User talk:Jimbo Wales: Difference between revisions

I haven't reviewed the specifics of your recent article deletions, so I can't vouch for each and every one of them of course, but I wanted to fully endorse the principles that, as I understand it, you have used in your deletions: unsourced BLPs that have been around for several years are an easy and obvious first target, and your deletions, while unconventional and a bit exciting for some, were carefully considered and I consider this a valid application of WP:BOLD. You have my support.[1]

I just wanted to bring to your attention that many of the articles which Scott MacDonald, Rdm2376, and Lar deleted, have been recreated and sourced. These deletions included a president of a country, Acting Prime Minister of South Korea twice, prime ministers, Grammy winners, the author of Where's Waldo, and a US ambassador during a very historic time in South African's history, etc.

Now that you know the specifics of the deletions, does this change your view? Thank you for your time. Okip (the new and improved Ikip) 13:12, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It confirms my view, very strongly. It sounds like deletion was just the thing we needed in order to finally get these articles into shape. Remember, the methodology he was using for choosing the deletions was to choose articles which had existed in a sorry state (unreferenced) for a very long time. If his actions motivated good contributors to recognize the problem and take action, that's an excellent outcome. I think it fairly obvious: but for his deletions, these articles would still suck.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:49, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, since these deletions, the backlog of unsourced BLPs has been decreased by some 7000 articles, instead of slowly but steadily increasing. A kickstart may be painful when the kick is somewhat indiscriminately aimed, but at least it gets the motor finally running... Fram (talk) 13:21, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They're still living people and thus must follow BLP. It doesn't matter if it's Barack Obama or my little cousin, BLP applies to everyone and no-one gets a free-pass from its stringent sourcing requirements. If there are no sources to an article, how can it be verified that the hypothetical Grammy winner won a Grammy? As BLP relies on a deletion-first principle, deletion is an acceptable solution until someone can find a source to verify the hypothetical Grammy. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree. Just to note: I also support a fairly liberal "undelete upon sincere request" policy, and I also support keeping lists of "stuff that got deleted because it was unsourced for a long time" so that people who want to take this on as a hobby can do so. Deletion is a lightweight solution - it's reversible. But if something gets deleted because it is an unreferenced BLP for a very long time, and no one feels like re-creating it - that's a good argument for not having it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:49, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. If someone can trot up one source for the Grammy, we can recreate it with the new text "Bob Smith is a Grammy-Award winning musician." Then we add onto that: what he won the Grammy for, when, add some sources. It's not the job of the people deleting to do that, though; it's explicitly the job of the people wanting to retain.

Funnily enough, if there's one thing that this whole mess has done, it's pushed me further onto the pro-BLP enforcement side (although I've always been on that side, I've never been that passionate about it until a few months ago). Around a year ago, I was opposed to flagged revisions, mostly because it didn't have enough consensus and the trial wasn't well defined enough. These days, though, I think Alison's (and Jimbo's, I think) "flagged revisions for all BLPs" position isn't that bad. As I said on WR the other day, it's worrying that the "school of thought around Wikipedia that protecting people's reputations shouldn't be done if it scares off the newbies" exists, and even more so that it's prevalent. Seriously, anyone who puts protecting new editors and retaining terrible content above upholding ethical and legal commitments to integrity, accuracy, and protection of a person's reputation is quite simply a massive idiot. Sceptre ^(talk) 14:01, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a task force for looking at saving, by improvement, articles as well as a task force for deleting them ? I looked at one, a BLP for a Japanese music maker, and there were 5 or 6 people quick to join in on the delete side but no-one other than myself tried to find refs for it - one editor did join in with trying to improve the prose though.

Although that may have been a rarity as Japanese was the major language for sources and it was the oldest on the list of three years unref'd, so probably attracted more attention than it may have otherwise done, it seems that if there are more people trying to delete than there are improve there would be a problem as the smaller number of editors would not keep up with deletions let alone getting the poor articles up to scratch. I also put out requests on the Japanese wiki for help, but as there was only 5 or 6 days to deletion and the artist was less well known it is unlikely that anyone would have seen the requests in such a short space of time

This is why I suggested waiting till flagging - at least then it could be hidden from mainspace while people were given the chance to try and save some of them as the delete process is simple and the sourcing side not so easy. I also suggested useryfying it but instead of transferring to my user area it was simply deleted.

Chaosdruid (talk) 18:43, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I definitely feel that the issue needed the attention of the broader community, that's why I proposed to go further with a sitewide plan to better source BLPs. But there are different ways to attract the attention of the community, and the one employed, deleting indiscriminately until being blocked, was certainly not the best one. A RFC would have been much easier, we'd be closer to have consensual solutions now, we would have lose less time in drama or 'recovery' which could have then be employed for more useful activities. The decrease in the backlog of several thousands is due to more people becoming aware of the issue and helping, through the RFC; the few hundreds of deletions (many of them now overturned), are not much in it. We need to coordinate for action on a large scale; a few surges of deletions, however well-intentioned, won't solve the problem (and may create more work so slow down the process in the end). Cenarium (talk) 00:02, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What is the Jeopardy involved in Copyright Infringements?

Jimbo, To the best of my understanding, the spirit and motive behind copyright law is to prevent people from profiting at the expense of those who did the actual work. But as is often the case, the letter of the law then ends up applying to situations that the spirit of the law didn't originally intend. I may as well explain exactly what is motivating this query. I would like to put a photograph of an old nineteenth century banknote unto a wikipedia article. I found the image as a result of a google search, but I know nothing about the copyright status, or how I would contact the owner.

If this image were to be inserted on wikipedia, nobody would financially profit, and I certainly don't see how anybody else could financially loose. Additionally, in US law there is a special clause about 'fair use'. I read quite a bit about this, but unfortunately, as is always the case, these matters are grey and ultimately it will depend on what side of bed the judges got out of that morning.

And so naturally, everybody tends to be over cautious, and who can blame them? But I'd now like to know something about the precedents. Have we actually had any real cases so far of wikipedia being sued for displaying a copyrighted image? And if so, what was the result? Guilty or not guilty? And if guilty, what was the damage?

Precedents are often the only reliable guide for the purposes of assessing risk. If the precedents look frightening, then quite frankly I couldn't be bothered helping out in this respect. But if there are no precedents, then I may well want to upload a few images to wikipedia articles.

I'd be grateful if you could somewhat enlighten me on this theme.David Tombe (talk) 05:14, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If it's a nineteenth-century banknote, it'd be in the public domain as its copyright would have expired, at the latest, some time in the seventies. Sceptre ^(talk) 06:32, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sceptre, As I understand it, the copyright on the photograph of the banknote is an entirely different issue from the copyright on the banknote itself. In fact, I've never heard of the concept of copyright on actual paper money, because to copy paper money would be entering into the realms of counterfeiting which I assume would knock copyright issues into second place. David Tombe (talk) 11:00, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at a £5 note now, and on the reverse in the middle "(c) The governor and company of the bank of England 2002", though I agree the concept of counterfeit would be a bigger issue but all UK paper money has copyrighted designs. Darrenhusted (talk) 11:34, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bank of Canada notes are copyright also. Counterfeiting though is a criminal offence, which we have no control over, and is not part of CC-BY-SA "reuse" licensing. You could slit someone's throat with the Wikipedia 1.0 CD too, but we don't include a specific disclaimer with the CD. Franamax (talk) 11:47, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Under US law, there is no new copyright created by making faithful photographic copies of two dimensional images. If the original is in the public domain, the photograph is as well. See Bridgeman v. Corel. Dragons flight (talk) 11:08, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note well, though, that Bridgeman v. Corel is only a district court case, not an appeals court case, and as such may be only a very limited indicator of the current state of the law in this area. It seems easy enough to get a completely free photo that avoids this issue completely, no? Unless the particular bank note is extremely rare, it should be available at many reputable dealers, and it shouldn't be hard to ask around and find one willing to let you take a nice photo.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:24, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Though not strictly controlling, as you note, the case has been widely followed (as discussed in the article) including a similar ruling by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Both Wikipedia and Commons rely on the Bridgeman logic in their inclusion standards and this practice is encouraged by Mike Godwin. We (meaning the community) have in many instances flatly refused to honor copyright claims made by museums and similar institutions on photographic reproductions of public domain works. Dragons flight (talk) 06:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dragons flight, This link here is not exactly the banknote I had in mind when I started this thread, but it is another very good example. See here, [2]. It is a case of where a picture is worth more than a thousand words. That picture pretty well tells all about currency in the Eastern Caribbean in that period. Sterling coins in conjunction with dollar accounts at a fixed rate of 4s and 2d. I'd like to put a few pictures like this in some of the articles, but there is this worry about copyright. David Tombe (talk) 07:32, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The particular banknote that I have in mind will indeed be very rare. After writing my post above, it did occur to me that banknotes are copyright, for whatever that purpose might be. ~~I recall reading some years back that the greenback design for US paper money that emerged during the American Civil War was a copyrighted design.~~ Anyway, I think the overall point here is that the law is still too grey to risk hosting photographs that may be double copyrighted, both as regards the original designs and the photograph itself. Nobody wants to find themselves in a multi-million dollar law suit, arguing at length with rational argument, only to find all the effort wasted because the judge got out the wrong side of bed on the morning of the ruling. I just tried googling about the copyright on the greenback design. I confirmed that they emerged in 1862 but the only thing about copyright that I saw was the copyright on the article itself. David Tombe (talk) 15:57, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As a point of information I have now remembered that what I read years ago, was that the green ink used on the reverse side of the greenbacks was patented. And I think that the question above has now been pretty well answered. The modern US law is of that kind which effectively introduces a get out clause, and then proceeds to warn you to use the get out clause at your own risk. It provides a list of legitimate defences against copyright infringement, but then states in the small print that the judge might not necessarily accept your defence. So best to err on the side of caution, which is what I believe wikipedia is already doing. Copyright law is of that nature whereby applying it to the letter is not always logical, such as in the case of banknotes. Somebody photographing a modern Bank of England note and publishing it in a book for educational purposes is theoretically breaching copyright law, but hardly breaching the spirit of the copyright law. What could the Bank of England lose by the existence of such a publication? It would hardly undercut the sales of their banknotes to the high street banks. And while it's true that the author of the book would profit, the profit would not be on the back of stealing a design as such, but rather of drawing attention to a design that is already in the public domain, and doing so for the purposes of education. One final point. I did hear years ago down at the copyright office, that something is either copyright or it is not. It doesn't make any difference whether it is registered or not, or whether the little copyright symbol is printed on the document or not. The corollary of this is that the existence of the little copyright symbol on a document doesn't necessarily mean that the document is actually copyrighted. And in the case of banknotes, I quite frankly can't see the logic of the copyright. David Tombe (talk) 06:09, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Church of Reality

I am writing to you asking to be a realist and look at the facts towards the argument of whether the Church should be on wikipedia. I believe it should be on because even though it breaches on a ruff topic it also creates food for thought. Below is what i have written to all the editors who want to have this paige deleted.

"Keep: For the love of sanity please let their be a right of free speech. Due to the fact that we are voting for it and against it,makes it is obviously notable enough. I am assuming the church of reality is American made, yet word of it has already progressed to Australia. I hope the Admin reads all these votes to and for this argument and makes a honest decision not just one that supports a larger minority of pissed of religious people."

Thank you for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.208.18.42 (talk) 15:02, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The AfD is here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Church of Reality (2nd nomination). Dougweller (talk) 15:25, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We don't promote things, advocate, or edit with the intent to create 'food for thought', and there being no particular article on Wikipedia is not an attempt to free speech; if the article was found to be non notable according to our standards, then there will be no article on it (unless it becomes notable, as we define it, one day). As an aside, please read WP:YOULOSE. Cenarium (talk) 16:06, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo actually had previously let an uninvolved editor recreate the page, so obviously the appeal did work in that case. Reach Out to the Truth 18:49, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you (or someone) point me to that, because I don't remember the details of this. I think the page should be deleted and salted, as it is currently. It's not normally up to me to "let" uninvolved editors recreate pages, but perhaps I've forgotten some special situation or perhaps I will now find that I think I was mistaken at that time or... well, in any event, I strongly support the current decision, and will not be doing anything about it - other than auto-deleting by using a filter all the weird complaint email I'm getting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it's at the now deleted Talk:Church of Reality page. I can't recall exactly what you said there, but the protection log shows that you did unprotect the page to allow recreation by an independent third party. Reach Out to the Truth 21:30, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I found it. I had written: "An independent 3rd party has offered to try to write a good article, and I would like to see that effort proceed. Therefore, I have unprotected the article. I think it is possible that, with the passage of time, there has been sufficient additional press coverage to merit an article. I take no position on that, I am just saying that it is possible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)" I think that was reasonable, although with another 2 years of time passed, I now think it is extremely unlikely that this will ever merit an article.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:58, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this website blocked on Wikipedia?

Why is the site called: ritualabuse.us, blocked on Wikipedia, Mr. Wales? I have looked at the site, and I cannot see why it has been blocked here. Could you please explain? Kind regards, Aangman14 (talk) 23:32, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have tried to go the spam blacklist, but it will not allow me to edit the page. How can this site be spam? If Wikipedia opposes websites that attempt to help the victims of ritual abuses for their own reasons, I will understand completely, as it is your policies which must stand, however unnecessary I find this one, at least. However, this website appears to acknowledge this and has noted, "It is clear that Wikipedia refuses to consider any documentation about the existence of ritual abuse." While I remain neutral on this matter, I must confess that pages such as satanic ritual abuse are indeed heavily slanted towards views believing that ritual abuse is a complete hoax. There has been many neutrality disputes over this particular page by various users, yet always the article's contents do not appear to be more "neutral". Even if these allegations are entirely fabricated for some reason, is it necessary to actually blacklist the site? Please, Mr. Wales, at least tell me why this page is not allowed. Thank you, Aangman14 (talk) 23:33, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) A quick look at this tells me that the site has been used improperly in the past, and for that reason it is currently blacklisted to prevent further abuse. The spam blacklist is, for obvious reasons, only editable by admins. However, use is permitted for certain legitimate purposes, and it would be a good idea for you to ask on the talk page to be whitelisted to cite from it, and an admin will assess your request. Of course, you won't be able to link directly, so I suggest you surround your proposed link with "<nowiki>"</nowiki> tags so you don't trigger the blacklisting filter. Hope that helps. Rodhull andemu 23:42, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please, how has this site been "improperly used"? Could you please go further into this? Is the site itself inappropriate for some reason? If possible, I would like Mr. Wales to briefly comment on this. I assure you all I shall then bother you no more. Thank you, Aangman14 (talk) 23:45, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt Jimbo will be aware of this, but here is the report page. It seems to me that this website has been used to push a point of view or otherwise edit outside our policies and guidelines., and that's why it is blocked. However, legitimate use is permitted, as I indicated above, and I make no judgement on the merits of the site itself, having not read it. If Jimbo wants to comment, I'm sure he will. Rodhull andemu 00:03, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, yes, of course. Thank you, my friend, for explaining. While I indeed am opposed to editorial bias, surely even the links to the Church of Satan pages is expressive of some form of viewpoint, as are those whom strongly believe that ritual abuse has always been, and always will be a hoax. It does not push a point of view, but merely is an archive of documented ritual abuse cases. If Jimbo believes such a site cannot be considered appropriate, then that his his own point of view, but, in all honesty, I am still somewhat confused. Thank you, Aangman14 (talk) 00:07, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, the site isn't exactly spam, is it? Aangman14 (talk) 00:08, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not strictly, but WP:SPAM is an umbrella term for all use of websites that does not comply with our guidelines. There's no bias here, just editorial discretion, and a functional rather than value-driven discretion at that. Rodhull andemu 00:14, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Then, please provide me with the examples of how, exactly, it was used against Wikipedia policies. Please, I am curious as to whom blocked the site. Perhaps they and I could discuss the issue ourselves to not waste Jimbo's own time? Aangman14 (talk) 00:18, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

These users whom used the site...they are all sockpuppets of each other, it seems, or at least most of them, these users whom have abused the site. Is the abuse of one or two people worthy of blocking the site itself? If indeed after it has been removed from the list, and is again constantly abused, I strongly support adding it back, but as of now, can we not have good faith and see what comes of this? Thank you, Aangman14 (talk) 00:34, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Probably worth raising this here and referring them to this conversation. The admins there are experienced at evaluating such requests. Rodhull andemu 00:44, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your helpful input, my friend, but this is Jimbo Wales's talk page...I came here intending for him to respond, not another user, however experienced and well-meaning, to answer for him. I will do what I can to address this issue tomorrow. Thank you. Aangman14 (talk) 00:51, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Again, if possible, could we determine which administrator blocked the site? Perhaps I can then discuss the issue with him personally, and we might then come to a reasonable solution. Thank you, Aangman14 (talk) 00:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The latest discussion was here where the author of the website asked why it has been blacklisted. User:Hu12 explained the policies. The original addition to the list was done here by him as well (reported by someone else). However, it's very unlikely that Hu12, like most admins, would unilaterally remove something from the blacklist, nor would Jimbo I suspect. It would more likely require a consensus discussion but that would require evidence that's it's a useful source. To get to that, you would be better off following the suggestion here and just reporting what particular pages and uses you had in mind. I think a general attempt to remove the entire site would not be fruitful as that seems like putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:20, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes to what others hae said: this has nothing particularly to do with me and I don't know much about it. I will say, though, that I think it unfortunate that our link blacklist is named "spam" because not everything that legitimately goes in there is spam.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Potential Copyright Violation

Jimbo, I'm pretty sure the page at http://knol.google.com/k/criticism-of-wikipedia violates the GFDL and SS-BY-CA, so I thought I might mention it to you, since you have appropriate authority (I think) to take legal action. Compare that page to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Criticism_of_Wikipedia&oldid=227488932, and you'll see what I mean. Mego (talk) 00:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 106: / Line 106: @@
 ::Yes to what others hae said: this has nothing particularly to do with me and I don't know much about it.  I will say, though, that I think it unfortunate that our link blacklist is named "spam" because not everything that legitimately goes in there is spam.--[[User:Jimbo Wales|Jimbo Wales]] ([[User talk:Jimbo Wales#top|talk]]) 14:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
+== Potential Copyright Violation ==
+Jimbo, I'm pretty sure the page at http://knol.google.com/k/criticism-of-wikipedia violates the GFDL and SS-BY-CA, so I thought I might mention it to you, since you have appropriate authority (I think) to take legal action. Compare that page to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Criticism_of_Wikipedia&oldid=227488932, and you'll see what I mean. [[User:Mega Gamer05|Mego]] ([[User talk:Mega Gamer05|talk]]) 00:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)