User talk:Jimbo Wales

About an article

Im not one to complain alot but one article Black humor has been having alot of controversy about the name and alot of us want to like vote to have the name changed to dark humor so can you help me. The Panther (click to talk)

A random thought.

Hi Jimbo. I've been reading some of your recent comments on the Wiki, and I must say I'm not happy with their direction. I really think you should consider the question: Who is more likely to know and care for the encyclopedia, and who is more likely to be telling you the truth? Is it the editors who have been writing the actual encyclopedia articles for years, or is it the ever-changing "inner" circle of Wiki defenders who see a troll behind every bush, frequently quote or claim to quote your words as gospel, and vehemently support every action you ever make, even when you yourself realize it was grayish?

I realize it's easier to trust people you have more contact with, but I think you should realize that the group of people who present themselves to you as the "inner core" of Wikipedia is entirely self-selected. Zocky | picture popups 05:12, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean. Can you give me a specific quote of something I have said on the wiki that you think suggests someone is not telling me the truth?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:27, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

User !! discusses something you said recently which I think relates to what Zocky is talking about above [1]. The related comment comes in the second to last paragraph of his statement on Durova's recent actions. Of course, if I misunderstand what Zocky is talking about I hope he'll correct me. Cla68 (talk) 13:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The current Durova-blocking controversy is being seen or framed by some as a values conflict between those who mostly write articles and those who mostly do vandalism tasks; feeling that !!'s and Giano II's work at article writing is undervalued compared to Durova's editor-blocking efforts. This feeling appears based on the perceived ease of forgiveness of Durova and the quickness to threaten blocks/bans on people who are widely regarded as prolific writers of Wikipedia articles. WAS 4.250 (talk) 14:35, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

WAS's comment is well spoken. Us content-concentrating editors often avoid policy, Wikien, and other "insider" forums and may have the perception that because we aren't as visible as certain "sleuthing" admins or policy-debating admins that we're not as trusted or appreciated by the Foundation leadership. Cla68 (talk) 14:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Quite the opposite. I value most highly those who work together in harmony to create content. Content creation, however, does not excuse bad behavior... for the simple reason that bad behavior (drama mongering) drives away content creators. We want people who work quietly and peacefully with others in a spirit of harmony to create content. There are users who do create content, yes, but who also engage in persistent drama all over the wiki. That's got to stop, and if we lose a few people who are driving away others, then so much the better.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:17, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I've been heavily involved in content creation on Wikipedia for about two years now, and I haven't noticed any other heavy content editors (i.e. Featured Article or Good Article editors) who have, in my opinion, engaged in persistent drama all over the wiki. I have, however, seen this from some who mainly engage in admin and policy debates. I propose to you that content creators are less likely to engage in unnecessary drama, because our ultimate aim is to preserve Wikipedia in the long term because we want the articles that we've spent so many hours suffering over to be around for awhile. I don't have the same confidence in editors/admins that try to prove themselves by exposing malicious sockpuppets behind every corner. In my opinion, those type of personalities appear to have a different agenda behind their participation in this project. Cla68 (talk) 16:01, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course, "content creators are less likely to engage in unnecessary darama". What made you suppose I would disagree with that? But if you are driving to drive a wedge between "admins" versus "content creators" I think you are making an error. Drama can come from anywhere, and there are people who really do cause a lot more trouble than they are worth, whether we look at their contributions in terms of content or in terms of admin work.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

It is a complex project building wikipedia and it needs both types of people you allude to; without admins working hard in the background the project wont grow either, and certainly would not have grown to where it is. And sockpuppetry is a real problem that does threaten the integrity of the site. Thanks, SqueakBox 16:07, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I hope, though, that Jimbo follows his own views (that good works don't excuse bad behavior) in a consistent manner, meaning that the troll-fighting admins need to be held to a standard of civility just like the content-creating people. *Dan T.* (talk) 16:23, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course Dan.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Jimbo, I understand the nature of your comments, but I strongly hope that you are not considering any unilateral actions relating to any aspect of this matter. There has been concern expressed to me that a comment you made yesterday on the ANI subpage was hinting in that direction. A unilateral action in this matter would, among other problematic effects, be likely to increase the level of distracting drama manyfold. Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:30, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I am taking no actions in the matter of !!.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

• "If we lose a few people who are driving away others, then so much the better." A quote from you Jimmy and a truth, for certain. I pray the Arbcom case does just what you are saying. The University of Minnesota study is quite clear, from a math standpoint...WP needs content editors that are good contributors of same. The project has a future as long as the main content editors stay here. Lose the great content people and the project suffers. The sleuth and private cabal type approach is what must be stopped. My first post and you can call me a "student driver." Nice (talk) 16:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

• I think what Zocky may be referring to is that, from your comments, you seem to be 'taking sides'. I don't think it is any secret that this latest round of 'Wikipedia Review Whac-A-Mole' was kicked off by your block of Miltopia, and you've obviously been keeping involved in the issue. There have been repeated claims that 'the opposition' is acting in bad faith. They are Wikipedia Review agents. They just want to create drama. They are "troll enablers". They (and this one is particularly ironic) fail to assume good faith. You have echoed some of those statements.
• IMO the truth is that anyone who spends nearly all their time arguing policy, behaviour issues, politics, or indeed any contentious topic inevitably falls into a downward spiral. Frustration and annoyance seldom lead to harmony. People become more and more entrenched in their positions, more and more prone to kneejerk reactions and assumption of bad faith by those who disagree with them, more and more incivil, et cetera. Yes, we obviously saw that with Miltopia and some others opposing 'BADSITES' and related concepts, but it is also self-evident in the behaviour of JzG, Durova, and (lately in any case) even yourself for that matter. You're annoyed with the situation, sunshine and roses do not result.
• Do you think that Durova and company were 'assuming good faith' or 'trying to find the best in people' when they decided to investigate !!? A long term content contributor with very little involvement in Wikipedia's contentious debates... other than a few stray comments disagreeing with them? The fact that Durova's analysis was mistaken is, as you say, a fairly minor issue. The fact that she and a group of other users are conducting these 'investigations' in the first place? Going after good users on no more solid basis than the bad faith assumption that anyone who disagrees with them is probably here to harm the project? That's not a little thing. That's poisonous.
• People are upset and 'making a stink' because these wide ranging 'anti Wikipedia Review' campaigns are themselves harmful to the project... drive away content contributors... fail to assume good faith... et cetera. When the reaction to that is more nasty accusations against the people complaining we get back into that 'downward spiral' issue. Durova and company are investigating people who disagree with them. Good users like !! who there was no valid reason to be looking into at all. People are upset about that... and they should be. Unless we are to become a collection of warring camps, always looking to 'dig up dirt' to get 'the enemy' blocked, this kind of thing should have no place at Wikipedia. --CBD 18:56, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

First of all, I apologize for being unavailable so long to clarify my comment. I see that some others have in the meantime provided mostly correct explanations. But let me explain myself.

The first issue that I'm referring to is the blocking of ZScout and the consequent discussion. I have no strong opinion on your actions in that case either way, but your definition of a "wheelwar" is unworkable. Beside the instruction creep and the bureaucracy it would introduce, it would give massive advantage to bad blockers and bad deleters. Almost everybody in the discussion said what I'm saying now, apart from several of the so-called "inner core", who supported your position. I'm not sure how that ended, but I think your opinion remained unchanged. Since your word is in practical terms gospel on Wikipedia, now admins are exposed to prosecution for doing regular, uncontroversial admin work.

The second issue is your involvement in the !! case. The case is pretty clear - Durova did something extremely stupid and refused to come clean about the details when asked. The mere outrageousness of the supposed "evidence" naturally upset a great number of people. What caused additional outrage was the attempt to suppress the debate, which consisted of the moving of the discussion, the protection of the page, the constant demands to close the discussion, and the claim that the discussion was an "attack page" or a "witch hunt". This was perpetrated by roughly the same group of "inner core" admins. Then, you arrived to the debate, and prognosticated short future on Wikipedia for Giano, who as one of our best and most prolific writers is one of our greatest assets. Yeah, I know he has a foul mouth and once aroused he's not easily placated, but calling him a troll? Don't you think he, as someone who has put in endless hours into research and writing of the articles, has the best interest of the project at his heart? Don't you think that after years of working on the project and dealing with other users and admins (he's still an ordinary user), he can be trusted to have a good idea of what's good for the project and what isn't?

This of course isn't about writers vs. admins. There are many admins who do great work and are widely respected, yet never display the cliquish behaviour and never try to suppress discussions of their actions, and never treat other users as enemies. It's becoming clear that this "inner core", which from what I can tell, became that by hanging out on the right pages of Wikipedia, the right mailing lists, and in the right IRC channels, and always agreeing with everything you say, is doing far more harm than good to Wikipedia with their endless "war on trolls", and the even worst war on transparency. It's distressing to see you jump in to support them when they get into a fight with other established editors, who are at least just as worthy of your trust and support. The only logical reason I can see for that is your greater familiarity with the first group.

The point is, this culture of distrust has to stop, or we as a project will fail. WP:AGF wasn't written for nothing. Zocky | picture popups 01:56, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

But you see, Zocky, your description of the situation bears very little relation to my own experience. I don't know who you think is the "inner core" but certainly the people you mention do not come immediately to my mind as the inner core of anything. Second, I did not block ZScout! He was temporarily deadminned, and we talked about it and reached what seems to me a perfectly fine resolution. Miltopia needed banning a long time ago. I haven't seen any arguments to the contrary. There were some discussions about process and procedure, mostly not really up to speed on our traditions, and those are welcome. Yes, attempts to suppress discussion are always wrong... but I didn't do that, I don't condone it, and in fact I strongly oppose it. The main thing I advise, with respect to "wheel war" is far from unworkable, it is absolutely necessary and always has been: talk to people. Someone being blocked from editing Wikipedia for a weekend... or 75 minutes... is far from a great tragedy, and it is better to proceed slowly with careful discussion rather than reverting. We have a very real problem with civility which has been made much worse by a culture in which blocking some absolutely unbearable people has become nearly impossible for most ordinary admins.

Regarding Giano: he is a great content contributor, and I admire that. We all do. But even his strongest supporters will say things like what you have said: "he has a foul mouth and once aroused he's not easily placated"... well that is just not acceptable... he's a super intelligent and thoughtful grownup and he needs to be nice to people. Period.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

First of all, glad to hear you don't consider those people the inner core of anything. That is as it should be.

"Block" was a lapsus lingue on my part. I meant the desysopping, and as I say, I have no strong feelings on it either way. After all, you're the godking, and he reverted your block. I still think that having a discussion on a talk or project page before undoing every admin action is unnecessary and too bureaucratic. We have edit and log summaries for a reason. Even if two or more admins revert each other's actions multiple times without a special page to discuss it, I don't see a big problem, as long as they're communicating decently and meaningfully through summaries.

About a block not being a big thing... I'm not sure. I'm generally thick skinned, and I like to think that I wouldn't blow a fuse if it happened to me. Then again, not everybody is me, so I don't take blocks that lightly. If a user is in the middle of doing some content work, or actively involved in a discussion, it's natural that they will get upset if they are blocked. Further escalation is common. Calling somebody a sockpuppet when they aren't tends to upset people. The excited protestations of accused sockpuppets are routinely met with protection of their talk page with more berating in a form of a template. Also, discussions in places like AN/I get archived after just a day or two, so being blocked for a weekend can effectively disqualify somebody from a discussion that they care about. The fact that people probably shouldn't get upset over being briefly blocked can't really trump the fact that they regularly do. It's just human nature, and we should take that into account when considering and discussing blocks.

Of course, in Durova's case (the 75 minute block), it's not the block itself that's the problem, so its duration and any psychological impact is irrelevant. The controversy and the drama is about the massive assumption of bad faith manifested in the "sleuthing", the sock-puppet paranoia, the secrecy, and the attempt to present it all as a trivial matter and suppress the discussion. The case has finally gone to ArbCom, so hopefully we can let them deal with it and go on with our lives now.

Regarding Giano: I don't really know him that well, my impression of him is based mainly on his involvement in a number of policy and arbitration debates which I read or participated in. "Not easily placated" was intended to mean "doesn't give up when told to shut up", not "is unreasonable", and I don't think we should hold that against him. Sometimes bad things do happen on Wikipedia, and sometimes "oops, sorry" isn't enough to remedy them. We all like peace and quiet more than drama, but drama is sometimes necessary to restore sanity. If we weren't willing to go through the drama, we would still be putting up with Esperanza.

The other thing, having a foul mouth certainly seems to be acceptable, as demonstrated by the Wiki careers of Mongo, David Gerard and JamesF, to name just a few with far fouler mouths than Giano's. While I wouldn't mind it if that tone were unacceptable, it's actually very widespread, so it's unfair to treat Giano's outbursts as particularly excessive or as a good indication of his character. If nothing else, it's impossible to tell whether he would be using the same tone in a different environment.

It really all boils down to what somebody said above - your involvement in this case gave the appearance of you supporting one side in the dispute, and the prevailing sentiment seems to be that this is the side that was in the wrong. I realize that that may not have been your intention, but certainly many people interpreted your actions and words that way. Perhaps you should simply be more careful and ask for opinions on wiki before acting, rather than coming in with a seemingly already formed opinion, which just causes people to wonder about where and with whose help it was formed. Zocky | picture popups 02:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: A thing that hadn't occurred to me while I wrote the above. I've never been blocked on Wikipedia, but I was once kickbanned from #wikipedia. It worked out fine practically in seconds - I rushed into #wikimedia, demanded blood and was duely obliged with deopping of the kickbanning op (thanks, JamesF), so it wasn't that much of an incident. I do remember a distinct feeling of outrage though, veins throbbing and all. And that was about a somewhat silly IRC channel, not Wikipedia itself. Zocky | picture popups 02:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

ZScout is where I began paying attention. Honestly, it was like watching Noah Webster show up on your neighbour's lawn and start berating him. I tried to comment then, but the thread was locked down before I could save it. That's the same thread where !! foretold his own death. Let's listen!

No doubt we shall find out in due course who is on the hit list to be liquidated, but I can think of a number of prominent "silly sausages" who would benefit from some forceful encouragement to be more civil. Even greater use of block buttons by admins is bound to achieve that end.

Now, where was that encyclopedia were were writing?

from "Pearls of Wisdom", !! [[2]]

Seriously, that's quality drama. sNkrSnee | t.p. 03:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

ZScout unblocked without consensus to do so and should have known that if Jimbo did a block, it was done for good reasons. Giano is definitely one of our best writers, and I completely understand why he would be extremely upset about Durova's block on User:!!, who is also another excellent contributor...but, posting the emails was unacceptable, and Giano knows this, yet argued repeatedly about it. The way to "be clean" is to go about things in the right way...Giano knows how to go about things in the right way...and I hope he and User:!! state their case calmly and without too much melodrama and I expect that their concerns will be addressed.--MONGO (talk) 07:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, Jimbo, in my case I'd probably still have my head down, churning out articles and mainly avoiding policy, admin, and ArbCom discussion pages if an admin hadn't blatently lied in an RfA that I was undergoing, apparently without fear of accountability, and was supported in doing so by several other admins whose names appear frequently in visible process forums throughout the project. That's part of what we're talking about here. If content editors take time out from their article editing to make some noise about some unfair or unethical issues that we perceive as taking place in this project, then we're not "trolling" or "creating unnecessary drama". Instead, we're hoping someone will hear us and help address the issues that we raise and not sweep them under a rug. Cla68 (talk) 02:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

random edit point 01

I am not entirely sure what this thread is about but it seems like a pattern I rather find familiar. This comment is not aimed at any specific user or group and instead is a general remark.

There are two kinds of people on wikipedia:

• The first kind is the ones that just love to pick fights and thats practically all they do. Sometimes they are labeled as trolls and dealt with accordingly and sometimes they are even given "medals". They are well known as they participate in any fight they can find. To simply put they are here simply and only to win arguments. They care not of this "great encyclopedia" thing.
• The second kind is the ones that dedicate their time in helping us write an encyclopedia by writing articles, cleaning them up and etc. These people are often not well known since they generally avoid community wide discussions. Their contribution is hardly ever recognised and they do not really seek such a recognition anyways. To simply put such people are only here for "great encyclopedia".

It is critical to distinguish these two types of users. Lately I feel there is an increase in the first kind users I mentioned above. And the boundary between the two types of users is now more obscure than it has ever been. This area needs an urgent and serious amount of work if wikipedia community wishes to stay together. All past projects on the web have failed for inadequately addressing this problem.

-- Cat ^chi? 03:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Devil's advocate as a necessary aspect of evaluating something

I tried to talk to Durova (see User talk:Durova/Archive 38#Devil's advocate) about what went wrong; and her inability to assume good faith prevented her from getting my point. Or maybe it was the hubris she has mentioned. Or maybe it was something else. We all see the world though our subjective-colored glasses. I do. You, Jimmy, do too.

Society has a long history of trying to perfect its ability to ascertain right/wrong truth/fiction. Logical argument based on evidence between opposing sides has been established by science and modern society as the best that can be achieved. The opposite of that is a one-sided star-chamber evaluation where group-think reigns unopposed.

I noticed that the Wikipedia Foundation paid an expert to help tutor the board members (I forget on what) to improve their ability to perform their unpaid jobs as board members. That was a very good idea. Maybe something similar could be arranged to help you with your unpaid job of liaison between the Foundation and the flagship English language Wikipedia's community. You have been making a lot of mistakes lately, and there no one available even remotely qualified to replace you in this role. WAS 4.250 (talk) 05:42, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

You are here, you can advise me. What mistakes have I made lately? What would you have done differently? --Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't going to get into that; but since you ask, I'll put together a list of a few items that will illustrate what I think you could improve at. Probably today. A comprehensive list of errors would be a lot of work and to no good end, so I won't go there. Further, just because I think it would be an improvement, does not mean that it would be, so please check with many others for feedback (I'm sure you know this, I'm just letting you know that I also know this). WAS 4.250 (talk) 06:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo. Quick introduction since we haven't directly talked before: I very much admire your values and what you've done here, and I enjoy being a Wikipedian. Since you welcome constructive criticism, however, I can point to one recent statement of yours that I think was in error. One of the things you said was, "No one is attempting to suppress discussion, look at the ridiculous length of this page." Before you made that comment, Jehochman had closed the discussion (he was quickly reverted), and Mercury had protected the page (he was reverted half an hour later). And of course a nontrivial amount of the page consists of people arguing over whether discussion should continue. So I think you were mistaken there -- some people were obviously attempting to suppress discussion. Cheers, Kla’quot (talk | contribs) 08:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

_________________________________________________

The below suggestions, if implemented, would in my opinion: decrease drama at Wikipedia, increase confidence in the administration of Wikipedia, decrease time wasted at Wikipedia in responding to drama, and increase confidence in your judgement.

1. Don't edit Wikipedia articles (but go ahead and talk on the talk pages). Your edits at BonziBUDDY and Mzoli's show why. Ask any Wikipedia prolific editor about it if you don't believe me.
2. Don't desyop, block or ban anyone yourself; or threaten that one will occur. Stick to higher level action like asking others to do that and being a final check on who is a member of arbcom. Your block of Miltopia, desyop of Zscout370, and threat to Giano all created unnecessary drama.[3]
3. Increase separation between Wikia and Wikipedia. See Essjay and http://lists.Wikia.com/mailman/listinfo/wpcyberstalking used in the Durova incident
4. Increase transparency. Foundation members using the rules to oversight a work document that was used to indef block a model Wikipedian claiming copyright on an email when fair use is obvious is actively decreasing needed transparency and just plain stupid when it forces people to go to Wikipedia Review to see it. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Durova and Jehochman/Evidence.
5. Refocus your friends. Tell your loyal friendly admins: "Ignore teasing. Try letting it go. Don't make stuff a big deal. Stop acting like we are at war." Example: Ask User:JzG about Swalwell, Alberta and then compare [4]. (Also Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Daniel Brandt Posting Anonymously? for an example of how acting like we are at war with the bad guys is just causing pointless drama and wasted time.)
6. Set a better example of no personal attacks. Calling someone a troll is a personal attack. And "Will no one rid me of these socks from Wikipedia Review?" seems to capture some of what is going on. (I'm not saying you said that; I'm saying the atmosphere around here is as if you did.)
7. Increase accountability. Ask some experts about this and take their advice.

WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

We could ask Wikipedians in general to comment on these suggestions at a Request For Comment; but I really think you are better off bouncing these off experts. WAS 4.250 (talk) 11:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps some DONATE NOW could be set aside for some expert advice? Just thinking out loud. sNkrSnee | t.p. 11:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to add to Number 5 - b) Expand your friends; find a few people on WP you disagree with and try to engage with them. You may not convince them and they you, but you might find that some of those whose viewpoints differ from you actually really do care about the encyclopedia, want it to thrive, and are quite happy to let your tastes and ideas inform your contributions providing that theirs are given equal space. End result, a more comprehensive and NPOV resource. LessHeard vanU (talk) 21:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC) (...and, no, I ain't volunteering!)

Hey Jimbo, I confess that I was thinking about posting something similar here (but probably wouldn't have considering that my comments here rarely elicit a response from anyone...sigh) after having seen your comment about Giano II (As far as I can tell, the author of more than 10 FA's and not contentious until the !! thing). But I see WAS beat me to it and did a far better job than I could have outlining the material. I do have one additional suggestion however. Why don't you create a legitimate sockpuppet account for when you edit "as an editor." This way you could avoid the drama that surrounds every edit that this account makes as mentioned in WAS's number 1. Also I am pretty sure that I am not the only editor that has concerns about some of the actions you have taken recently. I realize that you are in a tough position, but it would be good to know that you will at least take some of these comments under consideration. —Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 00:45, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources

Hi Jimbo. There has been a great deal of discussion at WT:RS about redirecting the page to the relevant section of Verifiability. User:Jossi and I have been pushing it forward and comments are largely in favour. The relevant links are this thread and surrounding, and this at the Village pump. This will be some what redundant with those two, but to summarize again:

• That we use reliable sources is a matter of policy and thus should be described on a policy page. RS has never been policy and has never been stable, logical or well-written enough to become one. One of the great secrets of the P&Gs is that RS sucks (the content not the concept); people link to it, but nobody quotes from it because it has never produced canonical wording. It started out a sloppy and meandering fork, remained that way for a year-and-a-half, was forked again, and has been skeletal for the last twelve months, with little non-redundant material. There’s basically nothing to it at the moment, and as User:Askari Mark observed we’d be putting it out of its misery.

• Duplicate descriptions of critical concepts are at best pointless and at worst dangerous. Why not have two canonical descriptions of reliable sources? If it’s word-for-word redundancy it’s just silly; if it’s different wording, it can lead to serious policy disagreements and confusion. For example, as of two weeks ago V listed mainstream newspapers as reliable sources, while RS suggested that they were of varying reliability and prone to error. Divergence of this sort is in no way healthy.

• For Wikipedia’s purposes, verifiability cannot be defined without defining reliable sources. You have argued that reliable sources is "arguably a subset of verifiability." I would put it this way: while you might define reliable sources without mentioning verifiability, you cannot define verifiability without mentioning reliable sources. As one editor put it, what is verifiability but the state of being confirmed by reliable sources?

• This is not a redoing of ATT. The central feature of that proposal was the merger of V and NOR and the rename. That’s not happening and RS is a different animal—again, not a policy and not created through official channels.

• V is a good page: to-the-point, logical, and well-written. Making it clear that its section on sources is the primary one on Wikipedia will strengthen the policy. Of course, we don’t just rely on V. We might start a short FAQ based on some old RS material ("can I use this YouTube link?" etc.) and all of NOR, NPOV, and BLP further describe how reliable sources relate to their concepts.

Given what happened with ATT it’s obviously best to have you in the loop. People will be surprised to see the redirect but with a good rationale provided in advance, I think it will go down well; I realize that you might be leery of this given your ATT comments but I'm not sure if you're aware of how disfunctional the actual RS page is. It's had two-and-a-half years to produce good instruction, but hasn't. Will this simply move instability to V from RS? I don’t think so. It’s revert first and ask questions later on the main policies. As a last point, the two editors who have far and away made the most edits to RS—User:SlimVirgin and Jossi—are both strongly in favour of the redirect. That the people who work on the guideline don’t like it, is telling. Best, Marskell (talk) 13:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Given that Marskell said what a poor guideline RS has always been, I'd like to stress that I have lots of edits to it only in the interests of stopping it from getting even worse. :-) And yes, I do very much agree that we need the sourcing policy on one page, not spread over two, with RS sometimes saying the same as V (and yet just a guideline, whereas V is policy, even with the same content) and sometimes contradicting it. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 19:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I am strongly opposed to redirecting the page and losing the guideline page. It has been highly useful (for me and others) as a guideline. When I revert edits where people use dubious (or no sources), I will tell them "... source is not a reliable source" and point them to that page. Most people know what "reliable" means and don't even have to look at the page to understand why their changes were reverted. But, they can look at the page and understand what we mean by reliable sources, why it's important (with links to relevant policies), guidelines on what is a reliable source, link to Wikipedia:Reliable source examples and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard (where questions can be asked). This is not all appropriate on the policy page. I believe the concept of reliable sources is so important for Wikipedia that I cannot understand not having a page (a guideline) about it. --Aude (talk) 17:31, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

This is probably for the best: a supporter and an opposer. I will only add what has been said to Aude already: everyone will still be perfectly free to type "... source is not a reliable source." We're not scrapping the redirect, obviously. What's good is that you'll be able to add "...because it is policy." No more of this needless schism. Marskell (talk) 17:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. This is a misconception that have been addressed in the mailing list and in the discussion. We are not really merging anything. What we are doing is to have one place that discussed sources and that is WP:V, which is the policy on sources. WP:RS will be redirected to WP:V#Sources; the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard is already available from WP:V/N; and we have an essay that can be expanded with examples of reliable sources at Wikipedia:Reliable source examples. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability/Noticeboard and WP:V/N are currently redirects to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Neither of these redirects is linked from Wikipedia:Verifiability. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard is not linked from WP:V, nor directly nor over a redirect.[5] I don't know what links could be clicked to get from WP:V to WP:RS/N, if the current WP:RS page were excluded from the path. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

The noticeboard is now linked from V. I'm worried about over-burdening Jimbo with so many comments... The redirects can easily be handled. Marskell (talk) 19:07, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this thread had a high m:how to win an argument/bullet 11 factor from the outset. --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

An interesting meta link! Marskell (talk) 19:24, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi! Would like to suggest a need to distinguish policy, which needs to contain hard-and-fast rules applicable to all or nearly all situations, from guidelines, which contains rule that are usually true but admit occassional exceptions and require application to particular situations. I would suggest the 80-20 rule as a model for handling the distinction. Suggest thinking of policy as the 20% of rules that cover 80% of situations, guidelines help address the remainder. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Examples: As the debate over including sourcing in WP:NOR has illustrated, practices and even basic vocabulary vary widely from field to field and require care: in the sciences a "primary source" is a published paper in technical journal where scientists describe for the first time the inferences they have drawn from data, while in history a primary source is a document used by historians as input, and published papers containing historians' inferences are called "secondary sources". Some religions like Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism have individuals or groups generally regarded as authorities on key elements of doctrine and practice; other religions are much more decentralized and have much greater variety in commentators' opinions. Sources in technical fields are often written in inpenetrable jargon and writing for an general-interest encyclopedia involves translating into more language an ordinary user has a chance of understanding, but any translation is technically a synthesis. Sourcing requirements vary widely in different fields and many vital fields have special needs and special situations. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 21:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Your query about Favourite

Jimbo, In reply to your question, the reference was generally to the air of intrigue and over-excitement that we currently have in parts of the project, without any very specific references to persons. I should say I was completely unaware of all this at the time, and know nothing of your relations with Durova. Anyway, since metaphors from court life seem to come naturally to those discussing these matters - "god-king", "star-chamber" - "cabal" and so on, and our coverage of the historical topics is exceptionally poor (other than in biographies), I shall be plugging away on courtier, and similar topics like Alexandre Bontemps. I am not sure you have quite completed your transition to a Bicycle monarchy, but best luck in your efforts. Johnbod (talk) 22:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no special relationship of any kind with Durova and find it bizarre that you would suggest it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

As I've just said, I didn't. Johnbod (talk) 00:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Your "Nupedia" quote at Wikiquote

Greetings Jimbo,

There is some discussion at Wikiquote over whether a quote attributed to you at Wikiquote:Nupedia can be verified. Can you confirm (and source) the quote on that page? (Note that the page itself is likely to be deleted, but the quote, if sourced, should be in your Wikiquote entry). Cheers! bd2412 T 23:10, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like me, but I have no specific recollection.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll report that to the committee, as it were. Cheers again! bd2412 T 04:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Some sort of... tribute?

Hey there.

You may or may not be amused by User:Jimbopheel.  :-) — Coren ^(talk) 11:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

prediction

I predict that as time goes by, the neutrality in articles with a constituency will decrease. I have been watching several. I believe more and more groups are organizing off-wiki to POV-push. I could give several examples, but I believe that you can easily find them. Articles on the historical accuracy of major religions, current US presidential candidates -- compare their neutrality with a few years ago, you'll see. What can be done about it? 77.249.7.132 (talk) 16:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

See Tagging/deleting below. It complains about deleting an article about a commercial product that lacks independent sources. Deleting and tagging are among our responses to NPOV issues. WAS 4.250 (talk) 04:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

hi

I'd like yo uto know that after 4 years of contributing articles to wikipedia, ive given up. Why ? because of the over zealous deleting and reverting of others.

I went to a LOT of trouble to obtain for wikipedia previously unreleased images, some from the early 1850's of steam and oil engines. I tracked down a guy who owned the entire archive from a major UK engineering company that traded from 1840 to 1990. he gave me images that i placed in an article, and what happened? They all got deleted because wikipedia is now so paranoid about copyright its self destructing regarding images. The guy , who was the owner of the images, gave them to me with the words 'heres some you can use as you want', but despite my assertions, they were all deleted by the WP Copyright Police.

Well im done. I went to a lot of trouble to help wikipedia, just to have it throw away for nothing. there was no problem with the 8 images I obtained, but there most certainly is a problem with wikipedia when it turns its nose up at unreleased free images.

I'll never help wikipedia ever again.

Lincolnshire Poacher (talk) 16:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry you have been emotionally wounded. Wikipedia wants images that are free to be copied, modified and sold by anyone for any purpose. That is what we mean by "free", as in a "free encyclopedia". Radical idea, huh? Well, that's what we are doing here. You can print out copies of pages of wikipedia and sell them if you wish. Cool, eh? Did the image owner give permission for anyone in the world to make copies and sell those images? I doubt it. So deleting those images was probably correct. WAS 4.250 (talk) 03:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The images didn't have a copyright tag nither, which is very important for any image to be kept This is a Secret ^account 03:53, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Tagging/deleting

It used to be that people obtained status by writing articles. That's now turned around and people compete for most deletions. Comments you might consider here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/San_Andreas_Multiplayer_%283rd_nomination%29

and here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Rape_of_the_Sabine_Women#Concern_tags

Keith Henson Keith Henson (talk) 19:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

See the "prediction" section above. It complains about POV pushing. Deleting and tagging are among our responses to NPOV issues. WAS 4.250 (talk) 04:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Software question

Were you the one to create the Wikipedia software, or did you simply supervise the creation of it?

Just curious. Sinclair (talk) 20:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

You can read up on the software that powers Wikipedia at the MediaWiki article. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Your official stance on this

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Not sure what to do would be appriciated since your comments seems to be obscured to some editors.

Some backstory on this situation is that 99.131.128.52 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) made this edit [6]. It stated that he wanted to kill others and himself with a bomb. It was reported on AN/I and I took it upon myself to report it to authorities in the area of where the IP originated from in Richardson, Texas. After I reported it, I closed the discussion and it was archived a couple a days later.

I just now heard back from authorities and it appeared that the editor was using a network hub to edit from Chicago, Illinois. The resident of Chicago was contacted by the FBI, the issue was addressed and cleared.

I just wanted to know your position if it was proper or nessecary to go through this method when these kind of edits appear. Thank you. — Save_Us_229 06:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Ancient history

Can you help with this, which was followed by this? :-) Carcharoth (talk) 00:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

The need for General User Survey

Jimbo, I know you are busy and this page is overloaded with crap but please take a moment to read this. I am an experienced Wikipedian (User:Piotrus with 62k edits on English Wikipedia and the 47th Most Active Wikipedian) and a PhD candidate with 1 paper on Wikipedia published, another one in review process and two more in draft stages.

I am writing to you with regards to an issue of what I and many of my collegues (scholars of Wikipedia) believe is of utmost urgency. To be brief, we need to prioritize General User Survey (a project of Wikimedia Research Network) and launch it as soon as possible.

GUS, as it is known, is described on meta here. The goal is to survey editors (not users, although if needed this could be changed), and collect basic demographic data (gender, country of residence, age, education level, income). We could also ask questions about editor's experience with Wikipedia, community involvement and so on. The survey could be advertised over a period of a week or so via the same announcement system that the fundraiser or ArbCom / Board elections are (at the top of Wikipedia). It could be easily expanded to other Wikimedia Foundation projects, and via translation, to other wikis (German and Hebrew Wikipedias have done such surveys in the past, links are at the GUS page).

We have preliminary questions ready at the above address, but with no support from developers - or anybody with software skills - we are stuck in more or less the same place since 2005. I believe that a tiny nudge from the Board that would encourage some of the developers to finish the survey and launch it is all we need.

The need for GUS has been raised on every Wikimania, at Wiki-research-l, in recent Wikipedia Weekly podcast, and several research papers. Even you yourself cannot truthfully answer in interviews 'who' edits Wikipedia, because we don't know - and each day we are losing data of immense value on our groundbreaking project/community. We should have done this survey years ago, and it should be a yearly event. Once the survey is completed, it will surely generate much interest in academia and media.

The survey, being done online, should be cheap (if it will cost as at all). A time of a few developers is all we need; unless we decide to use an external service like we have done for the Board elections or use one of the services suggested at the GUS page - but the costs, if any, should be a tiny fraction of current Wikimedia budget - and the benefits will be huge.

The survey will benefit everyone - scholars will understand the unique rise of Wikipedia better; reliability of the project and wikis in general will improve as more research is done in that area; we - the editors - will understand ourselves better, media will have something to report, additional awareness will generate more funds, and so on.

Your sincerely

-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 01:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure what the benefits of the survey are supposed to be, notwithstanding the list above, which is largely unconvincing (to me) generalities. However, a survey's principal weakness will be an inability to "prove" anything, as there is no way either to compel or to check truthfulness. Given much of what I have read on en.WP, there might well even be an underground movement to maintain the privacy (anonymity) aspect of the project by willfully and purposefully giving incorrect information. As soon as some entity wants to include me in a survey, my experience has been that somewhere, sometime, that information will be used to try to sell me something. I can understand why many individuals (be they scholars such as Piotrus, marketers or journalists) would want to take such a survey, and to have access to its results, but I can't see what benefit it is to the average editor to give out this information. Count me out. Bielle (talk) 03:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundations doesn't sell anything. There are no ads on the site. Academic surveys guarantee anonymity. General public doesn't understand science - for example, by confusing academia surveys with marketing ones. Wikipedia is here to educate people. Educating people about Wikipedia, and an occasional editor about what an academic survey is, fits the fundation goals. If you are not curious who your fellow editors are, that's fine. Many others are, and the foundation can use this information to make our editing experience better for all of us.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 04:04, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I am sure a lot of people are very curious about a lot of things. If all Wikipedians are given full access to the survey results, then the nature of Wikipedia is such that so will everyone else on the Net be given access. How that will be used, I don't know, but someone out there is thinking about it even as we exchange comments. Most of us in the "general public" know that almost any survey (academic, scientific, marketing, census, or what-have-you) includes "identifying" questions, not usually of the respondent as an individual, that is true, but as a member of any number of groups in which the surveyor has an interest. The information then gathered is carefully analysed for the key attributes to which efforts can be geared better to "sell" something to me, as a member of one of those groups. What is being sold are products usually, but also ideas, like "Vote XX" or "Donate to XX Charity" or "Spend More Time Writing for Wikipedia". I am not sure how knowing X, Y or Z about me will help the Foundation "make our editing experience better for all of us". Would it eliminate, for example, everyone who has a nationalist agenda, or all those who think that "mine" is the NPOV and all those who disagree with me are "POV pushers"? (In spite of the flip tone to the last two sentences, I would really like to know how you see the survey improving our editing experience. I'd be happy to see a response on my talk page if it is not appropriate for this one.) My caution persists, however. To draw any valid conclusions from the results of the survey, you need to have some way, statistical or otherwise, to verify the data. Even the simplest telephone surveyer has postal codes, voices, language use, accent, along with all the data collected from the vast sources of the Internet, mailing lists and research companies against which to measure the reasonableness of the responses. What does Wikipedia have, absent checkuser: a whois location? You are a researcher with a vested interest in collecting this kind of information; I am not. And, indeed, mine is just one opinion. So is yours. It is out of many such that consensus arises. Bielle (talk) 05:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Surely any survey would badly suffer from selection bias - surely a better, fairer, way of doing a survey would be to find users of Wikipedia and survey them that way? Surely /users/ of Wikipedia are more interesting for research than editors anyhow, and it shouldn't be hard to find people considering it's the 8th most popular site on the internet according to Alexa, and contacting them shouldn't be a problem particularly if you are legitimate researchers and scholars and the resources that brings. I also really doubt any benefits of such a survey, and, as a developer myself, your expectation for other people to do software development for you for free to further your cause really made my eyes roll. Perhaps if you feel it's so essential you should find a way of funding or doing the development within the team rather than expecting development time to be handed to you on a plate? Perhaps there is a damn good reason why it's taken 2 years and you've got no progress, as Wikipedia has expanded by over a million articles in that time? -Halo (talk) 06:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

• Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits#2483_users.2C_some_bots_and_scripts

The University of Minnesota is also doing quite a bit of research on WP. Good luck to all scholars that want to help this place! Nice (talk) 14:50, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Hello

Hello I would just like to say Wikpedia is awsome! HIYO (talk) 02:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

All this

How could you have created all this--Hardcore Hak (talk) 03:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Clearly a talented man. Thanks, SqueakBox 03:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)