User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Mayfair art dealer Mark Weiss in disgrace after admitting poison pen campaign on Wikipedia

This seems to have begun on Wikipedia. Fiction turns to reality. [1]. Please hat with the comment "Not sure anything is being asked of me, nor sure how I can help" 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:08, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Let's begin at somewhere near the beginning. An IP makes slanderous allegations here [2]on 10 October 2009. See also here [3]. At the very same time, the allegation is repeated in tabloid newspapers. It turns out the source of the newspaper allegation is the same as the source that edited Wikipedia. And now Wikipedia editors can repeat the slur [4]. And even the Wikipedia administration can repeat the slanderous allegations [5] because they come from 'reliable sources'. No one picked this up until Sebastian Shakespeare [6] picks it up in today's standard. What has gone wrong? Why is the supposedly reliable crowdsourced Wikipedia recycling rubbish from tabloids which has itself been sourced from slanderous allegations originally made by anonymous edits on Wikipedia? Nonsense recycled. 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:31, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The Standard story is not on the net, but the Daily Telegraph has a report on it here [7]. You are going to say of course that it is nothing to do with you but it is everything to do with you. You are responsible for all the evil that is on Wikipedia. 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The rhetoric above is strident and excessive, but I am reviewing the links. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Yet please review the links, and read the full article in the London Evening Standard. 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:45, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This sits better at the article talkpage - its a content dispute. - Off2riorob (talk) 23:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Probably, but if we move it there, the IP will say it is a coverup. Best to address it here?--Wehwalt (talk) 23:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I added a welcome template to their talkpage and they are angry about it - asking on my talk if its some kind of joke - no its a welcome. and the rude boy continues - "No one is innocent on Wikipedia" - disruptive attacking IP block and direct to OTRS - Off2riorob (talk) 23:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

You are the rude ones who lie about people and destroy their lives. 86.176.94.123 (talk) 23:51, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

If anything here destroyed your life then you need to get out more.. Move along please Off2riorob (talk) 23:53, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not be about deciding which side to block or blacklist or revert or suppress. It should be about open conversation. Wikipedia is not here to lie about Mould (or Weiss, for that matter). That is (allegedly) the tabloid's job. Wikipedia is like the library that puts the tabloid up on the newspaper rack for people to read. The cure to any misinformation here is more, better information. Wnt (talk) 19:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Although I do not appreciate the IP's invective, his anger at Wikipedia at this moment is frankly understandable. The Philip Mould article, which I have just checked, does not appear to have any current issues, but I have redacted two instances of apparent defamation from the talkpage. If there are any other concerns about Mould-related content I would appreciate their being brought to my attention.

As I have said before in many forums, the rise of the Internet has been a force for much good, but it also enables the most outrageous lies, slanders, hoaxes, and invasions of privacy to be spread worldwide at the push of a button, often with devastating effect. This is an Internet-wide problem, not a Wikipedia-specific one, but our unique combination of high pageranks and free editing makes Wikipedia pages, particularly our biographies of living persons, an especially inviting forum for the malicious, the vindictive, and the depraved. Short of shutting down the project altogether there is nothing we can do to entirely solve this problem, but we must do more than we are doing. Focusing on the impoliteness of the victim or of someone apparently close to or sympathetic with the victim is certainly not going to help. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you and good night. Thank you 'New York Brad', whoever you are. Why is a civilised person like yourself in company with such barbarians? 86.176.94.123 (talk) 00:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Brad - when you close the Pending protection RFC please consider that the protection is duck to water to prevent this and all similar situations, - Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment February 2011 - one thousand articles are right now being protected from such libelous additions from being published by en wikipedia to all our mirror sites and the whole of the WWW - please don't reduce the protection we offer living people in your close. Pending protection attracts experienced editors that would have dealt with that situation without any dispute or publication to the WWW at all. Off2riorob (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC).

For clarity, this is not Mark Weiss, the photographer, right?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 00:59, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

No I don't think so, just someone with the same name.--BSTemple (talk) 07:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

"Pending Changes" wouldn't prevent a registered user from adding information sourced to an apparent newspaper publication. Because the Daily Mail no longer serves the story at its former URL (see link from [8], for example) it might be considered retracted, hence not a reliable source. But Wikipedia's most important defense is that anyone in the world can add a link to [9], to not merely correct the slander, but to definitively refute it and cancel out much of the impact of dozens of other sources on the Internet that repeat the first Daily Mail story. At least, we could do that, provided that mention of the reference is not considered a violation of BLP for Mark Weiss... Wnt (talk) 09:41, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Wnt, I believe you are mistaken. Cases like this would be very much helped by Pending Changes. I see no way any responsible editor would have accepted this, and if one did, they'd immediately lose the reviewer right. This is precisely what PC is designed for.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Only Level 2 Pending Changes, comparable to full-protection, would affect non-IP editing as happened here.^[10] This article did not receive that level of attention, or the problem would have been fixed anyway. True, the first two 2009 IP edits would have been stopped by Level 1 PC, or by better Recent Changes patrolling, as they were obvious vandalism - but I doubt a reader would have seen them as anything but puerile vandalism.

So far, the duties of reviewers in PC have not been made clear - especially, I have seen no evidence that they are required to deny additions of apparently verifiable information from newspaper articles. Since deciding whether such articles are well-supported or not is far more time-consuming than simply citing or checking them, this requires Level 2 articles either to be written primarily by reviewers, or else to say only nice things about anyone. Wnt (talk) 19:27, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Until the software is in wide use and well tested, we will have these kinds of problems. Some people make the perfect the enemy of the good, I'm afraid. We desperately need pending changes to solve these problems.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:19, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

One lesson (of many) to be learned here is that tabloid sources like the Daily Mail, The Sun, National Enquirer, celebrity blogs and so forth simply are not reliable encyclopedic sources. Yet we have thousands of BLP content items cited to them. [11] [12] [13] [14] Given our page rank, it is irresponsible to cite them, and not to update policy accordingly. --JN466 13:54, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

We could solve this problem very easily, and radically, by putting these tabloids on the blacklist. Hans Adler 16:28, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree. If it's true, reliable sources have also reported it. However, most of the 'scoops' from these tabloids should be tagged ^{[ not intended to be a factual statement ]}. Flatterworld (talk) 16:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I like Hans' idea...blacklist the tabloids. Of course, they don't have to include the url to put the refs in & they'd still need to be manually reverted but it would certainly help.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 16:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

In purely practical terms, how would you decide what qualifies as "a tabloid"? In Britain (where this story originates) every national newspaper other than the Daily Telegraph is tabloid, along with almost all local and regional newspapers. – iridescent 17:16, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

We can list them, though of course there may be some short amount of discussion.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

There is a cultural difference in the meaning of "tabloid". In the US, what is meant is tabloid journalism or sensationalism (read trashy). That is what we're talking about here.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 17:36, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x2 Really this is a subtext of the age-old question: how do you decide what's a reliable source? And current guidelines read "Mainstream news reporting is generally considered to be reliable" (original emphasis). So a guideline change would be the first port-of-call before talks of a blacklist Jebus989^✰ 17:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

The Sun and the Daily Mail don't do news reporting, or at least not normally. They generally just do news creation and news simulation. In the rare cases that they do report actual news in a usable way and can be used, they can still be cited by any editor, just not with a working link. Admins can edit/fix links if appropriate. Hans Adler 17:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense. The Daily Mail may be frothingly right-wing, but I don't think you can seriously claim they 'don't do news reporting'. – iridescent 17:53, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Iridescent is right, but so is Hans. The Daily Mail is of frightfully low quality most of the time, but - as Hans acknowledges - they do (rarely) get a scoop of some importance. I'm not comfortable with us using them as a source for anything, other than in some very very specific circumstances.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I am struck by the fact that the IP last night may not have been the best-spoken, but he spoke through real pain. How can we best deal with this?--Wehwalt (talk) 18:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

A scoop of importance will be covered by other sources. In such cases, the Daily Mail can be cited, with care, just like we are able to cite primary sources, with care, where they are referenced by reliable secondary sources. --JN466 19:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec) I admit I have never actually held this paper in my hands. I am going by the links that I have seen on Wikipedia. If they do news reporting, then it appears that they are not normally used by us for proper news reports.

There are currently 5669 links to thesun.co.uk and 3717 to mirror.co.uk. Many of these are from BLP articles. To get an idea of how bad the reliability problem of the Daily Mail is, look at this: Talk:Audrey Tomason#Khalid El-Masri connection. An editor asks for a reliable source for a suspicion that he once expressed in his blog and that is in the article without proper source. According to him, his blog is the only source that this suspicion exists. Another editor responds with an article in the Daily Mail, but they just copied it from the blog. If they just copy random blog posts, then there is no reason why we should use them rather than cite random blogs ourselves. Hans Adler 18:06, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Do they make more of their past articles available than other major UK newspapers? That would be one reason why they are used in preference to better news sources.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:11, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I have no idea. But for some reason I just confused Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. The number of external links to the Daily Mail domain dailymail.co.uk is 15,301. Compared to the other two I think I have seen an unusally high percentage of links from talk pages, but there are still a lot of links from BLP articles. [15] Hans Adler 18:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Instead of draconian measures like blacklisting or a policy ban, I wish someone would write a bot to put an inline tag on all BLP pages with a Daily Mail reference with a ^{tabloid reference, please verify} - with a link from the tag to some page that cites this case as a bad example. The page should ask editors to remove the tag if the Daily Mail item seems genuine, but to remove and report any dubious or plainly libellous cases to a special noticeboard, where editors who are more familiar with the British press can pick over the claims carefully. Another page should index every article tagged by the bot, so the quality of the tag resolution can be audited at random. The person who added the Daily Mail reference could also be invited to participate. In this way the articles would be fixed, and Wikipedia would get some sense of the extent of the problem before deciding what to do. Wnt (talk) 19:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Wishing solves nothing. The best thing to do is move forward today with reliable solutions to these kinds of problems, solutions like PC that are well-tested and that we know will work, rather than wishing for fantasy software that might never exist.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Pending changes would not have stopped this edit, because it was made by an established editor (now a reviewer), who was relying in good faith on a newspaper, and the Daily Mail is not in fact as bad as people are saying here. Not brilliant, but definitely a cut above some of the other British tabloids, and at times has some interesting investigative pieces. And the newspaper had not used WP as a source; it had relied on a press release, [16] possibly one issued by the anon who had made an edit to the same effect on WP. So everyone was fooled.

If we want to safeguard BLPs properly, we need something targeted. We could consider introducing a "BLP editor" status, and make it tough to get: a fairly large minimum number of non-minor edits to articles; and a lengthy minimum period of service. Any article tagged as a BLP could then only be edited by those people. It would not solve all problems—BLPs could still be created by non-BLP editors, before someone catches and tags them, but hopefully the recent-changes patrollers would spot a lot of those. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 04:48, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree. That edit is more than enough to cause the instant removal of the reviewer flag.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

We could have BLP reviewing as a separate user right. --JN466 13:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The other "gotcha" with that proposal, SV, is that it doesn't deal with BLP edits to non-BLP articles, such as the two I referenced in my ArbCom candidate response page. Any article can have BLP info, and the articles not labeled as BLPs seem to my anecdotal experience to have a longer time-to-remove for problematic info. Jclemens (talk) 06:21, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Jclemens, we really have to get out of the mindset of shooting down proposals with the argument that they don't solve every problem, because the result is that nothing is done, and nothing is solved. BLPs are usually the top Google hit for a living person's name. The most bitter complaints OTRS receives are about BLPs. This is a prime example. Think of what SV's proposal could do to help address this problem, rather than the problems it leaves unaddressed. --JN466 13:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Jimbo. We currently have a climate in which editors such as the one in this surreal thread (referring to this discussion) don't get the required negative feedback and are allowed to edit freely until something really bad happens so that they can finally be blocked. There are simply not enough adults here to supervise all of these.

For those not sure it's worth following the link: Over a period of 10 days, an editor kept insisting that this screenshot from a 2009 episode of Weeds (TV series), showing the beginning of our article on the series as it was between April and June 2009 with minor alterations (navigationals tools and Wikipedia branding removed, different title, high-quality series logo added) was a reliable source for the claim (barely readable in the screenshot, and followed by "citation needed") that the title of the series was an allusion, among others, to "widow's weeds". Not a big problem in itself, but if we don't prevent such editors from BLP editing, then we are responsible for the damage they may do later on. Hans Adler 07:38, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

What's funny is that recently there was a big banner headline about making Wikipedia more approachable to new editors, less tied up in policy, less hostile. But here it sounds like the problem is that ordinary Wikipedia editors just don't know policy well enough, and editing of BLP articles (which is to say, all articles) needs to be restricted to some elite subgroup, who can lose their status at any time for accepting an edit with what looks like a verifiable source. Wnt (talk) 09:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm arguing for precisely the opposite. By using Pending Changes, we can allow more people to edit, more freely, with less stress, while simultaneously dramatically reducing the incidence of BLP issues. It's win-win.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:59, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. --JN466 13:53, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't call this an elite subgroup at all. Responsible adults (and children who can behave like responsible adults) are not a tiny elite group. Hans Adler 10:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Pending changes still means an inappropriate edit is visible to tens of thousands of logged-in editors—in terms of BLPs, it was using a sledgehammer to crack a nut that often didn't even crack the nut. We should be trying instead to stop bad BLP edits appearing in the first place, because the damage one person can do with one edit is too great. But whenever we discuss it, so many people join in with suggestions and objections that nothing gets done.

As a first step, we ought to start indefinitely semi-protecting BLPs. Then, Jimbo, perhaps you would consider setting up a working group, consisting of 20 experienced editors to make a series of recommendations to the community regarding how to protect BLPs further—with a mandate that the community choose, via RfC, at least one of the suggestions to be implemented within a reasonable time. And if they can't decide, the group itself decides. The group can hold its discussions on a public page if it wants to, but only the 20 should take part. Is that something you'd consider? SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:14, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, stopping BLP edits from appearing is a non-starter. That's a social change well outside Wikipedia's scope. As to your suggestion... yikes. A committee to decide if we should hold an RfC to decide on a policy implementation that, if it doesn't work, they can WP:IAR and impose a rule on everyone? I don't see that flying at all. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 23:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Something has to fly. We've had a serious BLP problem for years, yet for some reason we don't act. A working group set up by Jimbo, with a mandate to produce a series of options to place before a wiki-wide RfC, would surely be a good first step. SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 03:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

SlimVirgin is right. It's important and needs a more focused effort than lots of people making drive-by comments. --JN466 08:28, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps we could use a 'whitelist' of the most reliable news sources from each country, whether they're free to read without subscription, and how long they keep archives. In the UK, I doublecheck with the BBC, Guardian and Economist. The Daily Mail cherry-picks and spins, and The Sun and Star sensationalize and over-simplify. What are we trying to achieve as an encyclopedia? The answer to that should clarify which sources are reliable. Reliable does NOT mean 'must be carefully waded through'. Flatterworld (talk) 14:56, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem with tabloids being treated as reliables sources is widespread, and affects not just BLP issues, but basic notability, with the consequent degradation of the idea that Wikipedia is a serious and quality biographer, rather than the world's largest database of tabloid reportage. Sure, a reviewer is theoretically supposed to spot that that edit violates BLP, yet in 2011, we still see Afd closures like this one made by admins, where it is frankly impossible for anyone to argue that there is infact a difference between tabloid coverage and reliable sources, for the purposes of WP:BIO (BLP + GNG). So, we end up with 'biographies' like this, even though the woman has given precisely one interview in her life. Sure, there is a blizzard of 'coverage' about the woman, but you can count on one hand the number of reliable sources who have given her life some actual novel in depth treatment, and even those were published in and around the same single event or for the same single reason. And it shows in the end result, which even after having had much attention from several admins and being 'rescued' by the ARS, is still nearly 50% sourced to tabloids in terms of secondary coverage, and certainly looks nothing like a biography in terms of scope or balance. Even a merge proposal was closed as IAR! By the same admin who closed the Afd! In this current climate, even if people think she's notable, it would be immensly difficult and stressful even just to pare that down to non-trivial info backed by reliable sources alone, as policy demands. As such, I suggest a raising of the overall quality of admins is in order, as the ultimate root cause is of failing to lead by example and make reality match policy, before we start thinking reviewers will have enough clue to stop the example edit above. MickMacNee (talk) 17:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• Start a biography wiki ("en.wikiography"?) where the community can agree appropriate policies for handling biographies, move all biographies from en.wikipedia to there, and keep biographies off en.wp in future. Doesn't deal with BLP stuff in non-BLP articles of course but perhaps would make BLPs a hell of a lot more manageable. 86.146.22.108 (talk) 20:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see what's wrong with Pippa Middleton. Wikipedia summarizes available sources; it is not a source itself; it is not a biography and its editors are not biographers. When people say we shouldn't have articles about people in the news, shouldn't cover the news, shouldn't let edits show up unless a Reviewer or "BLP Editor" approves them, shouldn't let Google and forums rebroadcast our articles lest mistakes be in them - it sounds like what they want is a few little volumes you can hold in your hand, written by professional editors, copyrighted, with some catchy name like Brittanica. Do you really think that Wikipedia was a mistake after all this time and so much useful information? Wnt (talk) 21:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see much wrong with having an article on Middleton either; but there was clearly something wrong with Mould's article. --JN466 02:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Re. [17], Jimbo Wales, above, says That edit is more than enough to cause the instant removal of the reviewer flag.

An editor in good standing added information from a seemingly reliable source. Some six months later, the source was shown to be incorrect. And for that, the user should be admonished?

It's not just the Mail, not at all. RS frequently make mistakes. Wikipedia states facts based on RS. How can the reviewer be expected to perform fact-checking on each news item?  Chzz  ►  14:05, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Chzz, an editor in good standing added an outrageous and false statement from a notoriously salacious and unreliable tabloid. That's not ok at all. It should be a blocking offense to use the Daily Mail - and similar sources - to add negative information to BLPs. It's really really really bad. Pending Changes would put a stop to this immediately and perfectly, at virtually no cost. You ask "How can the reviewer be expected to perform fact-checking on each news item?" - Reviewers should be experienced editors who are familiar with BLP policy, and can be expected and trusted to not do outrageous things like this. It's not that hard. The Daily Mail is not a valid encyclopedic source in most cases. (There are a few rare exceptions, but even those should be subjected to the strictest possible scrutiny.) In particular, relying on a single tabloid source of known low quality to post outrageous accusations of salacious personal details of people's lives is wrong, wrong for Wikipedia, a violation of BLP policy, and not something that anyone should accept cavalierly. It is easy to solve this.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:15, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Pending changes could not have stopped that tabloid content from being added as you know it was added by a reviewer - someone with such low standards of content addition as regards tabloid style contentious BLP content has no right to be having Reviewer status and I support his having it removed. Ok, you like adding this low quality sourced tittilation , fine, but we will review your edits and not allow you to review unconfirmed accounts desired additions. Off2riorob (talk) 14:16, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that policy has been rigidly and incorrectly interpreted to mean that anything published in a newspaper somewhere is fair game for inclusion on Wikipedia. This line of WP:V absolutism infects even very experienced editors. Now, I can't view the original Daily Mail article, but its title is apparently "Antiques Roadshow star Philip Mould values mistress more than marriage as he leaves wife". I can tell from the title alone that such a source is unlikely to be composed of sober, objective coverage. That's not policy - that's common sense. But common sense is in such short supply here, and so poorly incentivized systemcially, that I can't really fault an individual reviewer. I suspect many other reviewers would have reached the same decision independently. MastCell ^Talk 17:24, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with as lot of what you said here. We can only speculate but Pending protection would have brought multiple experienced editors to that edit, and I for one would have removed it to the talkpage for discussion. Off2riorob (talk) 17:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

From my experiences working on articles about US politicians, Pending protection would NOT have made any difference. Look at who's added the tittle-tattle on those articles - they're reviewers. Who insist that if it's in a news source (and helps their preferred political party, fo course!), then it's fair game for Wikipedia. I've given up trying to for third-party views, mediation, etc., as the support has always been solid for the tittle-tattlers - including from Admins. Frankly, I'm tired of adding "We are an encyclopedia, not a tabloid" in edit summaries and Talk pages. Lip service is being given here, but actions speak louder than words. Flatterworld (talk) 19:00, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Pending protection is not suggested to be a solution for partisan additions from experienced editors - the talkpage and some discussion and publicity of correct policy interpretation are the best chances for that. Off2riorob (talk) 19:05, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Which has of course been a failure, particularly as an election draws near. (When something doesn't work, that's a clue to try something different instead of hoping things will magically change if we keep doing the same thing over and over.) Flatterworld (talk) 20:44, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

As a rule, history tells us that journalists, though often biased, are more impartial on political matters than censors. As my recent experience has determined, the reviewer right is subject to revocation on purely ideological grounds, and mandates the removal of material referenced to reliable sources. From beginning to end, every aspect of PC has been decided without community support, by some small group of people, and such a small group must inevitably end up supporting one political party or the other. Wnt (talk) 05:45, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I just looked at that link, and your characterization is totally incorrect. It is clear that an editor with no understanding of WP:BLP should not review edits to BLP articles. Johnuniq (talk) 11:00, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Using Edit filter to catch tabloid journalism

Would it be possible to use the edit filter to flag edits for immediate review when they come in from tabloid journalism? It seems like that may be a viable way to catch additions whether they have a url or not. Anything with the string "Daily Mail" or others that are added could then be scrutinized.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 16:34, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe this has already been implemented by User:John Vandenberg... see Special:AbuseFilter/409. MastCell ^Talk 17:51, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like it was just implemented and with only the Daily Mail (as a test?). Would be good to add others to it. The results will be interesting.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 18:05, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Yea, it is only a test so far. Matching a newspaper by name and url isn't difficult - the hard part is efficiently finding recent news stories being used. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 20:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I suggest that singling out a specific source which is generally accepted as RS at RS/N to be labelled "tabloid" may well be beyond the reasonable purview of any bot operator. Why not add all government-owned news sources? Al-Jazeera? A few hundred others? Collect (talk) 18:24, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Look before commenting. The edit filter currently does nothing except logging when it triggers. That's good way to judge whether an edit filter could help in this situation. It's what I expect a good edit filter editor to do before discussing the question, to prevent unnecessary noise. Hans Adler 18:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I take issue with labelling the Daily Mail as "tabloid journalism" and implementing the filter in this way. I am no fan of that newspaper or its political or editorial stance, but the fact is that it is a widely circulated, long established (1896), newspaper. Its reliability as a source should be determined on a case by case basis as we do with any other source. What next, blacklisting The Sun, The Mirror, The Times? – ukexpat (talk) 18:29, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The circulation levels and length of publication of this trashy unreliable paper is irrelevant. It's still trashy and unreliable and should treated with grave caution in all cases - and generally discouraged as a source. Political or editorial stance is irrelevant, too. It's about the quality - which is too low for encyclopedic work.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:13, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Let's be clear about what the edit filter does and does not do. It is currently logging only - it does not prevent the addition of any source. It applies only to BLPs (that is, articles in Category:Living people). Right now, it's only measuring how often, and in what context, the Daily Mail is used as a source in BLPs. Presumably, the results of the logging period would inform any further discussion or changes.

As a separate matter, the Daily Mail is clearly a practitioner of tabloid journalism. It is not the only, and perhaps not the worst, practitioner, but it's a reasonable example of the genre. Circulation figures and date of establishment do not bear directly on whether a source practices tabloid journalism. We can examine it on a case-by-case basis, but we should default toward extreme skepticism when it comes to using tabloid journalism in articles on living people. (Actually, I think we should default to skepticism using tabloid journalism in any article. For example, the Daily Mail's medical coverage is notoriously horrific, and has its own potential to cause real-life harm, but let's start with BLPs).

Consider other serious, reputable reference works, let's say Brittanica. How often do you think a Britannica article cites the Daily Mail? If we want Wikipedia to get better, we have to be willing to hold ourselves to the standards of a serious, respectable reference work. MastCell ^Talk 18:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

ya, Daily Mail is a pretty good test case because is publishes useful material which WP:RSN would consider to be appropriate, but it also contains tabloid trash. I was expected a lot more hits by now. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 20:42, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

These days the Daily Mail is not any better than the Sun or Mirror. The Daily Mail is pure tabloid trash, and has been for a while. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:18, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Only logging? Suppose some journalist prints the list of edits so logged ? I suggest the fall-out would harm Wikipedia. In fact, I am fairly sure of that. Collect (talk) 18:45, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

@ Collect, for RSN, having had a look at the first few search hits in the RSN archives for the Daily Mail, "consensus seems to be that it is so-so or semi-reliable" and downright unreliable for some areas such as science reporting. It's not the only paper where flagging up its use as a source could be a useful precaution, the main point is that editors must use careful judgement to evaluate the reputation for fact checking and accuracy of sources on a case-by-case basis. If some journalist wants to print such a list, the reputation of papers concerned would come under proper scrutiny, rather than there being "fall out" for WP. . . dave souza, talk 18:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Collect, you have just made a great argument for blacklisting it. If having those refs to the Daily Mail could harm Wikipedia, let's blacklist post haste.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 19:10, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Collect, we need to make decisions on the basis of what makes the encyclopedia better, not out of fear that our actions might be misinterpreted by a hypothetical journalist. I don't see a huge scandal arising out of logged edits (how would such a story even be pitched to an editor? and who would care to read it, outside of our little bubble? Even most Wikipedians don't understand the arcane aspects of the edit filter). I do see potential scandals arising through uncritical repetition of tabloid journalism, given the visibility and persistence of Wikipedia's echo chamber. MastCell ^Talk 19:23, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I've previously written an essay on this topic of possibly poor sources at User:Fences and windows/Unreliable sources.

I wonder if we can add a rule to WP:BLP and/or WP:RS that negative material about living people or details of their personal life should not be solely sourced to sources with a reputation for sensationalism, gossip or tabloid journalism? Fences&Windows 19:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like a good direction to take the policy. We should at least wait a few days in order to give the subject an opportunity to react. WP:NOTNEWS needs to be reinforced with blocks. (Wikipedia is better than Wikinews at breaking news stories; we should be collectively ashamed of that) John Vandenberg ^(chat) 20:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree about enforcing WP:NOTNEWS with blocks. But I don't think it's just a matter of giving subjects a chance to react. Often the problem is that the tabloids write the most trivial stuff about someone, and sometimes even the better papers repeat it, and many editors don't understand that a sentence in an encyclopedia has so much more weight than the same sentence in a newspaper, in the original gossippy context. Hans Adler 21:11, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Hopefully this fictitious journalist makes an attempt to understand what they are reporting and contact the subject; that used to be expected, but not so much these days... which is why we have this problem. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 20:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Flagging edits from dubious sources is a good idea. But WP:NOTNEWS is a terribly abused policy, which is taken to mean whatever people want it to mean. Something can be in the best newspapers on five continents and there will still be a crowd chanting NOTNEWS like a mantra. (I've seen it happen) A policy of blocking editors for putting in properly sourced edits is not the right way to treat editors. To me it looks like the WP:BLP crusade, such as the Badlydrawnjeff decision, marked the moment when Wikipedia stopped growing and started dying. WP:V and WP:NOTCENSORED absolutism are much better than being absolutist about leaving out material based on vague assumptions, prejudices, and the desire not to say anything bad about someone. It would make so much more sense to tell readers when sources aren't reliable, when articles aren't true biographies but just collections of a few media flurries - just level with them, be honest. The more "authoritative" you try to make Wikipedia look, the more damage you'll do to the remaining cases where some lie slips through. Wnt (talk) 23:02, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, something can be in the best newspapers on five continents and still fall under NOTNEWS. E.g. the recent publicity stunt of making a public offer to Pippa Middleton to appear in porn film for a huge sum. But yes, I have also seen NOTNEWS abused in this way. Hans Adler 07:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Piers Morgan was fired as editor of the Daily Mirror in 2004 after falling victim to a crude hoax (curiously, his official CNN biography fails to mention this at all). All of the UK tabloids have fouled up at some point, which means that they should not be used as the sole source for controversial WP:BLP material. However, I'm not convinced that an outright block on these sources is the best approach, and would prefer normal editorial judgment to be applied on a case by case basis.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

To be precise, Morgan was fired for falling victim to a hoax about British abuse of Iraqi prisoners. In news reporting there are no wrong actions, only wrong viewpoints. Wnt (talk) 18:00, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Facepalm See last paragraph of this. Hans Adler 20:51, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

• The 2004 Queen's Lancashire Regiment affair was one of the most serious UK tabloid foul ups in recent years.[18] It made Piers Morgan's position at the Mirror untenable, as the facts should have been checked more thoroughly before publication.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:20, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not just the correctness or otherwise that is an issue here. It's also the focus on totally trivial stuff that is at most marginally newsworthy, let alone encyclopedic. The Daily Mail should almost never be used as a source for the same reason that Mickey Mouse and Friends should almost never be used as a source. It's not about information, it's primarily about entertainment. The only real difference is that the Daily Mail keeps up the appearance of being a newspaper because of its history and because it serves an adult market. Hans Adler 16:03, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I was going to post something similar to your second sentence, so I will instead repeat it verbatim and bold it: It's also the focus on totally trivial stuff that is at most marginally newsworthy, let alone encyclopedic. Flatterworld (talk) 16:28, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

WT:BLP thread

There is a thread at BLP talk to discuss this further: Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Tabloid_journalism --JN466 08:19, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

James Middleton DYK

The James Middleton article is on the Main Page right now in this state with the DYK hook James Middleton, the brother of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, baked 21 cakes for HELLO! magazine's 21st birthday?. That hook is cited to a Daily Mail "story" with the headline "How many MORE skeletons in Kate Middleton's closet?", whose main focus is most certainly not James' cake making skills, or James at all. As I said above, forget about John Q Reviewer, this failure is directly traceable to an admin's poor decision to keep that article at Afd due to his belief that the Daily Mail is "semi-reliable". I've been trying to find out what he meant by that, and get some explanation behind the logic of his closure, but I'm getting no joy whatsoever. MickMacNee (talk) 23:56, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

There is actually another problem there as well: DYK has become a factory for mainpage credits. There seems to be a large number of DYK junkies who mass-produce totally boring articles and put them through DYK. As a result, every single article currentrly gets only a few hours on DYK, and readers have been conditioned to ignore it entirely as it routinely breaks the promise of providing interesting information. Unfortunately, the lobby of DYK abusers has so far prevented reform. Hans Adler 00:02, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much spot on there, sadly. But let me ask a question. If it encourages people to create more articles with better referencing, is it not worth it? If we're actually in practice using this part of the main page for encouraging content creation that's not necessary a waste. Or is it? Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 00:27, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

While there's some truth to what Hans says, there's really much more important things on Wikipedia to complain about, then whether DYK articles are boring or not (some are, some aren't, it depends on whose reading'em). I also don't think that it's true that "readers have been conditioned to ignore it entirely" - if it was true, DYK articles wouldn't get the huge boost in views that they do. But yeah, nominations sourced to Daily Maily shouldn't be getting checked-off and someone might want to say that explicitly on the talk page over yonder.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:02, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

A voice of a DYK insiderThis is a perpetual problem - DYK promotion entirely hinges on the availability of reviewers at T:TDYK and on the consensus reached there. One of those cases where criticism and talks about reorganizing the system can't substitute actual reviewing help. Materialscientist (talk) 07:12, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Not much harm done. Daily Mail of course is no reliable source and the article was not terribly good at the moment of its presentation (to say the least) but as an other user stated somewhere, a cake baking young man is not a bad role model :-) Bringing this on Jimbo's talk page is - I hate to comment on the person not the case - another run from Mick in his "Delete the Middletons" fight. Adornix (talk) 11:13, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Not much harm done? You don't even know what the issue is. Do you really think I'm just complaining here that James got on the Main Page? Jesus. MickMacNee (talk) 13:20, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

This is frankly appalling. There are BLP issues here. But the wider issue is: is Wikipedia a joke? Do we really have an editing process, designed to put our best on the mainpage, that doesn't vet tabloid junk? DYK has become a disgrace unworthy of an encyclopedia. But will anything be done about it? Nope.--Scott Mac 13:37, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

See above. The process is long set up, editors are lacking. Materialscientist (talk) 13:48, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

The process is flawed, and a flawed process attract the wrong types of editors. I have long said it is time to stop using DYK to drive through increasing number of hooks from increasingly obscure articles and use it to highlight a fewer number of quality articles. Take the hooks from "recently improved" (GA or new FAs) - and encourage people who want stars to improve non-obscure articles. I have no interest in participating in the current stamp-collectors' process.--Scott Mac 13:54, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Not so simple. FA has its section. GAN is too slow and can provide max. one article per DYK set. Further, GA process is much more flawed than DYK, because the nom is approved by one editor and is not verified, this has been abused a lot and just wasn't as visible as DYK. Criteria are different, they can be strengthened and enforced, and its all about manpower. Materialscientist (talk) 14:10, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec) While it would be good to allow GAs, I think the main issue is that we currently have too much boring stuff. Many of the articles under Portal:Battleships/Did you know are quite substantial. The problem is that there is nothing interesting about the hooks. I use DYK myself when I have an article about the pyramid on the market square of a big German city that is built over the vault of the city founder. There is enough weirdness in the world to have a little bit of April Fools Day every day. But a professional cake baker who once baked 21 cakes for a non-notable occasion definitely does not fall in this category. Hans Adler 14:12, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

the simple reason (as Hans mentioned) being that people need these little stars to become admins one day... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 13:41, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Christ! Obviously there should be better mechanisms for deciding what articles make it to DYK. But it is really silly to make such a drama. This DYK-thing is not very serious. So change it if you can. I really hate those rants about how the WP is going down. Running to The Founder and complaining is childish. Starting a Rfc on this point seems more reasonable. Adornix (talk) 14:05, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't care. You don't even appreciate what the harm is from doing this or how it's completely against WP:BLP, so your complaints aren't particularly relevant. You can call it childish all you want, but you're the guy defending this disaster on nothing but attacks on me and very little understanding of what's even the issue. MickMacNee (talk) 14:47, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

It's not my complaints it's yours. You make a drama out of a small thing. Of course there is a general problem this small thing ist standing for as Hans Adler and Materialscientist could explain clearly. You couldn't but only complained about bad Admin decisions you didn't like. And now I'm going to try to ignore you. Your usual rudeness makes me sad. Adornix (talk) 14:53, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

A small thing? It's a "small" thing to place someone's biography on the Main Page of a high profile site like Wikipedia on the pretence that they are going to read about their notable business career, but are infact being directed to a tabloid story about all the things his family have to hide. That piece devoted entirely two paragraphs to James alone, and in that, aswell as the utterly pointless cake factoid used for the DYK, also managed to describe him as a publicitiy seeking university drop out who likes to wear dresses. You can ignore me all you want, you can be sad all you want. The idea of you even trying to describe that as a small issue doesn't make me sad, it makes me angry. MickMacNee (talk) 15:44, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be angry a lot. And you use strong expressions a lot. Especially when not everybody shares your view :-) --Adornix (talk) 16:25, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the criticism is pretty accurate. DYK would be a great tool to improve existing articles, I think it's time to allow DYK nominations based on clearing out articles in various cleanup categories, ex: Wikipedia:Template_messages/Cleanup#Verifiability_and_sources It would do a lot more good. RxS (talk) 14:11, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

This is feasible, and was recently proposed here, but needs polishing (solid criteria for acceptance). Materialscientist (talk) 14:16, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I think generally the volunteers at DYK do a good job, there's usually a mix of science, popular culture, world culture... look at the other hooks in that set: ecology, basketball, astronomy, economics and music. If only one hook out of seven is not to your taste then they're doing something right! Jebus989^✰ 15:03, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

You seem to have pretty low standards. As of this writing, the first hook is something totally boring about an opera having been translated, and it even got the image space for a boring photo. The next is a "bicentennial" park commemorating a centennial. That's at least borderline surprising, but not really. Then something about the previous occupation of a TV host that presumably interests some Americans who may have heard of him. Three more totally unsurprising pro forma hooks. And finally something that is actually surprising and puzzling – a rugby trophy that was hidden from the Nazis. This is what a hook should be like. So we have a good hook, a middling hook, a reasonable hook that works only for US readers and four boring things that only look like hooks. Hans Adler 15:34, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

There was never a "Golden Age of DYK": the first five DYKs were Did you know:

• ...that a pencil sharpener "is a device for sharpening a pencil's point by shaving the end of the pencil"?"
• ...that in 1971, Pakistani writer Eqbal Ahmad was indicted on charges of conspiracy to kidnap Henry Kissinger?
• ...that jumping plant lice and aphids are considered to be the "primitive" group within the Hemiptera order of true bugs?
• ...that the Tokyo Monorail, which travels at speeds of up to 80 kph, was constructed to coincide with the 1964 Summer Olympics?
• ...that the Balkan comic opera Ero the Joker was first performed on November 2, 1935?

It ultimately boils down to whether we want the main page to encourage an "I could do better than that" attitude, or "hey, this looks professional". I personally think DYK (and ITN) showcase Wikipedia at its worst, by highlighting our weakest and most unstable writing, but I can certainly see the other side. – iridescent 16:34, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

After reading this and other talks I don't think it's a question of rules or criteria, which we have and which are quite clear. For example:

Former unsourced BLPs (such as those in this category) which have been thoroughly sourced and in which the prose portion has been expanded twofold or more within the last five days are also acceptable as "new" articles. The content with which the article has been expanded must be new content, not text copied from other articles. (from Wikipedia:Did you know#Selection criteria).

This is reasonable and the James Middleton Artciel should not have been chosen, because it's obviously not "thoroughly sourced". So it is a question of enforcing rules or of improving the mechanism of article selection for DYK. The Afd decision was not the trigger I think but bad decisions within the DYK selection process. It should become very clear to those who participate there that they have to obey some rules and maybe some procedural changes could help. Or do you think the criteria are wrong? Adornix (talk) 15:09, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

"There seems to be a large number of DYK junkies who mass-produce totally boring articles and put them through DYK" and "I personally think DYK (and ITN) showcase Wikipedia at its worst, by highlighting our weakest and most unstable writing." Just how many people are you including within this? Because those are very generalized statements, if you want to showcase wikipedia's worst articles just place Indian and Pakistani villages on the front page..!. Some DYK contributors produce some very interesting articles and are very well written and researched like Tikal and Oaxaca for instance were when they were DYKd, and those editors worked/work damn hard producing valuable content. Others as you say produce content which have major problems with prose and grammar and is barely encyclopedic. DYK is a very mixed bag, I myself have produced a very mixed bag of articles in which quality or interest may differ considerably. Also considering something "totally boring" is highly subjective and for instance a Buddhist temple in Thailand or something may interest some people but totally disinterest other people. Hans Adler for instance may find an article on a complex maths theory highly interesting which would totally bore many people, yet may consider an article about a Bhutanese monk or something to be totally boring and vice versa.. DYK is not supposed to showcase the best quality work. Personally I think any article which is fully sourced is a step in the right direction and if DYK encourages editors to expand/create new content with sources then this usually makes them better than the thousands of unsourced/poorly sourced junk we have on wikipedia. The reason I "mass" contribute to DYK is not because I could give two hoots about being credited on the main page, it is a good mechanism and gives me some motivation to improve articles to a certain standard which were poorly sourced or missing entirely and for the fact that some of the dedicated DYK reviewers can attempt to fix any major prose/grammar issues prior to going out. In fact through working with other editors articles I'd normally add only a few lines too in creating become start class articles and are definitely an improvement on what they would have been without DYK collaboration. DYK ensures they are start class, which is better than stub class surely? Compare that article to another in the category which didn't go through DYK e.g Lac-Baker (New Brunswick), the quality is clearly much worse. Its nice to have a bank of articles for DYK you can look back over. In fact I've done so with many of mine and promoted some of them to GA. Sourced content is usually a good thing and what we should be striving to achieve in every article. The main problem lies in reliance on newspapers as "reliable sources" such as the Daily Mail who think Kim Kardashian getting a cup of coffee and The Only way is Essex "stars" going to Waitrose or something is a news story. Its time we reassessed certain newspapers as sources, I've lost count of the times a tabloid news fodder of the week has been kept and passed off as an encyclopedia article because people claimed "covered in multiple reliable sources". Dr. Blofeld 12:18, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

"Hans Adler for instance may find an article on a complex maths theory highly interesting which would totally bore many people, yet may consider an article about a Bhutanese monk or something to be totally boring and vice versa.." You don't have to make such wild (and incorrect) guesses on what I find appropriate for DYK. You can find all my DYK contributions listed here: I think you will agree that at most the last one is comparable to your two examples of obscure topics. I would consider technical mathematics articles always unsuitable for DYK, and an article about a Bhutanese monk suitable if and only if it has a really interesting hook or gives significant insight into Bhutanese culture for the average reader. Iridescent pointed out that DYK wasn't better in February 2004 than it is now. But it wasn't worse, either, and that's the problem. At the time there was apparently no today's featured article. There was a short list of featured articles on that day: Peerage (demoted in 2006, now C class), Electoral College (demoted in 2006, now B class), Irish Houses of Parliament (demoted in 2008, now B class), English poetry (demoted in 2007, now B or C class), Rudyard Kipling (demoted in 2008, now B class). This was the state of the Kipling article on that day. Our content has generally improved a lot over the last seven years, especially on the main page. DYK has not.

But I do agree with your point about demoting tabloids. Hans Adler 13:41, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't implying that you did, although you have cited that's your interest on your user page so I used it as an example, I was just giving an example that people may have different views on what is interesting.. I try to generally write about lavish architecture, cities and villages off the anglo radar, world culture, even wedding dresses in an attempt to make wikipedia more exciting as a resource, some of my hooks may be mundane as I couldn't find any exciting hook, others may be more attractive but I'd like to think that people find the articles I write about interesting. I'm sure that many contributors to DYK think what they write about interesting. Can you give me some example of the hooks/articles you find "totally boring" ?♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:04, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

"Our content has generally improved a lot over the last seven years" mostly because more editors spend more time on improving existing articles, bringing them up to FA status. DYK articles are still mostly written by one person within a few days. Thus unfair comparison. And I doubt DYK content has not improved. We do require at least one ref. per para whereas many past DYKs were nearly unreferenced. Materialscientist (talk) 13:50, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, so maybe DYK has improved a bit, but certainly not enough. Most of this stuff is just too boring for the main page of a top 10 website. "DYK articles are still mostly written by one person within a few days." Maybe that's the main problem. As we are further approaching maintenance mode, some things will have to change. Hans Adler 14:09, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Definitely, the standards for DYK are better than they were a few years back. In fact if you look through some of the older DYKs, mine included they are poorly sourced as it wasn't a requirement to have all paragraphs sourced back then.. I'll agree that some DYKs get through when some of the prose is sloppy, I've been guilty of that myself but the general standards are higher than they used to be. But sources as you say Hans are a real problem as unless they are really obvious non RS sources like blogs they are not usually identified unless it is for the hook itself. A lot of the DYK hooks I'll agree like "that the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum in Ypsilanti, Michigan, is housed in the last surviving Hudson Motor Car Company dealership?" I think, who cares? but I respect the contribution of the article itself even if I dislike the hook. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:11, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I generally agree with Dr. Blofeld here. My own view, which I think I may have never expressed out loud before, is that it is no longer wise or useful to restrict DYK links on the front page to new articles. At one time, this may have been a good way to incentivize people to write new articles on interesting topics, now it may be leading to unnecessary recentism as well as limiting the scope of what ought to be one of our most amazing and charming front page features. People, including me, love "did you know" tidbits that are interesting and surprising - so why should we restrict ourselves to selecting just from new articles? (And since I haven't commented yet, although my views are well known, I think using the Daily Mail as a source for fluff is a really bad idea, always. There are rare cases where the Daily Mail and similar tabloids are acceptable for use in an encyclopedic context, but every use should be placed under the strictest possible scrutiny.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:38, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

That's an interesting point Jimmy, you mean like DYK snippets from GA or half decent articles rather than those which have been expanded/created. I guess though that On this day.... sort of does that in a way.... But I honestly think people would create these sorts of articles anyway, regardless of DYK... Maybe there should be a restriction against recentism then as DYKs, or at least stricter assessment of those related to current affairs. I have nothing against it in principal but what alarms we is how wikipedia is increasingly becoming a newspaper on many topics rather than an encyclopedia. And it is precisely these tabloid covered articles and popular media coverage that is used as the "covered in multiple reliable sources" so we must have it. Biographies like James Middleton and Ivy Bean in my view are not notable in their own right. I created Middleton family myself with the intent of merging his article. The family is notable I think but he is not notable as a BLP and neither his the mother or father. Ivy Bean, yes the media caused a big fuss of her because she was old and a social network user which is noteworthy in both Facebook and Twitter to mention. But a biography about her life is completely unnecessary and certainly way off being unencylopedic. And then we are missing some extremely important people and traditional encyclopedic subjects from non anglophone countries which should be getting coverage but they are not. We can't dictate what editors are interested in but I believe we have to make bigger restrictions on the trend towards recentism on here. Wikipedia is NOT a newspaper and although we are a very good source for current affairs and should cover topics of lasitng significance like the death of Bin Laden and his compound and the royal wedding we do not need to cover every ounce of information covered on news websites. I think Scott's WP:OTTO sums this up very well and should become a new guideline to prevent the tabloid newspaper story of the day having an encyclopedia article. A lot of new content is a violation of WP:NOT NEWS and WP:ONEEVENT.

I'd also like to point out that the problem is not just in new articles or DYK it is in existing articles. See the Piers Morgan article. Is it encyclopedic to mention every bit of idle banter he encounters on Twitter? Certainly not. His ongoing tiff with Hislop and Clarkson is notable, little else is. It reads as tabloid cruft and way off being suitable encyclopedic content for a biography. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:09, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

@Hans. How about DYK that two kilometres from Al-Sakhir Palace in Bahrain is an oil-pumping well disguised as a hoopoe bird? I thought that was quite novel!♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:08, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

It's great as a hook, but once I had followed the link to the article I was very disappointed only to see the same sentence again and no further explanation. It became clear after I looked at the source, but that should never be necessary. Hans Adler 18:14, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Derrida and Wikipedia (reprinted from the Jacques Derrida talk page)

Jacques Derrida is among the two or three most prominent and influential philosophers of the twentieth century, and one of the most widely read. It would surely be a great thing if Wikipedia proved itself capable of producing a competent and informative article about this thinker. Unfortunately, a glance at the current state of this article is far from encouraging, and the same can be said for the related articles on deconstruction, and so on. But beyond a glance at the current state, an examination of the history of the editing of these articles makes unavoidable the conclusion that Wikipedia is almost inherently incapable of producing work on this topic of any quality. Put as simply as possible, the problem is this: wherever well-meaning and knowledgable editors have in the past attempted to intervene, to remove the nonsense that has accumulated by uninformed but often enthusiastic editors (whether well-meaning or not), this has in the end always turned out to be a fruitless effort. The insistence by those with little real knowledge that they have as much "right" to "contribute" as specialists (under the misapprehension that Wikipedia is in this sense a "democratic" project: it is not, or rather, ought not to be), and the mistaken belief by others that they are knowledgable when in fact they are anything but, has as its consequence that editors with understanding of the topic are driven away, as they conclude to themselves that it is really not worth the trouble.

This is a great pity, but an inevitable one, if the fundamental situation does not change. I myself am now one of those, something of a specialist in the area, as well as being generally well-disposed to Wikipedia, who can no longer tolerate the thought of trying to "make a difference" to this article. Having avoided even reading the article for a long time, I return to it today, and am immediately confronted by new awful paragraph upon new awful paragraph, a hodgepodge that is clearly the result of every man and his dog adding whatever tidbit of non-knowledge they mistakenly believe they have to offer. To put it as briefly as possible, the article has degenerated even further, to the point of complete incoherence. Readers will learn nothing of significance from this article.

From what I can glean, some of those at the top at Wikipedia, or behind the scenes, understand that the great difficulty this encyclopedia has attracting and retaining qualified and/or knowledgeable specialists is in fact a serious problem. It is a problem that affects some areas of knowledge more than others. In my view, this is one of the articles most ruinously affected by this problem: an article on a topic of interest to many, but that also confuses many, will inevitably be sought out by many readers, and should thus be an article that Wikipedia tries hard to do well. But for the very same reasons it will attract many readers, it also tends to attract too many of the wrong kind of editors (if I can put it like that), who tend to make too many of the wrong kind of edits. The results speak for themselves.

I myself have no solutions for Wikipedia in this regard. What is needed may be clear enough: to reform the culture of Wikipedia to the point that editors capable of writing competently and informatively about this topic have trust enough that their contributions will not only be recognised, but will also not subsequently be undermined by a slow or not so slow process of degeneration (unless they maintain an extreme vigilance against all low-grade additions, a vigilance that is likely to meet with resistance, and a resistance that is likely to result in the eventual loss of the editor from the Wikipedia project). How many potentially committed competent editors have already been lost, probably permanently? But if it is clear enough that this cultural change is needed, it is not clear how to bring about this reform: Wikipedia is clearly and irrefutably an immense success, but this only means that the problems from which it suffers are all the more glaring, to the point that it must be asked whether there is something fundamental in the very structure of the current manifestation of Wikipedia itself that prevents the encyclopedia from reaching even basic levels of competence about topics such as this. This article, and the related articles about Derrida's work, are emblematic of the difficulty of this question.

As evidence that the article has indeed degenerated, I invite editors to compare the current state of the article with the state precisely one year ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jacques_Derrida&oldid=361736652

The state of the article a year ago was probably close to the most coherent and useful it has ever been. What has occurred since then is very unfortunate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.74.145.130 (talk) 09:14, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

For others who may be curious, here is a diff between the version singled out by our correspondent here as being good, and the current version.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:49, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

There is almost an exclusivity these days between experts and Wikipedia, but I think it's too far gone to be fixed. It's at the core of what Wikipedia has become over time.

Wikipedia's whole dynamic privileges social power. In real life society we balance the fact that 99% of people don't know what they're talking about with hierarchies of expertise ("leading professors", professors, "experts" and so on). We benefit from established but flexible hierarchies the same way our stone-age hunter-gatherer ancestors benefited from appointing the most experienced deer- or boar- or mammoth-hunters to lead these respective hunting expeditions. Even animals have hierarchies of expertise for such things. Now although these are socially-orientated too, we do ensure a minimum level of expertise and that the best minds have, in general, the most say.

In Wikipedia the ideology asserts everyone equal rights and denies that hierarchy should exist (denying human nature); since humans will always form hierarchies, in reality all the ideology actually does is retard the knowledge-based hierarchies we need and allow other hierarchies to fill the vacuum. We could have an expert led 'Pedia, but we've not gone down that route. So now instead of having authority according to value to the encyclopedia, people rise in rank and power according to the size of their social networks and lack of enemies; the election system--for admins, crats, arbs, and so on--is an expression of this. Ironically for an encyclopedia, the structure promotes people who do less article editing than socializing; expert editors will usually not have the time to devote sufficient effort to making friends and creating a base of well-disposed help, and will generate enemies very quickly. This is especially the case in tough areas like history and modern political disputes, areas where they are most needed because of the attraction of cranks to such areas. Experts will always be mixing with more numerous groups of non-experts, even if you filled the place with them (an expert in one place is an ignorant amateur in most others). Sometimes the non-experts co-operate (it would be wrong to say there is absolutely no respect for expertise on Wikipedia), often they won't and tension and conflict result.

Someone like a professor takes for granted that in real life people will defer to his judgment on his subjects, but s/he will get frustrated as soon as s/he encounters a hard-headed misguided amateur (which will definitely happens if s/he tries to stick around!).

Now, at this stage you would hope s/he could fall back on our large admin community to help. But as I've already explained, the "algorithm" that creates this administrative body also ensures that it is badly suited to helping. Wikipedia admins, who mostly have no expertise in anything, tend to favour heuristics that promote social order over ones that resolve disputes in favour of the most informed and knowledgeable. The classic one is WP:EW/WP:3RR. This began as a desire to reduce conflict among editors of equal value, but it has morphed so much that today it is essentially a mechanism for reinforcing the existing number-centric disposition of Wikipedia. Any reverting is simply "wrong" while, by contrast, adding nonsense to an article is not really a big deal, and indeed is positively good if the right people turn up at the place it's being discussed.

This comes back to the badly qualified admin-class point. They are not capable, in general, of solving disputes in favour of the "right" side, but they are capable of looking at reverts and talk pages. The admin class has gravitated over time from being the guardians of good content, to a class that institutionally demean the importance of good content. This can be substantiated by comparing the enforcement of WP:3RR and WP:Civility with WP:NPOV ... the latter has become almost impossible to enforce. Besides the fact that admins are not in general capable of enforcing it, WP:INVOLVED in practice ensures that all but the most well-connected admins cannot enforce WP:NPOV without being regarded as somehow 'corrupt'. The absurdity of WP:INVOLVED is that it actually ensures that anyone with any interest in any area cannot bring superior power to solve a dispute; i.e. everyone with knowledge of an area is excluded from acting in it unless s/he actively conceals the interest.

I could go on, But the worst of it is--and this is why I'm pessimistic--actually changing the 'Pedia will be impossible because the bulk of power on Wikipedia lies in the hands of people with an interest in preventing change; it is, after all, the system that favoured them. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 16:15, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

That's another good argument for the proposed policy WP:Government that I started yesterday. Count Iblis (talk) 17:29, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Precisely, Count Iblis. Government. However, Deacon of Pndapetzim raised a good point about 99% of people not knowing their butt from a hole in the ground on detailed technical matters. But from that observation, he extrapolated that the high priests serve for life unless the Vatican wants them removed. The notion that admins, once elected, can only serve until they retire is a sickening violation of the tenet that “Leaders shall govern only with the consent of the governed.” Greg L (talk) 20:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I am of mixed mind on this. I understand the frustration of putting time into an article only to have to be vigilant about it to make sure that over time it doesnt get vandalized or die a death of a thousand cuts. I wont work on articles such as Mexico City, not so much because of vandalism, but simply because I dont want to spend a lot of time fighting with other editors over what should and should not be there. On the other hand, both Derrida's and Deacon of Pndapetzim's comments reek of elitism. There is a downside to this "hierarchy" of meritocracy idea... one, it creates a priviledged class (which one comment above states should be "flexible" though I guess not completely open), which would be protected against criticisms of the 95% ignorant masses. Gee, that is what we have right now in universities, and a lot of academic production, especially in the humanities, is self-serving crap with tenuous connection to the real world. I dont think that a protected class of editors is the answer, but I do think that a protected class of articles is. The problem mostly exists with controversial articles and those which are will known and everyone wants to put their two cents in. Simple answer... pending changes "protection" once an article reaches a certain level of development. (Good and Featured are obvious, perhaps B-level as well). I looked at the differences in the versions that Jimmy pasted and I did not see a huge difference in quality... but yes in focus.Thelmadatter (talk) 19:59, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I think your sentiments about academia are a symptom of the problem. The ideology on Wikipedia mirrors that of society, and in the United States academics are coming under more and more pressure from corporate and even religious "elites". A lot of rhetoric comes out against American academia accusing them of lots of things, like being as self-serving as the politicians and business leaders who attack them. And one of the central derivative ideological precepts behind Wikipedia is that there is a great market of ideas, and the forces of market democracy will end-up producing something even better than truth: the collective expression of the will of the greatest number. But it's ideological hogwash. Some people know and understand more than others about certain topics, and it makes sense to give them more power in a encyclopedia if you want the encyclopedia to be any good! Surely. So, yes, I do advocate "elitism" ... absolutely ... the kind of elitism suited to an encyclopedia rather than the elitism we already have.Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:24, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem, Deacon, is that who "know[s] and understand[s] more than others about certain topics" is driven mostly by ideological lines. I'm sure that believers in woo-woo honestly believe that their homeopaths "know and understand more" about medicine than actual medical doctors, or that neo-nazis know that David Irving "knows and understands more" about the history of WW2 than anyone else. — Coren ^(talk) 20:35, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Deacon in principle but I also think Coren has an important practical point. How do you decide who is an expert and who's not? I have academic degrees in pretty much all the areas I edit (more or less), yet somehow I get the feeling that Deacon would try to gerrymander me (and a few others) out of the "expert circle" where he given the right to decide. And for a good number of topic areas, it probably is the "dedicated hobbyist" who is capable of making the best contributions. People don't have degrees (not many) in "bacon dishes" or whatever (and those are the articles that get most views).

Overall I would prefer for Wikipedia to move towards what Deacon is suggesting (though I'm very skeptical it will happen). I'm not saying that it can't be done. It's just that, like anything, the devil's in the details and it wouldn't be an easy thing.Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:07, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Posh... when you have cases such as Ward Churchill, blatant union activism and the enforcement of "speech codes" you cannot believe that all criticism of academia stems from some shadowy evil corporate/religious organization.... Most professors couldnt hack being on Wikipedia because there is no way they could follow the neutral point of view pillar. Academia gave that up long ago for "activist investigation".Thelmadatter (talk) 20:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the truth here is in the middle (though closer to Deacon's position): yes there's some of this kind of nonsense going on in academia and yes it can be a problem. But no, it is not a general or widespread problem (even within humanities). Yes, it is often exaggerated for political/ideological reasons. Finally, a lot depends on discipline. If I had my way, anyone who doesn't have either a math or econ degree wouldn't be allowed anywhere near Economics articles. Especially not the people from humanities. But such is life. (Ok I'm kidding about the last part).Volunteer Marek (talk) 21:05, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

-

@Thelmadatter, I don't believe that anyway. @ Coren, the English Historical Review isn't packed with badly cited historical fringing, pseudo-x trash, celebrity defamation, and all that. Neither even is Britannica. Simply by assigning more power to the more learned, this place will be shaken up. A place where you gain status through expertise is a place where encyclopedic (as opposed to social bonding) values become central. No-one would seriously advocate that all experts will always be "neutral" or accurate, but you've got a better chance than the free-for-all "loons and pros are bros" socialite run establishment we got now ... surely. ;) Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:17, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

That would be Citizendium. It hasn't worked out too well.©Geni 21:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

That's not what anyone's suggested. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 21:53, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

"assigning more power to the more learned". yup thats Citizendium.©Geni 22:01, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

This point is fatuous. Medical teams performing surgery do the same thing, it doesn't makes them Citizendium. All the things in Citizedium make Citizendium Citizendium. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 22:08, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Are you pro- or anti-Citizendium? If anti-, how does Citizendium's philosophy differ from your own? --JaGa^talk 22:24, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't for instance believe in throwing babies out with bath-water. Perpetuating Wikipedia's important fixable weaknesses because of Citizendum's comparative failure is misguided. There are presumably many complex reasons for this, and no obvious reason for thinking that respect for experts is an important one. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 18:35, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

The only “babies being thrown out with the bath water” will be lousy admins. If you fear that, I have unfortunate news for you. What part of “Leaders shall govern only with the consent of the governed” are you not grasping?? You seem to prefer the High Priest approach where they serve for life.

Your argument that the greater community is somehow only smart enough to vote for an admin in the first place but isn’t smart enough to re-vote for them each year is A) nauseating and B) holds no water. All your above arguments (In real life society we balance the fact that 99% of people don't know what they're talking about with hierarchies of expertise) doesn’t hold the slightest bit of water. That simple reality (that the regular electorate are “simple folk” not familiar with fine details) is addressed by having a representative government where elected officials are held accountable to continually serve the interests of those who voted them into office via periodic re-voting for them again during regularly scheduled voting periods when terms of office expire (one year for instance).

That this principle that terms of office can apply to admins on Wikipedia (*sound of audience gasp*) is further grounded in the reality that—notwithstanding your highly revealing “99% rule” (from your above 16:15, 11 May 2011 post) regarding the wikipedian riff raff that gave you your privileges—Wikipedia is not rocket science and the typical riff raff joe for whom you clearly have little regard as to their ability to know what they're talking about with hierarchies of expertise are actually fully capable of comprehending the utter magic that you think you do and can further develop a system for gauging whether the wikipedian community continues to have faith in your abilities.

In the end, your arguments all magically point back to the suggestion that admins on Wikipedia can only serve the interests of the community if they serve for life without concern that they could lose those privileges if the community loses confidence in his or her abilities. Forget that. That’s a loathsome position to take and suggests to me that some admins are more motivated more by an elitist sense of power than by a desire to lead and remain accountable to the community that granted them their privilges and powers in the first place. Greg L (talk) 21:03, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I really rather doubt that admins as a group have had much of an impact on the Derrida article. Indeed the debate here appears to be over if we trust the general run of editors to edit the Derrida article.©Geni 23:28, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Greg L, among all that emotive rhetoric, ad hominem and straw maning, I see little to deny that experts are better at adding and supervising content than non-experts: the bottom line for an encyclopedia. Giving more status to experts on encyclopedias is no more a denial of universal human equality than making experienced lawyers judges or confining surgery to qualified medical practitioners. I do agree with you that the bulk of work here can and must be done by non-experts (what you choose to call the "typical riff raff joe"); that's not something we'll ever have a choice about. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 20:06, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Encyclopedic values

Let's forget about academic qualifications. Let's talk about the idea of getting status by commitment to encyclopedic values. As opposed to getting status by social bonding, or vandal fighting or whatever. The problem with Wikipedia is that the current administrative class do not have encyclopedic values in mind. "The admin class has gravitated over time from being the guardians of good content, to a class that institutionally demean the importance of good content." as someone says above.

The argument is that Citizendium failed. Yes, but then Wikipedia has failed, as the Derrida article shows, and as articles like this clearly show. The problem with the current administration is (a) that they don't understand what is wrong with these articles and (b) they don't care anyway, they are more interested in tripe like this. 109.148.155.98 (talk) 09:09, 14 May 2011 (UTC)::

Its hard to speak for "them". Admins I know are either inactive or overloaded with backlogs. Materialscientist (talk) 09:52, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

That they are inactive is a good thing, and those who are overloaded should walk away. In fact all 'vandal fighters' should simply stop vandal fighting. This would have the immediate effect of Wikipedia having to enforce registration for all users - and perhaps a 1-day time lag for newly registered accounts. 80% of administrators could then leave, as their job would be redundant, and the rest could concentrate on building a comprehensive and reliable reference sources. The only people who work on encyclopedias should be those who care about encyclopedias. 109.148.155.98 (talk) 10:06, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe one should spend a few months for active vandal fighting/analysis before proposing a solution to it. Materialscientist (talk) 10:20, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

You mean this sort of problem [19], [20], [21], [22] etc., cannot be fixed by preventing IP editing? Why not? And doesn't this block rather contradict your assertion? 109.149.56.121 (talk) 12:34, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree with 109.149.56.121's assessment at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:07, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

You don't agree that the primary focus of this project should be on building a comprehensive and reliable reference work? Why not? I thought Wikipedia was about bringing the sum of human knowledge to every person on the planet? That's a laudable and worthy and noble ambition. Why do you disagree? 109.149.56.121 (talk) 15:54, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Don't be disingenuous. Of course I believe that the primary focus of this project should be on building a comprehensive and reliable reference work. I don't agree with your assessment.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:55, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

And just to ask something really dumb, if you advocate forced account-registration — why aren't you using one? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 22:14, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

@Jimmy. My assessment simply is that building a comprehensive and reliable reference work should be the priority of this project and should trump absolutely everything else - including social bonding or whatever. I also suggested that the majority of the administrators here are not focused on these values, because they have to spend their time on blocking or warning IP editors who write this sort of stuff. This is counterproductive. 86.176.202.57 (talk) 10:36, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

@Seb_az86556 when compulsory registration is adopted, as it inevitably will be one day, I will be the first to create an account. This is my way of saying 'Wikipedia is not ready'. 86.176.202.57 (talk) 10:39, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

<---- Oh yes and this. The idea that anyone should have to spend time on reverting this is absurd. It's not the vandalism that's so bad, it's the vandal-fighting types it attracts. They have the mentality of traffic-wardens, and I hate traffic-wardens. When this is eliminated, and when vandal fighters are eliminated from Wikipedia, I will join Wikipedia and I will make wonderful contributions to its moribund philosophy articles.86.176.202.57 (talk) 10:44, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, good luck. I see vandalism from registered accounts *all the time*, sometimes from accounts who have registered months ago. Linking the ability to edit with registrations will just shift the problem. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 13:47, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Interesting that the very next edit you made after posting here was to revert an IP :) As were many of your edits before this.86.176.202.57 (talk) 15:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Registered accounts. As I said, requiring registration will just shift the problem. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:22, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia logo used in Google Chrome flash banner ad

A number of official google flash banner ads promoting chrome feature the Wikipedia logo among mostly otherwise google owned services. See this image for an example. Do you have any thoughts on this?Smallman12q (talk) 03:54, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't know anything about it. I have no thoughts about it, really. Do you? :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:59, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Ignore it—nothing official about it.  GFHandel.   10:31, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

They simply recognize the value of the Wikipedia "brand" and want to associate it in people's minds with their product. 71.185.49.174 (talk) 11:23, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

The logo is trademarked and copyrighted in a way that requires permission from the WMF in order for it to be used in an advertisement. However, Google has such a strong historical relationship with WP that it is likely some sort of agreement exists -- in any case this is a matter that only the office staff could deal with. Looie496 (talk) 00:00, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Louie and 71.185.49.174 - also, in particular, while Google may just be adding in logos they think look "cool" (the average internet user might not know that YouTube is owned by Google anyway), it's also quite likely that Google using Wikipedia's logo in this way, adds to the brand recognition of Wikipedia anyway. So it's all good. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 00:10, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Question

Because of a problem, I have this question: do you work at Wikia? I'm very curious. Darkjedi10 (talk) 00:27, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Questions about Wikia are best directed to community@wikia.com. I am the Chair of the Board at Wikia, but I don't work there in the sense of having a particular job or salary.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:13, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

More RfA and Swedish WP lessons

This is a continuation of the massive thread, earlier "#Revisiting the reform of RfA" (begun 8 May 2011), destined to be achived into the subpage /Archive_75, as the topic:

• User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 75#Revisiting the reform of RfA

The admin and user stats for Swedish Wikipedia are (mid-May):

• Swedish #admins = 98, #users = 225,726     ratio: 1-per-2300 registered users

Since they re-elect for "1 year" (Swedish "ett år"), that "98" is likely to be the count of active admins (compared to enwiki admins=856 with inactives). According to the Swedish WP pages about adminship (see "Svenska" link under WP:Administrator), they converted to 1-year terms (plus quarterly re-elections), at the start of 2006, due to excessive debates to attempt to desysop troublesome admins, which led to "protracted conflicts" (Swedish: "långdragna konflikter"). First-time elections could not detect future trouble. The reconfirmation process assigns each admin to a re-election period, quarterly, at 1 of 4 times during the year (each admin is in 1 quarter), to lump them into repetitive groups, and thus faster to process. That apparently avoids the issue of re-elections happening every week, all year. Elections are held in January, April, July & October (months: 1/4/7/10), and anyone un-elected loses privileges at the end of that month. Swedish WP also formerly had many inactive administrators (Swedish: "inaktiva administratörer"), so re-elections solved that problem as well. IMHO opinion, Swedish culture embraces a spirit of truthfulness and limited variety, favoring the "ombudsman" and "smorgasbord" (and they don't like the idea of an "American hero" Oliver North who lies to the U.S. Government). However, there could be a problem when telling "too much truth" in debates to convince others to recall a failing admin. For whatever reasons, it has been easier for Swedish WP to re-vote "NO" (to stop 75% approval) than to convince others to vote "Recall". Note how elections and re-elections are the same process, with all treated equally. That's an intro as to how/why Swedish WP bothers to re-vote, each quarter, for 1-year terms (~24 elections per quarter). I didn't read anything about them denying the block-button for new admins, but that might help. -Wikid77 07:54, revised 14:04, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Did you know that...

... the Daily Mail is now used for mainpage DYK hooks? Tijfo098 (talk) 00:10, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

See #James Middleton DYK. Hans Adler 00:13, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

• I am really getting inspired to write some trendy related essays:

• "WP:Embrace your inner Pippapedia"

• "WP:Avoiding tons of Middletons"

• "WP:Absence of Mail-ace"

Can anyone suggest some other potential titles? -Wikid77 04:18, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

"Wikipedia: the online encyclopedia that anyone can fill with tabloid trash". AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:28, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Brilliant in its simplicity. Or, to give it a more positive outlook: WP:The online encyclopedia that anyone can fill with tabloid trash until they are blocked. Hans Adler 04:58, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

We don't block for that, we revert and only block when they manage to get into a war with several editors. Let us be constructive. All this chat about Daily Mail is nice, but there is nothing specific on it in WP:RS, meaning we can't even revert. Maybe it is better to reach consensus on the WP policy pages (and upgrade the policies) rather than chat here? After all, projects like DYK are operating from the core policies, with some extras on top. Materialscientist (talk) 05:14, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

"Zero information is preferred to misleading information"

This quote of yours was recently referenced in a discussion I was in, in response to this comment. Is that still basically your opinion, or has it evolved over the past few years? Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 05:07, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so": Mark Twain [23]. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:15, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Your reaction to Streeter Seidell's image about you?

How did you feel when you saw it, and what'd you have to say?

http://www.collegehumor.com/article/6353729/i-think-jimmy-wales-has-a-cocaine-problem

--70.179.169.115 (talk) 07:31, 16 May 2011 (UTC)