User talk:Jimbo Wales

Wikipedia:Advertisements

The last fund raising campaign did not give the desired result. Neither the unified login nor approved versions are in production use yet. Let alone the WYSIWYG feature or other MediaWiki improvements that could make the life of Wikipedians so much easier. It seems to me that Wikipedia is stuck in a stalemate. On the other hand, if advertisements were radically introduced, Wikipedia would lose many editors; the little advertisement in one of the earlier fund raising campaigns was not received well. But what about a less radical attempt? Perhaps Wikipedia could start with an advertisement only on the main page and gain some experience with that. Such a conservative attempt would not face the NPOV issues that have been put forward as the main argument against ads, at least not in the same way. I know that I am certainly not the first user to suggest this, but given the stagnating state of the project, I think that things need to be reconsidered. I find it strange that the Wikipedia:Advertisements article does not mention such a moderate, tentative solution but only radical attempts to introduce advertisements in all articles (be it optional or not). Also, it doesn't give crucial arguments such as the possibility to use parts of the money to buy copyrights and put the associated works into the public domain. If people see that they get something back for the advertisements, tolerance would perhaps increase even for putting them into regular articles. --rtc (talk) 08:41, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

While I continue to oppose the introduction of any advertising in Wikipedia, I also continue to agree that the discussion should evolve beyond a simple binary. I believe that if we looked at putting ads into the search results page (only), with the money earmarked for specific purposes (with strong community input into what those would be, either liberation of copyrights or support for the languages of the developing world or...). As the Foundation continues to evolve into a more professional organization capable of taking on and executing tasks (yay Sue and the growing staff!), it begins to be possible to imagine many uses of money that would benefit our core charitable goals.

Lest I be misunderstood: I am not saying anything new, but saying exactly what I have said for many years.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:20, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

RE: Wikipedia's tin-cup approach wears thin http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-wikipedia10mar10,1,6437552.story. I fail to see what would be the *problem* for allowing, for example, a couple of text Google adwords, as a subsection of the external links sections on articles. With the number of page views Wikipedia has today, allowing such ads for a couple of months a year, will generate enough income to support the project for that year, and expand and explore new uses of Wikipedia that cannot be considered today for lack of funding. Why would such activity be considered "commercialization of Wikipedia"? Unless there is an issue with the 501(c)(3) status , which I doubt, why not to openly explore this? A vigorous debate may be needed about this, but I think it is time. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:52, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

In addition to the search results page, another place to consider the placement of text ads would be anything marked as a stub. We're already admitting that these are pages where we don't have as much information about the topic as we should, and that further information is (supposedly) easy to find. When we consider all that could be done with the project if there were even a small amount of cash infused (paying more coders, getting graphic designers involved, commissioning articles on topics that are embarrassingly sparse (e.g., dance history)), we need to find a compromise between the all or nothing approach. Adding stub articles to the list of ad-supported pages would greatly increase the number of funding sources without greatly altering the feel of Wikipedia. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 00:40, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

This user supports search-related ads on a nonprofit Wikipedia.ads

Please see: Wikipedia:Advertisements#Income from search tools on wikipedia pages. Concerning the search box (for Special:Search) on nearly all wikipedia pages, it has been estimated that millions of dollars a year could be raised solely from ads on search result pages. See: [1]. To the right is a userbox I created in support of this.

Another option is to add a search toolbar with a dropdown menu for search engines from Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon.com, etc, and to charge them for searches sent their way. The Mozilla Foundation raises millions of dollars a year this way through the search toolbar at the top of the Firefox browser. See Mozilla Foundation#Financing. The Firefox browser comes with a search toolbar with several search engines set up in its dropdown menu. The user can add more search engines easily by clicking "Manage Search Engines" in the dropdown menu. Any, or all, of the search engines can be removed by the user. In 2006 the Mozilla Foundation received US$66.8 million in revenues, of which 61.5 million is attributed to "search royalties". See: Independent Auditor's Report and Consolidated Financial Statements. The foundation has an ongoing deal with Google to make Google search the default in the Firefox browser search bar and hence send it search referrals; a Firefox themed Google search site has also been made the default home page of Firefox. A footnote in Mozilla's 2006 financial report states "Mozilla has a contract with a search engine provider for royalties. The contract originally expired in November 2006 but was renewed for two years and expires in November 2008. Approximately 85% of Mozilla’s revenue for 2006 was derived from this contract.", this equates to approximately US$56.8 million.--Timeshifter (talk) 14:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

And here's another option..

no adsThis user is against advertisements on Wikipedia.

Because most of us don't want our Wikipedia cluttered with Viagra ads, even if it is on Viagra. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ ^echo 10:00, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I support on/off buttons for opt-in ads on a nonprofit Wikipedia for all readers (via cookies).

None of the ads on search result pages would be on wikipedia pages themselves. And there is no reason these ads could not be user-optional on wikipedia's search pages. Most of us wouldn't mind ads on search result pages. Also, there is money to be made by allowing Google to put a searchbar on wikipedia pages. You already use Google to search for stuff, and usually a wikipedia page is near the top. So, I doubt that most people get apoplectic (look it up) over the viagra ads on Google result pages. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 14:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The userbox is quite ambiguous, do you mean optional with the default being that users see the ads, or do you mean users would have to open their preferences and check some option before they can see ads? I think that the latter would not be successful and few people would do it. Can we move this discussion to some place where more people can get involved? I think merely stating positions is not enough, we need to debate them, collect the ideas and arguments, and, if possible, come to a conclusion or a compromise or something that a large part of the community can support. This could then be sent to the foundation as a petition. That is how I understand Jimbo's message – that the community has to actively find consensus on ads and request them from the foundation. --rtc (talk) 21:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The default setting would be no ads. Click the link in the userbox for more info and discussion. I think a lot of people would allow ads. Even if only a small percentage of people allowed ads a lot of money would be raised yearly. A button on the search page, or on wikipedia pages, would turn ads on and off. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

BLP discussion on proposed change to make BLP apply "everywhere"

Jimmy, I'd like to ask you to read this section on the BLP talk page and weigh in there, as BLP was originally one of your babies: Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#BLP applies everywhere. Lawrence § t/e 18:27, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Interestingly I have been watching my nieces and nephews schools in the UK, and what a minefield of BLP issues so yesterday I tagged their school's talk page with BLP here. Today I did the same to my old school here, but also to the person whose BLP issues are mentioned there. I have had no contact with Lawrence re this issue but appear to have been practicing it anyway. Great minds think alike I guess?!? My own thinking is we need to apply BLP to all articles that mention living people, I'll go and post this at the BLP page. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:41, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I've been thinking BLP just by default applies to any edit or action that generates anything that can be "seen" on Wikipedia, about a living person. The article about Some fish species from the Marianas trench may have nothing living people in it, but if I add a sentence to the article that "Prince Gaston of the Kingdom of France enjoys beating children with this fish species in private", and Prince Gaston is a real person, then BLP obviously applies. That was my contention--if you can see it on http://en.wikipedia.org, BLP applies. Lawrence § t/e 18:45, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess we should be applying it to all articles where BLP is contentious, also IMO to all redirects of living people, just a general extension out of purely biography space into living people affected by what wikipedia says, the headmaster of my old school is a good example but really there are lotsd of articles. I think CV is always an important consideration, if I were a specialist in some Box jellyfish and mentioned in the article then the article should be tagged for BLP, I guess this is my contention, and one I intend to practice in the tiny area of wikipedia I edit. And what I heard you say Lawrence is that we should be free as responsible editors to aply BLP to any article of given consideration on en.wikipedia.org. Thanks, SqueakBox 18:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I think BLP does apply everywhere, but that we have to be sensible in how we apply it in different places. It has to be ok to discuss something on a talk page that has no business being in an article. At the same time, it is not ok to imagine that "anything goes" on even a talk page. As others have said, it has to be ok to ask a legitimate question about a source that might or might not be reliable. "A UK tabloid is reporting X negative claim about Y famous person... clearly not a WP:RS, but has it been reported elsewhere?" can of course be a legitimate question to ask. On the other hand, a long rant against Y based on the UK tabloid reporting, a rant not concerned with editing the article, is probably not ok. And in either case, it can make sense to archive or courtesy blank any discussion which gets out of hand. A statement like "Y is a scumbag, everyone knows it, why can't we say it?" should be deleted right off the bat.

If anything I just said seems surprising or new, please no one start a big war about it anywhere, and please do not cite these opinions as "policy". I am just opining on what I see as being consistent with longstanding traditions.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I quite agree. Common sense and courtesy, while discussing relevant facts without being gratuitiously derogatory. Ty 16:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

What if I post, "X is a scumbag — read all about it in my blog here"? Crum375 (talk) 16:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The violation is in the "X is a scumbag" part, and we all know that blogs are rarely acceptable sources. On the other hand, a question about whether a specific link is an acceptable source (with link to the source) should usually be answered straight out. Risker (talk) 16:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I am on a talk page, discussing Mr. X, a living person. Let's say I post, "Hey everyone, you really need to know the truth about X, read it here in my blog." Assuming my blog entry contains dirt about X, improperly sourced or unsourced, is this OK? Crum375 (talk) 17:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

It's fine, apart from violating every policy in the book. Ty 17:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

So what should I do if I see such a statement? Crum375 (talk) 17:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend refactoring the page, removing the statement and the link, and asking the user nicely not to do it again. There is a pretty clear difference between going onto a talk page and attacking someone by using an external link, and a legitimate question about a possible source.

Let's imagine that instead someone said "Hey, I see here on dirtblog.com that allegations have been raised. Would it be ok to include that in the article?" And then everyone says, no, actually, that's just unsourced garbage not meeting our standards for reliable sources. After a little while (to allow whatever legitimate discussion to die down) I think it makes sense to refactor that page to remove even this, so it is not there for every person coming along in the future. No hurry to do that (because hurrying is likely to cause drama if the discussion is legit). But it should be done in due course, I think.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Often, discussions around these issues occur between users who have strong but opposite viewpoints. WP:3O and WP:BLP/N are good ways to bring previously uninvolved, fresh eyes to a situation, and allow both parties to "stand down" a bit. Personal blogs are pretty clearly not reliable sources, with very, very rare exceptions, regardless of whether or not they are sourced. Some of those rare exceptions might be posts to AN/I or Arbcom pages, where there may be reason to include this information; those pages are widely viewed by trusted users, and such postings can be reasonably discussed amongst the assembled. Risker (talk) 17:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

BLP states that we remove first, then discuss. This is because real live persons can be irreparably damaged while issues are being "discussed". Crum375 (talk) 17:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

<<<<<< Crum375, there are some important nuances involved that you are omitting. Please read the section of BLP that discusses non-article space. It details common sense limitations on your scorched earth approach. The non-article spaces have specific reasons for existing to help us write this encyclopedia and BLP is not to be used as a tool to prevent those spaces from being used appropriately for those purposes. Repeatedly deleting key evidence from an arbcom evidence space is not appropriate. Your judgement was flawed in that incident. Extreme behavior is usually wrong. Balanced thoughtful restrained behavior is more often the correct behavior. WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:23, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

WAS, there is no provision that I can see in BLP or elsewhere that allows us to post unsourced or poorly sourced derogatory or defamatory material about living persons anywhere on WP space. Once it is posted, it can be picked up by a Google cache, and remain in cyberspace for a long time, enough to cause real world harm to real individuals. This is why we remove derogatory material first, and discuss it later, not the other way around. Balance is required for NPOV, for BLP we remove first, and ask questions later, erring on the side of caution. Crum375 (talk) 22:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Crum375, the world is not black and white. Edits don't come with a neat label of "properly sourced" or "poorly sourced". We must all use our best judgements. It was ok for you to remove what in your opinion was a poorly sourced contented claim (it does not have to be negative) from that arbcom evidence page. It was not ok for you to repeatedly do that - in essence saying that your judgement trumped everyone else's judgement on the issue of whether the claim was well or poorly sourced. Note that a claim of "John believes Bob is a murderer" needs different sourcing than the claim "Bob is a murderer." WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:59, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

WAS, saying that someone is psychopath (for example), and linking to it, is unacceptable, unless extremely well sourced. Anyone can remove such a BLP violation, any time. There is no 3RR limit. If editors can then find appropriate sources to support that statement, it can be carefully re-inserted. Otherwise, it goes out. This is not an infantile game — posting such defamatory material on a top 10 website can harm real people, irreversibly. We err on the side of caution in such cases. Crum375 (talk) 23:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

A bigger problem is why we even allow search engines to index WP space, user space, and the like. Since our mission is not commercial in nature we should specifically modify WP's robots.txt to only allow indexing of "Article" space. If our own internal search tools are deficit--or frankly, they're shitty--then we can fix that. Aside from sucking at Google's teat, I can't see any valid WP mission-specific reason to allow search engines to touch anything but "actual articles". This must change. Lawrence § t/e 07:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

And yes: I realize the unspoken reason we don't DON'T do that is because we would screw over WP's "Page Rank" and status on Google. Well, you know what? Living people > Google. Fuck page rank. Our mission is more important than silly games that raise WP or Wikia's stature. We're not here to make money. Those who are can leave. Lawrence § t/e 07:25, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Lawrence, our mission isn't commercial but it is to get our encyclopedia out there read by the hungry for information masses (that's me) and while I don't disagree re non article space IMO hiding our article space from the web crawlers would be a form of suicide and deeply to be discouraged. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:20, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Advice Please

How many edits and how long do you think a user should have before nominating for administration?--RyRy5 (talk) 06:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

It varies. :) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:52, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

3 months of regular editing is generally considered a minimum requirement and is probably a better indicator than pure number counting. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:17, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Happy First Day of Spring!

Happy First Day of Spring!

A Beautiful Cherry Tree in Spring Bloom

Theres nothing like seeing a field full of spring flowers.

Just wishing you a wonderful First Day of Spring {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}! ~~~~

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere and are entering the season of Autumn not Spring then I wish you a happy First Day of Autumn {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}!
To spread this message to others, add {{subst:First Day Of Spring}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

The same from me too, to Jimbo and everybody who edits Wikipedia. :-) Lradrama 11:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

And a happy Autumn to all those deep in the southern hemisphere and a happy yet more of the same to those in the tropics from a hot SqueakBox. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

help on hi.wikipedia

Greetings friends of wikipedia.

I have poor knowledge of English and Hindi Langauge and I write with poor knowledge.

Administrators of Hindi Wikipedia have grossly misused tools of Administratators. Namely one Rajiv Mass, Purnima Varman and Manish Vashishtha. One Rajiv Mass has created dammy Account of Ravi jain to harass and misuse.

I request here to translet what I have written in Hindi and same to be informed to all what these Administrators have done. I know that Administratator Rajiv Mass was doing this type of activites for last 3-4 months.

I signed as vkvora. vkvora2001 (talk) 22:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Miss Use on Hindi Wikipedia

Category:Wikipedians in India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics

All most all and at least three confirmed have grossly missused their Administratators Tools on Hindi Wikipedia. Their Names are Rajiv Mass, Purnima Varman and Manish Vashishtha. Not only that Administratator Rajiv Mass has opened dummy account in name of Ravi Jain and miss used to harass other members of Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, English wikipedia. I have complained in poor English to English Wikipedia Administratators and one has advised me to write here. Those who know Hindi very well should visit Hindi wikipedia to solve the problem and this fact should be brought to all Administratators of world. I signed as vkvora. vkvora2001 (talk) 02:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Abuse on Hindi Wikipedia

www.hi.wikipedia.org

All Administrators of Hindi Wikipedia are involved and particularly (1) Rajiv Mass (2) Purnima Varman and (3) Manish Vashistha confirmed. Other three are in line of confirmation.

Rajiv Mass has opend dummy account in name of Ravi Jain on Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, English and many languages with IP 124.124.36.4 of Rajiv Mass and harassing other members on many languages.

hi.wikipedia gu.wikipedia mr.wikipedia en.wikipedia

Everything with fact is given on Hindi Wikipedia and all Admn. know.

In case all Admn. on Hindi wikipedia are involved, please, bring this fact to entire world.

I am from India and feel very ashmed that my brothers are involved in Vandals activities on wikipedia.

For this notice board fact can be seen by nacked eye on :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Vkvora2001

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jainjain

copy of this is pasted on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics

I signed as vkvora. vkvora2001 (talk) 05:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

User:RickK

Hello, founder of Wikipedia, whom I have to say, I'm excited to be discussing with! I'd just like to ask that if User:RickK is retired, then why does it say that he's still an administrator in the Special:Listusers page? Other users who were formerly administrators are not listed as admins there; so if he's no longer active, then shouldn't he have been desysopped? Thanks! SchfiftyThree 00:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi there, AFAIK retired administrators are not desysopped. Although I maybe wrong! --The Helpful One ^(Review) 00:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

You are right, administrators are not desysoped because of inactivity or retirement.— Ѕandahl 00:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, Essjay formerly was an admin, but then had to retire because of the controversy. The reason why RickK was not desysopped kind of confuses me, and it's kind of interesting to see that retired administrators who haven't made edits for over two years are still considered admins. To me, that's kind of unusual. SchfiftyThree 01:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Essjay requested in his last edit that he be desysopped, which is why he's no longer an admin (though he might have been desysopped through arbitration if he hadn't made that request because of the circumstances in which he left). There's nothing wrong with having inactive accounts with admin tools, as that person is still trusted to have that access by the community and the risk of the account being compromised is very low. Hut 8.5 11:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

If ever RickK decided to come out of retirement for some reason (and that goes for any retired admin), he has done nothing to deserve the taking away of is tools. Lradrama 11:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies and answering my question. I guess it's true that he doesn't need to be desysopped. SchfiftyThree 16:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Calhan, Colorado

Hey Jim - I'm going out to a rural high school today in Calhan, Colorado to talk to the kids about Wikipedia, how they can get involved, etc. I will be re-hashing, to a degree, the talk I gave at the New York meet-up. --David Shankbone 16:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Jim, the talk went really well. I stood in front of the class and I discussed why Wikipedia exists, why people edit it, how to edit the site, and how to avoid vandalism. There was a *really* funny moment in front of the class. I told the kids about the "...is gay" vandalism, and they all suddenly looked uncomfortable. I told them that it's very common, and that if they write "Fred...is gay" "Drew Barrymore...is gay" "Your Mom...is gay" or anything else, that they are thoroughly unoriginal, and that you and fifty million other kids in Dubuque all write the same thing. They laughed uncomfortably. Then they asked how we can tell when things changed, so I looked at the IP address I was using for their high school, and it was full of vandalism (including "is gay)! It was really funny - I started to look at the diffs, and for their IP there were a bunch of edits to Immanuel Kant - their English teacher had given the class an assignment about him. And it turns out...on one of the vandalism edits one of the kids actually signed his name! I was also told--no lie--that the kid was not in school because he had recently pierced his tongue with a nail and his face had swollen up. But I have to tell you: I have some great photos of "American High School students" for those articles, and they school even had them sign releases. Once I'm back in New York, I'll upload. --David Shankbone 14:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Sir, I'm Requesting administrator Removal For Theresa Knott

This administrator has been very bias towards me, and has wrongfully accussed my of stalking. She has also wrongfully accused me of stirring up trouble against a user known as Thegingerone. This user has continously violated the NPOV policies, and Ms. Knott. I also never wanted to post any "nasty messages" to the user, and I have never called the user any bad names. I fell like Knott's actions against me are the equivilnet of when a [refactor personal attack against another user]. I'm not making racist accusations, but I do think her treatment of me is bias and equivilent to discrimination. I'm deeply offended by her accusations, and I fell she needs to be dealt with soon. Also, OhnoIt'sJamie did the same think in a message he sent me, by saying the message I am sending is accussing Ms. Knott of racis,. Let me make it clear to anybody else who reads this and makes these bias assumptions I AM NOT ACCUSSING ANYBODY WITH ALLEGATIONS OF RACISM, but I do think that there is some prejudice going on. Hey, it's just my opinion from observation. Kevin j (talk) 17:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I am deeply offended by your racist allegations against Theresa Knott, please remove them as you have no evidence that she is a white supremacist. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

SqueakBox, NO, I AM NOT MAKING RACIST ALLEGATIONS OR ACCUSSING ANYBODY OF BEING A WHITE SUPREMACIST. Get it through your head.Kevin j (talk) 17:38, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

From TKnotts's talk page: your edit at 17:08, 21 March 2008 "David Duke" diff and subsequent blanking of a thread on her talk page (diff). This complaint is without merit. I suggest you heed Theresa Knott's advice. Bogus complaint and Kevin j needs to knock it off, R. Baley (talk) 17:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Instead of calling her a whiote supremacist. Thanks, SqueakBox 17:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Once again, I AM NOT CALLING ANYBODY A WHITE SUPREMACIST. I even erased the content from the talk page, though I still feel she is acting prejudice against me, by labelling me as a "stalker." I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS FILTH, and I do think she is being childish and prejudice against me. Also, I NEVER SLANDERED her to other editors. I love to edit film content, and I have been doing this long before these people knew who I even was. Sir you do think administrators should get special privileges? Because I don't.Kevin j (talk) 18:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I have blocked the user for 24 hours for disruption. At this point, he is going to any user talk page he can think of and SCREAMING nonsense at people. Clearly, nothing productive is going to come out of his current state of mind. Marskell (talk) 18:27, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Friendly heads up

Wikipedia, according to Valleywag. And in a fine twist of irony, Valleywag fails to see the joke's on them. Please, do some real journalism for a change.

Just so there's no question about this, I ought to explain something. A few days ago Sue Gardner joined a Not the Wikipedia Weekly skypecast and among other things she denied a recent Valleywag rumor. I don't usually pay much attention to Valleywag, but afterward I decided to check out one of her comments and she was exactly right: nearly all of the Valleywag stories that mention women discuss what they suppose is that woman's sex life. Now there's a site that has issues, I thought. And for a bit, I left it at that.

Then in a bit of serendipity I segued from work on the triple crown awards to reading up on classical Greek mythology to the paintings of William-Adolphe Bouguereau. I've had my eye on his work for a while as potential restorations for featured picture candidacy. Then a really impish inspiration struck, and I've heard you're very good at taking a joke so I went ahead with it. The thing was an ironic barb at Valleywag's tabloid reporting.[2]

Much to my surprise, two days later Valleywag has actually run the silly image to accompany a story about you--completely failing to see that the actual joke is on them. I've written a comment to that effect; am waiting to see whether they have the integrity to publish it. Also made a similar comment at p2pnet news.[3] So for the record, this image is a gesture of respect to Sue Gardner and the other hardworking women of the tech industry who really deserve to get into the news for their brains. Durova^Charge! 21:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

So finally the truth comes out! Jimbo, are you looking for any interns at the moment? I'd be happy to join the team and keep all those distractions away from you :) Franamax (talk) 22:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not "issues", it's pageviews (and they've gotten really blatant about it with the "sex trade" series). I thought the picture was hilarious in terms of mocking the (umm, alleged) wikihorndogging, not parodying Valleywag. You've got to be careful when wielding irony, it can cut back at you. Consider it the difference between the art and the artist's intent (i.e. what the reader gets from the art is not necessarily the same as what the artist was trying to say). -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 12:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

So for the record, this image is a gesture of respect to Sue Gardner and the other hardworking women of the tech industry who really deserve to get into the news for their brains. I think I understand. The bathing nymphs - representing "The Foundation" are trying to dampen the ardor of the lascivious satyr - representing Jimbo by dunking him in the pond - which represents the brains of the hard working women of the tech industry. Uncle uncle uncle (talk) 13:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

One of the cool things about Wikipedia is how often it turns up a really well composed explanation of a complex point. From satire: A very common, almost defining feature of satire is its strong vein of irony or sarcasm, but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. The essential point, however, is that "in satire, irony is militant". This "militant irony" (or sarcasm) often professes to approve the very things the satirist actually wishes to attack. This was also meant as hyperbole, but seeing how quickly Valleywag actually used it, I obviously failed at estimating their lowest common denominator. Here's hoping the little joke made everybody smile and didn't give offense. Durova^Charge! 20:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

One of the cool things about Wikipedia is how often it turns up a really well composed explanation of a complex point. Thank you for the nice compliment on my explanation. One thing that I could't figure out though: Do the white buttocks in the portrait represent TCP/IP or HTTP? Uncle uncle uncle (talk) 23:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Admin meddling

Mr. Wales, please review the recent history of Unholy Alliance and determined efforts by two Admins to bury historical references to Teddy Roosevelt's uses of the term. -MBHiii (talk) 21:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Personal advice

Hi Jimbo. Sometimes I am afraid I am over-sensitive. The Race and Intelligence article is obviously controversial and I have been highly critical of User:Jayjg user:Jagz who I believe has been pushing for inclusion of a fringe, racialist (if not racist) POV in the article - this is just context, not the issue. The issue is, today he made this edit, creating a new section and providing no explanation or context: [4]. If it is directed at me, I wonder if it is anti-Semitic.

I may be overreacting - it may just be one of several disruptive edits he has made, which I should not take personally, and I have left a note at AN/I concerning disruptive edits. But the possible anti-Semitism nags at me. I know that in general you take these matters seriously and that in this particular case you have objectivity I lack and if you think I am overreacting, well, I would respect and value your judgement. Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 22:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

The first thing that I noticed is that the edit in question is not by User:Jayjg at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Yikes! I am an idiot! It was a complete slip. I meant user Jagz (Jayjg has not edited that page or the article for a very very long time, if he even ever did ... I guess i just work on so many more articles with jayjg that it is more of a reflex writing hisname. Anyway, it was a mistake). Everything I have written here applies to Jagz; Jayjg is utterly uninvolved in this, it was just a slip on my part. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:25, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

An invitation...

Hi, I've seen you frequently around the article Green Day and other related articles. Please consider joining the Green Day WikiProject, an effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage and detail regarding Green Day. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks that you can help with. Thank you for your time.

1,000,000,000 words

Frohe Ostern!

We are about to pass the 1 billion mark. I think it is a cause for celebration even if an enormous amount needs doing to improve quality. It would just take about 500 years to read it -(that's all) ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ ^$1,000,000? 22:07, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Er, what? can you please provide a diff for your assertion. I thought we had agreed the developers couldn't figure out how to do it even if they had the time and if we are going to celebrate a landmark 2,500,000 articles is the way to go. The real problem, as I saiod before, is if we make false allegations to the media re 1 billion words it will not go well for us. But I'd like to see yopur calculating procedures anyway. As a volunteer here I certainly have some developer skills. Your assertion claims a mean average of slightly less than 250 words per article, which may not be that far out as i have read somewhere ages ago that the average article was 2 lines, which is about 50 words but without the computing processes it would be pure guesswork. Thanks, SqueakBox 22:11, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you hear the other day somebody deleted the sandbox, and mid-afternoon US time when Western Europe was still awake, ie at the worst time, and the servers crashed for a couple of hours as you can't do that kind of thing, an admin either not thinking or simply didn't realise that you can't edit 4 years of history on a page which had I have no idea how many edit revisions but clearly enough to crash the servers. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Does that have something to do with anything? Equazcion •✗/C • 00:03, 23 Mar 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely. Don't mess with the servers analysing data dumps. Thanks, SqueakBox 00:05, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Entering the Wikimatrix (aka Jimboworld)

As anyone who has ever cared about Jimbo here knows, the only way to have any sort of rational or caring discussion with him is in the Wikimatrix here. Alright, fine. Game on, sweetheart. Newsflash: Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia; it is a cult. I wouldn't even be included in a real encyclopedia. I want the Wikipedia entry about me deleted. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept to accept. This is not a publishing company, nor is it some kind of altruistic venture for the greater good of humanity. Wikipedia is nothing more than the biggest and most prolific defamation machine that the world has ever known, run by people with varying degrees of personality disorders. You couldn't have cared less about my Wikipedia entry until we started sleeping together, Jimmy. At that point, it was nicely cleaned up and taken care of through your proxies here on the site, as per your instructions (and it's not the first time an article has been cleaned up through a proxy, as per your orders...this kind of stuff, contrary to popular belief, doesn't just happen "magically" here on Wikipedia). Now that we're not sleeping together and since you so publicly broke up with my here on this website, the page about me has turned into a complete free-for-all. Are you aware, Jimmy, that "NPOV" (aka "Neutral Point Of View") is actually an oxymoron? By its very nature, a "point of view" cannot be "neutral". Communism has failed everywhere it has been tried, Jimmy, and Wikipedia is no exception. As for you trying to make it seem as though your invisible hand isn't involved in any of this, perhaps it's wise for people to remember that the greatest feat the devil ever pulled off was convincing people that he doesn't exist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RachelMarsden (talk • contribs) 14:51, 23 March 2008 (UTC)