User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

Possible COI editing in WMF network

Jimbo, would you say that a trustee of a Wikimedia chapter would have a conflict of interest regarding direct editing of an article about the future executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation? (Example) - 2001:558:1400:10:514C:ED33:5FD5:596A (talk) 19:49, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Such edits are best avoided to avoid even a hint of impropriety. However, adding an infobox is not in any way problematic and so this particular edit is just routine and boring. Had I been asked I would have recommended against it but really this is a non issue. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:15, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

So, would it be okay for paid editors to add routine and boring infoboxes to articles about their clients, so long as the infoboxes do not advocate anything? Sorry to keep asking you to clarify, but it seems like every time you lay down the law on a "Bright Line" Rule, the next thing you know, the line is fuzzy and erased in some sections. -2001:558:1400:10:3188:66D5:62C1:F630 (talk) 15:00, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

No that would not be ok and it is completely false to say "the next thing you know, the line is fuzzy and erased in some sections". You may wish that were so, but it isn't.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

The advice I always give to biography subjects and companies is not to edit an article where you have a COI, other than to repair obvious vandalism or correct uncontroversial errors of fact. However, a trustee of a chapter adding an uncontroversial bit of furniture to an article, is very different from an employee of a company adding promotional text to the company's article. There si a bright line rule: don't edit articles where you have a COI. This bright line rule is applied with a leavening of WP:CLUE. Think of it like a speed limit. Nobody gets prosecuted for doing 31mph in a 30 limit, most people will get away with 33mph. Drive by at 50 and you are clearly taking the piss and are likely to be stopped.

Interestingly, I have yet to encounter a biography subject or anyone else who was not on a mission, who found this remotely difficult to understand. Guy (Help!) 15:19, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

The editor who made that edit is a board member, and doesn't appear to be an employee. Either way, I agree that it's not a desirable edit. But on the scale of crumminess, with 1 being a "editing out of the goodness of one's heart" and 10 being "running an outfit that edits for pay," I put it at 3 at most. It's always interesting to see self-confessed 10s complaining about 3s. Coretheapple (talk) 15:58, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

That's exactly right. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:15, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Aw, never mind, you guys. Obviously, there is no way to circumvent the Bright Line Rule! It is all-powerful and indestructible. Like a Pirelli tire, if you will. - 2001:558:1400:10:3188:66D5:62C1:F630 (talk) 18:54, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Very confused about this video, considering its contents are fake. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 00:32, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Do you think that the other 56 videos on Pirelli Brasil's channel are also fake? — Scott • talk 02:21, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not saying anything about the other videos or whether they actually did what they said they did. The actual Wikipedia screenshots shown in the video, however, are manipulated. Some of the mentioned articles don't exist, and the file at the end of the video (File:Lap 1, Turn 1 Canada 2008.jpg) does not match up. The Commons image at that title is different than the one in the video, was uploaded back in 2008, and shows no sign of ever being the file shown in the video. It's...interesting. I suppose it's either a hoax or they fabricated the examples to hide their actual edits? ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 02:31, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I see what you mean - I didn't check that file title, and looking at the various pt.wiki articles that flash up shows no sign of the claims made in the video either. In that case, it looks to me like a marketing department pitch trying to get someone to approve the idea. Why they've phrased it in the past tense though, I don't know - maybe to say "look what we could boast about to other divisions"? This probably wasn't meant to be visible to the public. — Scott • talk 03:22, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Got it. It's the work of the São Paulo branch of Havas Worldwide, a marketing company.[1] — Scott • talk 03:30, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Nice work. I suppose it's a potential project, then. It's only visible to those who have the link, so I'd imagine it was being shared internally. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 03:32, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I guess that people see a difference between adding a template to an article about someone with whom you have a tangential and non-financial relationship, and trying to build a business out of someone else's volunteer-run, charity-funded project, then trying to get it shut down out of spite when you get stopped. People can be funny that way. Guy (Help!) 03:15, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

One thing that I have learned from looking at Wikipedia behind the scenes is that trolls will always be trolling, trolling, trolling. These poor, sad people simply can't help themselves. Another thing that I have learned is that Jimbo's patience and tolerance seem almost inexhaustible. Thank you, Jimbo, for setting an excellent example for other editors. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:54, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

The video managed to change my mind slightly on companies donating media to Commons. I had thought that any donated image is ok. In the video they emphasize the branding in the images. "Pirelli" banners all over the place in them. I suppose we should still accept images and most media from these advertisers, but placing them in articles should be regulated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:27, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

No matter what we do, there will be clever ways to game the system. We should not over-react with a moral panic. A gentle adjustment to the rules would probably help: Wikipedia is not to be used for product placement. If an editor is repeatedly uploading images for the purpose of promoting a brand, that editor and those images should go out. Jehochman ^Talk 13:50, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I think we should welcome the contributed images --- being sure, of course, to recognize that the product placement is not something valuable. Getting them licensed means we can crop extraneous product placements in some cases. In others, such as Car racing, Stock car, Super Bike Series, the articles they were gloating about, there's an intrinsic problem that all the vehicles and racetracks and plastered with ads. If it's not them, it's someone else, and indeed at least in the current version I see many other companies far more prominently advertised. Our role should not be to discard contributed material, but to try to round up some non-COI editors to push out avoidable or especially visible placements and avoid domination by any one company's forces. Wnt (talk) 02:31, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

List of soft drink flavors

• Hello Jimbo, have a cold one and check out the new List of soft drink flavors article. Of course, please feel free to improve the article! NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 12:59, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Cedrata Tassoni is an Italian, citron-flavored soft drink brand. See List of soft drink flavors for more soft drink flavor entries.

• • cough, cough. Irn-Bru --_nonsense ferret 15:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

How is this article not WP:OR? Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:59, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

The same way that most lists are not OR: there are sources that say these flavors of soft drinks exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink. I like this article. Another good job by Northamerica1000!--Maleko Mela (talk) 00:26, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

A Wikipedia that is readable to aliens

Forty years after the Arecibo message was sent, I was wondering if we could do a lot better today by sending a modified version of Wikipedia. What one needs to do is to define everything in terms of basic mathematical or physical objects (the number system, transitions in the hydrogen atom etc.). Wikipedia's structure with all its wikilinks seems to be very suitable for this. A lot of the content of the Wikipedia should be translatable into something that is understandable to E.T. So, perhaps there should be a Wikimedia project for this. Count Iblis (talk) 17:19, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

It won't get started until someone goes to meta:Proposals_for_new_projects and makes a compelling proposal that convinces people to join.

Don't get me wrong. I would like to see this proposal succeed. But this is not a compelling proposal (yet). A good proposal would give convincing answers to some of these questions:

• Where would we send the message to?
• Information has been sent in the past? When? Who sent it? Pointing in which direction? Did they watch for replies?
• The bigger the message, the longer it will have to be transmitting, and that's expensive.... Do we send:

• the whole encyclopedia
• the whole encyclopedia, except menial articles such as List of roads in Baltimore County, Maryland
• the whole encyclopedia, except articles that make humanity look bad, such as those in Category:Rapists
• Only a few categories with the most important articles
• A few dozens articles with essential topics, such as Earth

• Who will transmit it? Do we know of any observatory interested on this sort of thing?
• Who is the intended target? The nearby Earth-like planets? Promising constellations thousands of light-years ago? Do we cover the whole sky, in multiple transmissions? Do we leave this decision for later?
• Is there any existing software project that makes the translation automatically? Any package that we can modify? Do we have to code everything rom scratch?

--Enric Naval (talk) 18:33, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Still, it's a fun thing to noodle over, no? Even if not actionable or practical today, I find it interesting to contemplate. One way of thinking about it is that after we've made some assumptions (dangerous, but still, you have to start somewhere) about the aliens having similar vision capabilities to us and a similar approach to symbolic representation of ideas, then what you are looking for is a straightforward educational course to educate someone to the point that they could read Wikipedia. Then they can read Wikipedia to learn all kinds of things, some interesting, some not so much. With an 8 month old and a 3 year old in the house, I have much the same project before me at the present time. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

[Addendum: I once had a fascinating conversation with Kevin Kelly about this idea: The Forever Book.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:05, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I'd recommend Wikipedia:Vital articles or List of articles every Wikipedia should have, personally. Editors have debated over what articles are "essential" for years, probably since the project began. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:08, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Should we also include those pages themselves, and their talkpages, so that the aliens have a few ideas on why we think these particular articles are important, and how we arrived at those lists? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:21, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Just 2 or 3 core articles. Our species, and our planet. And some talk pages :). Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f would be good targets. Irondome (talk) 22:42, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Its an interesting idea as long as 1) the aliens can interpret bullshitese which seems to be the common language on Wikipedia these days and 2)we remove all the content from the talk pages and Wikipedia space. All the bickering on these pages would only invite the to take over the planet. Personally I can only hope that they treat the Earth more like a zoo full of interesting creatures that should be left in the wild in their native environment. That would be preferable over the more likely concern that they eat meat and like jerky....we are meat and could be made into jerky! 172.56.2.220 (talk) 00:02, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, there was just that UFO by my house a few weeks ago that people in a 30-mile range were noticing, maybe we could just transmit the featured articles to the full fleet when it comes :D ? Beef, venison, and turkey jerky are all really good, but I'm not so sure about Soylent Jerky. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 00:09, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Please do not alert the aliens to the existence of WP:ANI, as they may decide to obliterate us all for the good of the rest of the universe. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:00, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Humans: "We're peaceful beings!"

Aliens look at WP:ANI

Aliens deem us liars and we die

~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 06:07, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Send out just the archives of ANI. Let's just call it a preemptive strike! ;-)--Maleko Mela (talk) 06:15, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Webdriver Torso on wikipedia?

Hi Jimbo and tps, Webdriver Torso is registered as an account name, and has uploaded 1 picture, and put it in one article (BBC), here. Do you think it's a hoax? Matty.007 19:11, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the original article, I'd bet it's some clever attempt to improve search engine rank with "unique" images... there are much less obtrusive ways to pass a secret message online - for example, by combining a few unusual codewords in an edit anywhere on Wikipedia. Wnt (talk) 02:18, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello there!

It is quite an honour to be messaging you, sir. :) --Lazaro Nightfury (talk) 04:30, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

WMF plans for mathematics

A couple of weeks ago some comment were made here by editors concerned about the development of mathematics rendering and editing. The point was made that currently WMF allocates essentially no resources to this and it continues entirely on volunteer effort, which is made less effective by the way it is not integrated into WMF development. At that time I asked [2] what plans WMF had for developing mathematics-based text. Unfortunately neither you nor anyone else was able to answer before the question was aged off [3].

However, just recently I received an answer to my question from User:Jdforrester (WMF) who confirmed [4] in a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Mathematics#VisualEditor_math_formulae that the assessment of another editor [5] that WMF has 0 and no plans on Math was entirely correct.

This is very disturbing. Mathematics support is a key component of writing a serious encyclopaedia and it is quite unacceptable that WMF should devote no resources to its effective development and have no plans to do so. Please would you ask the WMF to reconsider its policy on this matter, and allocate a suitable proportion of its resources to the maintenance, sustainability and development of mathematics rendering and editing? Deltahedron (talk) 08:33, 4 May 2014 (UTC)