simian (talk) 00:12, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm not comparing anything, I simply quoted a Wikipedian. I don't agree with the author of that quote. I agree with you that the quote could be read as homophobic. 00:35, 9 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.37.209 (talk)
    • OK, thanks for clarifying. I'm sorry if I jumped to conclusions. --Space simian (talk) 00:46, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

As of today the user page of that user still states "This user works at the Wikimedia Foundation", and that his employer is the Wikimedia foundation. Even if that user no longer works for the WMF he's still a member of the Wikipedia community. If the translation of his Arabic user page is correct and that user really respects Hitler, I'd be ashamed to be a member of the community that tolerates such users, but I see the user was notified about this discussion. Let's wait for his explanations. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 16:39, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• Not trying to stir the pot here, but a user should be allowed to state his or her own opinions. Just as some are pro-Zionist, some can be anti-Zionist too. I don't agree with anti-Zionism, but if we allow free speech (ie people who put "I like my religion" everywhere) we should allow free speech across the board. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 16:50, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

A statement that “This user respects Adolf Hitler” is not 'Anti-Zionist'. It is a statement that the user respects a genocidal psychopath responsible for the murder of millions. It is a statement utterly at odds with the objectives of the WMF, and of basic human dignity. (And for the record, read WP:FREESPEECH - Wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy). AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:27, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Besides the user is in the category "User-abiding Adolf Hitler"24.4.37.209 (talk) 17:31, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with it either. But playing the devil's advocate, if you are allowed to have 200 different userboxes with a cross or star of David on it, and that isn't soapboxing, then what is? Hitler is really inapporpriate, but should we target people for having one religious or politically motivated infobox? Where do we draw the line? Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 21:17, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Should we target people for having one politically motivated infobox? Yes, if the infobox says “This user respects Adolf Hitler”. Any more stupid questions? AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:31, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

There's no reason to personally attack me about it. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 22:40, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Were this simply a matter of someone working as a programmer for the Foundation or someone who was just a regular editor having this userbox it would be one thing, but we are talking about someone who directly interacts with projects recruiting prospective editors, while guiding and instructing them in how to edit Wikipedia. A person who would be responsible for monitoring what these editors are doing as part of these projects. That goes beyond just having someone with unsavory views editing on this site.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:49, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

A person publicly supports someone who has committed genocide should not be editing wikipedia or be associated with/employed by Wikimedia in any way. Comparing someone supporting the Nazis seemingly because they killed the Jews to someone having a star of David on their user page is patently ridiculous. This kind of "all views are welcome" mantra never seems to realise that there are moderate views and then there are loony bin extremes. I doubt many here would associate themselves with Nazi-sympathisers in real life and it shouldn't make a slight bit of difference just because we are on the internet. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:09, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

We don't know what his views are, we're making assumptions here that are not necessarily correct. While I agree that he shouldn't have been hired by the WMF, one cannot say that he supports genocide of Jews by Hitler. The hidden assumption one makes here is that he would accept the historical facts about the Holocaust. While Holocaust denial in the West is typically seen as a disingenuous attitude to hide that you do support the extermination of the Jews, in the Arab World many people really do not accept the truth about the Holocaust. There exists a widely supported conspiracy theory in the Arab World that what we know to be the facts about the Holocaust, is Western propaganda to support Israel. That may be difficult for us to swallow, but it is still a reality. Count Iblis (talk) 14:08, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Your basically saying "Wait a second, he might not be supporting genocide, he might be a holocaust denier instead". Both of those are far right extremes and in both cases he should be blocked, IRWolfie- (talk) 20:39, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

As I pointed out, there are many Holocaust deniers in the Arab world who genuinly believe in this, they are not necessarily extreme right wing people. Also, by your logic we should ban almost all Turkish editors for denying the Armenian Genocide. Count Iblis (talk) 23:54, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

There is no problem here because of the disclaimer which says: "Disclaimer: Although I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, contributions under this account do not necessarily represent the actions or views of the Foundation unless expressly stated otherwise. For example, edits to articles or uploads of other media are done in my individual, personal capacity unless otherwise stated." Count Iblis (talk) 23:51, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

It is a problem when the person was given a position that allowed him some significant influence over editing activity on Wikipedia. He was a Foundation employee whose job was helping to recruit and organize new editors for various Wikipedia projects and monitoring their activities. That he has apparent antisemitic views is not a good thing as it suggests he might favor certain things or ignore certain things that an editor without such views would recognize as inappropriate for an objective encyclopedia.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:06, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

So much for the closing of this thread, but hey...you can't stop someone from having a horrible, personal view...but you can make them keep their personal bias off the articles and project. I hope we are not just on a witch hunt due to someone's own opinion that may not be popular or even accurate. But...every editor has a right to their opinion and a witch hunt to remove them wont' remove the bias. it may just make it worse.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Its not a witch hunt when they declare their views on the talk page. No editor has any rights to edit wikipedia beyond what they are given. This is not a democracy. Wikipedia's constitution isn't the United States constitution. People have the rights to their opinions elsewhere, but not here, IRWolfie- (talk) 09:11, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that could have been a problem. But then, it's possible for his actions to be evaluated to see if there had been problems with his work at the WMF. Usually the sort of statements made on that infobox are meant to be extremely provocative, they don't actually reflect well how that person really thinks on this issue. The point is to say things that they know are hurtful to their enemy. So, this person may well believe that Hitler was a bad person and that the Jews in Israel are normal persons like he is. The statement in that infobox is then an attack against Israel motivated by the things that Israel has done wrong. Count Iblis (talk) 00:32, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

To expand on this a bit, we in the West live in peace today, so we are not used to this. But when we get involved in a war, then our own norms about acceptable behavior changes a lot, take e.g. this. Count Iblis (talk) 00:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Really? "We in the West live in peace today? 24.4.37.209 (talk) 02:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, these attacks and the way they shocked society points to us being accustomed to living in a peaceful society where these things don't normally happen. Count Iblis (talk) 03:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Jimbo, you aren't Mark Miller. You know that the Wikipedia user pages belong to the WMF and that the WMF could and should stop fascists and racists "from having a horrible, personal view" on their user pages. Jimbo, you aren't Count Iblis. You understand that explaining that the user states that he respects adolph hitler by "this person may well believe that Hitler was a bad person and that the Jews in Israel are normal persons like he is. The statement in that infobox is then an attack against Israel motivated by the things that Israel has done wrong" is so desperately absurd that it does not warrant a response. Jimbo, you are the co-founder of Wikipedia, and it is disappointing you haven't bothered to comment on this topic. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 16:09, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

24.4.37.209—you are editing from an IP address. Your argument that "you are the co-founder of Wikipedia, and it is disappointing you haven't bothered to comment on this topic" doesn't make much sense as you are not offering a clue as to your identity in relation to the history of Wikipedia. Are you a banned account? Are you a productive editor? You are revealing little about yourself. Yet you are pointing out that somebody else is "the co-founder of Wikipedia". I'm not opposed to unregistered accounts. But the differences should be recognized. Bus stop (talk) 16:29, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

OK. I have a registered account and I'm a "productive editor", so you may have to listen to what I'm saying without dismissing it out of hand. I want you to conduct a thought experiment. A person shows up for a job interview—as a representative of a Foundation which espouses humanistic, Englightment values as its core principles—wearing a button that says "I respect Adolf Hitler". That's basically what happened here. How should that interview go?

The fact that some people are defending this on free-expression grounds or calling it a "witch hunt" demonstrates how bizarrely out of touch with the real world the Wikipedia community has become and, frankly, why sane editors have been fleeing this place in droves for the last few years. I never, ever thought I'd find myself typing these words, but The Devil's Advocate is entirely right here. It's not fair to hold Jimbo personally responsible for every hiring decision, but it is fair to ask for some sort of response from the Foundation. MastCell ^Talk 17:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

He would not get the job; he has freedom of speech, but companies have the freedom to hire people based on their preferences. But the reason why some people are leaving Wikpedia has nothing to do with this sort of an issue. Most people who hold politically incorrect views are nice people who don't cause problems, while the people who do cause problems that lead to editors leaving here are usually the average people whose political views look normal.

If I hold certain extremist views then I have to deal with that when interacting with other people, this would typically lead to me becoming a lot better than average in communicating with people on controversial subjects. The average person will have less experience with that, and then things may well go wrong on Wikipedia. Count Iblis (talk) 17:48, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The concern is not that the right people would leave, but that the wrong people would join. He could not control the content, but his position did give him some influence over the environment and the trajectory of some Wikipedia projects. Are you saying you see nothing wrong about someone with such views helping to shape how new editors enter Wikipedia?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:19, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I do see the potential problem with that sort of job, I agree that this should lead to a priori disqualification from being considered for such a job. In this case, I don't think the infoboxes point to a big problem, we look at this from our Western perspective and that leads to a picture of some Neo-Nazi like person. But in the Arab world such views are far more normal than here, therefore that picture we get is wrong. So, while he shouldn't have been hired as a precaution, that doesn't mean that when he was in the job he would likely have caused big problems. It's just like that to prevent drunk people from driving you need to have a limit on your blood alcohol levels that must be set rather low. That doesn't mean that everyone who is caught driving at slightly higher levels would have caused problems due to the alcohol. But the law must be upheld, therefore one shouldn't drive even after drinking half a glass of beer. Count Iblis (talk) 13:54, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I believe the Foundation needs to make a public statement on this issue, as it calls into question the Foundation's ability to hire and supervise staff overseas. The educational program isn't just about spreading knowledge, it's also about spreading the community's values (public access to knowledge, public participation in knowledge-creation, etc.) The statements made on the user's talk page, (including his support for Hitler and his apparent endorsement of violence), if they are being translated reasonably, lead me to believe that this user should not be representing the Foundation and the community. That he was a paid representative of the Foundation is deeply troubling and the Foundation should provide more detail on how they view this incident and what changes, if any, they believe need to be made to prevent a recurrence.GabrielF (talk) 17:07, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Paid editing blowup

Largest sockpuppet bust in Wikipedia history traces back to paid editing for hire firm 'Wiki-PR': http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/wikipedia-sockpuppet-investigation-largest-network-history-wiki-pr/ Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:03, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Incredible. I've been hearing rumblings about this for a few days, and I'm very eager that we pursue this with maximum effect.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:55, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Very interesting read. I'm sorry to note that I helped morning 277 with some OTRS issues. I think they were legitimate, but this puts a different spin on some of the requests. However, I must comment of how well-done the article is. My experience is generally that if I read something in a newspaper or magazine, and I have more than average knowledge of the subject matter, I can usually poke a few holes in the article. This reporter, Simon Owens, seems to have done some homework. Of course there are nits, admins can do blocks not bans, and I suspect some of our non admin editors will question the gaudy portrayal of admins (for that matter I think it was a bit over the top), but many things seems to have been done right. Acceptable discussion of inside baseball terms, and a decent handle on the processes. I'm not active in SPI, and maybe those active will find some fault, but on balance, it seemed well-done.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 23:40, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

For everyone's information, WMF's Legal and Community Advocacy teams have been looking at this issue for a few weeks, and we are continuing to do so. As part of that investigation, we're continually following the analysis being done by the community in the SPI page. Unfortunately, while we are evaluating taking legal action we can't discuss the issue as openly as we would normally do. In the meantime, we deeply appreciate the years of work done by the various volunteers involved in this case, and are looking at every option we have to support you. -LVilla (WMF) (talk) 01:29, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I'd encourage everybody involved to take very serious steps on this. There are too many times (e.g. in the last few days) that I've heard something like "Well, you can't do anything about paid editing, so you're just going to have to accept it." I don't think we have to accept this. Some things the WMF can do.

• Report the case to the FTC - undisclosed advertising is illegal - and there is almost certainly advertising in here. It would make a point.
• We could also send them notice that all their owners, employees, and contractors are banned for violating the terms of use, that is:Misusing Our Services for Other Illegal Purposes ....
  • Using the services in a manner that is inconsistent with applicable law.

The WMF certainly has the right to do this - (further on in the terms of use) "We reserve the right to suspend or end the services at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice."

You might wonder what is the point of banning possibly unknown employees if the WMF doesn't have the technical means to do anything about it. Well, the WMF likely has the legal and/or PR means to do something about it. Possibly a cease and desist order could be filed to prevent them from advertising (after all - they won't have any employees who can edit here - so they would be doing false advertising as well as defaming Wikipedia by claiming our admins work for them) and in any case their business reputation would be in tatters.

Of course, the WMF should talk with them before threatening to go to court. Ask for their employee and client lists so we can repair the damage they caused.

Finally, I think this should be reviewed at the board level - are we ever going to have a policy that can clearly discourage paid editing in an effective way? Another thing I heard in just the last few day goes something like this "There are too many editors with an interest in keeping paid editing, and with the consensus system and RfCs, they can always prevent anything from being changed." Sounds like a challenge to me. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 04:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Smallbones above. The most disturbing aspect of this article is that it says that administrators are claimed to be paid editors. Coretheapple (talk) 17:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I also agree with Smallbones. What's most disturbing to me is that once again there is no "blow-up" over this here, on-wiki, where it matters. petrarchan47tc 18:01, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Also agreed. I was hoping this would be something the board could take action on, legal or otherwise. I think it is dangerous for the community to just accept or let slide an institution that disrupts Wikipedia in this systematic manner. Sure, they may be bluffing about having admins, but maybe they are not. I am surprised their business model has not failed given this kind of press, of which I hope it so deservedly gets more. But this is not the kind of matter to wait out. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 18:13, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

When the word spread that BP had an employee, the head of their PR department, working on Wikipedia, drafting text which was then entered by (what we must assume to be) independent editors, the Wikipedia community supported it. Sure, there were a few outliers who complained, but we were drowned out by the overwhelming defense of the activity because it is wiki-legal and because the PR rep is a perfectly nice guy. However, the off-wiki chatter was filled with outrage and most importantly for Wikipedia, filled with a common sentiment: "Well, I'll never donate to Wikipedia again!". We can continue to look the other way but our readers do not and will not. petrarchan47tc 18:42, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

That was because he "follows the rules." See my comment below. The rejoinder to that is "what rules?" Chevron's p.r. person is at least as aggressive. Coretheapple (talk) 18:47, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

"The rules" are the issue here. They support paid editing and in turn unfortunately contribute to the mass exodus of independent editors, who can feel and witness that the cards are stacked against them. petrarchan47tc 19:19, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Do you have any data about this "mass exodus of independent editors"? I'm not even sure what distinguishes an independent editor from a non-independent one. And as for "the cards are stacked against them"...I'm not sure what this refers to. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:51, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Data: * * * *. My experiences working on articles where BP and Monsanto have an interest showed me how to easily distinguish between an indie and someone playing the role, but bending or ignoring wiki guidelines in a way that slants all of their edits, and indeed entire groups of articles, in favor of these companies. The cards are stacked against anyone wanting to add information, however well-sourced, that may not improve the image of these two companies on Wikipedia. Did you know about the Facebook group called CREWE? It that is made up of PR reps and Wikipedia editors willing to help them. On the other hand, what I refer to as 'independent' editors do not declare any such POV, and unfortunately have no such support system.

FWIW, Jimmy Wales: "I think we need to be very clear in a lot of different places that PR firms editing Wikipedia is something that we frown upon very very strongly. The appearance of impropriety is so great that we should make it very very strongly clear to these firms that we do not approve of what they would like to do." petrarchan47tc 21:21, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

He said that in 2006. It would be nice if Mr. Wales could either reaffirm what he said then or repudiate it. Clearly the practice at Wikipedia is to discourage (but not prohibit) p.r. people from editing, and to allow them to create articles via the Articles for Creation process. People apparently make their living doing so, and it's apparent that the amount of p.r. participation in Wikipedia has increased simultaneously with the decrease in the overall number of people editing Wikipedia. Coretheapple (talk) 23:29, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

From 2013, regarding BP PR 'ghostwriting', Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has also weighed in, writing in a discussion forum on the site that Wikipedia would analyze [BP]'s work to see if it qualified as biased and would also examine whether the Wikipedia editors' copying and pasting of [BP]'s content was "inappropriate."Still, Wales said that it's possible no whitewashing took place on BP's part because there is evidence that the article covers the Deepwater oil spill in a "quite direct and clear way." But, Wales said, that issue needs to be discussed further. Yes. Yes, it does. petrarchan47tc 23:38, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

What this article omitted was that there is an enormous safe harbor permitted for paid editing. As long as the conflict of interest is disclosed, paid editors are not only accepted into the bosom of the community but are dealt with warmly, even protectively. The mistake made by the editors described in this article is that they broke the rules. They did not have to, because there really are no rules, only guidelines that are weak. Paid editors even create articles through the AfC process. I see nothing happening about this disgraceful situation until the flow of money to Wikipedia from donors is affected. Coretheapple (talk) 18:40, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

No. A paid editor who puts an article through AFC will (or should) have it declined if it fails WP:GNG or WP:NPOV. An open paid editor who takes all available opportunities for review and only promises clients a neutral article is an asset to the client and the project. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:05, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

No? You mean "yes." Paid editors create articles, resulting in content that would not be there if it wasn't for the subjects paying for it. The more this happens, the more it tilts the content of the encyclopedia into becoming a tool of the p.r. industry. Defending that is like defending a newspaper that opens up its pages to paid contributions without disclosure to the reader, with the "advertorials" mingling with legitimate news copy as long as it reads "neutral." Coretheapple (talk) 19:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

This is interesting because I just stumbled on to Wikipedia:Bounty board this morning. Granted, the money paid by others went to WMF and not the individual Editor but it demonstrates that "paid editing" is not something brand new. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:51, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather figure out ways of curbing paid editing rather than excusing it or finding precedents for it. Coretheapple (talk) 20:45, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Please keep Catalan Wikipedia discussion separate from local en.wikipedia issues.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Paid editing is wrong, especially when a local governor does it with tax money (source), much needed in Spain, due to a severe recession, to try to change FACTS of history and nowadays, making a brutal MASSIVE BIAS in ca.wiki so... should wikimedia partner associations admit ALL money for Wikipedia, GLAM projects, Public libraries and conference rooms, from local secessionist governors of hate and confrontation, if the suposed "job" is to indoctrinate population and children to hate and secessionism? When you see this video of children saying that "Spanish people steal our money, they are bad - we are better than they..." etc... What do you think? Paid editing is not the only indoctrination system here. In Catalonia schools since kindergarten, children are subjected by nationalist Catalan teachers to psychological manipulation of their minds to induce in them a independentist sense against the rest of Spain. They do not let them grow and learn to have their own judgment about the world around them, They are directly manipulated and indoctrinated with anti-Spaniards symbols and messages against the rest of Spain. ca.wikipedia.org must not be part of this indoctrination. Please, say NO to ALL Paid editing which then ask "favors" later. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.9.217.223 (talk) 16:52, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• Wow, just wow. Paid editing by admins. I have been saying for years paid editing was a slippery slope that should be fought against with every resource available. Now this. Jimmy, after reading this article I call on you and the WMF to take prompt and very firm action against paid editing. As for admins, it is such an obvious COI that words fail me, except to say that admins caught as paid agents should be perma-banned. Period. Jusdafax 00:52, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Admins have been caught editing for money before; it's not unprecedented. Graham87 07:00, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Nor is the talk of PR firms' activity here. Time to put an end to it. petrarchan47tc 22:46, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
• Jimmy, as someone who did 300 of the last blocks, then abandoned the case, trust me that this isn't going to get pursued to the maximum effect. If you want to know more, you can email me, this whole affair has pretty much chased me away from Wikipedia, and I don't see a benefit of harping here. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 13:18, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, I find it extremely disturbing that Dennis, who has done more than anyone to tackle this, says here that he knows "this isn't going to get pursued to the maximum effect", and has said before that he has been warned off pursuing it: "Arb has privately made it very clear they don't want Morning277 sockpuppets blocked".

Dennis has been reluctant to give further details publicly of what he has been told. Please take up his offer and email him, and then let those of us on the front line know what is going on. Absent any explicit order, I have been continuing to block obvious socks and to refuse under WP:CSD#G5 to restore their deleted articles, but it is alarming for those manning the battlements to hear hints that the high command do not want the barbarians kept out.

Dennis says that this has "pretty much chased me away from Wikipedia". If there is a policy of appeasement which loses us one of our most energetic and level-headed admins that will be serious additional damage.

I agree. I've emailed Dennis. I need allies on this one. It's time to put our foot down.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:32, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I think myself that the only way this will be stopped is if socks are blocked, articles deleted, G5 applied ruthlessly to prevent re-creation, and titles salted, in the hope that the word gets round that being a Wiki-PR client not only doesn't get you an article but effectively gets you blacklisted. JohnCD (talk) 20:20, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, subject to some caveats. (I.E. I think that's a good broad thrust of what a policy should say, but a longer version would be more detailed and cover exceptions and way for victims of such PR scammers a way out of purgatory.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:32, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Of course, we also must think about that any editor around here could be paid editors...some more openly admit it and same goes for socking....we have had several previous admins that were sockmasters or sockpuppets of banned users. The thing is that Wikipedia is so anonymous. Very few editors identify their real-life name, city, age, etc. If we thought further, a 4 year old could be behind an admin account, or a 90 year old, you never know. What WP needs is a system, as SPI is a mess ATM. WorldTraveller101 (talk) 00:45, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• If it is indeed the case that "Arb has privately made it very clear they don't want Morning277 sockpuppets blocked" (and knowing Dennis I believe this absolutely) then we need to know which Arbs, when, and how, and this information needs to be made public. Because if any Arbs have done this, they need to be removed ASAP. Dennis? Black Kite (talk) 00:58, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Black Kite when are the ArbCom elections? Because if so, then we do remove them and don't re-elect them. I do wonder how it leaks that a user is a paid editor. Hm.... WorldTraveller101 (talk) 01:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that elections are even the issue. If it is the case (and I of course, like anyone else, would need to see proof of this), then any Arb doing this type of thing needs to not be an Arb now, regardless of when their term expires. Black Kite (talk) 01:12, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Just saw how it goes...deeply concerning that such an event would occur. Let Dennis figure it out and we'll go from here. WorldTraveller101 (talk) 01:23, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that those "in the know" generally cannot disclose the specifics of what they know, because it came from confidential lists. --Rschen7754 07:46, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

But that leaves us in the intolerable situation where an industrial-scale spamming operation has been exposed which is still continuing, Wikipedia is filling up with paid-for articles effectively written by companies' PR departments, but the relevant SPI has been effectively closed down and the admin dealing with the case has been "pretty much chased away". "We can't tell you what's going on because it's confidential" is not good enough. Are we allowing Wiki-PR to carry on unopposed, or are we trying to stop them? If we are not trying to stop them, I certainly want to know why, and why I should continue to spend time deleting other spam and blocking spammers. JohnCD (talk) 09:46, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

WMF involvement?

Hey guys, PR guy and COI contributor here. I noticed that Smallbones and Jusdafax are soliciting for legal action by the WMF on this matter and when I attended a discussion with a few Wikipedia editors a day or two ago, a couple expressed a similar viewpoint, that it was something that could not be handled by the community alone.

Wiki-PR is still soliciting for business - I talked to a marketing guy just yesterday that was in talks with them. And despite destroying hundreds of accounts, they can just as easily create more. This paints a rather hopeless picture for volunteers and there are a breath of options for legal action that would create (I think) a more sustainable resolution.

Naturally, WMF is in that weird position the community puts them in where one minute everyone is telling them BACK OFF! and the next we're saying "why aren't you doing anything?" However, one thing that has been brought up that I think is worth further discussion is if consensus should be built that the community does want them involved in this case and if there was a clear consensus if WMF would be able to do so (or if a chapter organization could do it).

I think I easily speak for the entire PR community when I say that we also don't endorse this kind of activity. CorporateM (Talk) 13:56, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

CorporateM, unless I'm mistaken you're creating articles for clients via AfCs, which is one of the practices that needs to be stopped. If you want to be part of the solution to this issue, you should stop doing that. As I see it, the problem is, principally, not the PR people who are creating sockpuppets and breaking the rules, but the ones who are exploiting the existing very weak COI guidelines to create and edit articles on behalf of their clients, and to advocate for them on talk pages of articles. It's not their behavior but the weakness of the guidelines and the permissive attitude toward such practices that is the problem. Coretheapple (talk) 19:42, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the practices that CorporateM is exploiting need to be addressed and are wrong, but I think the problem is principally with PR people who are engaging in clearly unethical behavior (sock puppeting and the like). I also agree that permissiveness is a big part of the problem, and I think there are two reasons for it. First, many people working in their own little areas don't realize the magnitude of the threat. Second, every discussion that arises brings in paid advocates making lots of noise and engaging in bad argumentation to cloud the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Glad to hear you say that and I hope that a strong effort is made both to clean up the PR socks and make Wikipedia PR-unfriendly. No disrespect to PR professionals, but the "advertorial" analogy that I made above is I believe directly applicable to Wikipedia. We can't have advertorials, articles initiated by PR professionals and guided by them. My other concern is that talk page use by PR professionals need to be far more limited than currently. I think that PR editors game the system not because they're bad people but because it is their job, which is to serve their clients. Wikipedia rules focus on the content rather than on the identity of editors, which I agree is the best approach, but then you have editors declaring their conflicts, working within the rules, and generating and shaping articles for their clients. Editors tolerate this and see nothing wrong with it. Coretheapple (talk) 22:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I have worked on several occasions with declared PR people who edited existing articles via the {{editrequest}} mechanism. I didn't find this a problem, and while I ahd to insist on good sourcing, i found my input was requested and in teh end articles were improved. I wouldn't have a problem with similarly declared editors using AfC, and as an occasional AfC reviewer I would approve such if sourcing and notability (and other requirements) were clearly in place. I think we can gain more than we lose thorh this kind of thing provided it is well monitored by experienced independent editors. DES ^(talk) 23:03, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, the reader loses. People coming to an article in Wikipedia have a right to expect that the articles were not planted by corporate/organizational PR people, but are there because an independent editor found them interesting enough to write about. PR-planted articles do not disclose their inherent POV and conflict of interest to readers (unlike newspaper advertorials). Indeed, that is why businesses and people hire editors to plant articles about them, because the companies or organizations were not significant enough to be written about (even though yes, they meet the notability criteria; heaven forbid that the rules are not followed!). Neither are such articles fair for the companies and organizations that are more ethical, and are willing to wait until somebody unconnected with their organizations write about them. If I can find an article in Wikipedia about Acme Widgets, but not its competitor Beta Widgets, or if the Acme article is long (even a Good Article) while the Beta article is a stub, the implication is that Acme Widgets is a more interesting, more noteworthy, better company. In fact, it just has a lower standard of ethics and has no qualms about buying its way into Wikipedia and paying somebody to add to its length. Coretheapple (talk) 23:54, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• Jimmy, allow me to say again that this matter is a deal-breaker for those of us with years of good-faith editing experience. The corrupting influence of money, especially big money, is going to force the paid editors into increasingly clever ways to avoid detection to get what they want. This needs to be countered aggressively and with harsh sanctions which will put a severe crimp in paid editing abuses. It's my strongly-held belief that the line that needs to be drawn by you is that paid editing is inherently POV editing, and invites abuse. Please take the stand, and advance it to the WMF, that paid editing can no longer be tolerated in any form as a threat to core Wikipedia values. If paid editing is allowed to continue in the current direction, it will discourage and drive away the purists among us that truly believe that this is an encyclopedia for humanity that cannot be bought. Jusdafax 23:20, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• While I don't agree specifically with the paid-editing = POV editing assertion above, I think it is not unreasonable for us to perhaps assert that paid editing in any form is inherently problematic and invites abuse. Now, I can and do see, in some cases, that it might not be unreasonable to allow individuals on their own or their firm's articles or PR flacks to use article talk pages to propose edits, and at the discretion of the admin or other reviewing the request to perhaps, at their discretion, remove the section from the page, if the proposed changes are particularly over-the-top praise or something like that. I have no idea how one might be able to enforce such, but that is a separate matter entirely. John Carter (talk) 00:00, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• It goes a lot beyond talk page participation, which itself is problematic for reasons that have been discussed at length in the past. How about a situation in which a PR person comes to the Conflict of Interest noticeboard. He says, "I've helped Brand x put together some content for consideration by Wikipedia's editors at" a certain location. "The proposed article would change an 8-cite, 3 paragraph stub into a 40+ cite article that may be getting close to a GA, including expanding and adding several controversies and criticisms. I appreciate your time in advance in considering our content. Cheers." He's being perfectly OK, the flag is not touching the ground. People jump over each other to help this person build up the article in question. He helpfully steps in and edits the article, adding content like a good Wikipedia trooper. The article is currently under consideration for GA status. This is the sort of thing I'm talking about. It is really up to Jimmy Wales to determine if what I've described is acceptable or not. If it's acceptable then there is really no point in further discussion. Coretheapple (talk) 00:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• That is a great example, and thank you for it. Certainly, providing a wealth of material in what is (hopefully) a basically neutral manner about a marginally notable group or one with a bad article at the time would be very useful. Unfortunately, it might also be very POV. Ideally, maybe, this might be the kind of situation which WP:OTRS might be really good at dealing with, in terms of getting the editors there, or other trusted editors, to use material supplied by someone related to the subject of an article to use in the development of an article, and if there are enough editors who could be involved in that way to really help in this sort of matter, that might resolve it. Maybe, I dunno. John Carter (talk) 00:29, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• Could we just put a standard notice on the top of the article. It would attract editors specializing in enforcing neutrality as well as give some warning to the readers. In most cases expanding a stub into a normal article is of benefits to the readers Alex Bakharev (talk) 01:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Let me have an analogy here. For many years Wikipedia has been fighting SEO people who inserts thousand of spam links per day. I think a reasonably large amount of money is involed but I think we are winning the battle. We are winning not by trying to identify SEO-paid people among our editors are by enforcing our policy on external links, etc. Obviously, if we could prove somebody is paid by SEO firms we would block them, but it is their the major success is. Now we have somehow larger opponents - PR people. We could (and should) block people who are paid to violate our policies but the main effort should be directed to upholding the policies that PR people violate: WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:PEACOCK, WP:C. I think it has more chances to success.

Besides, we do not have a Zero-sum game here. PR people wants to put information regarding their subjects on wiki (often we have none). We also want this information (if it is notable, reliable, unbiased). So having good articles on their subjects would be in the interests of both parties. As an example we are interested in having articles on notable Gibraltar attractions and the government of Gibraltar is interested in it. If we knew that the article editors were paid we would probably still want those articles but we would want better scrutiny on them and their references from the main page. Could we achieve some compromise with the paid editors? E.g. they identify the COI themselves (opening their edits to additional scrutiny) and they do not edit war (so NPOVing the articles is not a pain for our volunteers). In exchange we do not block them if the COI is found. Alex Bakharev (talk) 00:56, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

That's probably a significantly better phrased and more carefully reasoned out variation on my proposal for OTRS above, and I think I could agree to it. It might help if perhaps we were able to get some sort of central discussion page/noticeboard for such input from PR people and article subjects as well. I know I've seen at least a few such discussions on noticeboards already, and rather welcomed them. John Carter (talk) 01:12, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Alex, you say PR people wants to put information regarding their subjects on wiki (often we have none). We also want this information (if it is notable, reliable, unbiased). So having good articles on their subjects would be in the interests of both parties. OK, but what if a PR person becomes the dominant voice on an article's talk page, and, by virtue of that (notwithstanding that his edits are executed by others), the dominant editor of an article? That's what's happening. Again, the ball is in Jimmy Wales's court. I don't want to just flap my gums here. Either he does something about these kinds of situations or arguing about it here is just venting and hence a ridiculous waste of time. Coretheapple (talk) 13:07, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

True. There's a risk to the quality of the encyclopedia, whether a PR person is dominating the actual editing of a page directly, or indirectly through the talk page. But we already have no shortage of single-issue fanatics dominating (or trying to dominate) certain pages - I'm sure everyone is aware of examples, whatever the field of articles they specialise in editing - and sometimes with quite adverse results. I can't see that PR people are worse than these editors for the quality of the encyclopedia merely because they're paid. I don't know what the solution is, but I'm fairly sure it doesn't lie in spending a lot of effort on policies and processes specifically aimed at keeping out paid PR editors. Barnabypage (talk) 15:06, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Hey guys, just to clarify - I thought AfC was the appropriate channel for someone with a COI to propose a new article. If there is a more appropriate path, can someone please let me know? CorporateM (Talk) 14:11, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I am pretty sure it still is. The problem (for you) is that some people want to outlaw what you are doing altogether as opposed to regulating it. I think they have a point. While COI editing in general is, and should be, regulated rather than outlawed, I doubt that the establishment of a commercial infrastructure around editing Wikipedia is in Wikipedia's interest. In the short term this may have benefits for everyone involved, if done ethically, but in the long term I am afraid the possible effects on the community may not be worth it. Hans Adler 15:28, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. I'll take a hint from Jimbo RE paid editors injecting themselves into the conversation and take a step back. CorporateM (Talk) 16:21, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Well... one more thing. I was talking to someone with expertise in this topic from a legal perspective last night - they said the Federal Trade Commission was very weak about enforcement of astroturfing regulations, but Attorney Generals are more likely to pursue enforcement; he said the way to get their attention would be to write to them asking them to draw attention to the issue. CorporateM (Talk) 16:27, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I, too, thought that AfC would be an appropriate venue for someone with a COI. I hope CorporateM will understand that there are some big issues to address, but I'd like to see clarification of this issue at some time.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 16:42, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

The problem of paid editing won't be solved without including the broader, and much more common issue, of unpaid POV pushing and personal attacks on biography and company articles. If I had a bio on Wikipedia, or my company had an article, and they were targets of the negativity and attack-style criticism I see all too often, you can bet I would pay professionals to make it right. The main method that is suggested to fix such issues seldom works ('oh, just mention the error on the talk page' — even that is being attacked by some people here). First Light (talk) 20:11, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

What concerns me is a narrower problem, one that is more self-contained then the endless and frustrating problem of POV pushing. What concerns me is the use of Wikipedia, very openly and above-board and in compliance with policies, for purposes of corporate image-building. Again, the question is whether we're concerned about that. Do we want Wikipedia content to be so directly and significantly influenced by the subjects of articles? Does it matter to us that John Smith, corporate executive, has a profile in Wikipedia that was created at the behest of John Smith's paid editor? Does it matter to us that, by having an article on John Smith, we are saying that he is more important that his competitor Sam Jones, who does not have a paid editor pushing his cause on Wikipedia? The tendency is to narrowly focus on "adding content" and "being sure the content is neutral and well-sourced" without seeing how damaging and wrong it is for Wikipedia's content to include such promotional content without disclosure to readers.

Sometimes even editors have trouble, looking at the talk page, determining the impact of COI editors in articles. In one real-life instance in which a COI editor was and IS the prime mover on the talk pages of a corporate article, I can only find one disclosure, on an archive page. There was an early article draft, but it has been deleted at the request of the COI editor, so it is not possible to determine the extent to which that article, on a rather controversial company, was influenced by the company.

Again, the question is, is this a desirable situation? Do we care? Does Jimbo Wales care? Coretheapple (talk) 20:31, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a painfully tricky one. My volunteer job with WMF and WMUK is largely PR from the WMF/WMUK side. And I liaise with good PR people who genuinely love Wikipedia and wouldn't want to mess it up, but would like their clients represented appropriately. So, meet the fractal nature of reality.

One way I find to square the circle is: is anyone actually looking at these pages? Often companies go "OH NO OUR WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE IS TERRIBLE" - but if it's had <100 views in the last month, that arguably doesn't constitute a PR problem.

In the general case, I very much concur with your concern. I will note that IMO, it helps a lot that the media and general public are way more rabid on this stuff than Wikipedia is - so we can say "well, it's in our rules, but the public will totally crucify you" - David Gerard (talk) 20:38, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

It's really a question of values and how Wikipedia wants to be perceived. I've said before that Wikipedia editors commonly are much more concerned about the p.r. needs of the subjects of articles then about the reputation of Wikipedia itself. The irony is that Wikipedia is sacrificing its reputation so flagrantly and not getting a cent! At least the publications that run advertorials and sponsored copy benefit financially by doing so. Coretheapple (talk) 20:51, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Coretheapple, "corporate image-building" is just another form of POV pushing. It's all part of the same problem. Until POV-pushing that attacks individuals and corporations is stopped, there will continue to be pushback from the individuals and corporations who find their WP pages being used as attack articles. Whether the editors are paid with cash to promote a positive view, or "paid" with the emotional high some people get from attacking someone, they are both POV-pushing and getting a perceived reward for doing it. First Light (talk) 21:26, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

If it's POV-pushing, then that's yet another reason to be concerned about it. Coretheapple (talk) 22:10, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, any POV pushing, whatever the motivation and payment, is something to be concerned about. The paid (in cash) variety is only a tiny fraction of the overall problem. First Light (talk) 00:08, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I said if it's POV pushing. It isn't always. I described the problem above, and I'm not going to repeat myself. The issues you raise are total red herrings. Coretheapple (talk) 04:18, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

No, POV pushing and COI editing are both part of the same essential conflict that paid editors have, and not red herrings. In fact, look up WP:Paid editing and you'll see it's on the COI page. First Light (talk) 15:41, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I'll add that I agree that something needs to be done, if it can, about any POV-pushing work-for-hire articles that have been exposed. But to ignore the revenge-editing (see User:Qworty) and attack-editing that I've come across several times would be taking the ammunition away from only one side of the dispute. Outlawing paid editing will only drive them underground. The only practical solution that has been suggested so far is to pay more attention to POV editing. First Light (talk) 16:05, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:OUTING / WP:COI

I indefinitely blocked the last PR person I encountered as they were trying to manipulate Wikipedia's medical content to their companies commercial advantage. I than had to put up with a couple of months of real life attacks by this nasty firm as they had docs on their pay role email my colleagues with me cc'ed to insult me professionally / attempt to put pressure on me to allow them to change Wikipedia. I am not easily intimidated; however, we need to do more to protect our editors from these sorts of folks / take a harder line toward these activities.

Supposedly if I would have published on this incident I would have been in violation of WP:OUTING and based on strict Wikipedia law could have been indefinitely banned myself. So what do we do about WP:OUTING? We need a clause that keeps it from protecting those who are being paid to be here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:54, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely agree. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 11:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Shocking and disgraceful. Coretheapple (talk) 13:26, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Monsanto: a case study

I am inspired by Jimbo's comment that made so much sense: part of the problem is that we all tend to stay in our own little corners, what we're aware of is then limited. So I want to share a bit of my experience and possibly elucidate what may be symptoms of the problem at hand. I am asking this be used as a case study to view this larger problem from the standpoint of one who builds and updates articles, from boots on the ground. My work at Wiki has always been pretty simple: I like to update articles and tend to stay very safe with my wording and use of sources, because I don't want any hassle. And I normally don't get any. In other words, I apply the guidelines properly and have never been in trouble EXCEPT when I come near a Monsanto-related article.

If someone were 'attacking' Monsanto (or any other company's) pages, the company could easily use the ticket system and get help. On the other hand, a lowly editor who is following all the rules, does not have this sort of help when the opposite is happening: the company's article(s) being whitewashed. If I want to address the problem, I have to figure out time-consuming and tedious noticeboards where I am inevitably drowned out by the very same editors who are causing the problem.

I found the March Against Monsanto article up for deletion a few days after the march took place at the end of May. I decided to find sourcing and build the article, thinking a 2 million person march certainly deserves one. Working on that article has been a maddening and completely loony experience, and it's continuing to this day. It's a daunting task to try and give you the whole story, I'll try to focus on just one example. I was the only editor working to build, rather than to trim, delete, argue, or minimize information about the event. I immersed myself for 4 days in every bit of media coverage I could find. I doubt there is any RS about the march that I haven't read. I simmered it all down and made a nice article. The entire thing has been obsessively worked on and changed to make prominent the idea "GMOs are completely safe and no one worth their salt has any doubt". Sections were rearranged so that this statement would be one of the first things you read. The introduction to the march origins, for example, were moved down and finally trimmed to the point of being unrecognizable and uninformative. It was turned into a refutation of the protesters' concerns and this was done by an incredible team of people. I mean, these people have their act together. They don't let even a minute pass by without reverting me (please look at the edit history just from today!). They seem to be an endless bunch, some do the dirty work of taking me to noticeboards, some are very polite, but in general, all seem in complete unison on every issue. And all - probably up to 15 folks - for the past three months blatantly misused a source to massively lowball the march turnout. This one single source stood alone when all others such as CNN, RT, LATimes, Yahoo, etc., used the protester's estimate of "2 million" attendees. The source was from a small media outlet and was published hours before the march had even begun in half of the world (this is a global march). The source claimed "200,000" people showed up. This is the same number media had been given by organizers as a projected turnout. I pointed out the obvious problem that this can't possibly be used to make a claim about turnout numbers over and over and over, on talk pages and when initially trying to edit the entries. In 3 separate Monsanto-related articles this source alone was used to make a claim that is found nowhere else on the web, that there was a 'range of estimates'. I was ignored and the rules governing proper use of sources were too, at Monsanto and Genetically modified food controversies as well as MAM, and by an astounding number of people. How could so many people all agree to something that is so wrong? I took this source to the RS noticeboard the other day, and no one disagreed with me. Even the one who entered the source to Wikipedia, Jytdog, agreed the author didn't know what they were talking about. Here is a big problem - it is too late. Wikipedia sat with this claim on three pages for three months. In July, the NYT published a sprawling piece about genetically modified oranges; it was probably 150+ lines, and the March Against Monsanto was mentioned in passing (one sentence) at the bottom of the article. The NYT used a "few hundred thousand" but did not give their source. Since the only place this number can be found through a search engine is here on Wikipedia, I have to assume we became the source for this number. Since the noticeboard (after feet were held to the fire), the editors all agree the first source was bogus, but now they are using this blurb in the NYT oranges article to maintain that media gave a range of numbers from a few hundred thousand. For the record, there was no estimate done by anyone but the march organizers - which is par for the course, media outlets don't put resources into investigating such things. Media had no problem citing organizers and moving on. In no RS will you find any talk of a range of estimates except here. Our editors are feeling perfectly comfortable second guessing RS and inserting their own doubts and leanings, regardless of whether they have sources that meet RS requirements or not. From the reactions at the RS noticeboard, it is obvious these editors knew all along it was wrong to use that source. And now we have rewritten history in favor of a very large company. Please let it sink in what this slight shifting of the facts means to Monsanto's image. Using sources properly, we can only state the number given by the organizers, citing them. It's fair to say "no independent estimates were made" too. But this has not been acceptable to any editor. They insist on adding the lowball number regardless of sourcing.

So what is uniting this group if it isn't the Wiki guidelines? If you were to guess what PR activity or image management might look like, would this be it?

Where is support for honest editors trying to use guidelines simply and appropriately on a page like this? I have never been taken to a noticeboard for my behaviour until working on this article. Three times they have tried to get me banned, all on false claims and always they failed. It is a wretched experience trying to work amongst these people. All the rules are thrown out the window, and I am standing alone. I don't know where to turn. It is an impossible undertaking to work on any Monsanto-related article unless you are in alignment with whatever MO they're operating under. Today i tried to remove the bogus source after consensus had been reached. Within 5 minutes I had been reverted three times by three separate editors, leaving the bogus source on the page and leaving me looking at another possible 3RR violation, unable to fix the page. This article gets 200 hits a day, yet we've got a team of editors ready to revert in seconds. Nothing resembling this happens at any other page I've edited. It is a wholly different experience. The three editors today had no regard for the noticeboard outcome. One I had never seen before, but noticed on their talk page a welcome note from the very guy who first tried to get me banned. The last one to show up hadn't made an edit in months, and the last edits were to this same article. It's like there are accounts being used when needed in order to keep others clean. There are obvious socks and there is obvious teamwork. I know that Wikipedia is being abused, as are the honest editors who try to edit/correct this page. I can't stress this last part enough. I am very close to giving up on Wikipedia because of what is happening with this crowd, and the fact that although I have spoken out numerous times, no one seems to care much and no one steps in to help.

Right now they are arguing on the MAM talk page that RT shouldn't be used as a source for the March. RT just so happens to be literally the only media outlet covering tomorrow's March, and was the most prolific source covering the last one. Just do a search for "March Against Monsanto", you'll see. Can you imagine how frustrating these endless games are for an editor? Now I'm looking at two more RS noticeboards: one for use of the oranges article, and now RT. Yet, I have a paying job that starts back up tomorrow.

Wikipedia is being taken over, and good editors are leaving because of it. So while you're looking at whether a certain PR firm is operating under the radar, I'm telling you this kind of activity can be seen by edits and talk page entries, by patterns of behaviour observed from ground level. We must be able to speak of the problem based on symptoms alone, untethered by a requirement to prove COI. We must have an easy way for someone like me to blow a whistle on ridiculously obvious BS such as with Monsanto articles, and to receive help, not to be asked to do this all alone, with little more than "good luck with your noticeboards". Thank you for hearing me out. petrarchan47tc 09:55, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I call upon the Wikimedia Foundation to issue clear rules to ensure that transgender people are treated with dignity

Wikipedia's article on Chelsea Manning has finally been moved to the name that Manning has stated is her name and the name that is used by most mainstream English language sources. This happened after much wrangling and resistance, which included moving the article back to Bradley, locking it there for 5 weeks, before finally moving it for the third time back to Chelsea. The process has provoked highly negative reactions in the real world. The case has demonstrated that the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't have policies in place that ensure that all living subjects of articles are treated with basic dignity and respect. The predominant view among those knowledgeable on the issue is that the refusal to recognise someone's gender identity and self-concept is immensely harmful to transgender people.

I call upon the Wikimedia Foundation as site owners to issue clear rules, as the foundation has done before, to ensure that transgender people are treated with dignity, in the spirit of its policy on biographies of living persons. The sooner this happens, the better. Josh Gorand (talk) 00:33, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

My god, just go away. You have done more to shoot in the foot the pro-Chelsea side of this whole affair than any of the other editors combined, and it is high time that the Arbcom case wraps up so you can be removed from this topic area permanently. Tarc (talk) 01:06, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

It's high time the Wikimedia Foundation stops editors like you from making these kind of comments. Josh Gorand (talk) 01:20, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps you should go back and actually read my comment you reverted from your talk page, genius. Tarc (talk) 02:02, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Tarc, your conduct in this matter has been reprehensible. Adding yet another personal attack (the sarcastic remark 'genius') is not helpful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I think given what happened, the subsequent ArbCom case and the imposed discretionary and general sanctions, this particular topic won't be a problem. Just like the climate change articles were no longer conflict areas after the ArbCom case on that subject. But you will still have similar issues on other topics. Count Iblis (talk) 01:31, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a problem in that it doesn't have rules that ensure that transgender people are treated with basic human dignity and not misgendered in article titles. For many years, it was believed Wikipedia had a policy mandating that articles respect a person's latest expressed gender self-identification. But the Manning debate ended that policy. Therefore it is necessary that the Wikimedia Foundation, as publishers of Wikipedia, take the necessary steps to ensure that the principles contained in the biographies on living persons policy also apply to transgender people. Josh Gorand (talk) 01:39, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

It would be a start if the WMF took the necessary steps to ensure that the principles contained in the biographies on living persons policy applied to people. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:53, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oh, for goodness sakes, ArbCom just wasted 1.5 million bytes of the community's prose on this very issue and the activist fringe still isn't satisfied. Then again, time is of the essence, since a topic ban is looming... Link Carrite (talk) 03:25, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

It is a mistake to read this as simply a transgender issue - the principle that should have governed this and other unrelated BLP cases exists only as a disregarded footnote (about something the WMF board once said) in WP:BLP. The policy itself once said Wikipedia articles should respect the basic human dignity of their subjects, but this was deleted in 2009 after a discussion involving four editors.

Timeline

• 2 July 2007 In the Badlydrawnjeff case, ArbCom enunciated the "Basic human dignity" principle: Implicit in the policy on biographies of living people is the understanding that Wikipedia articles should respect the basic human dignity of their subjects. Wikipedia aims to be a reputable encyclopedia, not a tabloid. Our articles must not serve primarily to mock or disparage their subjects, whether directly or indirectly. This is of particularly profound importance when dealing with individuals whose notability stems largely from their being victims of another's actions. Wikipedia editors must not act, intentionally or otherwise, in a way that amounts to participating in or prolonging the victimization.
• 24 July 2007 the principle was added to WP:BLP and reverted 11 minutes later with the edit summary, rv excess/redundant text ... Platitudes aside, what actual effect is that supposed to have on articles that is not already incorporated into this policy? and a brief talk page discussion among four editors.
• 9 January 2008 the principle was added back with edit summary, Inserting arcomm decision verbatim. See talk. If admins are supposed to enforce it, it should be in the publicly stated policy, and talk page comment, I've inserted the text of this Arbcom ruling into a new subsection. The Arbcom ruling made this de facto Wikipedia policy. For this reason, I believe it should be in the publicly-visible policy and available for community comment.
• 18 February 2009 Deleted with edit summary, merg Basic human dignity back into privacy section Reverted with edit summary, Undiscussed significant change of meaning; see talk page followed by a brief talk page discussion involving four editors, and final deletion.
• 15 June 2009 Talk page comments: Sorry to see that section has been removed. That seemed like a core principle to me. Dlohcierekim 02:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC) I heartily agree and think it was improperly removed by a single editor without much discussion - mostly opposing the removal. Smallbones (talk) 19:30, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

In April 2009, the Wikimedia Foundation published its resolution on BLPs that in part says we should take human dignity into account when adding or removing information. While most of that resolution is now unambiguously embodied in en.Wikipedia's policy, this point about human dignity is not. The nearest we come to it is "the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment." In the Manning naming dispute it was clear that a lot of editors exclude insulting or offending a person from their definition of "harm."

I think the current wording of WP:BLP deals well with blatant attacks but it doesn't cover demeaning, humiliating, insulting or other treatment that disregards our subjects' basic dignity. Though many editors here read into the policy (or the "spirit" of the policy) an obligation to take into account the dignity of the person concerned, without a clear expression of that obligation in the BLP policy those editors must, as was seen in this recent case, submit to editors who argue that we don't care about the feelings of our subjects and so trivial style regulations must always trump the dignity of our subjects.

This community needs to make an unambiguous statement as to whether it agrees with or repudiates the Arbitration Committee and WMF position that the dignity of our subjects should be taken into account in our editorial decision-making. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:06, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

That decision, which marked the precise moment at which Wikipedia editing began to decline, involved admonishing User:Badlydrawnjeff for attempting to create articles like Robyn Dawkins. The case is still described in our Babies switched at birth article, though I don't know how much was lost. It marked the beginning of an era of "BLP trumps everything", in which power shifted from those interested in putting things in to those interested in keeping things out - a perspective that makes politics wars and PR infiltration inevitable, because NPOV is stable when people share an ethos of including all the facts, but metastable when the situation is inverted.

What does "human dignity" mean? I think it must mean whatever you want it to. It's not a violation of human dignity, say, to propose Westgate shopping mall shooting for deletion because Wikipedia people think that major acts of terrorism aren't actually important if they're in Africa. But propose an edit or a fact that conflicts with somebody's politics... that's another matter. Wnt (talk) 06:48, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Obviously, editors who don't know what it means to take into account the dignity of our subjects should not involve themselves in such discussions. Editors who are confident they can recognise insulting, demeaning, humiliating or disrespectful treatment of a subject can decide on a case by case basis whether that treatment is justified by an overriding benefit to the encyclopedia. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:18, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Indeed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:10, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I suppose that the crux of the issue is: how big is actually the harm/insult/humiliation/disrespect in calling someone by a name they didn't choose? After all, one could say, 99% of us didn't choose their own name. I understand it is a much different case in the case of transgender people, where tuning of their public identity with their inner, real gender identity is the issue -however I think this is blown a bit out of proportion. I personally highly doubt that Chelsea Manning is irremediably humiliated and damaged every time she's called "Bradley" by news and websites. --cyclopia^speak! 12:59, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The problem with "case by case" is that it is not a collaborative rule. Case by case decisions can be made only by some individual in authority, someone with the self-confidence to declare that he can judge the degree of disrespect to be tolerated based on the circumstances as no one else can. Indeed, if that is the route we would like to pursue we ought to grant such personages formal copyright ownership of the work of the army of nobodies under their command, to ensure that its derivatives are not reworked in a way that might be unethical. I should assure you, to those of us who lack this degree of confidence in our work, it is quite a mystery why using a name used by many media outlets would be a concern for the policy, yet posting a big red banner over the article describing a recent massacre saying that it is being considered for deletion is not. (I actually lean slightly in favor of "Chelsea Manning", but I feel the BLP policy has added much heat and no light to what should be a dispassionate conversation) Wnt (talk) 15:12, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

We make collaborative decisions on judgment calls all the time here. If it isn't really clear to you that using Bradley is insulting, or if you think that reasonable people can't agree on the degree of insult and the degree of confusion the rename may cause readers and whether the latter justifies the former, then you aren't qualified to join the conversation, frankly. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:35, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

What is interesting is that this is the exact same controversy as we have had before involving the rating of "explicit" images. You think it is possible for a collaboration like Wikipedia to make subjective decisions balancing content against other priorities, as long as they're not made by the wrong people. Who are the wrong people? The ones who disagree with you... Wnt (talk) 19:35, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Your position, that we can't involve ourselves in judgments of whether content is insulting or offensive - to our subjects or readers - is based on the assumption that we all lack the necessary discernment. We don't. I know a good number here are completely lacking in such social sensitivity - far more than I encounter offline - but it is a mistake to assume that we all share that deficit. And it is a mistake to design our fundamental engagement with our readership and our subjects on the basis that "Oh, sorry, but no one here can judge offensiveness," and especially misguided to base anything on the premise that "We don't care if we offend our readers or subjects," (something many here trumpet without the lease hint of embarrassment). The former is autistic, and the latter is callous/psychopathic. I know we have a lot of those here - I'm praying it's not the majority and that the majority won't let the highly-dysfunctional basement-denizens set our tone when it comes to something as important as respectful dealing with our readers, subjects and each other - so far, though, the social misfits have the upper hand. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 23:52, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion such decisions everyone should be able to make. Social misfits are a small minority, and I'm sure that people can use their common sense when dealing with these issues. Respect and dignity is universal, although that doesn't seem to be the case here. Perhaps people on Wikipedia ought to think of what they would feel if someone, for example doesn't respect their gender. KonveyorBelt 23:59, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

And we should all be creative geniuses and look like movie stars. Sadly, life's not fair. The sense you're wanting people to exercise isn't universal. You ask people to imagine a feeling: It is really true that some people just can't feel how others would be affected by an insult, and more troubling, some can imagine it but think it's irrelevant. Really. And they brag about it. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:27, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Life's not fair, and neither is Wikipedia, apparently. Look up Robert Clark Young and half the article, including the lead, is made up of stuff about his Wikipedia editing that is of very little interest outside Wikipedia... but because editors use their discretion, case by case, you get the smell of whether Wikipedia muckety-mucks are ticked off at somebody or not. Meanwhile, it's been like pulling teeth to get in even widely publicized negative information about politicians. The way we should make these decisions is to follow the sources, faithfully going wherever they lead, stuffing our articles with all relevant information. Wnt (talk) 02:13, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

You can cite bad articles all day on every noticeboard the wiki has to offer but nothing will happen of it. It still requires some anonymous volunteer to clean it up. From the short time I've been at Wikipedia so far, I've gathered that most editors are involved with process than actually improving the article, and the chief place I've noticed it is at the Chelsea manning RM. Over 100 editors participated but yet after it was moved and unprotected only a few actually edited it. KonveyorBelt 02:32, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Well stated, Anthonyhcole. I like the way you framed the issue as a matter of BLP guidelines. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Don't feed the trolls. It just makes it worse

In response to Jimbo and "reprehensible"

I'll forgive you for being a bit behind the times as you're a busy man and all, but when you have a moment, peruse User:Tarc/Manning statement. I'm fully supportive of a transgender person's life choices, and of naming a Wikipedia article in-kind, but I was curious to see how arbcom would deal with a polite yet prejudicial argument against transgender recognition. They, un-surprisingly, dropped the ball. After years of keeping the lunatics at bay in the Obama articles, arguing in favor of dropping the misogynistic "wife of" from Sarah Jane Brown, or opposing (ultimately unsuccessfully) the depopulation of women authors from the novelists category, people around here shoulda caught on quicker.

Mr. Gorand though did a great, great disservice to the Chelsea-supporting side; his miserable, combative, shrill tone was one of the primary reasons that it all had to go to Arbitration at all. Tarc (talk) 12:46, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Do you really think this trolling scheme makes you look a better person ? Iselilja (talk) 12:50, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Or that it's at all believable? Formerip (talk) 13:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I look like a rather great person actually, my sense of self-worth has always been rather stratospheric. And FormerIP, what would I have to gain by that ? My section of the Arbcom stood at 2-7 against any sanction at all, so it wasn't like it an 11th hour punishment evasion or anything. I may even be in more hot water now by revealing it. Seriously, think before making such an absurd comment. Tarc (talk) 13:39, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

When I was in primary school, a common way out of having said something embarrassing was to claim you had said it as a joke. Even then, it didn't really work, it just made you seem even more ridiculous. Formerip (talk) 13:52, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Again, if the arbcom case was crashing around my ears and I was on the edge of imminent sanction, then you'd have a point. Or if it was close like the Muhammad case where I skated off by the skin of my teeth, you'd have a point. If I'd not said any of this, no one would be the wiser, and then its off to the next big wiki-drama. Trust me bro; neither "shame" nor "embarrassment" are in my dictionary. Tarc (talk) 14:02, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe that for a second. Maybe your dictionary is lacking an entry for "moderation", which would explain why, having made the miscalculation of backing team moron at the outset, you went in far too stridently to subtly shift your position as the debate progressed, like everyone else did. And why you were left feeling like a prize dick when the dust settled. Formerip (talk) 14:13, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Facepalm What part of "I had already won" are you confused by? Tarc (talk) 14:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The part where your nose started to grow longer. Formerip (talk) 14:22, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Calm down, Tarc. Here’s a crystal ball for you. FormerIP naturally knew all the all (as did we all) that you weren’t really conservative. He is just pretending he doesn’t, to make you drink your own troll medicine. Regards, Iselilja (talk) 14:31, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, if all FormerIP meant was "I am a WP:DICK", that could have been accomplished in 4 words. Brevity is the soul of wit and the essence of lingerie, after all. Tarc (talk) 14:56, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Write your own joke or pay Dorothy Parker a nickel. Carrite (talk) 15:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

If the Tea Party were to embrace ObamaCare, that would not make their past behavior leading to the government shutdown any better. Count Iblis (talk) 15:35, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

I and a couple of other editors who stood firmly against extremely discriminatory anti-trans speech a month ago (that was met with no sanctions at all) and continued to argue against wrong decisions, and who navigated Chelsea Manning's article safely back to Chelsea despite harsh resistance and attacks against ourselves, are the ones who might just have saved Wikipedia's honour. Whether editors like Tarc were serious or whether they were just perpetrating the biggest case of disruptive WP:POINT ever perpetrated on Wikipedia, as he now claims, when they made comments like these, doesn't matter. They lost, and they look bad. Immensely bad. And they are now taking it out on me, it seems. (I should also note that Tarc was one of the main culprits in creating an aggressively discriminatory atmosphere and a hostile climate in that discussion, and baiting good faith editors into getting enraged over comments comparing trans people to pigs doesn't make him look more agreeable, if his claims here are even true) Josh Gorand (talk) 16:09, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Josh, I didn't "lose" a thing. The move of the article back to "Bradley Manning" for a month was perhaps morally wrong but per policy of Wikipedia was sound, and that move (and the 30 day moratorium) were upheld by the Arbitration Committee. Tariqabjotu was not sanctioned for any of his actions, but Gerard received an admonishment. You are thankfully being removed from the topic area permanently. You were right about what the project should have done w.r.t. Chelsea vs. Bradley; the unfortunate side is that your ego and self-righteous grandstanding did far more harm to the entire affair than good. You're like what the Earth Liberation Front is to the conservation movement (and that isn't a compliment). Tarc (talk) 17:32, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The #1 rule of trolls is, don't feed the trolls. I'd suggest everyone just ignore Tarc and his rather epic trollfest, he's just relishing the attention even more and it makes him even more smug.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:38, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Coming from the editor who tried to hijack the Sarah Jane Brown and Hillary Rodham move requests with misogynist antics a few months ago, we can safely conclude that your opinion is valued somewhere south of zero. Tarc (talk) 18:15, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Please don't make personal attacks (on Jimbo's talk page, no less). Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 18:38, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

There is no attack, just an assessment of what this user did in previous gender-oriented pagemove discussions. Obiwan's actions are well-documented in the talk page archives of Sarah Jane Brown and Hillary Rodham Clinton, respectively. The latter he even tried to close himself, despite a) being a non-admin and b) having a clear conflict-of-interest. Fun times. Tarc (talk) 18:48, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

As I said Konveyor, Tarc is an admitted troll, so you can safely ignore whatever he says, in whichever forum. He delights in riling people up and then watching their reactions. The fact that he doesn't even know what Misogyny or conflict of interest means, nor did (or could) he ever articulate how these terms might apply to my carefully considered close of Hillary Clinton, is evidence enough that he's not worth the time or the energy.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Both words were explained to you quite exhaustively in each discussion. Your lack of comprehension is not a concern of mine, and it sounds simply like someone's still a bit bitter after going 0-for-2, despite your spirited harassment admins involved in those closes. Tarc (talk) 21:50, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

You can't win Tarc. If you strike him down, he shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:52, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Tarc should stop using the dark side of the Force. Count Iblis (talk) 20:55, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

But who can resist the Dark Side? Especially when it has cookies ? Tarc (talk) 21:50, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Conspiracy is ever a possibility, while flat stupidity is quite ever a greater probability. What trumps the cold examination of facts is that conspiracy leads more than often to a better looking story: se non è vero, è ben trovato. Rewrite Josh Gorand as a right-wing troll trying to depict some advocacy group with a deprecative brush and you obtain a far more convincing story. Another example is the process that expelled the self-made woman Sarah Brown from her birth name, renamed her --2007/05/26-- as Sarah Brown (actress) and ended --2013/06/21-- into Sarah Joy Brown. Look at it as a troll and everything finds its place. Even now the main picture of the Sarah_Brown_(wife_of_Gordon_Brown) article is croped from a "Sarah and Gordon picture at the 10's door" (featuring George and Laura), and the other picture is "Charity Brown Nursing the Poor BLP Minister". Moreover, the infobox teach us that Charity Brown has been fired and replaced by Charity Samantha Cameron (don't tell she may be David's wife!). A question remains: what was/what is the target of the Brown's troll? The BLP as a whole? The Charity Brown's advocacy group? The WMUK Charity? The infamous infoboxes' advocacy group? Could it be a multi-card troll? Pldx1 (talk) 10:30, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Google Trends

FWIW, "Bradley Manning" is still the most commonly name used name.[6] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

What that shows it that it's the more commonly searched-for string on Google. Which is interesting but not very. Formerip (talk) 14:51, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, and did you know COMMONNAME doesn't have to be the MOST common name? I was just reading that. And then reading this. __Elaqueate (talk) 17:21, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion moving "Bradley Manning" to "Chelsea Manning" is as absurd as the new California law that allows transgender schoolkids to choose which restroom and locker room they use. I mean it's OK to allow a biological boy who underwent sex reassignment therapy to use girls restroom, but it is not how the law is going to work. According to the law a child will be allowed to use the facilities of his/her choice "Once a discussion among the student, the family and school officials takes place". The same with Chelsea Manning, why not to wait until Bradley Manning will physically become Chelsea Manning and then rename the article? After all Bradley Manning could still change his (her?) mind. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 18:04, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Changing your gender is a monumentous decision, and not really one which you can "change your mind". Give Manning her dignity and accept she wants to be a woman. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 18:17, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Just as a neutral information, Konveyor Belt, you indeed can change your mind on gender reassignment, sometimes with tragic consequences: [7]: According to studies in America and Holland, around one in 20 post-operative transsexuals changes his or her mind after surgery, and around one in ten never adjusts and often becomes deeply depressed. --cyclopia^speak! 13:10, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that article's from 1993. Even with more recent numbers, I've read that of the less than five percent who have trouble, it's not all strictly regret issues: some have it for non-satisfaction with the quality of medical care, rather than the the surgery itself (those are sometimes quite tragic stories), or also from continued stigma issues, which are socially-, not surgery-caused. __Elaqueate (talk) 17:43, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• It is considered an invasion of privacy (medical) to demand medical evidence of sex changes. -Wikid77 18:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Where is Kate Middleton now: In many places, the name "Kate Middleton" is well-known, but I imagine there are few who could state the new formal name as "Catherine,..." and yet the article was renamed immediately. I think that is the major point, when a person has an attorney make a formal statement of name change. -Wikid77 18:23, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

AQFK is well-aware that if "but google!" is a failed argument in deletion discussions when determining a subject's notability. it fares no better here when discussing what an article title should be. A superficial, lazy argument. Tarc (talk) 18:25, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

If you do a Google news search, "Bradley Manning"[8] outnumbers "Chelsea Manning"[9] by roughly 3-to-1. So no matter how you slice or dice it, "Bradley Manning" is still the most commonly used name. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:49, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Except that this situation clearly isn't just a numbers game. I, JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 20:00, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

This situation is no different from any other situation. We should use the most commonly used name. How do you think we should determine the most commonly used name? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:11, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

A Quest For Knowledge, drop the stick. There have been arguments about this since August 22nd, ARBCOM is finishing up their proposed decisions, the article was moved to Chelsea Manning yesterday...in other words, this dispute is winding down. Now is not the time to continue to argue. By and large, the matter has been settled. I think 8 weeks of discussion (and blood-letting) about this is enough. Time to put in place procedures to address future cases like this when they arise so this won't all have been for naught. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:22, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

The dead horse has been by far beaten quite to smithereens. Just drop the issue. Konveyor Belt express your horror at my edits 20:54, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Guys, in a civil debate, explaining why you disagree with someone is fine. Telling someone you disagree with to "shut up" as one or more of you are effectively doing above is insensitive, demeaning, and insulting. Please don't do it. There is no room for it on Wikipedia. Just politely say why you disagree and please leave it at that. Cla68 (talk) 00:45, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure if you had to listen to the same argument 20 times over you'd feel the same way. KonveyorBelt 15:46, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

OK. I guess I'm just sensitive to the need to honor diversity, including diversity of opinion, and us being careful not to "other" editors with different opinions. Cla68 (talk) 01:45, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

It is perhaps telling that KonveyorBelt doesn't have a response. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:42, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Wow, egotistical much? Some people have better things to do with their day than camp out on Jimbo's talk page furiously slamming F5 to see what latest wiki-morsel has dropped from your fingers. The absence of a retort is does not validate your opinion. Tarc (talk) 14:07, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with "diversity of opinion". Google hits are not an appropriate reason for a !vote, and especially not when the same editor has pushed them around in most of the discussions. KonveyorBelt 16:54, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

I am surprised by the number of people who opposed the name change to Chelsea... and more so by their logic. (Not surprised by Tarc's trolling btw, that was the one thing constant with the rest of Wikipedia's function and my world-view on things around here). Clearly the entire conversation should have been ruled by WP:BLP, which ultimately exists for us to not get in legal hot water about with libel laws, and secondarily so we don't "hurt feelings". Clearly if someone changes their gender, and especially if they change their legal name... calling them by a different name gets very close to a gray area, and BLP has existed in a manner to keep us WELL AWAY from any gray areas; in my opinion- this, especially when in combination with a change in gender, got us waaaaaaaaay to close to the gray area of legality. Individual editors can not "like" California law regarding transgender or other specific laws regarding gender identity, but Wikipedia doesn't get involved with what laws we like and don't like. As an employer I know in my state I can not go around referring to one person as a certain gender when they identify as a different gender, that would be sexual harassment. We must realize that Chelsea serves in a male prison only because laws identify for incarceration purposes gender is determined by "penis or no penis" regardless of anything else, including genetics and secondary sex characteristics such as breasts, hermaphrodites even go to male prisons (at least in Colorado they do for now, Jose Ruiz/Jasmine Martinez is suing to change that), but as far a I know we don't classify all hermaphrodites as males on Wikipedia (perhaps a guideline on this issue?). I'm disappointed in Wikipedians who thought it would not be a BLP violation to determine for someone what their gender identity is... especially since we are extremely careful on religion, race, ethnicity, and nationality not to call someone as something other than strictly what that person themselves identify as.Camelbinky (talk) 16:33, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Pharma companies exempt from Bright Line Rule?

Jimbo, one of Wikipedia's admins who also happens to be a doctor working on WikiProject:Medicine said the following:

"Dear Pharma Companies... we advise you to employ a Wikipedia editor if you want to make sure only evidence-based information is included in entries about your own products. Appointing someone from within your company as a 'spokesperson' in Wikipedia who would perform all edits on behalf of the company is an excellent way to update those entries."

Are we to assume that Dr. Bertalan Meskó is interpreting your Bright Line Rule somewhat loosely, or is there an exception for pharmaceutical companies, because of their expertise in ensuring evidence-based information? - 68.87.42.110 (talk) 20:51, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

In practice, there is no "bright line rule". The community decided that it's OK for BP's public-relations department to draft substantial portions of our coverage of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. ArbCom decided that it's OK for employees of the Transcendental Meditation movement to insert (often highly dubious) claims about the health benefits of TM into our articles. (Frankly, the way that the TM editors spin the medical literature to promote their product is virtually analogous to the way drug reps use the literature to sell their wares). This is a natural consequence of the precedents we've set—or more accurately, failed to set—for dealing with conflicts of interest. Why would you expect a pharmaceutical company to show greater restraint than we've demanded in the BP or TM cases?

(Separately, I don't think Bertalan is saying what you think he's saying. I think he means "employ" in the sense of "work with" rather than "hire and pay a salary", but you might wish to ask him for clarification directly). MastCell ^Talk 02:29, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

While I agree with you of course about some errors that have been made in the past, but I encourage you not to say things like "In practice, there is no 'bright line rule'." Such a statement will be twisted by people who do not agree with you to suggest that you think that it's ok for POV pushers to edit Wikipedia articles directly. A better statement might be "Going forward, we should begin to vigorously enforce the "bright line rule" as a bare minimum expectation of behavior from editors with a financial conflict of interest, including big Pharma, big Oil, employees of religious movements, etc." Don't give up the good fight - make it consensus that we will do the right thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:11, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Currently we have only WP:NOPAY that says If either of the following applies to you:...then you are very strongly discouraged from editing Wikipedia in areas where those external relationships could reasonably be said to undermine your ability to remain neutral. It is not exactly a bright line rule. Everybody caught in pay editing can say that a) it is not forbidden but only discouraged, b) they believe the external relations did not affect their ability to make neutral edits (experienced wikipedians know how to make biased edits that appear to be neutral). So we either have to make the changes to the policy ASAP or admit that we do not have the bright rule regarding paid editing. In my own opinion if we at least make a bright line that any potential COI must be acknowledged then it will be helpful and enforceable Alex Bakharev (talk) 23:38, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• user:NCurse has not been very active recently, and has not interacted with WikiProject Medicine for over a year, so it's a bit misleading to describe him as a "doctor working on WikiProject:Medicine". The ideas he stated in that post are not consistent with what most members of WPMED would view as good practices. Looie496 (talk) 19:59, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, and there is no "pharma" exception to the bright line rule.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:08, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Bearing in mind that you are speaking of a bright line "rule" and not actual governing policy or guidelines of the encyclopedia... Carrite (talk) 00:44, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

WikiProject Med Foundation] is here to collaborate with organizations that share our goals. The pharmaceutical industry, unfortunately at this point in time has made it clear that they do not. There is no official collaborations and I personally have declined offers. I am not for sale at any price. I am happy to investigate any cases people come across. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:33, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

semi-protect for a short time?

Would any lurking admins consider semi-protecting Jimbo's talk page for a short duration? Indef-blocked User:Colton Cosmic is making one of his monthly sock-puppeting visits to pester for an unblock. Tarc (talk) 16:45, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Reading his posting here, it seems to me that he intended to let that be his last statement here, the revert war was about him wanting to let that last message here stand for a while. Since all the previous postings by him were tolerated by Jimbo, I see no harm in letting that posting by him stand. Semi-protection comes at the cost of other IPs not being able to post here. Count Iblis (talk) 16:56, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Blocked users endlessly returning to sock do not have right to leave parting shots/messages outside of their own user page. This user has been given the instructions on how to appeal the block via off-wikipedia means. That is their only recourse. Tarc (talk) 17:44, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• I'm lurking but I see no reason not to let Jimbo decide for himself if he wants to keep it or not. (Note that I am also not inclined to block the IP for block evasion etc. This one message isn't trolling or any other violation, IMO. When they start putting penises all over Tarc's user page is when I'll block.) Drmies (talk) 17:56, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Is Why don't you go back to teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, Gollum? This is C o l t o n C o s m i c. 1:53 PM, EST. sufficient? It's just another troll who can't handle the fact that they have been shown the door, nothing more. Tarc (talk) 18:21, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Well dammit--I was going to show you that I am of good will and can be abusive on demand, but someone else beat me to it. Ah well. Still, you can't blame them for being pissed at you. Drmies (talk) 18:27, 10 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unpenised and unabusive comment added by Drmies 18:27, 10 October 2013 (UTC) - BegoonBot ^talk 18:56, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
      • For the last few days I was reading this page I couldn't help wondering if Wikipedians including the Wikipedia co-founder Jimbo Wales (who still hasn't bothered to comment on this topic) are more concerned about socks of blocked accounts posting here than about fascists, racists, and maybe even pedophiles editing Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.4.37.209 (talk) 01:58, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
        • Thing is, people are blocked for not being able to edit here without causing problems. It doesn't matter if you are a pedophile, fascist, racist or a model citizen, you only get blocked if you don't behave well here. A sock is thus a priori more of problem for Wikipedia than a pedophile. Count Iblis (talk) 03:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
          • Actually I see it differently. For instance there's nothing that prevents Wikipedia's pedophiles, or slightly odd for that matter, from contacting unsuspected kids-users using Wikipedia's email function. On the other hand whistleblowers who expose such behavior get blocked. The same applies to exposing users who participate in such racist forums as stormfront and to exposing bullies. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 15:53, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
            • The problem here is similar to what one faces in free democratic societies. You can't put people in pre-emptive detention. There is always going to be some pressure from society to try to do something about people that are seen to be a potential threat to society. But it turns out that a system that allows for action to be taken on such grounds leads to human rights abuses, which then leads to factional violence. Wikipedia is like our society a free social system and this then also vulnerable to the same problem. The solution is to adopt the analogue rules we have in society for dealing with criminals. Count Iblis (talk) 16:16, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
              • Well, I've got a different impression: Wikipedia is nothing like our, I mean Western, society. Wikipedia is just a crocked-mirror reflection of our society in each and every mean, including treating people,respecting human rights, and dealing with known criminals. 24.4.37.209 (talk) 14:10, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
• If Jimbo can found Wikipedia, he's probably competent enough to know what and what not can be put on a talk page. Let him control his own page. And if Colton cosmic wants to edit through a sock, I say give him some rope. Chances are he'll end up getting blocked for ducking and trolling talk pages. KonveyorBelt 03:28, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Wrap-Up on Block Appeal to Founder

This is a FYI courtesy to those who read here a week-and-an-half ago and prior to that about my unblock case, and I suppose a parting shot to Jimbo. I was falsely and abusively (no warning, no explanation) blocked for socking in May 2012. Since then, but not before, I have indeed block evaded, like this post essentially. Anyone who says editing by IP while clearly signing with your one and only user-name is "socking" is just twisting words around. On the other hand I plead guilty any day of the week to "block evasion," which is justifiable in clear cases of administrative abuse. About 45 days ago, Jimbo agreed to hear my appeal. We exchanged emails. Mine is a WP:CLEANSTART account, I switched for the online privacy and harassment rationale authorized by that policy. After the block, several admins and arbs, notably Silktork, made disclosure of my prior account the key criterion to be unblocked. If you think about it though, that would in no way prove I didn't sock. It does nothing except satisfy their curiosity and give them another account to plug into checkuser. In my opinion there's a sickness in Wikipedia's "sock puppet investigation" personnel, what some of these guys are doing is really sublimating their cyber-stalking impulses. "Hand over your prior account or stay blocked" demands are coercive and have no basis in policy, so I consistently resisted that, until Jimbo said the same thing, promised confidentiality (which no-one prior to that had) and I thought well, okay, this is Jimmy Wales. Silly me.

Jimbo, I won't quote your email publicly but I just reread it and in two ways you clearly suggested that if I told you my prior account, and it proved to be non-problematic, you'd favorably treat my block appeal. Wikipedians, I did just that, and it was, and my reward from founder is nothing more than a big fat "suckah!!!" He says, okay you told me, now you have to tell Arbcom, all 12 of them, whomever else is on the list, and whomever will ever be on it due to the fact they keep an archive. I said, but the account checked out, this was not our arrangement, but I'm like Lando Calrissian protesting Darth Vader's brand of deal-making by this point. Jimbo, I edited Wikipedia for years, authored plenty of stubs and articles, even sent WMF a charitable donation once. You want to dismissively handle me, not even explaining your move, I guess that's your authority, but I give you a public thumbs-down, a cyber raspberry, and I warn off those in the future who think they're liable to get a square deal out of you, "sole founder" (New York Times). All, what's my Wikipedia future? Well, as a matter of policy, I think any administrator at all can still unblock me. I was never the subject of Arbcom sanctions, or blocked by an oversighter on secret stuff or anything like that. It's just been a string of "appeal declineds" up and down the line, including now one by founder. You may now rest on the assurance that Jimbo has examined my previous account and found it warn, block, and sanction-free. But as a matter of survival and keeping your bit, you'd indeed risk the ire of some arbs, and the dingo pack at WP:AN/ANI. In closing, fellow Wikipedians, best regards, I don't know but after Jimbo's decline I guess you have heard the last of me. This is C o l t o n C o s m i c. 9:23 AM, EST. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.254.161.23 (talk) 17:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• Tarc, let Jimbo decide if he wants to keep it, OK? He's a big boy. Drmies (talk) 17:52, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, the rant is instructive of why the ban will remain in place.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:07, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Izzatafact, god-king? This is C o l t o n C o s m i c. 4:38 PM, EST. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.226.1.57 (talk20:49, 10 October 2013 (UTC)‎

• Perhaps edit other-language wikipedias and wait for improvement: Colton, if I had the admin bit, I would consider unblocking after an agreement to tone down the complaints. However, I think Jimbo often has to work with support of Arbcom and that is why a few more people should know the background (if it could be kept secret). Anyway, when I have been blocked, I have worked on the other-language wikipedias (with different usernames), and they still need massive help from capable people. Hence, rather than be frustrated by a block, consider it a chance to learn more about the other languages. Intelligent people often use some repeated patterns of language idioms which allow easy updates in other languages, even if not totally fluent, where a certain amount of "rote phrases" can still help expand information for other languages. However, I share the concerns about punishment for sock-puppetry, as I have also been blocked when using a different username for privacy concerns. WP really needs to focus on "proportional punishment" and stop pretending that punishment is not an issue, because it has allowed some users to get away with massive violations because they are "not harming" the 'pedia, whereas applying "equal punishment" for violations would re-balance the consequences for improper actions. Unfortunately, many people do not "think big" and realize how the wiki-peculiar culture has bizarre consequences, which could be avoided by following more real-world practices, such as measured sanctions for each policy violation by issuing demerit points (to anyone) until the cumulative count reaches a threshold to issue a block. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:07, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Colton, there's one common thread to what people have been telling you forever: quit while you're ahead and follow the proper process. Yes, you may believe the original block was improper. The community (and Jimbo) have now time and time again found otherwise. So, even if you were wronged, your best way back in is to play the hand you were dealt. That means no socking, and following WP:OFFER to the letter. Whether the block - and your subsequent ban - were valid have become irrelevant in the mind of the community as a whole. That's now a fact of life, and it's a factor of the nature of a community and its concept of consensus. When you signed up, you AGREED to live by those concepts. Yes, if you were blocked wrongly, then it sucks, and you feel crappy because of it. However, you have appealed and appealed, it's now time to live by what the rules you agreed to - maybe you want to watch the Shawshank Redemption once or twice. Making parting shots, editing as a sock ... these ALL led to proving to the community that you were not ready to be a part of it - you proved them RIGHT, instead of proving them WRONG. So ... it's up to you to suck it up and fix it, and the only way to fix it is to get over what you perceive to be wrong, and follow the damned rules ... no matter how distasteful it seems. ES&L 12:08, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Writing tools which people want

All the turmoil about the VisualEditor has reaffirmed a major aspect of software development: write tools which the users want, not something imagined to be useful. After removal from the top menu, when VE became an opt-in feature under Special:Preferences, the usage has dropped to almost 0%, as about 2-to-5 edits per thousand. Although there has been much anger about the WMF decisions, I want to emphasize how writing of unused software has been a common problem in other computer systems for decades. Many computer people often zone-inward (in a form of "navel gazing") to focus intensely on problems which many people do not think are important. I recently read comments about the old wikitext source editor being a convoluted implementation, and then thought, "Oh no, I hope they don't rewrite the typical wikitext editor to run like VE!". Of course, wp:edit-conflicts are a real, major problem in common talk-pages, or busy hot-topic articles, but unless developers think like users, they would rather sub-optimize the ultra-mega-gadgetry which they see, everyday, rather than upset their worldview by focusing on needs of users. Again, it is not an exclusive problem of WMF but rather an "age-old" problem in the development of computer technology. Anyway, based on those issues, I am wondering: what can be done to get the Foundation to focus on writing tools which people want? -Wikid77 (talk) 04:47, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

As you note, VE has essentially gone Hindenburg — buggy software was forced upon users and it was rejected. Is there anything salvageable from the effort? That remains to be seen. The unfortunate thing is that WMF seems to have failed to learn from its mistakes and is intent upon remaking the wheel for talk pages with their so-called "Flow" software. Rather than working out software issues through testing and then road-testing the beta in an out-of-the-way corner of the multi-language Wikipedia project, will they once again rush to impose bad software upon En-WP? I have very grave misgivings. Carrite (talk) 16:16, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

That seems a valid concern, as WMF has a track record of long-term momentum to push its agenda of re-inventing the wheel, regardless of resistance. The response to the VE RfC, to make-VE-opt-in, did sound like, "So anyway, here is the next forced VE upgrade" and at that level of wp:IDHT, then there is little evidence of any change in other plans. Of course, similar problems have occurred with local transition to Lua script modules, as mostly re-inventing the same templates, with little innovation for new ideas. -Wikid77 12:57, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

A while back on VP there was a thread asking about HTML signatures. Someone promptly responded "we are working on a fix for that with Flow". And I almost wanted to say, "No, the WMF is trying to shove a fix down our throats, the same as with VE." Projects like VE and Flow are shortsighted missions intended to revamp a system that was never broken. Rather than waste time and money on such projects, why couldn't the WMF just fix the current system and get rid of a lot of bugs? It sure seems like a lot better solution than the massive failure that was VE. KonveyorBelt 16:39, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps the best plan would be to expect the worst, and be prepared, this time, to quickly bypass wp:FLOW when there are numerous problems, rather than everyone drop all plans for the month and focus on bugfixes to make FLOW as useable as VE was. Fortunately, VE could be/was ignored by over 94% of users, eventually by 99.7%, but perhaps the plans to force use of FLOW will be more strict, and there will be a greater need for "talk-page lifeboats" to allow users to still discuss issues, without garbled nowiki-tag phrases or FLOW cratering and losing messages which were "too large" to save. Meanwhile, it seems as though Wikipedians are able to create some valuable tools, even if smaller, but at least provide some new functionality. -Wikid77 12:57, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Reading between the lines, it sounds like they are planning to "roll out" Flow on a piecemeal basis rather than flipping a switch and making it the default for all talk pages. If true, this is a correct approach. It may be that Flow turns out to be a perfectly fine thing for big "hot" talk pages (Lady Gaga, etc.) but is an enormous thorn for the 99% of the talk pages with little traffic outside the hardcore Very Active Editors — just for example — and being able to use the tool where appropriate and not use it where inappropriate (think: Pending Changes) seems critical. VE was not only a programming debacle but an enormous tactical error — they could have been tweaking and perfecting and smoothing the thing out for two years in some limited place on a Non-English, Non-German Wikipedia, building a real world case that it a product that works AND builds the editor ranks. Instead they went with the premature mass roll out in the harsh light of English-WP and mandatory default status for a very buggy beta product. The mind reels at who thought that was a good idea... Carrite (talk) 16:15, 12 October 2013 (UTC)