User talk:Jimbo Wales

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"I actually hate it here"

"I actually hate it here." said yet another Wikipedian, administrator who started editing Wikipedia in 2007. He said: "I actually hate it here." and retired. So, Jimbo, I wonder if you're concerned at all that sooner or later toxic editing environment and bullies would take over the site you have worked so hard on?71.202.123.2 (talk) 16:43, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

As a recipient of plenty of it myself, yes, of course I do. At the same time, it is important to understand that there are huge swathes of Wikipedia editing which take place in a lovely and congenial atmosphere.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:41, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree that some editing is taking place in a lovely and congenial atmosphere, but lovely and congenial atmosphere is shrinking while poisoning atmosphere is growing. Wikipedia is still loosing editors, and you could make a difference.71.202.123.2 (talk) 18:40, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it is clear that there is any directional shift at all. Certainly people have been coming to this page for about a decade lamenting the loss of the good old days. A common human affliction. At the same time, it is always worth looking at specific problems and trying to draw principled general conclusions. But usually when anon ips show up to authoritatively state that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, things get pretty thin when specific examples are requested.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:37, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree, by dint of personal experience and also re the cases of people I know who have left and why; I wrote my response to you about this in a separate section below here.Skookum1 (talk) 06:57, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

If you're an admin, you've got to expect to be tossed into all of the acrimonious debates, wrestle the evil-doing bad guys to the ground with all the force of our guidelines and policies, deal with spammers and other miscreants - and all of the other political nonsense that goes along with it. If, on the other hand, you want to improve the article about Red squirrels (which is the first article I ever edited back in January 2006!) - you'll have a peaceful, fun existence and get the warm fuzzy feeling that you've improved the world by helping to create the largest repository of human knowledge known to mankind. 99% (at least) of articles here are great places to work - but (sadly) the admins are not needed in those place - so their stress levels are high and they see only the worst. We should back our admins - understand their stress - thank them when we can and sympathise when wiki-PTSD strikes and takes one down. SteveBaker (talk) 18:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

You're right. in general. However if you look at the what appears to be 'the straw that broke' here it was a copy-edit, editing dispute over, get this, Ancient history. This being a wiki, one can surly get fed-up with negotiating such things -- but in the end, it's a wiki. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:38, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

It probably doesn't help matters that we're down to only about 600-700 allegedly active admins for an increasing workload of articles, IP vandals, disputes, ANI, etc., etc., etc., more rules on admin behavior, and then the fear (as we saw with the Kafziel case) that doing the right thing will get you drawn and quartered at arbcom if you happen to cross a persistent user with a personal fiefdom out for blood when poked at. --ColonelHenry (talk) 22:21, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

What's remarkable, ColonelHenry, is looking at Wikipedia's history...I saw some RFAs where editors were moved on to admin status after editing for six months! And some after just three months! And some of those admins are still at work today. But 8 years ago, Wikipedia was growing and there was a press to increase the admin corps and a lot of people who were judged capable were drafted. Now, the prospect of going through an RFA is daunting, years of varied experience in all areas of editing is expected AND you can't have made any major mistakes and have baggage. It's become ultra selective and I understand why...but unless things change, the numbers will just keep decreasing as there is always attrition. Liz 03:22, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• I agree with natural attrition, but I consider it entropy...like the heat death of the universe.--ColonelHenry (talk) 16:49, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

• ...but Oppose votes in RfAs are acts of choice — vigorous and uncoerced. --Ori.livneh (talk) 06:09, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

• Many Wikipedia hostilities reflect the real world: (edit conflict) I have come to appreciate "Jimbo's Wikipedia" as not just the "sum of all human knowledge" but also "some of the hostile ways in which knowledge is squelched" and perhaps the 2nd issue is just as important in what Jimbo has emphasized for the world. The "enemy at the gates" is not just amassing along the borders of the Ukraine. The problem is not just high-priced books and journals, but also people actively trying to suppress other information, as when told not to edit their company page, then some of them reduce the competitors' pages. Beyond the history of "book burning" or "Fahrenheit 451" I have met quite a few wp:TfDs ("Template for Da burning") as well. Someone even told me that wp:edit-conflicts which derail quick edits were a minor issue, rather than the primary reason it is difficult to get a classroom of 20 students to all expand the same new article. Wikipedia is being thwarted by invented limitations, at many levels, including the underlying MediaWiki software. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:25, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

• I think it's worth considering that Wikipedia isn't in a vacuum here. See http://www.vice.com/read/how-corporate-lobbyists-use-the-internet-to-destroy-democracy (an article which specifically references Wikipedia) which alleges that Westbourne Communications ...engages in aggressive rebuttal campaigns, which involves creating a feeling among opponents that everything they say will be picked apart. This is an “exhausting but crucial” part of successful lobbying... If this is true, I don't think by any means this company is unusual among PR firms in doing so. Wikipedia rules have made it so that people are called out on the carpet for merely speculating when someone might be doing such a thing, but I suspect many of us cross paths with this sort of thing often. The article talks about it being used against activists, but what we too easily forget is that Wikipedia's goal of providing impartial knowledge to all is one of the most activist causes there is. Wnt (talk) 02:19, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, the bad people are certainly driving the good people away. The underlying problem is that what worked when Wikipedia new doesn't work now......what enabled building it when it was new back then now enables destructive sociopaths, mob violence, and a random and destructive system of "policing". North8000 (talk) 02:28, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

The underlying problem is that Wikipedia started with a lot of people building content but not much accumulated content. Now it receives a huge amount of traffic to these cumulative resources and is in a position to control a large amount of content, and various factions are fighting over that power. The key here is to shatter that power, to make it so that a lot more people have the right to make content (including the ability to search that content) accessible in a global encyclopedic framework. Wnt (talk) 02:35, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

"Sociopaths," "mob violence"? No, it's just anonymous people working without pay. When it stops becoming interesting it becomes drudgery and I can understand why that person lost interest. Coretheapple (talk) 04:08, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

If that person would have just lost interest he would not have said "I actually hate it here". There's a huge difference between "losing interest" and "hating" the place. Besides that person's retirement is only one example of many.71.202.123.2 (talk) 05:17, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

He's welcome to explain what he meant. Coretheapple (talk) 13:16, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Two related thoughts made are worth repeating. I read the opening posts the other day, and walked away thinking about them, which led me to some of the thoughts expressed by user:North8000. It is well-known in the busines community that the set of skills needed for a start-up are not the same as the set of skills appropriate to manage a mature company. I wasn't here during the startup phase, but I've read enough of the hisotory to see the differences. Some long for a return to those days, but that isn't going to happen. We have to recognize that we are moving into middle age, and act accordingly. User:Wnt also makes an important point: in the early days, it was all about building content. While we are still building content, we have so much content, that we need ever increasing resources dealing with maintenance issues, which frankly, aren't as exciting.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:03, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I think that some of the most important fundamental changes are:

• Wikipedia has become much much much more influential. So much much much more is to be gained or lost (and is at stake) by what it is an article and how it is written. So instead of the dominant kumbaya mission of "let's build an encyclopedia" dominating the psyche, POV interests and other interests have become much stronger and more prevalent.
• The vagueness, and lack of carefulness of the rules, structures, and positions which is just what we needed when we were a "commune" has now turned against us. The "system" has become weapons of warfare and of random harm to editors. And even where it is not mis-used it is not up to the task. Can you imagine a system where the same person is allowed to be the police, judge, jury and executioner, they get the job for life, and the criteria for getting it is "got in back when it was easy"?
• With (as it matures) the dominance of the "lets build something cool" slipping from 90% to 60%, much of the other 40% has been a lot of other things. For example, another place to play/participate in an on-line warfare game.

North8000 (talk) 14:22, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I think you're making a very sound analysis. I think that the only way one can derive any satisfaction from volunteering for Wikipedia is to find a backwater where subjects that are not a subject of editorial battling, but are important and neglected, require attention. The idea is less to "build an encyclopedia" in the abstract sense, as after all the encyclopedia belongs to a third party, and one may not like what the third party is doing. But if one feels that the article on Extinct hummingbirds is neglected, and one feels strongly about extinct hummingbirds, then one can improve such articles without feeling a sense that one's time is being wasted. But I can understand why people trying to become involved in administrative stuff become frustrated. I monitor this page because I'm interested in the scourge of paid editing, and it has been a very frustrating experience that has not increased my satisfaction or made me feel better about Wikipedia. Coretheapple (talk) 15:25, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm in complete agreement: the more prominent the subject, the more acute the editorial fisticuffs, and the more "important" the subject, the greater the chance that one's sandcastle on the beach will be wiped out by an incoming wave. So, if somebody is bored and wants a challenge, there's a new monograph: John K. Derden, The World's Largest Prison: The Story of Camp Lawton. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2012) about Camp Lawton (prisoner of war camp), a Confederate prisoner of war camp located in the defunct town of Lawtonville, Georgia. There are your red links, go to town... Carrite (talk) 17:40, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually I've found that subjects of importance sometimes don't have Wikipedia articles, when the sources are offline and/or when the subjects are not especially fashionable or recent, and/or when they concern members of minority groups that are not active on Wikipedia. For example, I was absolutely astonished to find that the single biggest road accident in U.S. history, an incident that helped result in abolition of a guest workers program, did not have a Wikipedia article. The reason was that the victims were Mexican migrant workers. Nobody cared then, or now. Yet there are umpteen articles on video games and minor musical artists. We reflect the prejudices and obsessions of society. Coretheapple (talk) 19:46, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Even for recent events, there's a real cultural bias. I've got a redlink on my user page for a Mexican band called Reyna De Monterrey that had 10 members wiped out in a traffic accident in 2013. Compare and contrast to the treatment accorded The Exploding Hearts, who are appropriately covered on WP. (While I'm name-dropping red links that maybe little birds will see, here's another subject of a recent biography that needs a WP piece: Mira Lloyd Dock; per: Rimby, Mira Lloyd Dock and the Progressive Era Conservation Movement. Penn State University Press, 2012.) Carrite (talk) 20:10, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

It's a weak spot. Take a look at Bracero program. There is an article, for sure, but it needs a lot of work. This is an area in which there isn't a lot of screaming among editors, just a great deal of content that needs work or creation. Coretheapple (talk) 21:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

Our culture here on Wikipedia is in a very sorry state, one that developed out of years of letting the biggest and meanest kids on the playground call the shots. As a project, I think we need to do something to signal to the community, outside observers, and potential (or former) contributors that those days are over, and we need to back it up with some serious and visible changes in how we do business. We need some brainstorming about ways to get this community out of the doldrums so it can realize its potential. Everyking (talk) 04:02, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Here's the odd thing, though, re "the biggest and meanest kids on the playground call the shots". It seems that people mean entirely different things by that.

Because I see a fair amount of "Some of the admins here are horriblly cruel and arrogant, and they bully unoffending good editors terribly" and I see a fair amount "Some of the editors here are horrible and hurtful bullies, and the admins don't do anything". It's not likely that both problems are of approximately equal magnitude.

So when I see something like "the biggest and meanest kids on the playground call the shots" I literally don't know if the person is complaining about admins or editors. If we all pretty much agreed that one or the other was the real problem, we could take effective steps to fixing it.

But we don't agree. That means the problem is not obvious. If the problem is not obvious that's an indicator that it's not that real. Not proof, but an indicator.

Like this: if most everyone is in agreement that "The main proximate problem facing this community is crime" then you probably really do have a crime problem. If most everyone is in agreement that "The main proximate problem facing this community is police brutality" then you probably really do have a police problem. If it's half of each then you probably have normal life and people just engaging in free-floating complaining, which of course people do.

I've been here about ten years and haven't avoided contention, and it sure hasn't been my experience that "the biggest and meanest kids on the playground call the shots". There's politics though, for sure. Hopefully you didn't sign up expecting a politics-free zone. That'll only happen when the robots arrive (if then). Herostratus (talk) 06:24, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

It's easy to hate on admins or arbitrators because that is an easily defined group. It also leads to hilarious arguments such as how our "content creators" are little more than innocent flowers getting trampled by the evil admins. Problem is, some of Wikipedia's biggest assholes and bullies are also content creators, and are themselves a very large part of this apparent cultural problem. So, as you say, it becomes impossible to really argue that one group or another is the problem because the issue isn't confined to one group or another, no matter how badly certain agitators wish to claim otherwise. Resolute 16:36, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Everyking there have been discussions about this for a long time and I have had a number of off-wiki talks with people about some of the good points you raise here. How do you think we can improve the situation and make Wikipedia culture be civil? --Pine^✉ 06:39, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

My main suggestion would be that we declare a general amnesty for banned and indefinitely blocked users, as well as users who have been blocked for extended periods of time (with a few exceptions for some especially notorious individuals). There must be thousands of these people who have been booted off the site over the years, often because they fell into a petty feud or simply wound up on the losing side of some dispute, and I think we could do ourselves a tremendous favor by offering them all the chance to come back. It would be a dramatic signal to everyone that we have changed our ways, that the place isn't still run by gangs of bullies, and all the returning editors could do immeasurable good in improving content. Another change I would suggest would be limiting all bans and blocks to a maximum of six months. Everyking (talk) 19:25, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

• Hostile admins must guard vast oceans of pages with slower software: At this point, it is almost too late to consider improvements suggested years ago, and that leaves the admins to guard 10 million pages (articles & talk-pages) hacked by pranksters, vandals and corporate product adverts, encased by slower compu-encrypted https-secure software. WP could have switched to a system of trusted users, with long-term accomplishments, with trust points perhaps earned by fixing hundreds of pages as requested. Such trusted users could have been immune to wp:wikihounding at wp:ANI, but instead all users must live in fear of a gang of accusers, or quit to get-a-life that week. Meanwhile, hoards of newcomers hack and slant low-protected pages, and the frantic admins must threaten and block thousands of people, with no system to judge user-trust levels.
  Meanwhile, the MediaWiki software gets ever slower, with compu-encrypted https pages using glitzy collapse-delayed menus, as thousands more pages need rapid updates to stay current, but the WMF grand solution is wp:VisualEditor to reduce updates as cumbersome, tedious keystoke entries, where the slightest wp:edit-conflicts will lose all keystrokes, rather than auto-merge changes to adjacent lines. Meanwhile, the admins learn of the growing infestation of unfixed vandalism, in outdated pages abandoned by people caught in the cross-fire of friends, or newcomers, soured by unfair blocks with no trust granted.
  Instead, the fading hope is to run even more Bot programs to auto-cleanse pages for hidden vandalism, as numerous editors sink to merely replacing simple disambiguation links to a specific article, while the hack edits remain in the nearby text and pages age even more outdated. Many major articles have not been improved much in over 3 years.
  So we see thousands of new editors try, but quit early, leaving the power users to rapid-update thousands of pages for minor changes. And the developers give us page contents mixed in 2 fonts, as Frankenfonts to disguise the aging Frankenwiki of mangled text. The future is very bleak and relies on increased automation to assist the dwindling core of active editors. -Wikid77 07:43, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

  I do not see how a less egalitarian system or a faster software could solve the cultural problems of general mistrust and divisiveness. Is "the growing infestation of unfixed vandalism" realy a thing? I notice a lot less vandalism while casually browsing Wikipedia than ten years ago. —Kusma (t·c) 08:57, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

  I don't see admins "guarding vast oceans of pages" all that often these days. Vandalism and spam protection is done by Joe Schmoe, who receives zero thanks for it and will usually have their edits dismissed by self-appointed "real editors" as "just button pushing". The admins who are most visible today are the bullies, particularly either bullying or patronising their cronies with the distasteful round of personal pissing contests and dogmatic, unconstructive bureaucracy. (Apologies to the good admins who are out there, but OSE applies to people too.) Andy Dingley (talk) 15:57, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• Allow me to chime in "In Defense of Bullies." Since Wikipedia is open for any schmoe to jump in and edit anonymously, without any registration or real life identification to make banning for COI even possible, there is always going to be conflict over content. It's a fact of life — involved, aggressive, opinionated people are going to attempt to power through their views, chasing off the meek in the process. There absolutely must be "countervailing power" on the part of WP's editorial cadres and administrative corps. It takes superior firepower to beat back the worst offenders, and that sounds, looks, and smells like "bullying" to anyone looking at things from a distance. So, yeah, I may not agree with everything that someone like Andy the Grump does or says fighting for NPOV content, for example, or I may not agree with Orange Mike's fairly extreme position on user names and obvious Paid COI content — but this hockey team needs enforcers like that so that serious people can do work. (Not to say that either of those fine gents aren't serious people, they both also do fine content work, but you get what I'm saying...) Now, if we as a community wanted to build the thing over from the ground up, with identification upon registration, sign-in-to-edit via password, and locking out users who violate content or behavior rules — hey, that's an option. It would take WMF fiat to initiate that and might entirely kill the project, but it's technically possible. But for our imperfect world, with our flawed decision to allow "anyone" to edit, we need our own set of bullies. True fact. Carrite (talk) 16:13, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Some fixes in the policies, and structures for admins, admin type roles and arbcom would 70% fix the problem. North8000 (talk) 16:17, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, for a while I was an admin who did the really nasty work around here. I've devoted myself to two articles on Wikipedia for the last year and 3 months (nothing to do with toxicity, the content of what I'm studying is extremely gripping) and not had any problems. Producing decent content doesn't automatically entail being a fuckwit to everyone around you, and the talkpage contains some perfectly reasonable discourse; people have disagreed with a few things I've put up and vice versa, and yet there's never been a tense moment in improving either article. Looks like everything there is in reasonable order. Then again, maybe people are so sick of my perseverating that no one else wants to work with me... The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:38, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

The big question is about Wikipedia's dwindling number of editors. Sure, there are tons of new editors editing Wikipedia for the first time - hell, they're editing and creating new accounts as we speak. Just look at the logs. But at least 80% of them leave after the first day, some after they're hit with a bunch of warnings on their talk page telling them "You can't do this" or "Neutral Point of View" or "Your article is not notable, so it has been put up for speedy deletion". Many of them are driven away at the Wikitext they need to learn just to edit an article. "Easy to edit?" Sure, definitely. But is it actually easy to edit? I never figured out tables, and I still can't. Will VisualEditor help retain some of the newbies coming on (and possibly call back some that have left)? Probably. I'm not saying it's a bad idea. But VisualEditor could drastically affect the way Wikipedia works. All of a sudden it becomes harder to get messages to users, as it's easy for them to simply ignore HTML comments (<!-- -->) and turn articles into ashes. It could also confuse newcomers when they're told to "substitute" a template when the "Add a Template" feature mentions nothing about substitution. We should tread carefully on these grounds.

Indeed, while a wiki aims towards a peaceful, harmonious atmosphere to function, that's about as realistic as a child begging his parents for vegetables after he sampled some of McDonalds human feedlot food. There are a lot of good, friendly, and happy editors here that I've met, but there are lots of grumpy ones here as well. Happy ones that hesitate behind rollback and grumpy ones that template the regulars because they're sick of people not using the preview button and turning the entire article into bold text. Is Wikipedia's "friendly" atmosphere in jeopardy? Seems like it to me. However, as Wikipedia has grown to a size even I cannot imagine, trying to maintain a friendly atmosphere is next to impossible. If you and a small group of friends, totalling maybe about 10 people, got together and sat down over a cup of coffee, it's easy to maintain peace between all of you. However, if you bring in an army of people, it seems almost natural for everyone to break apart, form their own groups, and then (inevitably, as the group gets larger), fight each other. Civility is a must for Wikipedia, but it seems to be dwindling as grumpy editors drive away friendly ones. Both newbies and experienced editors can become grumpy, and it's easy to do so seeing how large Wikipedia is (and how much work there is to be done!).

Wikipedia is suffering from growing pains, but I can see the potential this place has. I've mentioned Wikipedia so many times in countless school assignments, and it's because I like helping out in a large project. It makes me feel like I'm part of something big. Having Wikipedia fall into a deep dark hole and never resurface will turn me into a laughing stock - and possibly put me out of a hobby I enjoy. K6ka (talk | contribs) 02:18, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia does well in unique viewers and article count. I too wonder if this place will eventually mostly be run by bots, COI editors, and a few grumpy regulars. We must make a future better than that. WikiProject Editor Retention is interested in this problem and a lot of WMF employees are also. WMF has done some good work with projects like Teahouse and guided tours. I would like to see WMF put active editor growth at the top of its list of priorities. Some projects that are underway are Snuggle, Flow, VisualEditor, recruiting IP editors, and growing the education program. There is also a discussion happening about updating the English Wikipedia adoption program. I will ask WMF to comment on this thread for more information about active editor population projections and the major editor engagement projects. However, we editors also need to work on this problem by making English Wikipedia a friendly and engaging place for good-faith editors. --Pine^✉ 05:36, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

The idea that the English Wikipedia can be made a friendly and engaging place for good-faith editors is ridiculous, and no way possible while Wikipedia in under the heel of the current absurd and surreal admin system. Here hundreds of individual admins appointed for life have the freedom, like vigilantes, to emerge from the woodwork and arbitrarily demolish content builders at whim. Until Wikipedia can be brought under some measure of transparent central control and accountability, and until some measure of natural justice is seen to be in operation, Wikipedia will continue spiralling down it's present course. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:20, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

You are correct. Let me say also that we have run off so many editors, and disillusioned so many others, that we lack the reliable pool of committed, long-term content editors that we really need and certainly should have by now. The turnover rate around here is astounding and depressing. People don't want to work in this abusive atmosphere, and a large portion of those who are willing to endure it get blocked anyway. We treat people like trash, force them out, and then wonder why there are so few others lining up to volunteer for the same treatment. Everyking (talk) 01:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Is it really about content-creators now? With > 4 million articles, maintenance is a bigger issue than creation, even though knowledge, like the universe, continues to expand. "Content creator" and "admin" are not mutually-exclusive but I think that there are a lot of non-admins who do little but police and, really, we need them in that role because of the sheer number of policy breaches: POV, non-RS, promotional, outright vandalism, BLP etc. I for one probably spend most of my time reverting people nowadays - it isn't a lot of fun and most of it falls into the category of needs to be done rather than can be done. I've probably driven away as many people as your average admin without ever having use of a block button but I can't in all honesty say that I'm either ashamed or proud of it: it just is what it is. - Sitush (talk) 01:44, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

We have plenty of pages now. We still need content, and we need quality content. If you ever think "It's all done by now", just take a look at the Vital Article lists and judge the quality of the poorer bluelinks. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:05, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

@Pine. Re: " I too wonder if this place will eventually mostly be run by bots, COI editors, and a few grumpy regulars." — What do you mean eventually?!? :-). Carrite (talk) 17:28, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

@Carrite: There are still a few nice, open-arm editors that are out there, but if this keeps up, soon they just might leave for a nicer, friendlier place. Which would devastate Wikipedia. K6ka (talk | contribs) 00:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

You can count me among the "grumpy editors". However, although I am on the way out, it is not because of good/bad/indifferent admins but rather a cumulative series of events. I suspect that is the case for many others who have put in a few years here before calling time. There is too much rubbish content that has little chance of improvement, too few decent contributors, and too many new contributors who not merely lack clue (which is fixable) but have no great desire to gain it (which usually isn't). It ceases to be fun when it becomes clear that the regulars are basically a tiny group of people fighting - yes, fighting - with millions.

Sure, there are pleasant backwaters but one reason why they are backwaters is because they are often not articles that attract a great deal of attention - been there, done that. Articles that attract a significant number of viewers etc are, almost by definition, the core content of any encyclopedia; everything else is filling in the gaps and "handy when you need it" stuff. Don't blame the admins, though, because they really are not the root of the problems. The flaw in this project now is probably the same thing that was its USP originally: the ability for anyone to edit it. I've no idea what the solution may be, sorry, but there is little doubt in my mind that the India-related stuff, at least, is a lost cause - even the few admins that have a familiarity with that are walking away. - Sitush (talk) 01:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I think an important aspect we need to emphasize and evaluate when looking for administrators is how well a nominee deals with the multiple perspectives present on almost every controversial topic. Instead of increasing the overall number of administrators, we need to find facilitators who can moderate solutions on these pages; potential admins should be well-informed of their position as a moderator and should have a strong background in such negotiations. Otherwise, we run the risk of driving away quality article contributors who are not necessarily fit to be admins. Solving this problem is key to editor retention on Wikipedia. Seattle (talk) 01:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

That might work if editors were willing to consider that opinions of others as valid, but they don't. We have too many editors with an meta:MPOV here who think that their version is the neutral version. We've attracted more of these over recent years, those who want Wikipedia to reflect their version of neutral, than editors genuinely interested in simply reporting what the sources say given the weight that they sources say them. They do this by arguing that sources that don't support their POV are not reliable sources. Dispute resolution, for these editors, isn't about collaboration, they want to be vindicated.--v/r - TP 02:05, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

It's always distressing when a friend posts a resignation announcement, even if you've been around long enough to know that nearly all of those assertions turn out to be "premature". The problem there isn't "retention of editors"; it's "retention of my particular friends".

The research shows that the actual editor retention problem isn't with us old hands. The rate of old-timers quitting these days (really truly quitting, not just saying we will and then posting a retraction after a few days of people telling us how wonderful we are) is about the same as it's been for years. The major causes for individuals voluntarily leaving or dramatically cutting back are the same as they always were: real-world work and family obligations. One of the most serious drains on editor retention is someone finishing school, getting a good job, getting married, and having kids.

The real decline—what's different now compared to 2006—is with a desirable group of inexperienced newbies. A lot more of them used to stick around past the first day's edits. One significant cause of people not coming back for a second or third day is aggressive reversions, rather than collaboratively building on what someone did (for example, reverting an addition because the formatting was wrong, rather than fixing the formatting). Huggle didn't exist back when I thought that {{Cancer}} and Category:Cancer had the same result. Someone just cleaned up my mess, without reverting everything I'd done in that edit and without yelling at me, much less blocking me. I believe that editor's quiet, collaborative approach is why I'm still here today. My experience doesn't seem to have been very unusual back then, but I don't believe that as many of our new editors encounter that approach now.

Anyway, if you'd like to know what the research says about what's really going on with editor retention, you can start here: http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/ WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:06, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Although nothing is really surprising, it's nice to see common knowledge quantified like that. WilyD 09:01, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Wait. That article is saying that the primary reason that editor retention is declining is because too many people WP:BITE the newbies? Well...makes sense to me. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 16:05, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Seems easy enough until you get into things like Indian castes, where you get semi-coherent attacks on you everywhere you turn. New users aren't as innocent as people make them out to be, in my experience; no matter how new you are and how much you may be genuinely attempting to edit in good faith, I give no respect to anyone who tells me I'm a genocidal freak who deserves to be fucked with a knife. For all the bitching about how mean we are to new users, it should be pretty simple to tell specific people what to do differently, and I have yet to see that in all but the most extreme cases. Either people are too lazy to do so, or experienced editors biting new users isn't the main source of the problem; if the latter isn't the case, I want some evidence. As a great song once said, "I don't care what you say, let's see Exhibit A". The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:27, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Blade, I agree with you that newbies aren't all as innocent as spring lambs. If you read the paper, you'll see that they had to set up two different categories to track undesirable newbies (blatant vandals vs people who just aren't here to build an encyclopedia—a category that could cover everything from moderate levels of self-promotion to trying to "make friends" to trying to convince the world of The Truth™ about Indian castes, or whatever it is that the newbie is concerned about).

I wouldn't characterize the problem as laziness. It's more subtle than that. We've constructed tools that do something necessary (protect article quality) without regard for collateral damage and missed opportunities. We made reverting newbies with no personal contact and no effort to collaborate be the simplest, quickest, easiest option, and we rewarded people who took that simple, quick, and easy option. This change happened well before your time, but you might consider looking at old RFAs. Before rollbacker was a separate right (in 2008), we rewarded people (with adminship) for reverting thousands of low-quality edits, but we didn't notice, much less penalize them, for the effect they had on driving away new editors. We said, "You reverted 10,000 (mostly) bad edits? Great, be an admin so you can revert even more". Nobody ever said, "You were so busy clicking 'undo' ten thousand times that you missed the opportunity to create ten decent editors and to improve a thousand articles." If you took the other approach—if you moved slowly enough that you were able to notice and cultivate a potentially good editor and to build on low-quality efforts instead of just removing them—then you had a lower edit count and nobody interested in rewarding you with adminship. In fact, you frequently weren't even rewarded with respect. You weren't regarded as the person building the next generation of editors; you were the editor of such dubious morals that you spoke politely to alleged spammers and editors who didn't add sources and other suspicious newbies.

As for evidence that biting new users is a main source of the problem, may I suggest that you actually read that paper?  ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

The categorisation in Halfaker's paper misses an important distinction within category 3: "Good-faith: trying to be productive, but failing". This includes two quite different groups:

• 3a: Trying to contribute to the encyclopedia, but failing for reasons of inexperience or technique
• 3b: Trying to contribute in good faith, but on a completely non-encyclopedic subject

3b is a very large class, including people who think this is a social-networking site like Facebook or LinkedIn for them to write about themselves and their friends or post their CVs, and people who think it is a free platform for them to "tell the world" about their company, group, favourite cause, Theory of Everything or invented religion. The number of contributors in this class has been growing as Wikipedia becomes better known and its reach extends. Halfaker includes them in "Desirable newcomers", and that distorts his findings.

Class 3b people have an unhappy experience, because their contributions are rejected, and it is all too easy to treat them as spammers or self-promoters, forgetting that they did not know, because no-one told them, that that is not what Wikipedia is for.

This problem could be reduced if we made some effort to explain at sign-up time what Wikipedia is, and more importantly what it is not. If the sign-up page said something like:

"Wikipedia is a project to build an encyclopedia. It is not a social-networking site, or a notice-board for announcements. If your aim is to tell the world about yourself, your group, your company or your cause, this is not the site for you to do that."

then the number of class 3b people having their work deleted would be reduced, and a great deal of wasted effort on their part (and ours) would be saved. The load on New Page patrollers and admins working the speedy-deletion queue would be reduced, so that they would be less likely to feel that their job was to man the barricades and keep the barbarians out, and would have more time to engage productively with class 3a, which is where we are failing now.

I know the general ethos is "encourage everyone to come and edit, put no obstacles in their path", but maybe it is time to rethink that. This would turn away some potential editors, but I think they are less likely to be discouraged by being told at the outset what WP is not for, than by being let in to spend time and effort on something which never had a chance of being accepted. JohnCD (talk) 14:52, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

@JohnCD: We can actually try something like that. I was part of the team that led the current redesign of the signup page. If you're serious, we can with not too much difficulty test both different text or a video. I think that honestly the tone you used in the example text is a tad lacking in good faith, but in general the hypothesis that telling people up-front what's in and out of scope for the project is not a bad one at all. Want to help me give it a try? Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 04:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I am dead serious, and I will certainly help give it a try. I think this is the single most important thing we could do to reduce wasted time and frustration. As a first shot, here is a proposal I made two years ago. The words can certainly be adjusted, but not to the point of concealing that, for many of the hopeful newbies who turn up at the gate, the message we actually want to convey, dress it up how you will, is GO AWAY!

Where shall we pursue this? JohnCD (talk) 11:02, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

If we really want to fix things, we really need to start with defining the objectives and decide what problems are working against them. So elevating cool thoughts ("any one can edit") or other arbitrary metrics (# of editors) to "primary objective" status is a completely faulty process.

Or else skip to an obvious item. The reality is that at many levels Wikipedia has become an often-vicious miserable place for both new and key editors and workers. And that inevitably will hurt ALL objectives. The tools of peace have become weapons of warfare. The one larger-than-others cause is that the rules and system is now very often used for abuse or abusively, it needs to be written and structured better to avoid that. North8000 (talk) 11:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The declining engagement of new editors is probably not fixable by policy change, but by boots on the ground. Experienced editors going out, finding the new editors who might become productive, and showing them the ropes. It's work though, and liable to be thankless, so it's tough to do. (Though Wikipedians have been known to work for barnstars). WilyD 16:30, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Probably the most needed missing group is people with expertise in the topic areas. (BTW, the really destructive people who survive in Wikipedia are NOT breaking the rules, they have learned how to USE the rules to conduct their destruction.) There's an area where I've edited where I've also authored sources that others are citing. I encountered a sociopath experience there (someone who knew how to mis-use the rules) which would have driven 99% of victims away from Wikipedia. They'll think say "let's see, do I do it for free for wikipedia and get abused by wiki-empowered sociopaths, , or do I do it elsewhere for money nice words....tough choice". There will always be some bad people, the problem is a system that is so easily misused for that type of thing. North8000 (talk) 21:28, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

To some, it is also just a game, and the rules are just tools to be used; a game in which they have little stake other than remaking things to reflect their own worldview. The policy side of Wikipedia is actually very good, but like all good laws, much depends on the presence of enforcement and watchful awareness of the existence of those who game the system. • Astynax ^talk 18:34, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

What I see as discouraging to editors who have left is their sheer frustration with CoI and PoV-pushing editors who sidetrack constructive contributions with endless and intransigent nibbling away at reliably sourced information. They insert or revise statements backed by corporate, personal, organizational or similar partisan PoV sourcing. In many cases, when resolution is sought, harried admins are deflected from focus on whether the editing at issue reflects what reliable sources state (which is what we all supposedly want) onto personal issues of Wiki etiquette or accusations of other behavior. Indeed, content disputes get very short shrift or are rejected outright during dispute resolution—an odd thing when reliable information should be the beating heart of any work bearing the word encyclopedia in its title.

Somehow, the aim of Wikipedia to summarize what reliable sources say about a given subject has become subverted, and in some cases I believe intentionally so, by a focus shift toward editor/admin behavioral issues. PoV-pushers have long noticed that Wikipedia does not have any serious fact checking mechanism, and relies instead on consensus, however marginally acquainted with a subject or anyone responding to a RfC may be. Even RfCs often veer onto perceived behavior issues, rather than content. Provoking constructive editors, including admins and experienced editors, into disputes that drag on endlessly through all the "resolution" steps is soul-crushing. Even worse, if a constructive editor or admin hasn't decided to retire during the process, s/he may actually be sanctioned for too vigorously defending the Wikipedia goal to summarize what reliable sources say. Others just drop out after one or two of these experiences. If this is discouraging to experienced editors and admins, it is easy enough to imagine how observing or experiencing one of these cases impacts a newer editor–somewhat like a child sitting through acrimonious divorce proceedings and being expected to come away with a rosy appreciation of the merits of marriage and parenthood.

For articles on subjects that are not currently on the public radar, it is too easy for a persistent CoI/PoV editor, backed by one or two occasional contributors who sympathize, to turn an article into a PoV or CoI puff piece that is seriously at odds with, or ignores, what reliable and scholarly sources report on the subject.

Disputes should be a side issue, and the aims of the encyclopedia should not be impacted by them. Upholding the content policies should come first and foremost. Unfortunately, that is too often not now the case. • Astynax ^talk 18:34, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The reason why things veer of into "onto personal issues of Wiki etiquette or accusations of other behavior." is simple, it's because mudslinging and ad hominem attacks WORK, and as long as it is done cleverly, Wikipedia not only allows it, it rewards it by smacking their opponent. Changes in policies and structures would fix this. North8000 (talk) 18:43, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Part of the issue with disputes is the uneven standards we place on new and IP editors in comparison to older, more experienced, heavy content creators, and in some ways that is actually fair. But, too many times editors are dragged to ANI over the most ridiculous reasons and then if dragged there enough times, no matter the outcome....editors will use that as a means to ruin an editors reputation, drag them through the mud and create disruption (if even just slight disruption). And then there is the scarlet letters used against others...the block log. But old timers do tend to just assume they know better than those with less edit counts and years in. This is pretty common in the real world as well. When faced with these situations things can quickly fall apart, but what do we do in the real world? Why can't these principles be applied at Wikipedia? Because when a crowd is sourced to make decisions...you cannot predict the direction it takes. We have no King, no president and no responsible party to oversee a site that literally defines the world around us. This is simply an opportunity too ripe, too good to pass up for some. Yes...there really are editors that try to undermine the very stability of the project. But they are not even half the problem. There are the disenfranchised, those pushed away from the community for one reason or another but allowed to remain.....as long as the don't pull to hard on the leash. And yes, we do, very much leash our editors here a great deal with sanctions. And who ends up with those sanctions at the highest rate? The newcomer. We have never even really tried a different approach, we just sanction them with very little opportunity to teach....and oddly enough this is supposed to be an educational project yet, we seem to be more like a social network or message board or political forum more and more everyday. I think we need to begin development of new tools, new methods and new forms of teaching to combat new editors that cannot understand the complicated mass of policies, guidelines and procedures. Simply put...we need more education and less "walking the plank".--Mark Miller (talk) 05:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a human enterprise. There's no flaw here that doesn't exist in the real world, and it's no more or less difficult to get these traits under control. All of the major problems facing us today are simply the result of human nature, which is something we will never subsume. Conversely, that same nature is what keeps the project going in the first place, so it's not in our intrests to try to subsume it. On a personal level I've been driven to work on two articles literally every single day, and on a broader level it's caused people to spend their time working to try to improve our interactions wtih each other. If there was some way we could bring out Wikipedia's equivalent to the Grand Commonality I'd be all for it, but it simply won't happen. That's why I prefer to think of things in a manner more like Jiang Jingguo; if you think you have a solution put it forth, don't write enormous treatises on it. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

In the real world, and I hearken back to the days when I contributed to a print encyclopedia, there is a distinction between writers/content contributors and editors. The editorial staff verified that an article met guidelines for grammar and style, fact checked, passed for legal issues and then did any necessary redacting to fit the article into the publication. Once the article was publication-ready, there wasn't further quibbling about things that had already been examined and resolved. New information and corrections continued to be made between editions, but existing information was not scrapped without compelling reasons, and additions and corrections had to go through the same editorial process. I submit that this time-tested method still works, and that the problem isn't that Wikipedia has too many or too few editors, but that it has no (or at least very few) true editors that fill the functions of the editorial department in traditional reference publishing. The closest we have is FAC review, and even when something has passed that process, the article is still fair game for tendentious editors. When everyone's an editor, writer, researcher, etc., it is no wonder that there is an acrimonious atmosphere, particularly with the opportunities that opens to CoI and PoV editing. It is possible to fix, if the community is willing. • Astynax ^talk 21:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

People really want to fix this? There's a simple solution: real names. People don't misbehave as much when their actual identity is tied to each and every edit. It adds a level of self-restraint that this culture of anonymity defeats. The reason this place gets so interminably nasty is because most of you wear masks. If you can't bring yourself to remove the pseudonyms, at least expose the IP address of every single edit and use some cookies to defeat casual sockpuppeting so that socking is reduced to a manageable level.—Kww(talk) 15:52, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I find suggestions like these hilarious because nobody thought them through. Have you any idea what the moral and legal implications would be if this were actually put into effect? KonveyorBelt 20:07, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

If one were to do it retroactively, there would certainly be moral and legal implications. To say "going forward, there will be no more pseudonymous editing" wouldn't have either of them. As for using simple cookie and computer signature based solutions, I don't see any moral implications at all.—Kww(talk) 20:24, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

But it will be put into effect sooner or later, as we all know, either through surveillance or through ISPs being obliged to submit their logging data to national authorities. I edit under my real name, and I urge others to do the same. Eric Corbett 20:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

If you preemptively and willingly do what they would do "sooner or later" because you firmly believe that they'll do it anyway, sooner or later, then you're part of the problem. KonveyorBelt 20:42, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) You fail to understand what the implications would be. Even if it was done "from here on out", there would be tons of problems. Imagine for a second you are the head of a multinational oil and petroleum companies. Randyinboise1 makes an edit to your page claiming that your business practices violate such and such environmental laws, and that you are a bad company. With your changes, it would be too easy for you the CEO to find out his identity and sue the poor fellow. Even if you didn't have a Wikipedia account, it would be simple to go and register one, and perhaps make 10 bogus edits if it is restricted to autoconfirmed. How then, would Wikipedia look as an organization if its volunteers were being doxed and sued? KonveyorBelt 20:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

So your thesis is that without the ability to commit libel with impunity, Wikipedia would collapse? I tend to think it would make Randyinboise1 much more careful about what he wrote. I know it makes me much more careful about what I write.—Kww(talk) 21:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Then its just a self-imposed censor, and Wikipedia is not censored. KonveyorBelt 21:42, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Feeling responsible for my own behaviour is unacceptable because it's a form of censorship? Thanks: you brought a moment of amusement to an otherwise bleak afternoon.—Kww(talk) 21:49, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure to what extent having your real name out there would make you feel responsible. More likely it would be used as a gateway for IRL harassment and legal issues. KonveyorBelt 23:11, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• Kww why don't you respond when pinged to a discussion questioning your decision to indefinitely ban a user?. Lesion 22:05, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• Do you actually have a specific question about the block? You simply stated that you thought it was too harsh. No one else seems to agree.—Kww(talk) 23:08, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you...(Re: Medical pseudoscience on Wikipedia)

... for this. MastCell ^Talk 17:26, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

See here -Roxy the dog (resonate) 17:46, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

A day late and a dollar short, I guess. But thanks for the link—as always, I was dying to know what Wnt had to say on the subject. :P MastCell ^Talk 17:53, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Jimmy, I know you haven't always agreed with all of my decision-making on Wikipedia, but in the unlikely chance that you may read this, given your busy schedule, if you happen to have a .gif of me clapping, please add it to the ones seen here. Kudos. :-) Nightscream (talk) 02:17, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Although I might be deluded by confirmation bias, I believe I have noticed a recent increase in submissions on ALTMED topics to AFC. Perhaps they are pushing back after Jimbo's response. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:32, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

At least some people who emailed me from the alternative medicine advocacy side of things seemed to misunderstand me to being saying that I think we should delete articles on those topics. Obviously, I don't. Indeed in many cases one of the best public services we can give is to have NPOV coverage of these topics, including that they are not consistent with scientific knowledge.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:09, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Well put. - Jorgath (talk) ^(contribs) 16:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

More can be written about the placebo effect theory on alternative medicine. Recent results point to this being far stronger than previously thought possible. See also here. Count Iblis (talk) 01:43, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

What's your point? Many of our articles on alternative medical approaches already discuss the placebo effect in detail. I'm not sure that adding coverage from the Daily Mail would be an improvement. Separately, it's one thing to test the placebo effect in a randomized clinical trial where patients have given informed consent and understand that they may or may not receive an active treatment. It's quite another to sell an alternative "remedy" with false, misleading, or unproven claims about its effectiveness. The latter is typically considered unethical, and legitimate research into the placebo effect shouldn't be used as an implicit justification for it. MastCell ^Talk 00:43, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Lessons learned for autofixing cites

I have been hand-editing dozens of semi-major pages, to fix the cite-parameter errors and copy-edit text, while discussions continue about the types of wp:autofixing cites, to use in the wp:CS1 Lua-based templates. I still think autofixing is the best long-term solution to handle most of the common typos in cites. However, there have been some revelations:

• Numerous pages with cite errors have been "semi-major" articles viewed 100x-3,000x per day, read far more times than first imagined.
• Hundreds of cite errors are caused by Bots, when unable to correct duplicate parameters (replaced as "DUPLICATE_last1=" or such) and inserting invalid "unused_data=" to contain extra text in a cite.
• Autofixing of cites would not correct hundreds of cases, such as the invalid parameters inserted by Bots which find duplicate parameter names.

Hence, the main priority (now) has been to hand-fix the hundreds of semi-major articles, while noting them as examples where autofixing could have been effective. To my shock (or "horror"), I discovered how thousands of pages with cite errors were not minor, rare pages viewed only a few times per day, but instead, numerous pages were viewed 50-100x or more per day, with many read 1,000-4,000 times per day. I think I had 2 major misconceptions:

• Thinking of cites in "average pages" where, instead, only the higher-view pages typically have enough cites to incur cite typos.
• Excessive optimism that "surely people fix major pages during a year?" (no), where the reality is that many pages read 100x or 1,000x per day are left unfixed all year.

At first, I was saddened to realize "almost no one corrects semi-major pages" but instead, the good news is:
                    "Because almost no one edits the semi-major pages,
                     then once fixed, those pages stay fixed for months/years."
The problem had been, with the mindset to look for cite errors and count how many months/years they sat unfixed, I had overlooked the impact of the opposite effect: Once a semi-major article has been fixed (copy-edited) for better quality, then it often remains clean for several months or years. If copy-edit backlog drives focused mainly on the high-pageview articles, then the core, wp:VITAL pages could be fixed and remain clean for months/years into the future. The main problem has been an "inverse 90/10 Rule" where people have spread their fix-it efforts across the ocean of all pages, where instead, if some people focused primarily on the top 10% (as fixing 440,000 semi-major pages), then the bulk of high-view pages would appear clean for years, while the lesser pages (viewed 20x-500x less) could then be improved as next in priority. Many people have been "sweeping and polishing" the dark corners, while numerous high-traffic areas with glaring problems were overlooked. -Wikid77 20:14, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting insights, Wikid77. Maybe you should share your ideas to WP:Village pump where more people would see them. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:31, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, this is just an informal note, for discussion. When Jimbo has time, he has offered some advice as in the past, to beware "too small a sample" or use the "12-month-trailing average" when trying to generalize the trends about WP pages. In this case I checked a whole year of data, but I should have scanned hundreds of pages and realized how numerous pages with wp:CS1 cite errors are read 100x or more times per day. -Wikid77 20:11, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Bots edit-warring to insert invalid cite parameters

It has taken me a while to confirm a pattern, but some of the cite-fixit Bots are actively edit-warring about the cite parameters, where perhaps the control settings can be selected to misjudge valid parameters and re-edit them to store invalid "DUPLICATE_title=" after a person fixes the "title=", depending on "archiveurl=" settings or other related parameters (see User:Citation_bot in history: view history). By comparison, the tactics of wp:autofixing cites do not "edit" the page, but merely alter the display of cite data, and could not possibly edit-war with people changing cite templates. This is a real nightmare, because it is difficult to reduce the cite backlog when cite-Bots are actively edit-warring over the hundreds of previously hand-fixed cites. Update: The bot incorrectly inserting "DUPLICATE_title=" was reported at User_talk:Citation_bot on 31 March. -Wikid77 20:11, 29 March; 14:10, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Examples of million-view cite messages

Although many high-view pages have contained some cite error messages over the past year, one article was viewed over 5 million times with a cite error message:
Template:Nb10• Once Upon a Time (TV series) – had 6.7 million pageviews in 2013
That TV series had the error "Unknown parameter |subjects= ignored" near footnote 35-41, displayed all year in the References section, viewed 10,000 to 50,000 times per day, but the page was updated over 2,500 times during the period. That page exemplifies the problem: a page can be viewed 5 million times, while updated 2,500 times, but a red-error message does not cause readers to fix the error, so don't show it. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:10, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

How hard would it be to produce a list of these in an automated way, updated once a day or once a week? "Most popular pages with cite error messages" - so people who are good at this sort of thing can focus their efforts on fixing them?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:33, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the cite-gnome users are fixing pages now ASAP (~100/day), and I requested "wt:CS1#Need help fixing unsupported parameters" to focus on major pages, such as in top wp:5000. More below. -Wikid77 11:26, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Seems to me to be a great idea, Jimbo. Invertzoo (talk) 00:15, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I think I might be really good at fixing, manually, a situation like that b/c I could never look at any article, no matter how big or small, and click-away knowing I'd left one single red cite error message in the References section. But I don't want to get involved in any kind of official operation or anything, especially if admins are involved! In fact, I really hesitated about posting this here but finally did, b/c I couldn't imagine leaving a page in that condition and not try to fix it. But I don't want to be involved with anything that goes near articles where there are lots of really aggressive editors and admins swirling about, especially the ones who think they own the article(S) or that being uncivil consists of defending yourself against their abuses of bureaucratic process. JDanek007^Talk 08:30, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

This seems like a job for Wikipedia:Database reports.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:41, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• Hand-fixing cite backlog within 20 days: (helpers are fixing pages faster) I had forgotten how hand-editing can be faster than upgrading mega-templates which require many weeks/months to reformat the 2.2 million related pages (due to the "wp:Page reformat crisis"), so even though it might require a whole month of hand-fixing cites, the backlog of unknown/misspelled cite parameters should be cleared by mid-April 2014. See category:
  Template:Nb10• Category:Pages_with_citations_using_unsupported_parameters (pages: 0)
  I recently fixed cite errors in "Pluto" and "New York City" plus many semi-major pages. Once the backlog from last year is smaller, it will be easier for cite-gnome users to spot major pages in the category, to have those cite errors corrected sooner. Thanks to many helpers, this cite backlog is being cleared at 150-200 pages per day. -Wikid77 11:26, 1 April, 10:40, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

• Steady hand-fixing of cite errors: Much progress is being made in removing the glaring red-error messages for invalid wp:CS1 cite parameters (displayed since March last year), by hand-fixing the related pages. Currently, the backlog count is down to 2,665 articles (from 3,400 in March 2014) which have misspelled/unknown cite parameters. Meanwhile, as red errors are being fixed, some people are also adjusting other cite data, or adding new cites when deadlinks have been found, so this is not just total "busy work" to hand-fix simple problems which autofixing would handle. Update: As of 6 April, the cite-gnomes have reduced the backlog by ~1,100 pages (30%) since March, down to only 2,350 pages, as now easier to find most high-view articles among the 12 sections of pages in the category:
       • Category:Pages_with_citations_using_unsupported_parameters?from=Sa
  Many pages are still added, each day, with more invalid cite parameters, and so the overall reduction also offsets the daily additions of other pages. -Wikid77 09:14, 4 April 2014, 17:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. Wikid, you know I would help if I could. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 03:50, 7 April 2014 (UTC).

OTOH, this thread is probably read by hundreds of editors. I have just now fixed a dozen of these, and I pledge to have done 100 by the end of the business day. 25 more editors to follow, and the backlog is gone in a day. --Pgallert (talk) 09:08, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

This Arbcom is very slow

One of the Wikipediocracy threads that probably should be at least touched upon here relates to this: Arbcom is multiple weeks late with decisions on their Austrian Economics and Gun Control cases. A fairly straightforward topic ban modification request by Cirt has been ridiculously slow. It doesn't seem their workload is any higher than previous Arbcoms — probably the opposite. What is going on here? Is this impression about Arbcom's slowness to resolve their caseload wrong? If it is not, how do we fix it? (And no, this is not a matter for some random Arbcom talk page because that institution is notoriously cloistered and opaque). Carrite (talk) 17:34, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

What does it matter? The Pedia races, or limps, along, regardless. Is there a "right" amount of time? Sure, a tentative (or at least provisional) resolution of whatever conduct issue is delayed. That might matter to some few but does it matter significantly to many? Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:10, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

• One of the Wikipediocracy threads that probably should be at least touched upon here...

You mean there are others? Let that conversation stay on that website...it serves a purpose when it stays over there.

A discussion on this subject has occurred on ARBCOM talk pages (several times) and arbitrators and clerks have responded. Decisions on ARBCOM cases are rarely posted at the scheduled time, at least the ones I've read over. I don't see how a conversation about ARBCOM on this talk page will cause them to to move any faster. When you're talking about reaching a consensus decision that could result in topic bans or blocks, I don't think putting pressure on the participants will result in an outcome that is more fair. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:01, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the question isn't about forcing a rush to judgment but rather is there something fundamentally wrong with the system that causes the process to be so long. The answer according to some is... who cares if it takes too long? Saffron Blaze (talk) 16:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

My perspective is that the process was inordinately long to begin with and now it is "inordinately long and six weeks overdue beyond that." Of course, maybe it's all for the best if they take two cases every January and issue their decisions in December... I can't discount that possibility. Still: things have slowed and deadlines been disregarded and that is a pain in the ass for involved parties. Carrite (talk) 19:11, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

IIRC, one of recently successful electees ran on a platform of not being around much. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:29, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

In that case, the electorate got what it asked for. (Although something Douglas Adams wrote about lizards springs to mind. And no, it wasn't about lizards being sluggish in cold weather like other reptiles.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:00, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Ah, THAT is quite good. I clearly need to buy four books... Carrite (talk) 16:24, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

There are five books in the Hitch-Hiker trilogy. Just sayin'. Guy (Help!) 23:32, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

"I love deadlines. I especially love the whooshing sound they make as they pass by" (Douglas Adams) DP 23:34, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Train of Thought, meet Derailment of Distraction. And Guy: There are six, if you count And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer; seven if you count the little Young Zaphod Plays It Safe. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 00:47, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

They are not by DNA though, so not canon. Harrumph. Guy (Help!) 07:33, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, the community is always free to set up an alternative ArbCom that doesn't suffer from this problem and recognize that as their ultimate authority. Count Iblis (talk) 15:53, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Comments on ArbCom Slowness

I don't usually agree with Carrite, but Carrite is on the mark about the English ArbCom. The current ArbCom has accepted two cases this year, on Gun control and Austrian economics. Both of them were "combination disputes", where content disputes could not be settled by dispute resolution in the usual way because of conduct issues including persistent personal attacks. These were precisely the type of cases for which ArbCom was set up. There hasn't even been a draft proposed decision in either case yet. As a result, both cases have resulted in new threads being opened at WP:ANI again, which just illustrates that these were cases that were correctly taken to ArbCom in the hope of foreclosing further drama, but also illustrate that the cases aren't being resolved. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:44, 4 April 2014 (UTC) There had indeed been performance problems affecting users of Verizon Communications as a DSL provider in the middle of March, but those were resolved about two weeks ago. If the performance problems were the only issue, then the ArbCom should at least have been able to provide draft proposed decisions. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:44, 4 April 2014 (UTC) I realize that the WMF's highest priority at this point is dealing with paid advocacy editing, and that the WMF is making progress on that front. However, I would ask that the WMF also consider that the ultimate level of dispute resolution in the English language Wikipedia, the ArbCom, is not working effectively. Can the WMF please ask the ArbCom whether, first, it needs some sort of assistance (which is unlikely, but the question should be asked), or, second, there is some unknown reason why it is making no visible progress (and should be reminded that its lack of progress is very visible), or, third, the WMF needs to take unilateral action (having roughly the effect of a receivership), or, fourth, something else should be done? Can the WMF please ask the ArbCom what the problem is and how it can be solved? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:44, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Here's a great idea: let's give them the most intractable problems on Wikipedia, howl for blood every time they come up with a decision we don't like, and simultaneously scream blue murder if it takes them a while to think things through.

Oh, wait, that's how we already do it. Guy (Help!) 07:35, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you are barking up the wrong tree if you expect the WMF to get involved in managing ArbCom. Two cases is peanuts in every possible world of measurement. While the people involved surely feel agonized by delays and uncertainty, in the wider scheme of things it is totally irrelevant and meaningless. Not to say ArbCom shouldn't aspire to resolving cases they accept as efficiently as possible, but to look for divine intervention is to mistake the gravity of the problem. Nathan ^T 20:36, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I hate it here too sometimes...

How the hell can you ever effect change when you have people with narrow and outdated views who will do anything to protect their little fiefdoms? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Thumbnail_Preferences_-_max_300px I went through all that effort to realize all I achieved was a potential location to start the discussion all over again and still no sense of the process. Saffron Blaze (talk) 17:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC) 17:39, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

It looks to me like a bunch of people explaining why they don't agree with you and you responding by being an asshole. You might hate it here a bit less if you treated others with more respect. (I am so looking forward to the reply to this. I am going to make some popcorn to eat while I enjoy the show.) --Guy Macon (talk) 22:38, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you just proved my point. Thanks. Saffron Blaze (talk) 00:34, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

...and now you just proved Guy's point. Thank you.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:38, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Saffron Blaze, welcome to Wikipedia, where the goal is to wear you down until you give up and go away because Wikipedia:There are no rules. USchick (talk) 04:15, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see

"I would appreciate people stop talking out of their arse"

"your inability to understand the issue"

"another patronizing response"

"all people ever do is lecture about things they don't even understand"

"thanks for another useless lecture that serves nothing other than to bolster your own ego"

and

"spouting wiki-isms and nonsense"

as being an effective method for discussing technical issues, and I don't see politely asking someone to stop bevaving that way as "wearing them down until they give up and go away". I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:27, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

1st world problems. USchick (talk) 06:45, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Notwithstanding the fact being a bully or obstinate on WP is actually more effective than other approaches, how would responding politely prevented off topic and mis-informed responses like this?

• "Thumbnails are not ment to act as full size images; they are 'thumbnails' after all." (completely missed the point of the question, patronizing)
• "our non-free content policy, which uses low-resolution non-free images, would not allow for images to be displaed at much larger sizes" (implementation would not affect NFC)
• "You are applying what is typical for you and desiring to push it onto everyone viewing a particular article" (absolutely not what was being asked, as the change would only affect user preferences)
• "I'm not sure I understand the problem here: On QHD/4K Monitors you would have to scale up the text anyway" (no one was asking anything about text)
• "you're going to be asking for larger NFC images to be used, and that will not fly" (no, but who died and made him god of NFC?)

I was not alone in my assessment of the responses:

• "...you were clearly talking out of your a**. (another user's assessment of the situation)
• "I do not find the NFCC argument compelling in the slightest" (yet the user interjected ad naseum this NFC concern)
• "I'd say you were trolling" (Another user's assessment of the responses)

Cherry pick some more sentences to counter those I have placed here. Tell me they are out of context. Do all the things that people do here on WP to drive people away. Attack the person not the problem... and my apparent lack of courtesy is not the problem. Saffron Blaze (talk) 18:11, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

You have all of these conflicts with all of these people. Have you ever stopped to consider what the common factor is? Perhaps it's you? I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:36, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I have already stated what the common factor is. With those buttered fingers of yours it must have slipped your grasp. Now go eat some more popcorn. Saffron Blaze (talk) 15:59, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

"A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger." (Proverbs 15:1). JohnCD (talk) 16:13, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Things have gotten a bit hidebound over the past few years. Jimmy mentioned something about using his founder position to help move policies along back in late 2012, but nothing's come of it yet. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 00:26, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, someone from the WMF filed a request on Bugzilla for a change to the image size settings. That's a start. Saffron Blaze (talk) 15:36, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

• First round = fail. The proposal was summarily executed by the same person that killed it the last several times this has been requested. Odd to see a member of the WMF dismissed the way he was. Saffron Blaze (talk) 04:44, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Have to agree that it is frustrating that the person who didn't understand the problem last time, is allowed to demonstrate they still don't understand the problem. Perhaps some engagement with the community would be better rather than re-confirming an unwillingness to explore solutions. The excuses given are not reasons, as they rely on continuing to do stupid things (like having loads of image size variants nobody uses). It is like asking if we can have pizza for tea tonight and being told no because the oven is not on. Well turn the oven on. It would be very interesting to see stats on what sizes have actually been chosen by users -- I bet most people who change the default pick the max. -- Colin°^Talk 17:18, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps should ask the Wiki SWeedon how they managed to get done what not even the WMF can. That said, the adoption of 360px is but a band-aid in this era of 4K and retina displays. Saffron Blaze (talk) 22:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Major changes might require wp:RfC with 6 months

To get consensus for improving the MediaWiki software, it might need a formal wp:RfC (perhaps for 2-3 months), plus more months of planning for changes. Currently, we have the new 2-font (Frankenfonts) display in the Vector skin (&useskin=vector), but those same developers might be interested in doing something which people wanted to see instead. There has been little interest in fixing the trivial wp:edit-conflicts which deter a classroom of 20 students from all expanding the same page, even though minor changes to the MediaWiki diff3.c utility could improve the auto-merge of edit-conflicts, but if more people agreed in an RfC, then perhaps some major improvements could be made. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:11, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The class of Wikipedia users who have the skills and experience to address the above problem do not need wikilinks explaining what "edit conflict" and "Mediawiki" mean, but we do need an explanation of what these vaguely defined "minor changes" are and a link showing where you have previously requested the software changes and not received a satisfactory response that requires intervention by Jimbo. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:39, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I get it. It is alright to tell someone "to stop spouting wikiisms" just not as bluntly, so as they might miss you are actually being patronizing. Saffron Blaze (talk) 17:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

This troll was clearly compiled with inferior tools. My guess is that you used Visual Troll++, or possibly TurboTroll 2000.

These first generation tools are quite limited, and there is a severe garbage-collection-related performance hit when you try optimizing the output of VT++ for flaming or insults.

I suggest that you try the latest version of GTC; the Gnu Troller Collection. It is *the* standard when it comes to creating Trolls. It is also Open Source, reentrant, and is fully compliant with the Triple Troll, Troll-On-Troll and TrollChow protocols. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:41, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Pointing our hypocrisy is not trolling. Although you twice reverting attempts to hat the more childish aspects of this discussion certainly could be. Saffron Blaze (talk) 18:20, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Every day, a troll goes hungry. These are not trolls in some third-world country, but right here at home. The growing rate of trolls is alarming. In the United States alone, the number of hungry trolls is expanding at a rate of 1 troll for every 15 Nigerian spam emails.

For example, take little Saffron here. On the comments section of his local blog, he does not even gain enough responses to fill an entire Tweet on Twitter. He has been forced to go into Yahoo! chat rooms and pose as an underage girl just for enough troll food to last the night.

Sponsoring a troll is easy. For the cost of sending just one flame or other response, your contribution (along with others) will keep one troll fed for a month. If you include your email address, you can get weekly or even daily letters from your troll. Think of what one post from you could mean to a hungry troll.

Please. Feed a troll today. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:24, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Back on topic (and to let the troll go hungry), the only thing I can possibly see of an entire classroom getting together to improve the encyclopedia without running into edit conflicts every three seconds is to make something like Google Docs - live, group editing. The new VisualEditor might be able to get the job done. Once the class is finished, the teacher can hit publish and everyone's happy - except for the kid in the corner who didn't get to contribute.

But a lot of people will probably ask; "Why don't we just use Google Docs and then copy n paste the code into the article?" K6ka (talk | contribs) 01:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing the discussion back on track. Another method comes to mind; if, as the OP claims, there is some sort of change to the Wikimedia software that fixes the problem of edit conflicts, the teacher could install the Wikimedia software locally with the modification. I can't help wishing that there was some hint about exactly what this modification is.

Actually, that might be a good idea whether or not there is such a mod. Imagine a preconfigured copy of Wikipedia with no articles but a full set of read-only policy and help pages and the main page replaced with easy-to-follow instructions for creating an article or copying an article from Wikipedia and modifying it, along with a template similar to Template:In use to let people on Wikipedia know what the teacher is doing. If this mini-Wikipedia was a one-click install with no configuration needed, it could be a big help to the teachers. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:30, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, using a Wikipedia-with-no-articles, then several students might wonder why all wikilinks in their new page show as redlinks, and why that was required when creating their expanded page for use in Wikipedia. Anyway, the "minor changes" to reduce wp:edit-conflicts would be made inside diff3.c (see recent source code: http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/OpenBSD/src/usr.bin/rcs/diff3.c). The tactic, for reduced edit-conflicts, would be to reduce the separation of an edit-conflict to "0" intervening lines, rather than require the separation to be at least 1 line, or Template:J, and instead just be "<" to avoid a simple edit-conflict. The more people study diff3.c, then the more the fixes could be understood. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:54, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

April 2014

This is your last warning. The next time you add unsourced material to Wikipedia, as you did at Mzoli's, you may be blocked from editing without further notice. LOLTheChampionMan1234 02:44, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Dude. April Fools is over. And you weren't supposed to use a real template! K6ka (talk | contribs) 11:19, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Villagers torch Frankenfonts castle

There has been a storm of controversy in several other-language WPs, and many German WP (dewiki) users have tried to shut-off the "Typography Refresh" of the Frankenfonts display in Vector skin (&useskin=vector), to stop the serif-font header titles, or arial-font "*" bullets or whatever unusual fonts have been activated. English WP has an RfC in wp:PUMPTECH, see threads:

• wp:VPT#Font size and style

• wp:VPT#Support changing back to original font
• wp:VPT#Oppose changing back to original font
• wp:VPT#Discussion
• wp:VPT#FYI: Edit-war between German community and WMF on Typography refresh
• wp:VPT#Gadget to opt-out
• wp:VPT#How about all serif?

On French WP, there is a discussion:

• fr:Wikipedia:Le_Bistro/4_avril_2014#On vote sur la Wikipédia en anglais sur la nouvelle typographie - about font style

The French term re "Typography Refresh" is "nouvelle typographie". I guess it could be predicted these "Wiki-fashion wars" would cause a huge debate among users, worldwide, as a massive distraction because useskin=vector is the most-common browser skin. Clarification: The new fonts vary, for each browser, where Firefox might use a narrow font with crowded letters (such as "example of this"), but some Internet Explorers have wider body font with short letters where "h" looks like "n" (hose/nose), "f" like "t" (offer/otter), but capital "i" looks like ell "l" ("I'll"), so a solution is to change the list of fonts which the browsers are offered. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:40, 4 April, 08:53, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Why was there no mass messaging to editors-and readers-about such a massive change, the rollout is better than Visual Editor, but still a surprise to many and still not very popular. Thanks, Matty.007 13:42, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

This whole thing is even being noticed outside of here (there's been a few Fast Company articles about, for example). The WMF has really put themselves in a tough spot: If they keep it, there's lots of people who really hate and who knows what they'll do, and there's the people that love it, who'll sorely miss it if it goes away, and who knows what we'll do. At this point, there's not really any good decision. I think that the gadget to return Vector skin to how it was before is the best that they can do. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 13:47, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I think they should have a vote of readers, that would be interesting. Editors can enable skins, gadgets and the like (though sometimes hard), whereas readers have no such luxuary. Whichever font the readers prefer should be standard, the other an opt-in skin or gadget. Thanks, Matty.007 13:50, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Question is, how would such a poll be done? If I recall correctly, the Reader Feedback was eliminated due to low participation and not making much headway towards improvements, is there some way to at least minimize that? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 13:54, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if you contributed to the Picture of the Year competition voting on Commons, but that had a pop up box, similar to requests for feedback on sites such as the BBC or the Telegraph. It probably wouldn't be too hard to enable it for all readers to be able to vote. Thanks, Matty.007 13:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

That could work. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 14:00, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

@Supernerd11: regarding "there's lots of people who really hate"...Lots is a relative term. Remember how big Wikipedia is. There are more than 400 million readers every month.[1] On English Wikipedia alone, there are more than 30,000 active editors (nearly 3,000 of which make 100+ edits/month).[2] 800+ editors opted-in to the typography beta before it was launched. Having 85 people (as of right now) vote to revert a default change for all of thousands of editors and millions of readers is not really a lot in my view. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:54, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The readers in general haven't a clue where to complain, lots can't be bothered, and there are only about 30 who have voted that they like it in the same discussion. Thanks, Matty.007 20:09, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Hm, good point. I was just basing "lots" off of the comments I'd seen at the Village Pump poll, other WMF projects, and the Help Desk; I never thought about all the people who haven't commented. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 20:51, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Hmm.. (irony mode on), so @Steven (WMF):, what you are saying is that 29,200 (97%) of active editors chose *not* to opt-in to try it. Of the 3% that tryed it, you do not show (here) any figure on how many liked it. So, you roll out a new font based on the fact that AT MOST 3% of active users liked it? Don't tell me that a large silent majority not opposing you is a valid thing, but also large silent majority not supporting you is not. The new font is not too good. But silly arguments hinting that silent majority is on your side... that's really bad. Jimbo, the quality of WMF's helping hands are terrible... you should get better. Really. - Nabla (talk) 00:19, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• I'm getting the feeling the big picture issue here is that the developers, both for Flow and for this, think that Wikipedia has to go to some format designed for a phone, with bigger font, more whitespace (I don't know how that fits in), and some different fonts. The problem I have with this is fundamental and more fundamental. To begin with, before I log in and see my usual MonoBook, I only read (with sidebar, as usual) to "great battle", with a sentence of the TFA summary missing, before scrolling down. With my MonoBook I read down to "More featured articles..." On an article I was editing, I see two more paragraphs with my settings. I'll avoid going on long about how this benefits deletionism and harms the encyclopedia, or the general undesirability of many mobile platforms to free culture; let's just say this is disturbing. This is supposed to be the good version of Wikipedia, the non-mobile version, and we should retain a format that packs our screens with information. Wnt (talk) 21:09, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

^{Something like this, but even more narrow} ...

Eh, never thought I will ever start editing this page, but: you say Wnt, bigger font, more whitespace - I got on the contrary a much smaller and with less whitespace, ... how weird. Squeezed up, 4 times as high then wide. The lines are thinner, thickness of hair. It kind of vibrates when I trying to read it. Hafspajen (talk) 00:43, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Well don't sit on the washing machine while you're editing! PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 01:07, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Paley, I am not sitting on the washing machine, I just feel like I was... Hafspajen (talk) 01:10, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• The argument they gave for not even testing this design was that no test could accommodate all the possibilities. This is a defense of willful arrogance. It is the equivalent of an editor saying, since I could not search all possible sources, I said whatever I wanted and didn't bother doing a search. Some few of us tried to comment on the relevant meta talk page during the design phase, and as far as I can tell, anyone from outside the circle of designers was ignored or given condescending answers. The WMF exists to serve the community of editors and readers, not to implement their own private ideas. Some aspects of function are relatively esoteric, but the question of what page design works is a matter that every reader and editor can evaluate. DGG ( talk ) 05:11, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

...and have an opinion on. WP is very good at discussing the small stuff to death. When I first saw the font yesterday, yes I didn't know about it, yes it was a surprise, yes I didn't (don't) really like it, but that's just an opinion. Ultimately it doesn't really matter. Looking at the screeds of text at Village Pump and elsewhere on this (for and against) I'm just glad that there's some aspects of WP where decisions are just made, without having to defer to the interminable search for community consensus. DeCausa (talk) 08:47, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I take issue with your suggestion that "the question of what page design works is a matter that every reader and editor can evaluate". The Australian education minister, Christopher Pyne, has suggested that because everyone has been through the school system at some point, everyone thinks they're an expert on education and curriculum. In the same way, although everyone interacts with web pages, magazines etc. on a regular basis, that doesn't make everyone a design expert. People often know what they themselves think would look good, but when it comes to finding a design to please the masses, people tend to get it wrong. That's where real design experts come in. — This, that and the other (talk) 08:54, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, all I can personally know about either education or interface is the effect on me; to find out the effect on others, some level of actual investigation is needed. Further, I can never know that I am not deceiving myself, and my true reactions are not what I think they are, and the my feelings and my behavior might be discordant. All the experiences of my life--and there is no other basis for any of us to judge anything) however convince me that others, even those calling themselves experts, regardless of credentials, are likely to know even less, except through the medium of disciplined research presented in a way that the literate can understand and evaluate. Detailed evaluation of presented material can be very revealing-the claim that grey is better than black turns out to be based on the much weaker finding that for many people grey is acceptable. DGG ( talk ) 04:17, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I said something similar at Wikipedia_talk:Flow/Design_FAQ#Bunkum:_easy_to_read_grey_text back in February. Wnt (talk) 15:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

If the real experts don't ask the people, because the people don't know, then how do the experts know? It is a God given inspiration? - Nabla (talk) 09:57, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Out of interest, Jimbo, what is your opinion on the new font? Thanks, Matty.007 15:53, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

One of the questions on the FAQ is "Did you test this design on readers" and the answer is "No." Admittedly it was a 2 paragraph "No", but it was"No" nonetheless. Also many Wikimedians had commented on the design since December - the key point iterated time and again was "don't mix serif and sans". Admittedly we are, some of us, old fogies, but we are not ignorant old fogies - I even ran a printing company once upon a time, though my typographical and design knowledge pales compared with many disputants. We are told this design is "happening" and will appeal to the young 'uns. One of the demographic holes for Wikipedia is, though, oldies, who are more under under-represented than women (my thanks to RexxS for this tit-bit). Come on, time for the WMF to make a commitment to really really involve the community. This is a minor issue, but it's re-treading the steps of so many previous mess-ups that it is ceasing to be funny. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 04:01, 7 April 2014 (UTC).

Socializing changes - is that corporate speak for brainwashing? All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 04:14, 7 April 2014 (UTC).

Russian alternative to Wikipedia

I learned, at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Newsroom/Suggestions, that Anton Likhomanov, the director general of the National Library of Russia, has expressed a need for an alternative to Wikipedia.

• ITAR-TASS: Non-political - Russia needs own alternative to Wikipedia—Wavelength (talk) 18:31, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Such a project is unlikely to be successful unless the Russian government decides to block access to Wikipedia, a prospect that I previously considered highly unlikely, but one which the events of the past two years have suggested is entirely possible. Further down, Wnt has it right - the Wikimedia Foundation would flatly refuse to turn off access to Russian Wikipedia at the command of the US or any other government. And under the First Amendment such a demand is not going to happen. So the hint that such a thing is possible is clearly FUD. I think the true rationale for this is that Russian Wikipedia reports in an NPOV way on various things in a country which I fear increasingly wishes to return to state-controlled information flows. As we have seen recently in Turkey, such attempts are sheer folly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:11, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Addendum: I found an email address for Mr. Likhomanov and emailed him a friendly note.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:28, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• We also need an alternative to Wikipedia: Find us a website that fixes wp:edit-conflicts to allow changing/adding adjacent lines, an edit-screen that warns how many people have edited the page within the past few hours, an edit-screen with button '[Check_format]' to detect invalid wp:wikitext syntax before saving edits, an edit-screen that knows tag "<editonly>" to allow template warnings during edit which are hidden upon SAVE, a wikitext parser with wp:expansion depth limit > 40/41 levels, or a page-footer feature which always displays some end-of-page text defined higher in the page. If the Russians can design such a website, then perhaps we can edit there and post the completed pages back here! ;-) Wikid77 (talk) 20:46, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

• Jimbo: you could help head this off. Itar-Tass made the deceptive comparison to VISA/Mastercard that can just cut off payments. But Wikipedia is CC-licensed, and the Russians or people of any other country can set up their local mirror any time they want, provided local laws don't forbid it. More to the point, Wikipedia is not an appendage of the U.S. government - we don't expect to be and wouldn't tolerate being told to stop running the ru.wikipedia as part of any sanctions package; it's our free speech right in the U.S. to publish in any language we want. Unless the U.S. were actually to force a disconnection of all the Internet cables across some new Iron Curtain, Russians will continue to have access --- unless, that is, TASS is hinting the Russians' own government intends to censor them from coming here and plans to force them to use the "alternative", which is what the cynical reader justifiably reads into this. In any case, it would be within your power to publicly remind the media of some of this. Wnt (talk) 21:20, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

In Russia, Wikipedia edits you. Neutron (talk) 01:56, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I expect the Kremlinopedia will turn out quite similar to Baidu Encyclopedia which only cares about censorship but the verifiability is technically non-existence or just forking Wikipedia's content selectively. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 15:58, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

It might be similar to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (БСЭ — Яндекс.Словари) and the Great Russian Encyclopedia.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:13, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The only robust way to head this off is to have a distributed Wikipedia, something I have been giving thought to a lot over the last few years. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 04:05, 7 April 2014 (UTC).

Sockpuppetry

Surely one answer to the problem would be to have everyone sign in by entering their e-mail address, as happens on numerous other interactive sites? Obviously no one wants their e-mail address on display so they would select a username and that would be aligned to the e-mail address. This still means "anyone can edit" but only if they behave themselves. Okay, someone might take the trouble to create several e-mail addresses but when it becomes obvious that there is a breach of WP:SPI, you block not just the usernames but the e-mail addresses too and so make it umpteen times more difficult for the troll to re-enlist on a continuing basis.

Looking at WP:SPI now, there are more than fifty cases waiting. That is ridiculous when you think of the damage just one troll can do. The list inevitably includes this person who is as usual (Redacted). If you look at his archive you can see how persistent he is in his prolonged campaign against this project and its members. This is, however, an unusual troll because he confirmed his real name at the start of his activities and has repeated it several times subsequently. He has also kindly supplied the information that he held a prominent position in this organisation and with that knowledge it is very easy to find his then home address. His recent edits suggest he has since relocated and that appears to be confirmed by use of IP addresses which geolocate to this town. Nevertheless, there is more than enough information to hand to quickly locate him.

Routine blocks of successive "sockpuppet" accounts are all very well but I would have thought that Wikipedia should be doing something really positive and meaningful to protect its members from hate crime. Two of your senior English admins – this one and this one – have had direct contact with the troll on several occasions each. There may be a process within WP for escalating such matters but, failing that, perhaps you should ask one of the two admins to contact these people about this particular troll? 217.44.70.189 (talk) 04:28, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Requiring a unique email address for required registration and sign-in-to-edit would be an excellent start to ending the sockpuppet/multiple unconnected accounts/undisclosed COI madness. I note now the irony that it is an IP editor making this excellent suggestion. Carrite (talk) 15:41, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I've always found it baffling that having a verified email address was never part of the signup process, not least because it prevents users from being up the creek if they forget their password. You're right that when it comes to sockpuppeting, the effort involved in registering a new email address for every sockpuppet would be prohibitively high. Obviously, there are cases where multiple accounts are permitted (doppelgangers, non-privileged spare accounts for admins and the like), so the software would need to be engineered to support that in some way. — Scott • talk 17:29, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The effort involved in registering a new email address for every sockpuppet would be prohibitively high? I pay $24.00 a year (http://www.tuffmail.com/) for the ability to create as many email addresses as I wish, Every website and every person I email reaches me though a different email address. It takes less than a minute to create a new one. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:42, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

It'd dampen the sockpuppetry a bit, but like Guy Macon said, there's still plenty that would be able to come back (there's plenty of free sites for email out there, even). But what about censorship and that sort of thing? If you're somewhere that you're not supposed to be on Wikipedia (China, I'm looking at you) and you find a way on, a required email would just be another way to track you down. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 21:22, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

I would strongly support research and experimentation in this area. I think changes to our sign up policies should not only include working to minimize the impact of sockpuppets, but also should include an assessment of how they impact new editor recruitment and retention. I think we can all agree that some measures to minimize sockpuppetry (such as requiring a credit card confirmation to edit) would go much too far. There is some evidence (from Wikia) that requiring signup has minimal impact on signup rates and positive impact on editor retention. But notice that other issues quickly come into play: Wikia uses Facebook Connect, which is very successful for them, but we'd be highly unlikely to do that. Still - there is a wide range of tests that could be run.

One thing I am dismayed about is the high level of intolerance by some members of the community for any sort of change. In the wiki, we still have a spirit of BE BOLD and an understanding that anything can be rolled back if it doesn't work out. The same is true of software changes of all kinds - if we can allow the developers to BE BOLD, then things that don't work out can be rolled back. But if we get out the pitchforks and torches everytime some little experience isn't what we expected, we make it really hard for them to improve the software.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:52, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

With respect, Jimbo, bollocks. The "pitchforks and torches" come out because the battle lines are pre-drawn. There is a real disconnect here, and a real problem. Community members feel their concerns are ignored, and WMF developers feel they are "picked on". This needs a solution, not dismissal. I'd like to think we can solve this, and I'd like to think you can help us. Please comment at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Proposal. I'd really appreciate that. Begoon ^talk 16:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

The reasons that changes to Wikipedia are often met negatively are the lack of notification and/or the lack of need for change. We didn't need VE, we don't seem to need a new font. Change for change's sake is not a good policy. Thanks, Matty.007 17:36, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

You are mistaken about the facts, I'm afraid. Both the VE and updating the site to improve readability are both needed, and both were discussed well in advance. If you aren't involved in such things, don't cry when they happen without you. The Foundation has been incredible about soliciting feedback and socializing changes beforehand.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:55, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The fact that VE was withdrawn near immediately, and the new font is met with near universal surprise speak otherwise. 10,000 users on a site with hundreds of thousands, and millions of unconsulted readers is a minute sample to take. Matty.007 18:04, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

In addition, why were changes to COI editing, which arguably doesn't affect readers too much met with sitewide banners, viewable to readers, whereas this had only a small discussion on meta, with no banners for readers, or (as far as I am aware) editors? Matty.007 18:11, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

as I understand it, the problem with VE was that it was simply not ready for widespread release, and the WMF completely ignored the enwiki consensus that it should be opt in. it ended up that someone listended to IAR and BEBOLD, and made the change to opt-in without the help of WMF. -- Aunva6^{talk - contribs} 06:10, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• Ha, found it. THIS is how it looks like! (Washing machine or not). I do understand that it was meant as an improvement, of course, no doubt of that, but we must face it like a man - maybe it came out not quite as it was intended. Hafspajen (talk) 19:37, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

  

In regards to the topic of socking and changing the way Wikipedia does things. If you start digging into who is socking by creating new mechanisms I would be willing to bet you are going to make some startling discoveries of who is using more than one account. Also, adding email address as an autoconfirmed would only go so far, if you added email address to the list of fields checkusers have access too, it would also help to eliminate a lot of the lazy ones who use the same Email for multiple accounts. 172.56.2.75 (talk) 22:34, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• Bold user-interface changes are terrifying: The massive changes to the user-interface are extremely distracting to users (hence the pun: "user-interfere changes"), especially to the millions of people who view pages without login, without setting Special:Preferences to useskin=Monobook, and get whatever their PC or tablet or library or classroom displays among the selection of Frankenfonts which their browser provides. For many people, the serif header titles were overwide, spread and wrapped across the screen, but the horseplay in the body text was either oversized, chopped ("norseplav") or small run-together text ("if just leaming about fonts"), and hence many users concluded their browsers were garbled because Wikipedia had always displayed clear text, and some people spent hours trying to reset their browsers and computer fonts. Some schools were helpless to reset 500 computer screens. Couple those problems with VE-bad-experience memories, and now predict the latest comments, repeatedly: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Perhaps beta-testing will require 50,000 users. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:00, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

What? People can't handle technical glitches? Is this the 21st century? Is this technology, we are talking about? (Also, having looked in a couple browsers signed out - don't see a problem). Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:47, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

• Any change is terrifying: So never change anything, ever! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:04, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Just because Lavabit's crypto-grade email is down doesn't mean you can't pick up a free email or six on the web, without even giving a different email address. Puppet masters can change e-mail, change browsers, clear cookies, and in general run rings around you ... then proudly share their exploits on chat forums so everyone knows how to do it. The sockpuppet hunting only hurts the innocent newbies who get caught up in the net all too often. Wikipedia needs to give up sock hunting and come up with ways that making lots of contributions for a long time gives more political pull. Wnt (talk) 00:39, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Resistance to change is part of the human condition. Regarding the proposal, it's very sensible. I wonder what needs to happen to make it real. CorporateM (Talk) 20:05, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Honestly, far too much time and effort is expended to "stop" sockpuppets and the tools used are so crude and unhelpful that its more common than not to have collateral damage in the process because the use of the checkuser tool is, and verified by the instructions, more about the skill of the interpreter than the data it presents. A quick look at SPI most of the "sockpuppets" that are counted and blocked have never even edited. Many that have, had positive contributions with no apparent vandalism or problems with disputes. I wonder how many of these were just innocent editors caught in the net to stop "sockmasters". Several users and sockpuppets have been identified as being collateral damage and allowed back, additionally, several sockmasters have identified that many of the accounts they were credited with weren't even them. Of course its not outside reason that they would lie, but are they? IMO, we need to give more value to the nature of the edits than if they are a user returned. 172.56.2.52 (talk) 20:20, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

While I cordially despise big social media's data gathering through beacons, cookies, single sign up and so forth, I am not in principle adverse to WP enabling fb/G+/whatever sign-in. Or maybe we could offer our SUL to the blue chip companies? Hmm maybe that ship has sailed.... All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 04:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC).
04:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Special Barnstar
	thanks for creating Wikipedia! ^^ You really,really,really deserve this star. thanks for everything. Macadam1 (talk) 07:59, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Better sockpuppet detection

Jimbo's comment "I would strongly support research and experimentation in this area" ABOVE got me thinking. Right now, I believe that someone with the CU right can look at IP addresses and email addresses (and of course all of the person's contributions, just like the rest of us) I am probably more capable than most sockmasters, but I am pretty sure that I could create a sockpuppet that is undetectable. I can buy access to a botnet with a thousand nodes all over the world for less than $50 if I can live with 56K or DSL speeds See http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/09/06/1944233/rent-your-own-botnet and http://www.trendmicro.com/cloud-content/us/pdfs/security-intelligence/white-papers/wp-russian-underground-101.pdf

Wikipedia could get a lot more sophisticated with our sockpuppet detection. Consider https://panopticlick.eff.org/browser-uniqueness.pdf and https://panopticlick.eff.org/ for example. I am leaking a lot more information than just my IP address. According to panopticlic, I am currently leaking 12.42 bits of identifying information, and one in 5,470 browsers have the same fingerprint as me. Another possibility is automated textual analysis. It would catch the fact that I and my sockpuppet both occasionally lapse into UK spelling and vocabulary, or that i use certain uncommon words a lot.

The one thing I lack is motivation. I cannot think of a single reason why i might want to have a sockpuppet. But then again, that's what I would say if I had a dozen of them :) --Guy Macon (talk) 22:27, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Checkusers cannot see Email currently. They see the IP, the User account if applicable, the operating system and the web browser and I think that's it. If Email address were added, it would make the checkuser tool a lot more specific and useful. If they added the PC MAC address it would be virtually indisputable. Now its mostly assumption and guesswork by the checkusers and the tool is highly prone to false positives (how many people use Mozilla Firefox and Windows 8 to edit on a daily basis from the Verizon network). 172.56.2.75 (talk) 22:37, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

The MAC address is on the Ethernet layer below TCP/IP an only identifies your NIC to the local network segment. MAC addresses are not included in TCP/IP packets passed upstream through intermediate routers.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/browser-uniqueness.pdf details a lot more that CUs could examine besides just the operating system and the web browser. I think we should do more research on this. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:49, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

"12.42 bits" of data? Really? Ahem... --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:02, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, fractional bits are a thing (at least in some narrow statistical contexts). Andy Dingley (talk) 23:40, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Example: Alice's browser gives me information about her computer, but one out of eight computers gives me the same information, so her browser leaks 3 bits of identifying information. Bob's browser gives me information about his computer, but one out of sixteen computers gives me the same information, so his browser leaks 4 bits of identifying information. One out of twelve computers gives me the same information as Eve's computer. How many bits is that? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:56, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The purpose of such research should only be to see what Wikipedia can do to prevent such data collection. For example, my understanding is that sites need to request system fonts information. Which is a serious privacy loophole that shouldn't exist in the first place. But Wikipedia should not be trying to collect that data, not on its own behalf and not on behalf of third parties overseeing the connection. What Wikimedia developers could be doing would be leading teams of users in designing an extensive suite of totally free fonts to cover all the familiar applications, so that users could enable only these free fonts and display anything, and then all browsers would have the same resources and the "bits" from that would go to zero. (Plus a lot fewer headaches for things like the Vector skin) Wnt (talk) 00:35, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The three most common methods of obtaining system font information are JavaScript/AJAX, Flash applet, and Java applet. See http://www.lalit.org/lab/javascript-css-font-detect/ for one of the most often used JavaScript methods. All three should be disabled if you care about privacy; it makes little sense to allow a website to run code on your local machine and then complain because that code does what code normally does.

As for whether Wikipedia should collect any sort of signature data, we already collect IP addresses and have a strict policy that only certain trusted users (Checkuser user right, which most admins do not have) can access the information. The same would be true of any browser signature information. This would actually slightly increase privacy. Right now, if a sockpuppet investigation concludes through checkuser that I am also sockpuppet X, you know that the two of us have the same IP address. If the checkusers had a wider variety of methods, you wouldn't know for sure which method linked the two accounts. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, the irony. It doesn't matter what technical measures you take to try and hide the connections, it will always be relatively easy to spot non-obvious socks who are trying to make long terms edits the project as notionally 'innocent' users, without using any technical jiggery pokery (although it can provide confirmation). All you need to do is just need to spend the small amount of time it takes to compare account creation dates, relative experience, interests & personality traits. The reason why it's never been easier for banned users to return to Wikipedia and just carry on editting the same way they did before, is because admins like Guy don't have the wit or the drive to do this most basic of things, even when the evidence is laid out before them on a plate. Button mashing and dishing out blocks based on the results, is just about all they can manage. Hence his desire for even more shiny buttons. One of the most active editors on Wikipedia right now, is a sock of a banned user, for this very reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Norchtuk (talk • contribs) 18:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

First, I am not an administrator. I don't believe that any WP:DRN volunteer will ever become an admin, because getting involved in any sort of dispute resolution will cause you to collect enemies. This would be true even if you were perfect, and it applies triple if you make a mistake in judgement, which we all do at times. To become an admin, keep your head dowm, offend nobody, and create lots of articles. Once you have demonstrated that you have zero experience doing the kind of things admins do, your RfA will sail through.

Second, I have a fairly good history of carefully analyzing edit histories and creating timelines with dates and diffs. You really need to be able to do this to be successful at dispute resolution. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I wonder what made me think you were an admin then. Maybe it was the attitude with which greeted the information, or your complete failure to even figure out why you were being presented with it. Still, as you said, you're not an admin, so sadly in Wikiland that largely lets you off the hook, as far as responsibility for not doing the right thing goes. But if you have the experience you claim, for some reason you completely failed to apply it to this case. Funnily enough though, the admin who's turned up to comment below is one of the ones who ignored it. He had quite different reasons for overlooking it though, which have absolutely nothing to do technical evidence, or the lack thereof. It's frankly hilarious to see him talking about requiring editors to disclose their identity in this context. The banned editor in question is so desperate to edit as a sock, I wouldn't put it past him to do whatever would be necessary to defeat his idea of non-private accounts. And he would do so, because it's clearly worth it when they can't be bothered to look at anything else but technical evidence, no matter how convincing or obvious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Norchtuk (talk • contribs) 21:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

                    Trollometer 
 
 0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10
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 |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |    |
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        ^
        |
 
 Sorry, try a little harder next time.  Thanks for playing!  --Guy Macon (talk) 00:48, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's the sort of immature response that made me assume you were an admin the first time around. Maybe you should trade in your trollometer for a sock-detector, then maybe you might be able to actuall help the project, instead of just using it to make yourself look like a fool (which you're going to look like once the sock I'm talking about is eventually exposed). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Norchtuk (talk • contribs) 11:45, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

The simplest solution would be to ditch this misguided notion that people should be able to perform acts in public while hiding their identity. That's not "privacy" under any plain definition of the term. Privacy is the right to perform private acts in private places, not public acts in public places.

If that's not possible, it would be trivially easy to put additional, automatic, sockpuppet blocks in place that most sockpuppeteers would not be able to defeat. We certainly have a cadre of technically savvy sockpuppeteers that could defeat cookie and browser signature based solutions, but, like our editors, most of our sockpuppeteers are relatively clueless when it comes to precisely how a browser works.—Kww(talk) 19:41, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I believe that the correct word is "anonymity", and it is very desirable. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:15, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Only for people that do not take responsibility for their actions.—Kww(talk) 01:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

So you think that Chinese dissidents, battered women trying to avoid being murdered by their abusers and people in Witness protection programs should all "take responsibility for their actions"? Not everyone has a government that allows them to freely edit Wikipedia -- freedom that you might not have yourself if Thomas Paine had been forced to "take responsibility for his actions" instead of publishing Common Sense anonymously. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that Wikipedia is an agent of social reform and dissent. Certainly there are people that should not edit Wikipedia. The thin guise of anonymity that we provide is enough to make fighting socks a pain, but nowhere near sufficient to make it safe for such people to edit. It contributes to an unpleasant environment without returning any actual benefit, unless you consider an illusion of safety to somehow be a benefit.—Kww(talk) 02:28, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

You talk of "people taking responsibility" if their real life identities are disclosed. Sure they might. But the question is why. Most people would "take responsibility" not to make them look good IRL but instead not to make them look bad; and there is a significant difference. I would be quite afraid of real life repercussions from editing, especially if I was, say, an admin or a person in positions of power who has made enemies through blocking socks and vandals. So the real motivation behind "taking responsibility" when your real name is shown is fear. You can't hold a loaded gun to everybody's head and call it security.

What would you or I gain if we could find out anyone's identity through Wikipedia? More importantly, what could the trolls and vandals gain? Now we aren't just playing around in our own little site anymore. With the disclosure of real world identities we find ourselves in the real world, and real world actions can have real world consequences. At emergency@wikimedia.org, we have a place to report real life threats of violence: bomb threats, death threats, etc. Now what if these people could find out who you are? With little ease, through Facebook or a social site, they could find out all about you, including where you live. Then those threats don't seem so harmless anymore, do they? KonveyorBelt 04:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Anonymity is important for more than just those who do bad stuff. There's a reason I don't use my real name here: I don't want everyone else filtering my edits through "Oh, he's so-and-so, he won't know anything". I don't know everyone else's reasoning, but dissidents and unfiltering are two very plausible things that come to mind, not to mention how people are generally more frank when disconnected from their true identity. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 02:26, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

If people were held responsible for their actions on Wikipedia, Kww wouldn't still be an admin. It takes a special brand of irresponsibility to deliberately look the other way when you're given hard evidence that an editor with thousands of edits on the project, is infact a sock puppet of a banned user.

P.S. The 'unconstructive' edit filter is being triggered when I try and expand on the above post and explain his apparent motivation for protecting a banned editor - perhaps it's been tampered with it to ensure the truth never gets out? Wouldn't surprise me one bit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Norchtuk (talk • contribs) 11:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

New fonts

Even though it's unaesthetic, I'm sure I'll get used to having a font with serifs for titles and one without for body. It will take longer to get used to those wimpy little esses, though--Ss--that fade out in the middle. It didn't really bother me till I tried to read a whole article. Hard on the eye. Yopienso (talk) 05:03, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

It was something of a shock and I wasn't even exactly sure what was different but thought....did Wikipedia get a haircut...new glasses?--Mark Miller (talk) 07:18, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• It sort of is Layout 101 that sans-serifs are for headlines and serifs are for body-text, which is probably why there is a hipster element that wants to do it backwards. Of course, some hipsters have more power than others. Seriously though, if this layout stuff bugs ya, just switch your skin over to Cologne Blue and live a happy life. Carrite (talk) 16:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• There's also the gadget to switch your Vector back to the old way, if you want. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 18:52, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Any tips on how to do that? Yopienso (talk) 22:04, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Preferences ==> Gadgets tab ==> Appearance section ==> Vector classic typography (use only sans-serif in Vector skin) Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 22:14, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Got it! Thank you very much! Yopienso (talk) 22:54, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Re "I hate it here section" and editors leaving, in response to your comments there

Interesting I would find this section at the top of your page, upon coming here for the first time in a long while. I've been around one hell of a long time and have contributed massive amounts to Wikipedia, and remember the days when AGF and NPA were not used to inflict AGF and NPA, but when people actually sought to talk to each other and reconcile differences; I'm the subject of something very much like a witchhunt or kangaroo court right now, and that I do not write in bullet-form or simplistic sentences is being used as a reason to discuss ejecting me from Wikipedia altogether.

Even though I have begun to bullet point and paragraph my posts,as demanded by BHG there who clearly hasn't looked at my last week's posts/activity, I am still getting derisive retorts in place of discussion and still being accused of TLDR and "walls of text" (which to me as an older, widely read person, is insulting and really is "La-la, I don't hear you" as a reason to ignore what I am saying and just attack me, and now tub-thump to toss me out altogether). BearBAITing is the nature of ANI in general, and contrarian and "hit the gong button" mentality is rife there, as is "dogpiling"........the pretense of wikiquette has become the overriding agenda over content, guidelines are being ignored and abused, the truth stood on its head with me being accused of things being done to me, and accuracy is suffering, and that "toxic environment" mentioned above is thriving and festering on ANI and elsewhere. Of course I'm getting blamed for it by the very people who have been resistant to open discussion and have tried to block my actions and ideas at every turn. Skookum1 (talk)

The one-sidedness and the "if he speaks again he will be blocked" gist of comments there mean that every time I defend myself against unfair or "stilted" points, I am at risk of never being able to speak again. The topics at hands are areas in which I have local expertise in droves, and am respected for as such; the disputes are coming from people who don't know the topics, and aver from reading what I have to say because they don't like "walls of text" and will TLDR even something that is less than 250 words. Is Wikipedia to turn into a place run by semi-literates not capable of doing research or of reading extended text? Skookum1 (talk)

And re that ANI, I know bullying when I see it and this place is rife with it, and ANI and other "consensus discussions" are its main organs of trial, punishment and execution. If speaking up in my own defence is held against me, as some there have indicated, I will not be able to write you here again.....and since I don't get paid for my writing here, that may wind up being a good thing for me, as I have been largely penniless throughout my Wikipedia years...often because my time is taken up working on it, or dealing with procedures that are only necessary because of AGF attitudes towards my areas of knowledge and geographic origin by people who have little of the same themselves.Skookum1 (talk)

Despite the ongoing, and now officially-manifested, harassment and the one-sided show trial nature of "the accused is not allowed to speak in his defence), I continue to work on articles, RMs and try to engage in guideline discussions where I am being snubbed by my accuser and insulted by a persistently disruptive editor....."I can hear the sound of axes grinding" for a while now, long before this ANI began, and it's partisan in the extreme and coming from people who have ignored major guidelines while writing their own bad ones, and who have persistently resisted and sought to shut down RMs and more about topics they don't really know anything about, just because it's me who nominated them. I've been winning 95% of them, though, because not everyone is so rabidly in attack/oppose mode.....and I talk guidelines and facts, not nonsensical wikilawyering on picayune interpretations of only one guideline. Some key ones have failed, but those were not due to the guidelines or facts, which the closer would not read, but only from hostility towards my writing style and their own lack of knowledge of the titles/topics/guidelines at question.Skookum1 (talk)

Being told I should use Twitter as a model for my posts was.......degrading, but typical of these latter times when attentions and thought-processes have been seriously affect by the constraints and effects of technology on human culture and brain-matter....and yes, sir, the world is going to hell in a bushelbasket....many people I know have left Wikipedia and will not return because of matters such as all described......I have stuck it out because I believe in the importance of the overall project and of the topics that I have written copiously on, in many many areas......there are those who have left in disgust at how things are done in the wiki-backrooms, and those who are thrown out. Wikipedia is NOTCENSORED, but it seems I'm about to be, and forbidden to return....you're welcome to review my edit history and articles created etc as to exactly how much I've done and about what..... Skookum1 (talk) 06:46, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

And just to underscore about the "toxic environment", I have quite a number of supporters, even begrudging ones due to my amount of knowledge, contributions and dedication, but they are unwilling to come by ANI as they don't like what goes on there and the type of the persecutory and contrarian attitudes that infest the place by its very nature; similarly there seem to be people who patrol RM and CfD listings looking for things, or other editors, to oppose.....

In spite of being told to shut up speaking in my own defence "or else", I had the temerity to reply to unfair and distorted comments last night (til 3:15 am my time, which is Koh Samui, Thailand), which refer to specific issues and topics/titles that are where all this has come out of. I'd rather be able to point you to certain RMs still open and some that are now closed unsatisfactorily, but my time here may be short as the boom may fall on me at any minute because of my refusal to submit as I'm told I am supposed to by shutting up in my own defence; I have some things to get done before that happens. If I am kicked out by these proceedings, your encyclopedia has lost one of its most dedicated and productive, nay prodigious, editors who was hounded out by the same elements who are why many other editors have left, and who are why many editors avoid ANI and RM etc.....in that link there are details of how the host of RMs just passed (mostly) came into being, in response to an ill-informed and seemingly deliberate change of a category name I was known to have strong values/issues about on the premise of a "FOO people" dispute; read about it in that link; it is interconnected with teh "FOO people" problem and the insistence of some who maintain that Canadian English usages are to be discounted vs global usages, even though the former in all cases outnumber the rest 10:1 or more, and who also applied "+ people" across thousands of articles he now claims it is disruptive to discuss individually, demanding a discussion he does nothing but stonewall at. Skookum1 (talk)

Suffice to say the original creator of the category and article in question, who is himself indigenous, User:OldManRivers, who is Skwxwu7mesh and the principal author of the pages on both his peoples, one being at Kwakwaka'wakw, the other being now Squamish people (very ambiguously given the town of Squamish which is the PRIMARYTOPIC whether or not my RM to address that reality was refused). OldManRivers is among those who have left wikipedia, I won't repeat his comments about the people and attitudes he encountered here.....they're very explicit NPAs.Skookum1 (talk) 07:50, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I know nothing about you or the incident but...surely you understand that brevity keeps the reader's focus and if your responses simply take up too much space.......people will tend to believe it to be a diversionary tactic. Also...we, as editors are not all equal. Some have great intelligence and very high IQs while others have a greater learning curve to get over. We have to have patience with everyone and we cannot look down on what we may perceive to be less than suitable suggestions. I actually am a tad surprised that an editor, such as your self, would actually be degraded by a suggestion to use Twitter as a model for your posts. Uhm...they were suggesting smaller responses. And I can see why. You have to separate your encyclopedic writing from your general discussion writing. Come on now....you have to admit, not everyone can handle huge responses or replies. Your meaning gets lost to others in all the text. And many people will simply walk away and pay no attention. Trust me....I almost did myself.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:24, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

what's been going on is a partisan witchhunt/hounding and BAITing me into long responses is an old game from some of the arrogators in question, whose noses are out of joint because I've shown their mistakes and not-so-hidden agendas laid bare.....also persistent obstructionist and/or wiklawyering and often directly insulting behaviour at a multitude of needed and mandated RMs and a few related CfDs......and then some. In general, there are often complex details that need addressing, not glossing; I write as succinctly as possible, and even trimming that I still get complaints, as noted. IMO if people incapable of comprehending materials they do not want to understand would not participate in votes about topics they know nothing about and are not willing to even try to learn to understand. That many of these are conferred with the powers of an admin is shameful.Skookum1 (talk) 08:32, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you may be your own worst enemy. Seriously. You are a Wikipedia editor, but you can't write in a succinct manner? You just did above. You may just be so used to a specific manner of writing. However, the discussion part of Wikipedia is a form of communication. If you cannot communicate well.....it really doesn't matter what you are saying. Please have more patience. Attempt brief responses like you just did so you do not give yourself undue weight in a discussion and are simply expressing only what is absolutely needed with each response. I think if you did that you would certainly be much better off than you feel right now. Believe it or not (and I know people either don't believe it or just don't like the idea) but we are a community. Part of being a community is, not just getting along but communicating in a manner that everyone can clearly understand. It isn't a policy, guideline or procedure you will see written down but...trust me, if you can't communicate well here...things can be tough all around.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:53, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe get off his back and evaluate ideas rather than critiquing style. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 13:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• No, it is more important to point out how he is part of the problem and ignore the issues he brings forward. Saffron Blaze (talk) 16:45, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

In other words, presupposing that's not sarcasm which is what it might sound like, DON'T address the issues I raise and make me the issue instead....which is contrary to guidelines....charitably you might have been stating a parody of the "wikiquette before meaningful content and informed input" can of those who don't want to address issues, but only criticize those raising them. The problem is not me but you've clearly got your mind made up that it is.....and yourself don't care about the issues, or the guidelines I am trying to address in resolving them; or the wide support by all the closed RMs where my input was listened to, despite the persistent opposition of those who are only opposing to oppose; they are the problem, not me. And your attitude, so succinctly but ironically put just now, sums up what is wrong with Wikipedia's culture of spite, masked as "wikiquette" but really aggressive, exclusionary and very very negative and persistently disruptive.Skookum1 (talk) 17:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• That indeed was sarcasm. I was simply pointing out that here, as well as elsewhere on WP, you are more likely to be demonized than actively engaged in a constructive way. Enormous effort is put forth in pointing out your flaws instead of getting to the root of the issue, which is the crux of the opening post on this page. Saffron Blaze (talk) 20:26, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the clarification; it's hard to tell tone of voice in ASCII as w all know; I'm so used to hearing that it's difficult to recognize as parody. North8000's quote of me below took me aback at first, because it was without the preceding phrase and I thought maybe I'd put "not" when I didn't mean to; as per the root of the issue, see my replies to him immediately below. I'm not just talking about that particular group of wiki-opponents (apparently "linguistics groupies" is among the things they claim is a personal attack, their own suggestion that I'm mentally unstable are persistent and much worse re AGF/NPA but never mind that, it's old news to me now) but also to teh whole tone/environment of ANI, which is a cesspool of negativity and seen a a place to be feared and avoided......because of the treatment of people that's dished out there and the habit of going "yup, he's guilty", "yup I think so too", "guilty as hell, can we lynch him now?" etc....Skookum1 (talk) 08:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Skoookum1, I think that your "when AGF and NPA were not used to inflict AGF and NPA" is a masterpiece at pointing out the nature of the largest problem. Let's fix it. North8000 (talk) 13:49, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

As much fun as it is to play the victim card, the AN/I Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Ongoing personal attacks by User:Skookum1 is based on the documented personal attacks that Skookum1 has made against other editors. No one else *forces* an editor to make personal attacks, and this lack of civility is what adds to the toxic environment of Wikipedia that is driving editors away. -Uyvsdi (talk) 20:08, 7 April 2014 (UTC)Uyvsdi

Been around a long time, seen a lot, and heard way too much and know how it was. I've been meaning to codify the "old consensus" concerning the titles and topics that provoked all this, but have had no time or energy; when I tried to raise it in WP:IPNA I was told by my principal accuser that there were more important things to do; indeed there were related guideline discussions going on that I, though obviously interested and informed and experienced in the wiki-field, was not invited to; and in some cases I was enacting long standing convention or raised issues relating to remaining titles and categories that no one had sorted out - according to the structure and titling principles laid out in that now-wrecked consensus - and was pretty much told to bug off. Since that time, resistance has mounted, NPA and AGF accusations thrown for detailing the history of who did what and criticizing misapplied guidelines and a certain miswritten guideline; other than harass me officially now, the campaign to oppose any of the RMs I have out there continues. And it's always the same few people, and always the refusal to acknowledge guidelines, consensus, or view stats or googles. It continues tonight: here and here with two of my opponents, both of whom told me to "get a life!" when pushing aside my efforts to address the various problems with the "FOO people" format; here they have abandoned their usual incantation NCL as if that's the only guideline that matters, and are trying a not-very-new tack regularly raised by another in their group, which we've heard tons of before: vague claims that the PRIMARYTOPIC is not discernible, without any effort whatsoever to prove that. Here is my response to them and including my response to the other oppose vote, who raised the same vague claim/speculations.

This kind of repetitive, obstinate determination to preserve titles which have numerous problems by the same cadre, including my "assailant", is now so repetitive and predictable and far too numerous. In this case it's clear that they are trying to out-vote the very clear invocations of guidelines mandating the removal of the "people" disambiguation. This obstructionist and get-Skookum1 behaviour is so established and very very AGF in nature, also targeting an individual editor's activities, that it amounts to tendentious editing and is obviously disruptive in nature and intent. Others have observed this also in re similar posts by others of the NCL group on other RMs, the bulk of them now closed with the needless "people" tag reversed. But still they are not giving up, still they are not addressing the guidelines or the spirit of the deadlines, still they are targeting my activities by way of harassment. And who is it that's at the ANI for some pithy language because he's so frustrated at all the stonewalling and wheedling and obstructionism and taunts and outright insults? Yours truly.Skookum1 (talk) 15:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Skookum1 you opened a lot of doors with your first post. I went through one open door....the issues you brought forth about your perceptions of how you are being treated. I purposely did not address your situation for one reason, I know nothing about it and have not been persuaded by your writing to look into it beyond a few small glances last night (or earlier this morning). You chose to discuss yourself. Don't do that if you don't want the replies to be about you. Look, you seem to be a really great contributor. there doesn't seem to be much doubt there. The issues you seem to have a difficult time with are when others give you criticism. However...clearly that was just the your venting and not really the crux of your issues.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

OK, the crux of the issues is that I'm being targeted by a harassment and derision campaign by a team of editors whose pet guideline they insist is LAW and HOLYWRIT, and who have been consistent in their derisions, and provocations, and presume to cry about AGF and NPA when it is their own words and actions that have been disruptive and constantly tendentious;

I necessarily made myself the subject here because of the hostile and partisan ANI-cum-witch-burning now underway, launched by one of that group, who singles me out for NPA and AGF while openly tolerating very explicit insults from her main colleague, even presuming to portray him as a victim at that ANI.

That's a short summary, the upshot is that there have been dozens of RMs that they have attempted to block, and some CfDs that have been the abysmal failures and "bad calls", with the most specious logics and without admitting to any other guideline which disputes their own; the dishonesty of some replies, including interpreting what I or others have said in distorted and/or reversed fashion, is part of the issue.

In trying to deal with the manifold illogics and false evidence and mis-quoted/abused guidelines, usually handy little one-liners with no substance behind them, and single-line misinterpretations of guidelines already ignored in the moves I'm now trying to correct. But handy little one liners often involve more than one falsehood or misapprehension; it is not possible to one-liner back. I have been in CfDs where I was made the target because of the necessary length and detailed nature required of proper, adequate replies, and was hounded in those same discussions personally for that, which buried the issues I had raised; if someone is TLDR and not willing to read or learn, they should not be voting or closing.Skookum1 (talk) 08:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Snkookum, no one is reading your stuff because it is too long. You have already posted over 2000 words here and I have no clue of even your general topic. If you don't know how use a topic sentence followed by reasons and examples, try [3] or maybe [4]. At least break up your text into paragraphs so it looks like it has been organized in some way. —Neotarf (talk) 06:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

How 'bout I call you "Neofart" because you called me "Snookum" which is cute but clearly derisive; "skookum" means "strong, capable, reliable, trustworthy" btw.Skookum1 (talk) 08:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Now see.....this only goes to prove you aren't really trying. I mean....simply changing the "f" to a "d" would have been funnier and cuter. ;-)--Mark Miller (talk) 08:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh wasn't I doing that? Thought I was.....apparently I have to try even shorter paragraphs huh? LOL, yeah, whatever. I'm sorry you are having comprehension problems, clearly others here do not. Perhaps you should try some remedial reading courses or take some gingko biloba extract to help you concentrate on passages you find difficult.

If you can't determine "reasons and examples" in my flow of text, which are there, then you have serious comprehension difficulties; I've already tried to simply very complex matters here; asking me to reduce them to Coles Notes form is just not viable. If you're interested, slow down and go back over them and piece together what I'm saying; others know I'm cogent and well-argued and are not intimidated by a mere 2,000 words. My reply to Mark Miller just above, made in the same post, is 305 words long according to GoogleDoc's word counter. Is that too long for you also?Skookum1 (talk) 08:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

My apologies for the typo; it has been corrected. But I see now, from the current ANI thread titled "Ongoing personal attacks by User:Skookum1", now spanning 8 days and more than 10,000 words, that writing skill is probably not the issue after all. —Neotarf (talk) 11:48, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Is He notable?

Dear Jimmy, I've been wondering if this person, Igor Janev is notable? Does he meet WP:POLITICIAN or WP:GNG? I'm not sure so I'm asking for comments. Certainly I wouldn't create this kind of controversial article without a consensus. There are Igor Janev articles on several other wikis, including Macedonian, Ukraine and Serbian Wikipedia. It's said that he is a science adviser on the Institute of Political Sciences Belgrade. He was a Higher science collaborator of Serbian Ministry of Science (2005), later he became a university professor, he is a member of American Society of International Law, a member Academic Council of the UN system and of New York Academy of Sciences. He is the author of over 160 science articles, mostly in international magazines, the author of 17 books and monographs in the fields of international law, diplomacy, international affairs and international politics. Sources: Books of Igor Janev from Google Books. Notable Janev's science publications, and even his presence on Wikipedia received attention from Macedonian media, an news article "Someone's Deleting Igor Janev on Wikipedia". see please http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:p6bIUZL7A44J:www.isnare.com/encyclopedia/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)/Archive_44&hl=sr&gl=rs&strip=1

Furthermore, if one translate Talk section at the Macedonian Wikipedia [5] can find that this person had more than significant role in the preservation of Macedonian constitutional name in the United Nations (the famous FYROM case).

On the other side, any one who attempt to create an article on him (at English Wikipedia) is prevented to do so. [6]

However, it is not the case on other Wikipedias http://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1449737#sitelinks-wikipedia. See more inf. [7]

Best Regards,77.234.45.133 (talk) 11:36, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

• The article was deleted as a hoax, see m:Stewards' noticeboard/Archives/2013-08#Igor Janev, and there was a lot of associated sockpuppet activity - Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Operahome/Archive. It was also deleted on de:wp, and that was discussed here before: User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 140#Arbitrary decision of German Wikipedia and two items just below that. JohnCD (talk) 13:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that there's no hoax: he exists; he is an expert on the topic of Macedonia's international position; he has written this stuff; we probably should have an article on him.212.200.203.63 (talk) 16:11, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

If it's a hoax, the hoax must extend to many instances of fraud, because Diplomacy lists an ISBN by him, which can be searched for and purchased. [8][9][10]... Either the sockpuppet IP was perpetrating the hoax that it was a hoax, or ... Wikipedia's ever trigger happy sockpuppet hunters bagged themselves a bycatch. But who would possibly believe a thing like that? Wnt (talk) 19:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Anyone can get an ISBN number these days, but it looks like he is recognized by WorldCat. Up until quite recently, the whole concept of a "Macedonian language" was politically unacceptable enough (we're talking here about political boundaries based on language similarities, and strong ties between Greek and U.S. governments) that as little as ten years ago, you could not even buy a textbook on Macedonian language. If you look at, for example, Amazon's search results for "Macedonian language", which for some reason I can't post here because of an edit filter, the current textbook offerings were all published quite recently, within the last year or two. —Neotarf (talk) 06:16, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Nevertheless, "Macedonian language" was officially accepted by the United Nations, and United States had recognized Macedonia in 2004. under its constitutional name (Republic of Macedonia). As for Janev, he had discovered an ULTRA VIRES act of the UN organs committed in the process of admission of Macedonia in the UN (1993) with two additional (illegal time-transcending) conditions contrary to the Int. Court of Justice Advisory opinion on such matters delivered in 1948 (and adopted as an interpretation of article 4 of the UN charter by the UNGA Res. 197/III (1948)), relating to 1. provisional Name for State in the UN, 2. condition to negotiate with another UN member - state (Greece) over the constitutional state Name of the applicant (Macedonia) for UN membership. 212.200.213.94 (talk) 07:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)h

So apparently not a hoax, since more info has come out about this individual, and in English. And there is some political motive for trying to get the article deleted inappropriately, since he has apparently written some material that could be considered controversial in some quarters. See the footnote here: "Faced with Greek opposition to the name of Macedonia, the newly established state was allowed to join the U.N. on 7 April, 1993 under the temporary designation 'The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.'"

Anyone concerned with establishing notability per Wikipedia:Notability (academics) and WP:ANYBIO guidelines will find a google search quickly comes up with the text of his 1999 document published in the American Journal of International Law, as well as a number of scholarly books in English that cite this source. —Neotarf (talk) 09:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Just another curious Wikipedian with a question

Hi there. My name is Jonas Vinther and I've been on Wikipedia for a little more than 3 months now. I really like it here, I really like being an editor and to contribute to whatever it is I can. However, I've always wondered, why is IP-user edits allowed? Most, if not all, of the vandalism I've seen comes from IP users. Of course Wikipedia wouldn't be the same if only "specially selected" people were allowed to edit, but I don't think anyone who has the intention of vandalizing an article, would go through "all the trouble" of making a registered account. Of course, some people will go that far, but certainly not the majority. I'm sure I'm not alone in this belief or wonder and I'm sure other people have asked the same, and is curious if there is any talk or plans to remove IP-user from editing rights in the future or something new to prevent vandalism, which is so easy to spread on Wikipedia. Jonas Vinther (talk) 22:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jonas Vinther: This is a perennial proposal. Cheers, Jason Quinn (talk) 15:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

What does that mean? Jonas Vinther (talk) 15:41, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jonas Vinther: It means people propose your idea (preventing IP edits) over and over and over again. Please click and read the link I provided. It explains what why the idea has always denied so far. Also, please visit the Wikipedia:Community portal, and in particular the Wikipedia:Village pump. It is a much better place for these sorts of questions than Jimbo Wales' talk page. Jason Quinn (talk) 16:38, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thank so much. Jonas Vinther (talk) 17:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I spend a little of my time undoing vandalism and it's a myth that it is all done by IP editors. Much of vandalism is done by IPs but edits by IPs are also scrutinized more and they seem to get blocked with a much greater frequency than registered accounts. But I find vandalism done by editors with usernames. In fact, if you are a vandal, it makes more sense to have a username because then you are not exposing your IP and geographic location. And, yes, for years I was an IP editor so these suggestions hit close to home. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 17:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

Thank you so much for starting this, and making ignorance no longer excusable.

Goat Herd 2 (talk) 23:31, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton

Despite the subject preferring to be named Hillary Rodham Clinton, usually being named Hillary Rodham Clinton in official documents, often being named Hillary Rodham Clinton elsewhere, and naming her upcoming autobiography Hillary Rodham Clinton, it looks like Wikipedia's article is about to be renamed Hillary Clinton. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:TROUT to anthonycole for blatant violation of WP:Canvass. Seriously, if you're going to inform other places do so neutrally, which that wasn't.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:30, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

And? AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be a mistake to name a BLP something other than the subject's preferred name when neither name diminishes the encyclopedia's utility. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:36, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think we should be getting ahead of ourselves. This isn't a straight up vote and a good deal of the supporters have ...well, lets just say not everyone supporting the move has good reasoning or a decent argument.--Mark Miller (talk) 07:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

As mistakes go, if it is one, it seems rather insignificant - she is certainly referred to as 'Hillary Clinton' often enough, and as far as I'm aware, hasn't actually objected to this. Indeed, she seems sometimes to refer to herself that way. Is it really worth getting that worked up over the presence or absence of a single word in an article title? Nobody is going to think the article refers to anyone else. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree this instance is relatively unimportant, but the principle - that a BLP subject's preferred name should not be displaced by another as the article's title for no other reason than a trivial rule (WP:COMMONNAME) when both names are equally useful - matters to me. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see WP:COMMONNAME as 'trivial'. There may sometimes be legitimate reasons not to follow it, but as a general principle it seems entirely appropriate. Our article on the large seal-hunting mammal of Arctic regions is entitled 'Polar Bear', rather than 'Ursus maritimus' because the former is what we expect our readers to know it as. And come to that, we have an article on another Clinton that likewise follows WP:COMMONNAME. As for both names being 'equally useful', I would have to suggest that utility could really only be assessed by usage - which comes down to WP:COMMONNAME again. AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME cuts both ways if you cannot demonstrate one is truly the most common usage. Right now the heaviest argument appears to be her ads where she states "I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve this message". but that is illustrative of political expedience not what she, herself wishes to be referred to as or what is the actual most common usage.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

If you have evidence regarding 'actual most common usage', presumably you have raised it in the discussion. So what's the problem? AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:56, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

It's trivial in this instance because enforcing it has no impact on findability. Searching Wikipedia and all the common engines for either "Hillary Clinton" or "Hillary Rodham Clinton" takes you to the article. If Ursus maritimus were a people who preferred to be known as that rather than "polar bear" I would support moving Polar bear to Ursus maritimus - but they are not a people and they seem unconcerned about what people name them. I believe that when either name will take a searcher to the article with alacrity we should choose the one preferred by the BLP subject. I know there is a school of thought that believes respect for our subjects has no place here, but I'm not of that bent. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

The problem with the argument that the article name should follow the BLP subject's preference (even if it is Clinton's preference, which is far from established) is that it's being advanced in the wrong place. That debate needs to take place on the talk page of Wikipedia:Article titles with a view to amending that policy. It's not currently policy, so is not relevant to the RFC. But it's not such a clear-cut policy change: if brought in we may be grateful that the subject's demise allows us to avoid Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, Conqueror of the British Empire. DeCausa (talk) 08:57, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Come off it, Anthonyhcole, this isn't some huge BLP-violation issue. If the subject herself uses the name, and raises no objections when others do, and if the name is more commonly used, making it out to be some sort of insult won't wash. In any case, this is an encyclopaedia, written for our readers, not for the subjects of our articles - and we often include all sorts of things that such subjects would prefer we didn't, as a matter of course. Frankly though, I'd be surprised if Hillary Rodham Clinton actually cared that much what we entitled her biography - I suspect she'd be more concerned about the content than the label. And so should we be. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

As I say, I don't think this instance matters very much. But the principle does to me. If a subject says they'd prefer to be named X, even if they occasionally use Y (again, provided it doesn't affect the reader experience - and this case doesn't), I think we should take the subject's preference into account. We disagree. Neither of us will convince the other and I'm OK with that. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hum...the subject of this discussion puts BLP to the test....least for me. Is her full name really the way she wants to be referred to?--MONGO 11:36, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

MONGO, looks like it. —Neotarf (talk) 12:12, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

According to Anthony York at Salon: After Bill was elected president in 1992, Hillary told the press corps that she wanted to be known as Hillary Rodham Clinton. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Er, according to that Salon article, she has been re-branded and "joined the ranks of Madonna, Cher, Sting and R2-D2". She is "now simply Hillary. Not Hillary Rodham. Not Hillary Clinton. Not Hillary Rodham Clinton. Just Hillary." Hmm, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Hillary is currently a redirect..... —Neotarf (talk) 13:25, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

That's what the Salon guy says. The last word from Hillary seems to be, Call me Hillary Rodham Clinton. If she said somewhere that she wanted to be known as Hillary, like Cher, I'd like to see it. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:47, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Changing the name (i.e. dropping Rodham) is just simple misogyny, quite similar to how middle-aged white men think they know what's best for women in regards to their bodies. Tarc (talk) 12:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

We wouldn't be having this discussion if this were not a boy's club. Remember the battle to move away from Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown)? A lot of the same crowd defending that title are arguing for dropping "Rodham". --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:57, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I tend to agree with this point. It seems that all available evidence is that in this particular case it doesn't matter from the perspective of search engines being able to direct people appropriately. It probably does matter from the perspective of understanding - it's an important part of her public persona that she has chosen to keep her birth name in this fashion. (Naming conventions are changing, and she's an important catalyst in that.) And it certainly matters from a BLP perspective - and that's true even though it is a relatively minor matter.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

A big part of the discussion is actually the dispute over whether she has "chosen to keep" that part of her name, or whether she has chosen to rebrand herself. Since January 2007, her campaign announcement, all of her campaign ads, and all ballot appearances have used "Hillary Clinton" and it would be unsurprising if she followed that pattern again in the future. Since she has introduced this impression, it makes sense to many editors to title the article that way. It can always be moved back if she takes steps in the future to reverse this trend, like reintroducing "Rodham" in future campaign announcements, campaign ads, or ballot appearances. - WPGA2345 - ☛ 17:14, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the debate, I was getting the vibe that the Republicans wanted the Rodham for some reason (I was thinking they were trying to suggest a coldness per their unbreakable fascination with that intern). But looking with such search terms, I find [11] which says the Democrats prefer it for strategic reasons. Then again, that's for getting vote from Northern Democrats. For all I know, the fickle winds of public opinion have since changed, especially since I'm not sure it was ever a meaningful difference in numbers. But what I take from all this is that there actually could be a reason why she'd be pressing for the rebranding, and if so, per my position in the Chelsea Manning discussions we had here before, we generally are sympathetic to that. N.B. we still haven't gotten the message about Yusuf Islam, though. Wnt (talk) 17:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I've sent a message to her people to ask what she prefers.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 20:08, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

"To your question, "Hillary Rodham Clinton" would be the preference." is the response.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

@Jimbo: I'm fascinated that you would go so far as to ask their advice, which is especially dangerous considering that consensus may not be aligned with Clinton's current leanings. Let me ask you this - would you consider reaching out To the governments of Ivory Coast and Burma which represent, or at least purport to represent, many millions of people, or are you only going to stick your neck out for Hillary? Commonname and other titling policies have been long established and one of the most well trafficked RMs in history voted AGAINST the subject's very clearly expressed preference - (Bradley Manning) and only after a group of editors (which included myself) meticulously documented reliable source usage to demonstrate that a month later commonname HAD changed, did Wikipedia move the article. If you aren't willing to use your connections to discover the preferences of Kiev and Cat Stevens and Ivory Coast and Burma, well, I guess it's showing a strange brand of preferentialism. It's perhaps a moot point since the preferences of those named entities has been made quite clear repeatedly, but per policy and consensus Wikipedia doesn't care. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander - in the aftermath of the Manning debacle we tried to soften titling policy to include a provision to consider subject's preferred name but alas consensus wasn't there. That would be the place for Jimbonian intervention IMHO, not on a page and where the subject ran for President of the United States under the proposed title.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't have the least clue or concern with whatever is you are talking about. "Dangerous" in what way? To answer the question you didn't ask - no, there is no "preferentialism" involved in listening to what BLP subjects want. I take the view, stated repeatedly in many different contexts, that one important factor (not necessarily 100% dispositive) to keep in mind is the wishes of the subjects of BLP. No, we won't do anything ridiculous for them, but it's completely absurd to say we shouldn't ask. If you've got a contact to anyone relevant in the world you'd like me to email, then I'm happy to take it up where feasible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you've been keeping up with BLPs if you are so fascinated that anyone would take the step to just ask the actual person. Seriously, the issue of what the subject desires in these matters does have some weight. it may not be the end all of the discussion but...we may even be pointed to more recent sources one way or another.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:42, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedians can never resist a fallacious slippery-slope argument, can they? Burma and Ivory Coast are countries. Hillary Clinton is a person. We routinely handle people differently than countries or other subjects. We even have a fundamental policy to that effect. Separately, the fact that Jimbo can't comment on every naming dispute does not disqualify him from commenting on this one. The ferocity of this dispute is all the odder because it is completely unclear to a sane outsider (me) how anyone gains any advantage at all from either proposed name. Can someone explain what harm is done by honoring the article subject's preferences in this case? I mean, without resorting to sophistry about Ivory Coast and Burma? MastCell ^Talk 19:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hillary has used both names to identify herself, that's the conundrum here. I find it hard to say she is opposed to simply being referred to as "Hillary Clinton" when that's the name she used while running for president. The people who cried to dad about the move request here conveniently left that bit out. Hot Stop (Edits) 19:59, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

There's no reason to think she 'opposes' either but her publicist has made it clear what the 'preference' is. Given that the evidence is pretty evenly balanced, I would say that is an important factor to consider.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

It's the same page either way, right? Just have Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, etc redirected (But not just Hillary, that's too vague) to the page that I would assume would stay with the full legal name. I can't think of a reason to move away from it, since both with and without the Rodham are common names for her. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 20:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

turn the argument around. By mis-labeling Kiev, you are indirectly insulting millions of Ukrainians, reminding them of their Russian past - the same applies to people from Cote D'ivoire. By mis-naming Clinton, you are possibly rubbing one person the wrong way, and here it's rather debatable that she even cares, since she printed many tens of millions of ballots in 2008 with the name 'Hillary Clinton' - so it obviously wasn't that bad of a name, indeed one might even convincingly say she demonstrated a preference for that name when it was politically expedient. Also, fwiw, Yusuf Islam is a person, too. I can bring a list of many more instances where we have ignored subject's clearly expressed preference but they aren't as famous as Hillary and thus may not attract attention of our benevolent monarch... :)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

What you really have to ask yourself, is why are people so devoted to moving the page? As people have said, it doesn't really make a big difference. But the devotion to moving the page by a group of editors does mean something. I'm not trying to say that all(or even most) of the move supporters are obsessed with the move, but there are definitely some. I could make my case here, as I've done on the article Talk page, but it's all been said. It seems to me that a portion of people just do not want HRC to have that "R" in her name. After all, a redirect goes straight to the article, why would anyone REALLY want to move it? Everyone knows she has become notable under the Hillary Rodham Clinton name, and even if some have moved away from describing her that way, it seems more than a bit silly to insist a rename of the article. The article name has been stable since 2001. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 21:34, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

this is typically an argument used by the incumbents. We have had epic debates over commas in title, so suggesting there is an anti-Rodham faction here means you don't really get why wikipedians argue. The reasons for moving have been laid out in great detail by BD2412, and the redirect for HRC will lead to HC so why do you care if it's moved? The redirect argument is irrelevant and useless as both sides can use the same argument.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:43, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Another future admin burned by the community

Irrelevant discussion that the subject's talk page indicates is not welcome

Well done everyone, well done. Another user who wanted to be an admin has been turned off the site complete by the complete lack of trust in this community. In this RFA User:TheGeneralUser, who has done a lot of admin related stuff including a lot of work at SPI has been told to shove off and come back in 6 to 12 months. Yet they have over 1000 edits in the main namespace. Sure the editor has some flaws but nothing critical and who doesn't. This is just another perfect example of the community putting adminship up on some pedistal where it doesn't belong. Its just a few extra tools folks. Not the keys to the kingdom. 172.56.2.87 (talk) 11:22, 7 April 2014 (UTC) Hello anonymous user who has never previously posted to wikipedia using this ip address. I think we would all take this question more seriously if you used your actual account to post. Otherwise, it looks rather like you have logged out to avoid scruitiny of your main account. K, thx bye Spartaz Humbug! 13:08, 7 April 2014 (UTC) I note that on TGU's talk page the hope has been expressed that the IP reads the talk page and removes this post. It isn't helpful and it doesn't appear that TGU would want this here. Dougweller (talk) 13:14, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

You're invited!

NE Meetup #5: April 19th at Clover Food Lab in Kendall Square

Dear Fellow Wikimedian, New England Wikimedians would like to invite you to the April 2014 meeting, which will be a small-scale meetup of all interested Wikimedians from the New England area. We will socialize, review regional events from the beginning of the year, look ahead to regional events of 2014, and discuss other things of interest to the group. Be sure to RSVP here if you're interested. Also, if you haven't done so already, please consider signing up for our mailing list and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. We hope to see you there! Kevin Rutherford (talk) and Maia Weinstock (talk)

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