User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Notability of High Schools

While I am certainly not going to recommend a revert of your re-addition of the notability tag to Salmon High School, could you please review my remarks on the talk page of the article? I have just been going off of what consensus has been since I joined in February. Perhaps a new policy could actually be created/implemented one way or the other. Ryan Vesey Review me! 05:41, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I just commented on the talk page and am happy to discuss it further. I'm also thinking about editing that essay, which I think is just wrong. It would be overwhelmingly voted down if proposed as policy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I have commented on the talk page of the article. In addition, I believe the notability tag can now be removed from that article. Ryan Vesey Review me! 06:04, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I see what you mean about the essay. A cyclical routine has been created. The essay talks about why editors !vote keep for high schools and editors !vote keep for high schools because of the essay. Ryan Vesey Review me! 06:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the point that you added has a basis in current consensus (I agree with your position, but I think we are in the minority). I don't think a single verified high school has been deleted at AfD in years. Of course consensus can (and, in my opinion, should) change, but the way consensus at AfD works is that if a high school is verified by a reliable source, then the AfD will close as "keep" (and, most likely, the nominator get slapped by a trout). ThemFromSpace 06:21, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

What about a salmon? ;) Ryan Vesey Review me! 06:22, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Just as a question on notability. What is the basis that every College/University deserves an article? There are many small technical colleges with little information. Check out Teacher's Training College of Kruševac. The high school in my town has much more information than that. Ryan Vesey Review me! 06:25, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

• Schools have documented news/book notability: I think the point is still to know the school/college is mentioned in WP:RS sources, so that not every "village classroom" gets an article. However, ironically, because village schools are relatively rare, they are very likely to be notable from coverage in demographic documents or United Nations reports, etc. But, at least, people should not be inventing the "School of What's Happening Now" as a WP:HOAX, WP:SOAPBOX, or WP:COI for a private-school ploy to use WP as an advert for their school. I would still trust if an editor wrote, unsourced, how their innercity school shared a stadium with other nearby schools, rotating home/away games to allow each to have "Friday night football" but the school should not be a small corporation using WP to place ads. -Wikid77 08:52, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Unless such information about sharing a stadium, etc, can be sourced, it has no business in Wikipedia. It's not about trusting or not trusting, it's about what it means to be a quality reference work.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:11, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

• I happen to agree that High Schools are not inherently notable, but I think I should point out the reason for confusion is that people took something Jimbo said[1] and ran with it. It lead to these guidelines and the fact that High Schools are exempt from WP:CSD#A7 (discusions here). Now, the encylcopedia is a very different place than it was in 2003, but I just thought I'd re-iterate the background. Worm^TT · (talk) 10:12, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

• I watchlist a lot of high schools, maybe a hundred or two. They are cesspools areas of concern. Constant vandalism, tons of unsourced claims about the prowess of the sports teams, lists of clubs, copyvio'ed alma maters, copyvio'ed material from the school website (school and college articles are the worst for plagiarism -go figure), and totally unsourced lists of notable alumni that have to be patrolled for people who are claimed to have gone into gay porn, or district managers of paper companies. Whatever decisions mandated that all high schools are notable did a great disservice to the project. They are among the most problematic parts of Wikipedia.   Will Beback  talk  10:17, 25 August 2011 (UTC) revised 12:17, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is any such consensus. I hope you'll join me in improving Wikipedia:Notability (high schools), which is an essay which may have persuaded people falsely otherwise. The truth is that most high schools are not notable.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I've certainly watchlisted it, and will attempt to chime in when I've got a bit of time. Worm^TT · (talk) 10:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to pretty strongly disagree with your statement that there is no consensus on the issue--the argument you make in the essay is that because we don't have articles on most high schools there is no consensus that we should. Instead I'd argue that it's just because we haven't gotten to them all yet. The way to judge consensus on the issue has to be to see how high school articles have fared in the past. I've personally not seen a high school article deleted in the last 3 years and I think I've only seen 1 or 2 merged. There have been dozens, if not more, kept. Consensus has been pretty clear thus far and I don't see any evidence that there is a significant group that believes otherwise. Hobit (talk) 11:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Many people believe that these are extremely problematic articles, see the discussion above from Will Beback. There is no consensus that these articles are exempt from normal notability policy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:12, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I won't dispute that they are problematical articles, one of the risk words I patrol is Pubic and you'd be unamazed at the number of schools that think we are so short of cash that it would help us save a few electrons by removing the first l from "Public School". But as for notability, I'd assumed the consensus was more that any High School is bound to have generated sufficient coverage to pass the GNG if we did but look. ϢereSpielChequers 11:24, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Once again the fixation on existence of sources seems to be a problem. The sources that theoretically establish notability of a high school are of no use for us if you have to go physically to the newspaper archive of a little town to find them, and nobody is willing to do that. There is a very similar problem with WP:ACADEMIC, by the way. On the other hand we sometimes have to IAR keep well-written articles on topics that are encyclopedic beyond doubt but for some reason fail the formal notability criteria. Hans Adler 11:42, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I have some sympathy for Will Beback's viewpoint, having dealt with quite a lot of this sort of vandalism and unsourced cruft-additions on schools articles myself. However, I really don't think it's as bad as he suggests; only a few days ago, I reverted an IP's alumnus-addition, templated the IP and demanded a source, and the IP duly provided one. Positive result. (Ignore, for now, the fact that the alumnus shouldn't be there as a redlink anyway). Schools articles do get a lot of vandalism, and are, mostly, in an appalling state, with few or no references. However, so are many BLPs, many articles on companies, and so on.

Sportspeople and small settlements, as I understand it, get some of the same "protection from notability requirements" that schools are perceived as having had, and many of those articles have problems just as bad (think of the cases where a minor sportsperson gets a controversial conviction and becomes a BLP problem; or a very minor sportsperson BLP gets vandalised and no-one is watchlisting it so the vandalism stays in for years; or a sportsperson makes a blunder in an important game and there's a hail of BLP-infringing vandalism). People have been enforcing the suggested ban on mass creation of articles on high schools, but seemingly mass creation of articles on small or very small settlements still takes place occasionally; and it's been discussed on this talkpage before, how many of those articles end up being full of complete garbage. (And anyway, is a settlement with 40 people in it, so much more automatically notable than a school with over 2000 people in it?)

I really don't see that high school articles are a crisis area; they are merely a generally low-quality area. And I think the majority of people really do think that the current approach is the best way of handling a difficult situation. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 11:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I do, as with any company or corporation out there. I'm certain that there are school district officials who whitewash articles about their schools, just as we know there are corporate officials out there who whitewash articles about their corporations. If I go to Special:UnwatchedPages, I'm sure I will see many school articles on that list, so who knows what is going on there?

This comes back to my point regarding the main topic at hand, which is verifiability: Just because we know there are various parts of Wikipedia that are not reliable, that does not mean that we should not try to make those parts reliable, nor should we expect the general public to accept such parts as unreliable. The reality is that the public still accepts Wikipedia as an authoritative source of information – whether or not its information may be right or wrong. At least I still hear, on an almost daily basis, people who say "go to Wikipedia" or similar to look up stuff related to my conversations with others. –MuZemike 15:29, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

• There is no doubt whatsoever that for a long time it has been widely accepted that high schools are automatically notable. This has been accepted in goodness knows how many AfD discussions. I have therefore taken the view that, rightly or wrongly, consensus supports that position. However, prompted by this discussion, I have thought about the question again, and I am not so sure. The line "high schools are automatically notable" is by no means universally accepted, and is very frequently questioned, and often, even when an AfD has closed as "keep, because consensus is that high schools are automatically notable", there has been one or more editors that have clearly been unhappy with that situation. Indeed, I am not sure whether there are actually more editors who think that all high schools should be regarded as notable than those who think not: it may just be that there are more who believe that that is what most others believe, and say "keep" because they believe that is the accepted consensus, rather than because they support that view themselves. There is a good deal of truth in Ryan Vesey's point above about the circularity of the situation: essay says a high school is automatically notable because that's what AfDs decide, but AfDs go that way because the essay says so (and it is not only that essay, but other sources too). The link that Worm That Turned has given above to what Jimbo said in 2003 is very interesting. I don't know how true it is that that was the origin of this "all high schools can have articles" line, but whether it was or not, it seems to me that Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines misrepresents what Jimbo said, by quoting out of context. Jimbo went on to say "That's true *even if* we'd react differently to a ton of one-liners mass-imported saying nothing more than 'Randolph School is a private school in Huntsville, Alabama, US' and 'Indian Springs is a private school in Birmingham, Alabama, US' and on and on and on, ad nauseum. The argument 'what if someone did this particular thing 100,000 times' is not a valid argument against letting them do it a few times." Well, we now actually are in the situation where a lot of people write trivial articles that say little more (or in some cases no more) than that a school exists, and "automatic notability" is invoked to keep them. Thus the remarks Jimbo made in 2003 explicitly do not apply to the present situation. It seems to me that the notion "all high schools are notable" comes from the image of a typical high school that most editors in the USA have, and to a lesser extent in some other countries, such as the UK. In the USA a "High School" is commonly a pretty large institution, run by some sort of local government, often very prominent in its local community. I can quite see why anyone thinking of schools of that kind thinks "of course they are notable, and it's pointless forcing people to produce sources to show that it is." However, not all high schools or secondary schools are like that. I know of very small and insignificant private secondary schools that certainly don't satisfy any of Wikipedia's notability guidelines, and in many parts of the world a lot of secondary schools are small and non-notable. WereSpielChequers says "the consensus was more that any High School is bound to have generated sufficient coverage to pass the GNG if we did but look", but that is not necessarily true of all types of high school in all parts of the world. It also seems to me to be illogical to use that argument in a case where several editors have looked and failed to find such coverage. Will Beback is only too right about the character of school articles: a very larger proportion of them are spam, essentially use of Wikipedia to publish prospectuses and advertising brochures. While that is not a proof of non-notability, it is certainly a reason for not being happy about a principle which makes it harder to delete them. All in all, these considerations encourage me to think it may well be time to reconsider the widely accepted view that "consensus is that high schools are inherently notable". Finally, Demiurge1000's comparisons with articles on other subjects, such as "is a settlement with 40 people in it, so much more automatically notable than a school with over 2000 people in it" is completely irrelevant, for WP:OTHERSTUFF reasons. (My own view is that a settlement with 40 people in it is almost always not notable, but that is equally irrelevant.) Also, thanks to an edit conflict, Demiurge1000 has confirmed one of the points I made above before I could post it: 2000 may be a typical size for a high school in the USA, but it certainly isn't where I live, and the issue is whether all high schools are automatically notable, not whether typical public high schools in the USA are automatically notable. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • It's not WP:OTHERSTUFF to respond to an assertion that a particular type of article is "among the most problematic parts of Wikipedia" by pointing out that other parts are in fact equally problematic or more problematic. It addresses the point being made. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 11:51, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The flipside of consensus being that sources will usually be there if we did but look is that if someone looks and draws a blank or near blank then a deletion nomination might well succeed. As for settlements that currently only have 40 people, it depends on where in the world you are. Many such English rural villages are the near ghosts of once thriving communities whose notability is assured regardless of the events of the last couple of centuries. ϢereSpielChequers 12:00, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The post quoted at WP:WPSCH/AG#N was too long to include in full, and so was cut down to the key points only, with parts skipped indicated with dots. A link to the original post is provided for anyone to view it in full. I did not add the quote originally, but I did change it from a paraphrase to an actual quote. If anyone thinks a better summary can be provided, they are free to edit it and do so. On the whole, I wouldn't object to removing it completely since it is outdated and gives the impression of argumentum ad Jimbonem. CT Cooper · talk 12:32, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I'd say it should be removed completely. As noted above by someone else, it's been misinterpreted. But in any event, it's very out of date.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:31, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
      • I have removed it. CT Cooper · talk 15:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment Notability can be in the eye of the beholder. If most Wikipedians are young, then of course their school is very important/notable to them and they will dig up any trivia possible to meet the threshold. We have Lists as well as Categories for a reason. If a school's article if only a couple of lines long, if belongs in a List unless or until there's more information. That allows for a Redirect to be created for the school's name, so no school would be truly left out of Wikipedia. 75.59.226.225 (talk) 15:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the school mascot for a hypothetical school ought to be Schrödinger's cat. -- Avanu (talk) 15:53, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, here are some recent AfDs that have all been kept, all citing or textually reproducing WP:NHS:

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Tres_Ninos_School_Inc.
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/St. John De Britto Anglo-Indian High School
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Hyehwa_High_School
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Village Christian Schools
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Gonzaga_High_School
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Annapolis_High_School_Dearborn_Heights
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Dapto_High_School
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Mandaluyong_high_school

While I'm not opposed to reviewing this essay, I don't see why there is such dismissal of the consensus by editors as unimportant. If there is "no consensus" that High Schools are typically notable, how come we don't see more editors challenging WP:NHS in AfDs? I have yet to encounter any substantial challenge of WP:NHS in an AfD. If there was truly no consensus on the matter, I would expect more challenges to use of the WP:NHS essay. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 04:08, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Slight divergence from the overall topic

We are focusing right now on the notability of High Schools in general, but I would like to quick ask about the inclusion of good articles about High Schools. Lets say an article is written about High School X. The article is well sourced; however, all of the sources come from a)The webpage of the school b)The local newspaper and c)The local newspaper of a rival school. The article lays out information including the administration, sports and other extracurriculars, rivalries with other schools, and maybe some school traditions or notable events (the usual bomb threats/hit lists found etc.). Again, everything in the article is sourced and for the current example we can assume that boosterism is minor or included using quotes. Should this school be included? Ryan Vesey Review me! 15:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I think that's fine, although maintenance and vandalism issues are a factor. What isn't fine is the exact same article with claims that have no sources. If the claims are not negative and damaging, then there is less urgency (from a BLP perspective) about removing them, and so I would advocate a quick look for sources and a dated citation needed tag first, and then deletion of the unsourced material after a period of time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:51, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem with consensus if it does allow articles like this. I know there are many school articles who use Wikipedia as a personal web page, but I don't want the good quality articles to get thrown out with the bad ones. Ryan Vesey Review me! 15:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I am a frequent contributor to school articles, mostly in South West England but also elsewhere if something interesting crops up in the AfD list or the schools wikiproject. I have seen a lot of the problems described here - one line stubs with no assertion of notability, unreferenced articles, puff-pieces, whitewashed articles, etc. If it is true that high schools are not automatically notable, and for one I would welcome that, then what would be really useful is clear set of high school notability guidelines within WikiProject Schools. As I see it, the quicker we agree on the default position, the quicker we can set about developing consensus on those guidelines by which all high school articles can be judged - and in turn set about cleaning up some of the real crap that is long overdue but has been protected from deletion because of the assertion that high schools are notable. --Simple Bob ^{a.k.a. The Spaminator} (Talk) 17:03, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: In hundreds of high school afds since 2005, almost none have been deleted. There's no better barometer of what consensus has been.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 17:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree with you; however, I am beginning to like some of the new thought that is forming. That well written/well sourced articles on High Schools are notable. If an article on a high school cannot be well-written and well-sourced prior to the end of an AFD, it should be deleted. Ryan Vesey Review me! 17:41, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
    • One thing that would help is if adding one of these tags automagically notified everyone who had ever worked on the article, and perhaps those signed up for any Project or Subproject the article falls into, such as the town or region. I think this is currently done manually, if at all. No one wants constant spam, but a one-week AfD implies more time spent checking than editing. 75.59.226.225 (talk) 18:09, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
      • I don't object to a new discussion on the topic, after all consensus does change. But to claim that the massive % of AFDs that result in a keep doesn't demonstrate a consensus is, well, a bit daft. It's clearly a historical outcome and it's also pretty darn clear that any high school is going to have significant coverage. Everyone has won a state championship in something. Every school has had a notable event occur at it that sees state-wide or wider coverage. And the construction of every school sees coverage. (feel free to replace "every" with "99%+"). They are all going to meet WP:N if we look hard enough. Hobit (talk) 18:48, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
        • Most high schools would be notable even if sources were only in print. But AfDs often don't go the way they should. On one AfD I had to state over and over that "while everyone agrees that this subject should be notable, no one can find a source." That seems to be the reason for keeping a lot of obscure articles on books, entertainment, high schools (or in my example a religious sect [2]). Some things "ought to be" notable- but remain unsourced in actual fact. I don't think that's good enough. But there should be some way to notify editors that potentially helpful information has been removed. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 19:24, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
          • Hobit, I would look forward to watching what the students at the non-notable 1% would decide to do in order to make their school notable and well-covered at least statewide. I have my doubts the principal, teachers and parents would feel the same way. 75.59.226.225 (talk) 19:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • IMO, the problem with all of those AFD keeps is that high schools have become notable for being notable. I haven't paid much attention to AFD in a couple years, but back in the day, pretty much the entire reason for keep in most AFDs was the assumption that a high school was inherently notable. As someone who disagreed with that position, I quickly realized that offering a dissenting opinion was a waste of time. Resolute 00:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

• All time spent at AfD is administrative overhead that should be minimized and avoided if possible. Having a bright line rule based on history here makes the handling of these AfDs very easy, scrutizing every high school article individually drains valuable resources that should go into creating and improving other articles. Now if Ryan Vesey and Becritical pledge to spend one hour researching every high school AfD for the next ten years, that might be different, but in my experience not many editors participate in these afds and we could end up with a lack of consistency with no discernable benefit if we make a change in standards. Likely, almost all high school articles will still be kept but much more admin overhead will be spent reaching that result, which is not efficient or logical. Anyone with free time is encouraged to come to Wikipedia:Unreferenced BLP Rescue where we have reduced the backlog of unreferenced BLPs from approx 25,000 to under 1,000 in the past year, come be a part of something meaningful, even if your old rival high school is a cesspool that never amounted to anything.--Milowent • ^talkblp-r 19:41, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
  • We should be spending our resources ensuring that all of our articles are fully kept up to our standards. School articles aren't any different, nor should they be avoided in favor of more important topics (many school articles are BLP magnets and attract unwatched vandalism; they need all the attention we can give). ThemFromSpace 19:49, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
    • The AfD process is terribly burdensome. Jimbo said above he thinks that many ought to be deleted, but I personally don't think there is a problem with leaving OR stubs when the subject might be notable. It's when there is a lot of unsourced info that we have the problem. The thing with these school articles is that most likely no-one is ever going to improve them much. Not every article can win the lottery of being randomly selected as an example in one of WP's internal discussions. That's why I went and stubbed the (already tagged/challenged) ones that looked like OR or at least were unverified. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 20:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I have had around 600 schools on my watchlist for the last 3 years or so. Will Beback's comments appear (at least to me) to be more driven by emotion than reality. In response to Hobit's claims, I would say the figures are far more than '1 or 2' or 'dozens', perhaps even several zeros need to be added to the numbers. While I firmly believe that it is an error to suggest that schools may be among our most problematic articles, Worm and Demiurge1000 both make some valid observations. The strongest and most accurate assessment of the situation comes in the long post from JamesBWatson which I hope that everyone here will have taken the trouble to read in full. James's comment echoes my position and leaves me still in notability no man's land; I am personally not worried whether schools are notable or not, and all I want to do as a busy WP:WPSCH participant, and admin with a deletion button, is to have a clearly defined policy to implement. I'm sure that most of us who work on school AfDs are tired of having to second-guess an unwritten policy/precedent and I thoroughly support :Simple Bob's sentiment. Now that Jimbo has explained his current position regarding his original 2003 statement , perhaps we can hold an RfC that will reach a consensus and then draft that proper policy. One way or the other . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:18, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Of those 600 school articles you watch, how many are based on secondary sources?   Will Beback  talk  22:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

I have accumulated a number of around 600 random school articles on my watchlist, and it's only a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of school pages we have here. Apart from the ones I created myself or helped to GA, they are ones I have repaired, expanded, added infoboxes and images, categorised, referenced, saved from deletion., and kept free of vandalism and puff. I've already stated that I don't have any personal preference one way or the other which way an eventual consensus might go for notability for schools - I just think it would be a very good idea for all this to be clarified once and for all, so that we have some clear rules and recommendations to work to that are officially accepted by the community. Where is the relevance of your question to that? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:40, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

My point is that all Wikipedia articles should be based on secondary sources. If we're creating articles for which there are no significant secondary sources then we're violating core content policies. Many, perhaps most, high school articles have no secondary sources for much more than an occasional sports report or scandal. Here's a typical example. Ponderosa High School   Will Beback  talk  02:03, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to second Will Beback's sentiment; I have had quite a number of high schools on my watchlist (any Recent Changes Patroller will inevitably come upon them). While I think it would be wrong to say that the majority of edits to them are vandalism, I think it would be accurate to say that the majority of edits to them are unsourced, POV, or incorporate excessive WP:NOT content (like a list of every time team X made the regional playoffs, or a list of all of the AP classes at the school). However, I don't think that this has a real bearing on whether or not the schools are/should be default notable, because we don't consider how highly targeted an article is for bad edits when we decide whether or not to keep an article (with the possible exception of some list articles).

Having said that though, maybe the best option for forward progress would be a centralized discussion (Village pump?) on whether or not the current consensus is that high schools should have default notability. Then, the results of that discussion can help inform us whether we should promote WP:NHS to guideline status or rewrite it and clearly indicate it's a historical/non-consensus essay. Like many other editors, I currently accept that the consensus is that all high schools are inherently notable, because that's what I've been told, but I question whether, if actually asked, this consensus would emerge as correct. The problem, of course, is that we're really just debating that fundamental question of whether our lack of a deadline means that we should include things that may possibly be verified for long periods of time, or whether the lack of deadline means that we should wait on these articles until such time as the sources have already been found, so I'm not sure that we'll get a useful result from such a discussion. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:07, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the much bigger problem is the hundreds/thousands of elementary/primary schools that have artciles about them and I would love to see a policy that they were default not notable, with clear criteria to show what would make them notable. For instance, does notability of alumni make a school notable? Fmph (talk) 08:53, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:INHERIT Agathoclea (talk) 09:03, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

More than anything, being noted makes a topic notable. Anytime we make a rule which diverges from that we're likely to end up with a bunch of under-sourced articles. When we write about other organizations we require that there be a minimum of sources. Somehow a special exception has been cut out for high schools, but it is inconsistent with how we treat other organizations.

Qwyrxian is right that school articles often contain too much poorly sourced trivia. The Schools project may be too focused on keeping every article and not focused enough on making sure that all of those articles meet basic standards. Some of the problems with school articles could be addressed with a big cleanup project. But the notability issue should be settled first.   Will Beback  talk  09:21, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

But WP:INHERIT is yet another essay, and one that is regularly ignored on article pages. A clear policy or guideline that says elementary schools are not notable unless .... would be hugely helpful. Fmph (talk) 09:51, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Fmph.

That being said, my contribution to this little discussion is that schools do end up being mentioned in various sources, either as the alma mater of so-and-so or where such-and-such happened, or what have you. There are a lot of crappy school articles out there, but it doesn't mean that these articles can't (or won't) be improved. But I think that they're a minority (maybe a large minority) of school articles (judging from the however many Australian schools in my watchlist). Can I suggest, though, that instead of pursuing a kill-on-sight policy with school articles where at least the existence of the school is verifiable that they be userfied/projectified until someone can get through and source them up properly? User:Danjel/Coomera_State_Primary_School is a good example of a school that is probably noteworthy, and can be improved (and will be as soon as I have a moment to do it). ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 13:44, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

What if there is no consensus?

Putting aside the issue itself, what if there truly is NO consensus? Wikipedia guidelines, policies, practices, whatever you wish to call, seem to assume that there is, or eventually will be, a consensus on any given point. What if this is simply not the case? What if, using this subject as an example, one-third of interested editors believe that high schools are inherently notable, one-third believe that by default they are NON-notable, and one-third have no opinion on whether they are generally notable or non-notable and just take each case on an individual basis? (The three ideas and the numbers are just examples, I realize there are gradations in between and perhaps outside of these easily described positions, and I am not saying those are the proportions of editors in each group. But there are certainly AT LEAST those three positions, and I don't believe there is anywhere near a "consensus" (however defined) for any of them; in fact, I would be very surprised if there were even a majority for any of them.) What then? Do we talk about it and debate it forever? (It seems like we already have; this was a "hot issue" when I became an editor six years ago, and it is a hot issue now, so the likelihood that it is ever going to be resolved seems pretty slim.) Do we have people putting in and taking out paragraphs and nutshells from essays, or creating competing essays, until the end of time? Do we leave it for the AfD process, where the fate of each individual article depends in large part on who shows up? The AfD process on issues like this, where there really does not seem to be a consensus as to notability in general, reminds me of the Wild West -- no "law," no real policy, no real authority, just whoever is quickest on the draw and brings more people to the gunfight wins. There has to be a better way. What is it? Binding votes, majority wins? "ContentCom"? Something else? I don't know what the answer should be, and just as there probably is no consensus on the subject-matter itself, there probably would be no consensus on a method for dealing with it. Perhaps the last sound ever made by humans on Earth, before the Sun swallows up the planet, will be the sound of people edit-warring over whether there should be an article on East Side High. (Hm, maybe I've finally found the idea for the science fiction novel I'm going to write someday.) Neutron (talk) 22:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

.............Um...............yeah. B^e——C_{ritical__Talk} 23:04, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

• • Continue with case-by-case decisions: Where there is no consensus to write a decisive guideline (or policy), then the decisions would continue being made on a case-by-case basis. Hence, the notability of each specific school should be determined, as to whether that particular school gets a separate article or gets an entry in the list "Top 90 schools in Anytownville". Remember, there are those 2 main levels of notability: as a notable entry in a list (or inside another article), or individual notability to have a separate article. For multiple essays about the debates, then later, repetitive essays could be merged into the earlier essays. However, in the future, I suspect there will be a WP "notability tool" which counts the major sources (and how many times a topic is mentioned in each source) to suggest the notability level of a specific topic. Meanwhile, please do not be frustrated that debates continue for years, because in the world at large, some debates have continued for decades or centuries (such as: Is quantum mechanics an explanation of reality, or just a math-trick which matches the data? Are positive near-death experiences a trip to a heavenly world, or just hallucinations of ICU psychosis?). -Wikid77 15:50, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
    • It would make more sense for each HS article to begin as a section in the associated town's article. If and when length issues arise, it can be split off. We're putting the cart before the horse here, imo, and it's not limited to school articles. As I keep asking, and keep being ignored, why the dogged determination to have so many separate articles, other than as an ego trip in the search engines? Is the purpose of Wikipedia to provide trivia-filled (to puff up their size) articles about minor topics which rank first when googling? Is each town article to be split off into a dozen separate articles about each church, each mayor, various school boards, each club or organization, each small business, each recreational facility - all because those have been covered by some local newspapers? Makes as much (non)sense. 75.59.226.225 (talk) 14:20, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

      Amen. Hans Adler 14:24, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

    • I'm for the above, even if it would require a fairly major reworking of many school articles and a degree of merger/cooperation between WP:GEOGRAPHY and WP:WPSCHOOLS. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 05:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• I was perhaps one of the people who helped establish the current practice that we dod not delete articles on high schools. I did not initially think so--when I joined 4 years ago there were many debates on individual schools, and I joined in many of them, sometimes supporting inclusion, sometimes opposing it (I am not inclusionist about local institutions, and this was just a part of my general feeling about them) . In almost every case, if someone put in the necessary work, it was possible to find material that meth the GNG. It really went to no purpose--it was detracting from other activity at AfD, and was not really helping the encyclopedia It's true that HS articles get defaced frequently, but the ones that get defaced the most frequently are the most notable of them. Now, an important part of the decision to include high schools, was the corresponding decision not to include schools of lower level except when some special reason for notability had been established. (those debates were even more tiresome, because it was much harder to find materials). If we remove the compromise in one direction, we shall probably find we have removed it in the other and people will start fighting for junior high and elementary schools, instead of letting them be calmly merged.. In fact, I think the criteria we are using for including them are too broad at present, but I will always go along with a compromise. I wish we had such compromises for more subject areas.

In reply to the anon just above, at present high schools is the only exception, and the only one there should be. Others get in sometimes, even if not-notable, because the results at AfD on articles that are not very heavily watch are a matter of chance. That's one of the key reasons I favor decided by abstract of blanket criteria. A certain degree of uniformity is the mark of a responsible publication, and I hope all of us agree we should be moving in that direction.

I would certainly like to see a decrease of the emphasis on individual articles. Unfortunately, because of the way Google indexes, having an article rather than a section makes a very big difference in the visibility of the article, so it is not unreasonable for people to care as strongly that what they are interested in gets an article. But there's a more important internal reason--inconsistent as AfD is, it's the only process we have for community deliberation about article content that actually is visible. Material in sections of an article tends to shrink gradually, and a paragraph about a school tends to shrink to just a name on a list, giving very little information. We cannot solve this problem except for the most popular articles where many people keep track of them. DGG ( talk ) 00:37, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

It is unreasonable, unless your goal is to actively discourage those who are here to create an excellent encyclopedia, not Google food or ego trips. And no, material in article sections does not tend to shrink. It tends to grow, which is why some sections eventually get split off into separate articles. 75.59.226.225 (talk) 16:39, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Opinion about an image (partially restored)

resolved, I guess :-)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following was posted by user Placelimit111 in revision Revision as of 23:15, 27 August 2011: Hello Mr. Wales, i'd like an opinion by you about this image: /[/[:File:/Crotch3.jpg/]/] (I just added the slashes). I heard that Wikipedia is an educational project, and shouldn't host unnecessary pornography. Is that true? Placelimit111 (talk) 23:15, 27 August 2011 (UTC)' The result was a pornographic-looking image placed on the page. It was promptly removed, presumed to be vandalism. I can not comment on the motives of the poster, but the image is used on the following two pages: http://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stydká_štěrbina http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schamhaarentfernung The latter of which, is a thoroughly edited page. I am therefore restoring the question, in case anyone (or Jimbo) wants to actually answer the question -- which may or may not be a troll. The new contributor's other edits today do not appear to be vandals. I am doing do because the user was blocked by admin HJ Mitchell, so he does not have the chance to ask his question in a less disruptive manner. -- Wxidea (talk) 23:33, 27 August 2011 (UTC) Why was the user blocked? The picture looks boring to me, so I'm not sure what the question is. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC) I'm not sure, but I think the user was blocked by admin HJ Mitchell because he saw a vagina on your talk page, and decided to (a) remove it; and (b) block the user. The block message only says: 23:20, 27 August 2011 HJ Mitchell (talk | contribs) blocked Placelimit111 (talk | contribs) (account creation blocked, e-mail blocked, cannot edit own talk page) with an expiry time of indefinite. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Placelimit111 Perhaps there was some other infraction. -- Wxidea (talk) 03:46, 29 August 2011 (UTC) Looks like sockpuppetry/trolling is the reason for the indef block, based on the account's contributions. N419BH 04:46, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The user is a sockpuppet. People who have been closely watching this page and Jimmy's userpage for the last few days will probably be able to connect the dots, but I'm happy to discuss it privately if anybody needs further explanation. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Removing wikibabble for non-truth phrase in WP:V

28-Aug-2011: You might not have the time (or bandwidth) to re-consider this issue now, so this is just a long-term reminder. I have noticed some policy phrases are generating endless "wikibabble" discussions (similar to "psychobabble"). As you know, the phrase in WP:V for "verifiability, not truth" has generated years of debate. Those exact words have been traced to 8 December 2004 as a header, in the bottom of SV's edit here. In the past ~7 years, people have noted many cases of weaseling which some have tried by quoting "not truth" as a reason to insert known false information. There is just no reason a policy needs to even hint at "not truth" to foment debate. Also, there are still people who actually think sources should be accepted "whether or not they are true" (aka sensationalist wording in tabloids?) defending "not truth" while (fortunately), several others have warned that there are typos or mistakes in good sources, and WP needs to correct those mistakes to reflect the true information (the intended text). Common example: typos in hurricane-advisory wind speeds. Bottomline, I think WP policies can be reworded to avoid shocking, controversial phrases such as "verifiability, not truth". As one editor noted: "policy statements don't want to be "rhetorically shocking" - they want to be clear". We just need to reword policies in a clear manner, such as:

• "Text must be verifiable, to check whether it truly reflects what reliable sources state, and use current sources about retracted or updated information."

There is little harm in mentioning the words "truly reflects" in the middle of a longer phrase, but any short phrase of the nature "not truth" is bound to generate unhelpful debates, mislead quick readers, or be used as a magic phrase to justify inclusion of false information (the policy explicitly says "not truth"). Avoid other nebulous phrases, as the following would just generate more debates:

• Wikipedia seeks accurate text, not accuracy.
• Wikipedia articles should be pleasant, not pleasing.

Adding tricky phrases is just not helpful. If policies are changed to remove short misleading, nebulous phrases, and clearly state 3 or 4 down-to-earth situations, then there will be less wikibabble to warp or debate in numerous discussions. Examples of people twisting the phrase "not truth" (to insist on false information) can be found in archive discussions:

• Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/First sentence/V FS Archive 44
• Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/First sentence/V FS Archive 50

To see the current debates, return to page:

• Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability/First_sentence - recent, ongoing debates

Anyway, the key issue is that nebulous wording has led to complex debates about policies. This is just another of things to ponder in simplifying Wikipedia efforts. -Wikid77 17:08, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I've made some minor changes that hopefully will clear up exactly what is meant by the phrase for the dull or stubborn folks out there in the Wiki-verse.

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not Truth—whether readers and editors can independently or collaboratively check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether individual editors have a personal and subjective belief it is True.

How's that? -- Avanu (talk) 18:03, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Rather than refer to the many highly intelligent people who dislike the phrase "not truth" as being dull or stubborn, perhaps a better word would be "persistent" for their efforts to explain all the logical conflicts for months and years. -Wikid77 08:14, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the expression is bad, and I have never particularly liked it. I would be happy to see it vanish entirely because it gives people the wrong idea. In particular, I'd like the core idea to be expressed but the expression itself removed. I would recommend something like this: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, i.e. whether readers and editors can independently or collaboratively check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether individual editors have a personal and subjective belief it is true."

There are many places where this matters, and getting rid of that expression gets rid of a silly mantra that confuses many debates.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:48, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for this very clear statement. I have bookmarked the diff for future use when someone insists that Wikipedia must claim something which according to a strong consensus of editors is false. Personally I think that the emerging consensus in some recent debates together with your statement is probably enough to make the "verifiability not truth" mantra harmless in our internal debates, as we now have something to point to when we need to clear up the misunderstanding. But I guess from a PR POV it's still a problem. Hans Adler 07:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Agree. The value of verifiability is that it maximizes the chances of getting truth. Saying verifiability, not truth unnecessarily obscures that point. Looie496 (talk) 05:55, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

There are plenty of issues where what we consider as RS say the opposite of the truth. Case in point: the benevolet dictator's date of birth. Personally I hve a friend that if he ever should become notable you would have a RS disussing him and an issue he was involved in and getting all the details (age/profession) bar the name wrong. A sysop friend recently installed software that accourding to RS he should never be able to install in that particular software (He just did not bother to read those sources beforehand). The prounciation of a placename as mentioned in a RS might be totally different to its actual pronaunciation (even BBC radio can make you shudder sometimes). People with access to primary source maybe within organisations know things that are not in RS even contradict them. Someone was accused and convicted of paedophilia (how much more RS can you get than a court decision) it was only years later that he was release as it became apparent that the accusation was made as part of an orchestrated attack on the man. The statement verifiability not truth will continue to be used in these cases. We just don't know in these cases if it is true, if it is fake, a misunderstanding ("he believes it is true") but we AGF and say sorry truth has no place here until you can verify it. Agathoclea (talk) 06:49, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

No, truth does have a place in Wikipedia. We don't knowingly include false information, even if it is reported by a thousand reliable sources. But obviously in such a situation, we would need some way to object to the false information, and that requires something, whether it is simple logic, or a source, hence our Verifiability standard. -- Avanu (talk) 06:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for giving the perfect example why we need verifiability, not truth", and why verifiability alone isn't enough. If a thousand reliable sources say A, then you should never state B in an article instead based on "simple logic". "Simple logic" means something completely different from one person to another, and the simple logic of creationists, conspiracy theorists, political extremists, racists, ... should be excluded, and that message must be included in our policy. (Note: I am not dumping you or most editors in these groups, but we need good policies to deal with those as well, and the "not truth" is an essential part to remove all such "logical" nonsense like the Apollo Moon hoax stuff). Fram (talk) 07:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

None of the examples would have been different if "not truth" was excluded from the policy though. People would still argue that the "false" information should be inserted because, you know, it is verifiable. The policy, without the "not truth", would still generate the exact same discussions you refer to, and more, because it would only encourage people who want to insert the truth (whatever that is). But why are we even discussing this here when we already have had so many discussions, including an RfC? Fram (talk) 07:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the harm in trying to improve the wording, even if previous outcomes would be unchanged. -- Avanu (talk) 07:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The wording has always been awkward and misleading.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Misleading in what way? It seems to me to be the purest expression of what Wikipedia should be, a representation of what is currently the generally accepted knowledge from reliable sources (or a representation of the different main theories if no such generally accepted version exists), without any claim of this being the truth. If you want truth, you need WP:OR. We don't research the truth, we summarize sources. Verifiability, not truth. We hope that this insistence on verifiability, on reliable independent sources, will lead to maximal truth, but in the end we don't care whether evolution is correct, whether the big bang really started it all, etcetera. Until June 2011, our Archaeopteryx articles started with "is the earliest and most primitive bird known."[3]. This was verifiable, but now we know that it may not have been the truth, and that statement has been replaced by a much longer "some say, others disagree" one[4]. This is "verifiability, not truth" at its best. Fram (talk) 08:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

(ec)You are giving earlier discussions as an example of the reasons why the wording need to be changed. However, these discussions wouldn't have been any different with the new wording. So, your argument for change is invalid, or you haven't provided any examples where the removal of "not truth" would have made an actual difference for the better. What you seem to be asking for is "verifiability AND truth" instead of "Verifiability, NOT truth", which would lead to many more acrimonious debates, but not to better articles. Fram (talk) 08:35, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

• We are discussing this, here, because the general concept of removing nebulous phrases from guidelines/policies is an effort to simplify for newcomers (and others), which is an issue Jimbo has discussed. Imagine the confusion of science students or scientists coming to WP, and reading the "not truth" phrase, when their professions have developed from extensive experiments for "objective truth". It reads like, "WP is based on whatever people write, rather than the truth". It sounds much worse than the reality. As Jimbo wrote above, "[I]t gives people the wrong idea....". That is why some have rung the storm bell to announce the alarming dangers: we do not want people to read the words "not truth" and imagine any known falsehood is allowed. There is no real reason to state "not truth" at that point in the text, rather than simply explain the concept later. People could still debate other issues, but no longer chime "not truth" as their reason for inserting known false text. Plus, of course, when gone, then the numerous debates to remove "not truth" will also end. And there will be "Peace in the Valley" some day, about the phrase. -Wikid77 08:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
  • No reason why Jimbo can't discuss it with everyone else on the policy talk page (or subpage) though, one would suppose that he would have the main policies on his watchlist. Starting yet another discussion about this, in another place, is not helpful (to newcomers or veterans). As for "the numerous debates to remove "not truth" will also end", I suppose that was meant tongue-in-cheek? I have still seen no evidence whatsoever of the "alarming dangers" of these two words, which have stood for 7 years, so long before the fall in new editors became a fashionable topic of discussion. "Not truth" doesn't mean "let's insert falshoods", it means "allow uncertainty, approximation, debate, conflicting views, updates, new insights, ..." into our articles, as long as they are supported by the best sources available. "Truth" is fixed, rigid, absolute: Wikipedia is flexible, open, adaptive. Fram (talk) 09:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I like the opening of WP:V as it is. I think by far most editors get what it means straight off. The insertion of "known false text" would be nothing more than disruption, so there's no need to skive it down for the disruptive few. Meanwhile, any encyclopedia is not about truth, but only about what sources happen to say about a topic at a given time. There may only be one truth, but there will always be tight bounds to our understanding of what it is. So, most published sources have sundry flaws and hence en.WP is awash with flaws. Hopefully, a WP article gives the reader a handy overview of what the flawed sources have to say. The pith here is good faith. We do what we can. Gwen Gale (talk) 09:15, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

For a counterexample, see Talk:Bože pravde#God, give us justice (the whole section please). I spent kilobytes unsuccessfully arguing why a version supported by one, albeit important, reliable source is incorrect and should be omitted. In return, the best argument I got was the "not truth" mantra. Most frustrating. No such user (talk) 11:20, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

And what if, apart from the president's office, people would also present the BBC "God give us justice" and the NY Times "God give us justice", and the Serbian Orthodox Church "Lord, Give Us Justice"? Yep, "not truth" is the correct mantra yet again: both versions should be included, no matter how much you are certain that one of them is incorrect. Fram (talk) 13:29, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Fram, I don't agree with you. There are a ton of sources showing the translation "God of Justice" and a handful showing "God give us justice" but the latter are clearly wrong, just plain wrong. We could safely omit the latter or, perhaps, include it with a footnote saying that although some sources give this translation, it is not correct.

The position taken by Avala during that debate is clearly wrong in that Avala wanted to reject several reliable sources, including the Parliament and 16 published sources, mostly academic publications, on the grounds that the President is Supreme and the comment on his website trumps all the rest. My guess is that this was and is a minor error on the Presidential website which was then picked up (perhaps from Wikipedia?) by the New York Times and the Serbian Orthodox Church. This is a classic example of contradictory information in reliable sources where we can and should make a thoughtful editorial judgment that one version is just wrong.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:19, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The NY Times can hardly have picked it up from Wikipedia, since the NY Times article is from 1996... The BBC one is from 2000 as well. Any evidence, instead of will guesses, that the "minor error" was on the presidential website in 1996 already? It wasn't even the official anthem back then (nor in 2000). It seems to me as if this "minor error" which is "clearly wrong" has been made by three or four very reliable sources, some of them the kind of sources that should know better. It is not for us to decide which one is correct and which one isn't unless in the case of very clear errors (typos and so on, true one-off errors): we should present it according to the sources, so in this case we should give both translations.

I am not claiming that the other translation isn't given, or isn't the more usual one, or is better (or worse): but how did you decide that the other one is right and this one is wrong? E.g. the United States. Foreign Broadcast Information Service in 1996 also gave "God give us justice" as the translation[5]. Translations often aren't one-on-one correct, there may be different possible ones, and we shouldn't ignore the less-common one on the say-so of some editors (who may be right, but who are not reliable sources). There are now 5 reliable to very reliable sources using this "wrong" translation, over a period of some 15 years, and without a clear link between them (i.e. it isn't obvious that this "error" has one common source). The article currently states ""Bože pravde" (Serbian Cyrillic: „Боже правде”, meaning "God of Justice"[1] or "Lord, Give Us Justice"[2])". It would be perfectly appropriate to change this to ""Bože pravde" (Serbian Cyrillic: „Боже правде”, translated as "God of Justice"[1] or less commonly as "Lord, Give Us Justice"[2])" or something similar. It would be highly inappropriate to remove the alternative completely though. Fram (talk) 07:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment Facts (true and untrue) are found along the way to our intended destination of Truth. Of course we must address untrue facts which have become widespread and commonly assumed to be true. To do this we must repeat the rumor or falsehood, then explain the true facts of the matter. That's one reason why people come to Wikipedia. If we ignore these things completely, those readers often jump to the conclusion we're unaware of 'the facts', are trying to cover up 'the truth', or some such other nonsense. If we are to usefully enlighten people on a subject, we must provide the facts, all the facts, and nothing but the facts - remembering that not all facts are the 'true facts'. 75.59.226.225 (talk) 14:42, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

"Verifiability" is not in opposition to "truth", after all the "veri-" comes from the Latin verus for "true". A formulation I once saw, and which I liked was "truth through verifiability". I think some of the dispute hinges on what constitutes a reliable source. If an otherwise reliable source states something incorrect, then the source obviously wasn't reliable in that particular instance. Therefore it shouldn't be used to cite that particular (incorrect) statement. In the wake of the atrocities in Norway last month, our article on the attacks stated widespread disruption to Oslo's public transportation network, and cited it to a "reliable source", even when the disruption to the transport network was minimal. (The resolution to this one was finding a source closer to the subject, which was therefore more reliable, and that contained the correct version of events.) The only problem is that editors may have a hard time uncovering mistakes in otherwise reliable sources, and accepting that the statements are indeed erroneous, so this is more of a philosophical reconciliation of the "truth" and "verifiability" concepts, and not always a practical solution. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:42, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo, would you comment on what connections (if any) you see between the "Verifiability, not truth" statement in WP:V and the concept of NPOV? Are there not situations where, to maintain a NPOV, our articles must include material that we think untrue? Blueboar (talk) 17:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Am not Jimbo, but the classic example would be Flat Earth. We know the earth not to be flat, but we include information because it is verifiable and well-sourced. More controversially, different religions have different beliefs, often contradictory, and it is not the role of an NPOV encyclopedia to "prove" one belief correct and the other wrong - but to report what verifiable, reliable sources are saying about these beliefs in support and in criticism. "Verifiability, not truth" establishes this in an elegant fashion, because it forces us not to evaluate if a belief is true or not, just if it is verifiable. It's really that simple. If we eliminate that basis, that sentence, we will severely compromise the elegant clarity of this formulation, and as a consequence the severe battleground issue that already affect many topic areas will become much more severe to the point of becoming non-functional, instead of simply dysfunctional. "Verifiability, not truth" is a scary thing that keeps those not able to stomach the "other side" away, and that is a good thing, IMHO. --Cerejota (talk) 18:07, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree... but I would like to hear Jimbo's take on this (as his comments, above, are now being quoted at WT:V, it is important that he make his views on this issue be as clear as possible). Blueboar (talk) 18:18, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I would also like to hear Jimbo's take, but meanwhile: You are wrong, and the problem appears to be that you are approaching even simple, easily settled matters of right or wrong as matters of belief. Reliable sources are full of small, inconsequential mistakes. It's the job of an encyclopedia to filter them out as much as possible, along with all that is not noteworthy, and to report only the rest. And in case of major, widespread mistakes, maybe to mention that they are around and explain why they are mistakes. WP:NPOV was never meant for these straightforward cases. NPOV is a method for getting reasonable articles written on topics where we can't agree, not because a dogmatic editor with no knowledge of the topic is trying to block the informed consensus of a bunch of expert editors, but because the topic is subject to considerable disagreement in the real world.

Our policies and guidelines are not perfect, descriptive texts that have fallen from the sky so that we follow them to the letter. They all arose in specific contexts, to solve specific problems. Applying them far outside the original use case is asking for trouble, and that's what you are doing here. Hans Adler 18:29, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

When two sources each say something different, how are we to know which is right and which is wrong?... other than belief? Blueboar (talk) 18:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

What's wrong with a consensus of well informed, intelligent editors? The vast majority of articles is routinely handled in this way. NPOV is only for those cases where this doesn't work. They are relatvely rare in terms of article counts, but as they are the ones that attract disputes, they dominate project space and are what our policies are written for.

Allow me to repeat it in different words because it's so important: Policies are written to settle the disputes at our most contentious articles. The vast majority of our articles are not contentious at all. But if you unthinkingly and inflexibly apply our policies to them, you create completely unnecessary disputes and reduce our credibility and reliability. Hans Adler 19:01, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

A consensus of well informed, intelligent editors... And how is that different than belief? Let's be honest here... when we talk about consensus we are still talking about belief... it's just the common belief of a group as opposed to that of an individual. Blueboar (talk) 20:09, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

No amount of verbal cosmetics is going to change the fact that a bunch of Wikipedia editors who all agree that something is clearly not the case putting it in an article as if it was a fact is an instance of lying. This is unethical, and it's shameless to argue for a policy interpretation that would require this. It takes some chutzpah to promote lying for such a ludicrous reason as dogmatically sticking to a misinterpretation of one of Wikipedia's technical rules that were set up to keep the encyclopedia accurate. Hans Adler 23:03, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

We're building a ForestFire here, ladies and gentlemen. Please don't: discussions are a lot more intelligible, more manageable, and more likely to reach a conclusion if they all happen in one place. I do hope Jimbo will consider pasting this discussion to WT:V/First, whether or not he chooses to reply further.—S Marshall T/C 23:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Section break

Up above, we have a prime example of the confusion that the phrase causes. "We know the earth not to be flat, but we include information because it is verifiable and well-sourced." That's actually a nice example of confusion. What is described in that sentence is not actually the case. We know the earth not to be flat, and we say so, uncontroversially. We do not say that the earth is flat, even if sources can be found for it. We use editorial judgment. We are not transcription monkeys, merely writing down what sources say. We want to only write true things in Wikipedia, and we want to verify them.

If there are sources that contradict each other (and there often are) then we use judgment to sift among them, with a variety of possible outcomes. Sometimes we have to report on different views as plausible alternatives, because very often there are plausible alternatives. Sometimes we come to the sane judgment that a particular matter is settled. Sometimes different people will disagree on how settled a matter is, and this leads to conflict. But "verifiability, not truth" does nothing to soothe those conflicts.

The earth is not flat. If someone went to the article Earth and inserted a claim that the earth is flat, and cited some crackpot to the effect that it is flat, or cited an otherwise respected ancient tome, we'd quite rightly revert it. In Flat earth we report on the phenomenon, but we don't take the actual underlying claim seriously at all. The New York Times could print a dead-serious story tomorrow claiming that the world is flat, and we would assume that their printing processes were hacked, or that they are making some kind of joke, or... well there are many alternatives, but none of the serious alternatives would involve the earth being actually flat, and we all know that, so we wouldn't write it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

• Although WP is not a journal, not a topics-of-the-day blog, I think the common term "journalistic truth" (missing article 30Aug11) is a similar idea, as in objective journalism (possible source: http://www.journalism.org/resources/principles). Certainly, with scientific matters, too much waffling about the word "truth" is likely to cause extreme stress and frustration. The science-oriented writers should feel that "objective truth" is a basis for technical articles. Of course, there are numerous people who would be willing to debate the meanings of "truth" but not in the first sentence of a policy: it is just too confusing and disquieting, as if saying
   · What is Wikipedia? What is Truth? Who knows?
  I think those kinds of concerns should be avoided, but if needed, say Wikipedia faces a triage: known facts, versus debated beliefs, versus disproven ideas. Based on all the debate, I think we will need to write some type of foundation-text page, which values truth as an issue in Wikipedia, while acknowledging the limits. We have some frustrated editors proposing "Wikipedia strives for truth" and similar. -Wikid77 10:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm... is this essentially nothing more than a dispute between science-oriented editors and humanities-oriented editors? ... I can understand science editors wanting the ability to omit material that is not in line with accepted scientific knowledge (ie to omit or limit things that are scientifically untrue), and humanities editors wanting a far more nuanced approach approach that allows for situations where "truth" is essentially just a matter of opinion. Blueboar (talk) 11:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, Blueboar, I think that is another possible area to explore, later in policy texts, as noting how some subjects have numerous conflicting ideas, and Wikipedia should truly reflect those ideas from reliable sources, without trying to sway the decisions in any particular direction. There are also many debated areas in science, such as the rules in quantum physics being unable to predict/explain the structure of the whole universe, as compared to Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Hence, the uncertainties are not just in the Humanities, but the truth-aspect for WP is like a truth-in-reporting requirement, where editors should not be seeing a phrase like "not truth" to think false ideas or mere opinions are given a green-light acceptance in WP articles. It's not so much the truth of the ideas, but the truth in reporting those ideas, as a 2-level process, and so stating untrue ideas as if being true is a real danger. -Wikid77 13:02, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The two most blatant cases that I remember (whether arbitrator and Labour Party member Sam Blacketer defaced David Cameron's article during an election season, and whether the Santa Claus article must be neutral as to whether the guy exists) don't confirm this. But it is true that in science articles we routinely decide what to say or not based on an evaluation of truth in which reliable sources on one hand and logic and editors' expertise on the other hand play roughly equal roles. Hans Adler 12:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	For founding a genial project of free encyclopedia, that anyone can edit! Alex discussion ★ 18:29, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd give Jimbo ten of these if an Article of the Month scheme was introduced and we successfully attracted new editors in response and good content started being produced at a faster rate. I don't mean literally, but I really think its time it was introduced and at least given a trial to see if it increases good content coming in.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Can you find out how article competitions are run in the German Wikipedia? I know these have been highly successful there.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Not a speaker of German I'm afraid. Perhaps User:Hans Adler or User:Bermicourt or another German speaker could inquire there. I think pretty much any competition scheme would produce results if there is something at stake. As you say it may not even be monetary but something of esteem, but it has to be something which will motivate people to contribute more than they would otherwise do. If we could publicize it I think we could attract many potential new contributors too. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:20, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I am not very active at the German Wikipedia and only moderately familiar with its culture, but here is what I found at de:Wikipedia:Schreibwettbewerb: Starting autumn 2004, there have been 2 "writing competitions" per year. There was an attempt to internationalise this competition in March 2005, see meta:International writing contest. For advice on how to write a candidate for the competition, they are simply pointing to de:Wikipedia:Wie schreibe ich gute Artikel. (This plays a much more central role than our "MOS supplement" Wikipedia:Writing better articles. Instead of a complicated MOS organised like a code of law, the German Wikipedia discusses all aspects of writing in a single document. E.g. very basic information on how to cite and how to create footnotes is located together in one section. Ditto for information on when to illustrate, when to put images on Commons, captions, and image copyright.)

Statistics for the previous (13th) competition can be found at de:Wikipedia:Schreibwettbewerb/Daten. Out of 70 candidates, 36 were ranked. 16 candidates became FAs and 6 became GAs. (FA and GA nominations are done after the competition so that jury members can participate.) Any article can be nominated. The jury evaluates how an article changed since its nomination, not its current state. There is a special review process in which authors participating in the competition can get advice from the community. (The authors als form a jury and give a prize to the best reviewer.) While any article can be nominated, there is a coarse classification into one of 4 topic areas, with separate specialist juries for each. There is also an audience prize.

There is a number of donated prizes. Rather than putting them into a fixed order, each winner can choose one of them according to rank. Hans Adler 14:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Military History is a good English WikiProject that does well at article competitions you may want to ask them as well. --Kumioko (talk) 16:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I was going to say that, there is much to be learned about MOS, Article Creation, NPOV, and a number of other issues in the WikiProject Military History. They seem to have gotten their stuff together better than any other project in English Wikipedia - creating social incentives for quality editing rather than by small p politics.--Cerejota (talk) 18:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Granted Military project is by far the best on wikipedia and a shining example of collaboration and mutual support at times. I think the sooner we start such competitions to better wikipedia will become. If I'm proved wrong, then at least we would have tested it. I would ask for two compeitions to start with. One Article of the Month, and two, Core Contest of the Month. The first would be the best improved article in a month, the second the best improved "Core Article", articles where there is general agreement that they are our most important articles. We would need to draw up a bank of our Core articles by subject, those most needing expansion or even starting etc and then launch a monthly competition. I think this would definitely improve the quality of articles and number of editors producing it and would also place a priority on certain articles we greatly need improved and ar every important and gives a mechanism to get people to edit them. How does this sound Jimbo?♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Similar ideas to WP:The Core Contest and Core collab. of the Fortnight. the problem with core articles is, generally, after all these years they're in good/above average shape Jebus989^✰ 13:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

You'd be surprised. Check out most articles on African regions/provinces which are core articles for their relative countries. Most of them are barely beyond a few lines. And check out the quality of some of the major Indian city articles. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 13:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I was refering to the "core articles" as defined by the ET however long ago Jebus989^✰ 13:31, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Stephanie Adams Page

What happened to the Stephanie Adams page and why is there so much animosity by these volunteer editors towards her biography? 12.184.15.242 (talk) 23:14, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

It's not animosity, it has to do with our rules on notability of living people. The article was deleted and redirected to a general list per the result of this deletion discussion. You'll need to look at the article history to see the result, but the closing summary was "The result was redirect to List of Playboy Playmates of 1992#November. This is looking very snowy. With a such a clear consensus and the concerns about the former content by the subject I'm deleting the history as well as there is clearly no need to keep it around and benefit from removing it." Note that 17 people commented that the article should be deleted or redirected; the only comments requesting it be kept came from sockpuppets of blocked users. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:30, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

It does appear to be animosity, actually. Stephanie Adams now redirects to List of Playboy Playmates of 1992 (as a result of the deletion discussion). Adams' entry in that list is the only one that consists of a single sentence. Attempts by an IP to add more were reverted as unsourced (by, among others, an editor who has been identified as having an off-wiki dispute with Adams, and is arguing on the talk page against including even sourced information). I thought that I might help settle this dispute by using the sources in the original article to add some uncontroversial information, but I discover that the article's history has been deleted prior to redirecting it. It appears that Adams is being punished for her conflict of interest editing. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:06, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I think the deletion was valid, and although you are correct that the edit you cite is outrageous, it was promptly rejected by others in the discussion. Overall, it seems that the rationales that people gave for deletion were perfectly fine and well within policy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:42, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't questioning the AfD result, but the disposition was to redirect, not to delete. Deleting the history was unnecessary. A redirect would have been sufficient. Deletion has just made it more difficult for me to easily determine what other information should be added to that list so perhaps this dispute can be put to rest. I'm not suggesting anything be undone at this point, but I do think that this is a case of certain editors reacting emotionally rather than just following standard practice. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:52, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I see your point now. I doubt if it was emotion, per se. This has been an ongoing BLP problem for literally years.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

@DC: The OTRS tickets I mentioned in the AfD (see history) contain ample justification for deletion of the history, but what's contained in them is confidential. There might be a point in the future when having an article on this lady is not a tremendously bad idea, but it's not right now, and if or when that time comes, it would probably be better to start from scratch. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:32, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The punishment opinion you highlignt is dead wrong IMO. There is no justification or guideline that allows for retribution. The issue is that information was being added to this redirect without an RS backing it up. Fasttimes68 (talk) 13:36, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

See Wikipedia_talk:BLP#Editors_running_attack_pages_off-site, Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Stephanie_Adams_(2nd_nomination). My understanding is that Adams was in a feud with several bloggers (to the extent of filing lawsuits against them), and that some of them edited her Wikipedia biography. The situation continued unresolved for five years. --JN466 13:31, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The best resolution to this matter, for now, is to set it at rest and move on. It can be easily revisted in the future (i.e. a couple of years) without detriment. But for now it was causing a lot of heat in various quarters where the sensible way to end the issue was to remove the fuel (i.e. the article). --Errant ^(chat!) 20:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I am more concerned about the underlying systemic issue, Errant. It took the project five years to get a proper grip on the problem. That's a long time. --JN466 00:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Truth is alive and well in WP, maybe

With all the debate about the not-truth mantra, there might be a backlash in Wikipedia to suppress articles about truth, because the importance of truth, as a general concept has been stongly questioned, and in some cases, derided. So, I have noticed there are several WP articles about the typical mainstream notions with the word "truth" and not all topics about truth are missing from Wikipedia. However, it is curious that some articles are missing:

• Truth - the general concept or ideal
• objective truth - the idea that, regardless of beliefs, some things are true for everyone
• subjective truth - the idea that some things are only true to some people
• logical truth
• universal truth - not the same as "universals"
• absolute truth
• relative truth - here "relativism"?
• truth (religious)
• half-truth
• truth table
• truth serum, truth drug
• truth test

I suppose some of those article titles could be considered Wiktionary entries, but when other enclyopedias cover such topics, then it just seems curious. -Wikid77 15:49, 29 August 2011, revised 10:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, let's get rid of them in the name of WP:TRUTH, WP:JUSTICE and the WP:AMERICANWAY. Seriously though, I think the problem is that from the early days of Wikipedia we have had POV pushers claiming to bear the "truth". (the best example is "911 cranks" being referred to as "truthers", a more recent example is in the recent history of this article) This has led to us needing to hammer home the point that verifiability is what's important and truth has become a dirty word to the detriment of those who use it to mean "accuracy". --Ron Ritzman (talk) 13:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Of div boxes and tables

Hi Jimbo, table coding on Wikipedia is a PITA. If you really want to make things easier for editors (newbies or otherwise) it would make more sense to focus on things that could make editing article space - you know, the heart of the project - easier to edit rather than worrying so much about user space. LadyofShalott 14:30, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm not worrying so much about user space! And I totally agree with you about tables. Our table editing situation is disastrous. But I don't work in the programming world these days, so I can mainly be useful by advocating for us choosing simpler coding in article space and table space... but tables are extremely useful and not something it makes sense to campaign against per se.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm absolutely not saying get rid of them - they are definitely needed in certain places. I'm saying they need to be easier to make and modify. LadyofShalott 14:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think she's against tables on Wikipedia, just against how, um, "fun" they are to code and place into an article. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 14:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I understood. I'm just saying that I can't personally do anything about making tables easier to use, which is why I'm not campaigning about them at the moment. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:56, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually I think you can do something -- as a former programmer I know that developers are usually very sensitive to guidance from above about priorities, much more than to guidance from users, which tends to be contradictory and often misguided. But getting the developers to do something to make references easier should be a much higher priority than facilitating table-editing. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 15:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Second that. I was pushing the idea about six months ago, that there should be some kind of very obvious invitation to edit on every article, and when you click on the invitation, you're taken to a simple brief tutorial covering the policy essentials and practicalities of editing. I got disheartened. I couldn't make it short and simple, explaining how to do citations took up half the tutorial. It's a real disincentive to editing. And I agree the tables need to be made easier. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 16:45, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

While a discussion about tables is what led to my posting today, I agree it is far from the only thing in article space that needs improving, and I do think you could do something about it if you really wanted to do so, Jimbo. You have the ability to make things higher or lower priority for those working on them. LadyofShalott 20:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

LadyofShalott, why don't you provide an example of what you think the process should resemble? Keep in mind this has to handle both creating a new table and adding a column to a fully filled-out existing table. Would it resemble creating a table in MS Word? Something else you've used? (Disclaimer: imo the easiest thing is to find a table I like, then copy the code and change the field values. I don't want to look up color codes or how to make a column sortable or anything else. I just want an example I can cut and paste aka kindergarten skillset.) 75.59.226.225 (talk) 20:15, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Something more like what is in Word would certainly be an improvement. I don't know that it's necessarily the way to go. I'm not a programmer though. LadyofShalott 20:32, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The problem there is that it is is really the only way to go. It is also an incredibly difficult option to get working well. Although perhaps just focusing on tables could work... WYSIWYG tends to be very very hard to implement on the web - and a bad implementation will just confuse people further. --Errant ^(chat!) 21:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

LadyofShalott, this isn't about how to program anything, but writing specifications. If you want it to be easier, then you must have some idea of what and how you would like to enter the information. Programmers can then translate that into code, but they can't read your mind. Do you want an interactive Wizard experience, in which you're asked questions and given choices? I've found those easy to use to create a table, but not to modify an existing one. Or do you just not like the current symbols and codes (which have to be 'odd' or they might be confused with actual field values)? Would it help to have a sidelist of the codes to remind you what each is, and what it's for? I'm not trying to pick on you, just pointing out that this is the usual circular discussion that happens when a non-geek asks a geek to improve something. What's easy, straightforward and an obvious improvement to a geek isn't necessarily what you want. Memorizing huge number of esoteric codes and formatting isn't what most non-geeks look forward to, while many geeks think all that's needed is more education on your part and you'll enjoy this sort of thing (see list of UNIX codes and/or baseball statistics) as much as they do. I've never found that to be the case when working with non-geek users, who yearn for a user-intuitive (hence the name) experience, with no memorization involved, particularly for something they rarely use. If they absolutely have to learn something, they only want to learn it once (such as MS Word) and then do exactly the same thing in every other application they have to use (hence the popularity of MS Office). And so it goes. Fortunately, that isn't the absolutely only option. Being a collaborative project, with geeks who enjoy doing geeky things, you always have the option of setting up the most basic table possible and asking a geek for help. For example, there could be a template Template:Help table which would signal legions of geeks eager to help a Lady (or a gentleman, but you are a Lady by your name) in distress. Let them create the terrific-looking table which uses all the appropriate gadgets and colors. It's what they do best. Think of it as outsourcing your non-core competencies. Or being an enabler for their addiction. In a good way, of course. ;-) 75.59.226.225 (talk) 21:33, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Yet another possibility: Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, allow tables created in MS Word to be inserted into Wikipedia via a conversion program. Have geeks, will convert. 75.59.226.225 (talk) 22:04, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

To respond to several remarks here. No, actually, I don't really have the power to put things directly onto the tech agenda, and it would be foolhardy for me to try. The last thing the staff needs is for me to start acting like a quasi-manager, interfering with their work directly. At the board level, and as an influential person, yes I can continue to push for tech investment and also as a community member, I can help let the tech staff know what we consider priorities. But I'm not the direct decision-maker (nor do I want to be) about specific tech priorities. :)

So, yes yes yes yes to the suggestions here. But I'm not the best forum for making them.

What I'm most interested in doing is helping to drive forward an agenda of simplification of processes and procedures that are directly under our control here. That's where we can have high impact, and quickly.

Can someone find and post a link to my Wikimania speech? I think it'll clarify what I mean.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I have been trying to find such since you made the speech, with no luck. The official YouTube channel has a lot of music and promotion, but not the speeches (not just yours) I was expecting to find on the official channel. I would have expected someone to video it unofficially, and perhaps they did but Wikimedia made them take it down for copyright violations? They seem to be quite gung-ho in that area lately. 17:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Standard tables are as easy as copy-paste. Tables with merged cells can take a few minutes. Formatting different rows, columns or cells differently is a nightmare. Zuggernaut (talk) 07:02, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Ohio politicians

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I wanted to voice my frustrations on pages surrounding Ohio state politics. As of late, it seems as if every page is blocked or protected from editing, and that many pages are being reverted by administrators due to issues surrounding a specific editor. Notably, the Ohio House of Representatives, Ohio General Assembly, Tom Niehaus and William G. Batchelder have each been reverted to a very dated page and no longer exemplify a good article. Furthermore, over ten pages were recently deleted all together, damaging the ability for others to gather information, in my opinion. I tried to help and fix these pages in a way which would spur new edits, but was quickly blocked today after creating a username, and was unable to write on my talk page. Is there anything that can be done about this? I was forced to create a second account to let this be known. Thank you. AshleyFreeman1 (talk) 18:27, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

And you need 60 accounts, many of which you have used to wantonly violate copyright and flount policy, community consensus and blocks, to tell us this? This account has now also been blocked. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:39, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Still banning paid editors?

Hi Jimmy,

Are you still banning editors who are paid to write Wikipedia articles? I'm unclear because I've seen a quote attributed to you announcing that everyone can consider it policy that paid editors will be banned, but I know there have been two failed proposals to that effect, and this "policy" doesn't seem to appear anywhere on the site. Can you please reiterate your stance, actual policy, and if/how they differ please? Thank you. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 05:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I think this is entirely uncontroversial. My stance is unchanged, and I'm unaware of any serious disagreement on this issue. The difficulties are around the margins. It's important not to use the overly broad and vague phrase "paid editing" and instead focus more precisely on what is actually problematic: paid advocacy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:22, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad its uncontroversial. While I appreciate that your stance is unchanged, I'm trying to ascertain what the rules are (does your stance = policy?). There have been two attempts to formulate policy that prohibits editors from being paid (outside the reward board, that is), with no consensus being the result both times. However, as I understand it, you have stated that you'll ban editors that you become aware are writing or editing for compensation by outside paid interests. The reason I'm asking the questions is because I've been offered a job by a PR firm. We've discussed the possibility of writing articles for clients. However, I am a respected member of the Wikipedia community, and I have demonstrably followed the rules and guidelines (inasmuch as I am aware of them...sometimes I run into a new one, then have to adjust, but that hasn't happened in a while). I told the firm that writing articles for clients would be construed by many in the community as a conflict of interest. I told them that according to the guidelines, editors are "strongly encouraged" not to engage in COI editing. I told them that if I did write articles, that they would have to meet community standards, would not be able to be promotional, etc. And that I would refuse to write articles about subjects that were not qualified for inclusion. If a client that meets standards for inclusion wants to pay to have an article written, allows the editor full editorial control over the content, and the editor follows community standards, is there a policy against that editor doing the work? It doesn't seem to me to be that different from offering a reward on the reward board. I'm making a good faith attempt to figure out what the rules are here. Please teach me. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 09:47, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I think you should tell them that it is impossible. PR firms should never edit Wikipedia on behalf of clients, other than posting to the talk pages. I think that's obvious. That's precisely the kind of thing that is uncontroversially banned. Asking questions about "what if I did a really good job of it" really misses the point, I'm afraid. It is wrong and a serious violation of the trust of the community to do something like that. It could seriously embarrass Wikipedia and undermine the public view of Wikipedia. Please don't do that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:03, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to add that I'm writing you from a developing country, where there are still many, many places, organizations, and people that meet the standards for inclusion but have not yet had articles written about them, especially in the English language. Thank you for your time and consideration. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 10:08, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Its not paid editing as such which is the issue. Rather it is the reason behind it and the potential consequences of paid editing which can often be problematic. Although highly unlikely, the Brazilian government for instance could pay me to write a neutral featured article on their economy or tourism for instance which adheres to all guidelines and is perfectly acceptable and of quality benefit to wikipedia. On the other hand a French businessman or something could pay me to write a biography about him or his company and ask for it to be full of promotional material and cherry picking material or could pay me to write a untrue/derogatory article about his rival for instance. The articles which potentially are full of POV, untruths, promotional content are where paid editing is unacceptable. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

But if the Brazilian government paid you to write a neutral featured article on their economy that adheres to all guidelines (as unlikely as it is) would that be okay? That's what I'm trying to ascertain. Because if I go to work for this PR firm, and the hypothetical French businessman was a client of the firm and wanted a biography full of hype, I'd explain to him that if I wrote him such an article, that it would quickly be deleted, and then he would have wasted his money as well as the time of the editors that reviewed it at AfD, and for that reason, I can't write an article that I know does not meet community standards. Any paid editing that I might do would have to benefit the encyclopedia, and I have already made that clear to the firm: if it doesn't benefit the encyclopedia, then I can't take the assignment. I've written featured articles. I've even had a featured article on the main page, one I wrote from scratch, so I'm well aware of (and committed to) community standards for inclusion. ɳorɑfʈ ^Talk! 13:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

While Jimbo's stance against paid editing has long been consistent, I don't think it actually matches community consensus. As far as I know, WP:COI is the closest thing that we have to a related policy, and it doesn't even forbid editing with a conflict of interest--merely recommends against it. Of course, you may want to check what I say versus other editors, because I think there is no problem with paid editing, so long as the editing is done in full compliance with our other rules (especially WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:BLP). Since we don't forbid employees at Company X from writing about Company X, why would we forbid someone who works independently of Company X but is paid by them? As someone else said, we all get "paid" for editing, it's just that most of us get paid some sort of "warm fuzzy feeling" or the feeling that we're important or that we're contributing to a noble cause or whatever. Of course, any paid (or unpaid) editor who consistently creates bad articles should be blocked, and then it will be up to them to explain to their "employers" why they couldn't accomplish the job they were paid to do. Qwyrxian (talk) 13:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

If the French businessman paid you to write his biography and it was perfectly neutral using multiple reliable sources, with no agenda or request for puffery then there is no official rule against it providing it meets WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:BLP. And if he paid you to write a featured article, the article like any other would undergo vigorous scrutiny so any "issues" would be detected, so in the end wikipedia would have a featured article better off regardless of how it got there. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

The community's approach to this is consistently "if there is no problem caused, there is no problem". There are plenty of PR firms that successfully edit Wikipedia, in line with policy, and we have some good content because of it (wow, PR firms that understand the internet? Scary stuff! :)). If someone wants to pay you to write about an undernourished topic then excellent, so long as it does not cause a problem, and the issues of COI are kept in minf. Of course; the major problem for any "paid editor" is that in situations where content does get disputed, or an article ends up with content that the client dislikes, the editor either has to cause a problem (i.e. disrupt Wikipedia) or face down an angry client. Which is why it is most strongly discouraged, I think, because it is in those situations that problems start to occur. As a paid editor it can also be very hard to write objectively (no matter how hard you try!) or see issues with the content. --Errant ^(chat!) 15:16, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

This catches my interest because I have a long term goal that may relate. In Mexico, in order to get one's university degree, it is necessary to complete a social service requirement of a considerable number of hours with a non-profit organization. While compensation is not required, many do offer small stipends. Im still investigating the marvelous bureaucracy behind this, but if it is possible to set up some kind of Wikimedia related program with government and/or NGO funding and if there is no COI objection, we could get graduating students in a number of fields, especially in the humanities and languages to work with WP for sustained periods. After starting Club Wikipedia on campus only a few weeks ago, there is great interest among students to do projects for class related to WP and I find myself partially mentoring these students (on how to work with WP). I am quite amazed by the possibilities if there is indeed no (insurmountable) COI problems.

Also, how does this relate to the general practice among GLAM projects for those Wikipedians not employed by the institution barred from editing the institution's WP page? After all, as Dr. Blofeld says, if it meets all of the requirements of a WP article, why does it matter who wrote it?Thelmadatter (talk) 14:31, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Thelmadatter indirectly raises a good point: our Ambassador program (which, if I remember, is a Foundation supported program) is specifically recruiting "paid" editors, in that students are "paid" with course credit. Yes, we work with professors to try to teach students how to edit Wikipedia, but some student articles/additions have had the same types of POV, OR, etc. problems that we find in other articles. Qwyrxian (talk) 14:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

If those editors edit as paid advocates (whether paid by money or course credit), then that's wrong, and banned. If they edit articles about which they have no conflict of interest, then of course that's fine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

So what about the Wikipedia in Residence schemes - where an employee is assigned with the aim of improving content related to X establishment. These have been pretty successful, but fall exactly in the sort of class of editors you appear to be against. --Errant ^(chat!) 15:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

This is now related to my above suggestion of introduction an Article of the Month system in which there is an incentive or prize, if not monetary something of esteem, such as being "paid" with a course credit or something which is academically honorable. That sort of thing would work. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:38, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful to introduce a policy on paid editing. As someone mentioned, COI doesn't seem to address the subject. There should be clear rules on what constitutes paid editing, and what is the penalty.

Personally I think COI rules need to be strengthened. In one instance some months ago, a New York politician placed disparaging text in an article on the pol who defeated him for the New York Assembly. He eventually was indefinitely blocked, not for that but for socking. ScottyBerg (talk) 15:19, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I can see articles with possible COI needing extra scrutiny, including those written by paid editors. If possible COI is declared voluntarily, we can tag it for review by third parties rather than banning it outright. This would allow members of GLAM projects to work on articles related to their partner institutions without problems.Thelmadatter (talk) 15:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure how anyone hopes to identify paid editors. I spend much of my time reverting paid and unpaid spamming. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.97.55.83 (talk) 15:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed what Jimmy said above about acceptance of course credit and I think that needs to be clarified. Wikipedia is currently aggressively pursing cooperatives with several colleges and paid institutions like the Smithsonian Museum and others that seem to violate this policy. There are quite a few University courses that require students to write or improve a Wikipedia article as part of the course and until now seemed to be ok with Wikipedia. If its now not ok then that is a serious deviation from what has been publicly advocated through the Wikipedian in Residence programs and other venues. --Kumioko (talk) 15:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

What constitutes paid advocacy?

I think if it is a bannable offense the community deserves a clear and specific definition. 206.53.148.240 (talk) 16:07, 30 August 2011 (UTC)