User talk:Jimbo Wales

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WMF's new lobbying firm, Thompson Coburn

I see that the Wikimedia Foundation's old lobbying firm Dow Lohnes has merged with the Wikimedia Foundation's ace law firm and cease-and-desist shoppe, Cooley LLP. I also see that the WMF is following Burger and Salomon over to the lobbying firm of Thompson Coburn, to "monitor copyright legislation". Woo wee, that sounds like good work, if you can get it! Anyway, I went to check out what Wikipedia had to say about this newest recipient of WMF donors' money, and lo and behold (!) the article says that it "appears to be written like an advertisement" and that "a major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject". Jimbo, why does the WMF have such a difficult time finding competent professional vendors who obey the Bright Line Rule? Here are the users to which you might write a sternly-worded note: User:TEdit597, User:38.114.66.232 (really close to the Belleville, IL office), User:63.77.47.130 (that's a Thompson Coburn-assigned IP address), and the granddaddy of them all, User:ThompsonCoburnmktg. That last user is already blocked, but they haven't received that hand-wringing scolding from the Founder of Wikipedia that we all yearn for. Let 'em have it, Jimbo! Please let us know when you contact the folks at Thompson Coburn to inform them of your Bright Line Rule and how simple and ethical it is for them to follow. - Checking the checkers (talk) 20:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, a few interesting diffs in there. Is this firm the replacement for Michael Godwin, or is that something else? Wnt (talk) 21:05, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

(For further reading perhaps [1][2] is of interest. Anyone up to do a BLP of Michael Lazaroff?) Wnt (talk) 21:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo, will you please post a copy here of the cease and desist letter that the WMF sends to Thompson Coburn? Cla68 (talk) 23:11, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

• Oh, come on now, trolling checker-mater, you know it's only the productive editors who are hired by WMF who get the sack for COI editing, not the "information professionals." It's only the little people that get squished by multimillion dollar corporations... Carrite (talk) 02:54, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

• I count at least two self-declared paid editors engaged in this parody of a conversation. Neither has made, as best as I can determine, any disclosure that is visible to any reader of their pages as to what articles they have edited for pay and how much they have gotten. Be that as it may, I applaud their little hypocritical exercise, and I hope that it continues until or unless the WMF decides to ban paid editing. Coretheapple (talk) 17:40, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

That's weird -- I never knew that User:Wnt was a self-declared paid editor! - Checking the checkers (talk) 21:42, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not. He means User:Carrite and User:Cla68. (Carrite says he has offered on oDesk to write three judiciously chosen articles for benefit something having to do with animals, I think it was, which marginally qualifies; Cla68 has some less specific notice visible on his user page) Wnt (talk) 21:52, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Wnt. I thought you were "pure", so I'm glad to see that there is no tarnish on your edit history! I'd like to respond to what seemed to be the main point of Coretheapple's, though. He seems to say that because Thompson Coburn didn't disclose their COI editing, anyone who criticizes that should disclose any and all of their own COI editing. Here's the difference, though. The Wikimedia Foundation is using tax-exempt donation dollars to fund the business of Thompson Coburn, which has been doing COI editing on the project that funds them. As far as we know, Carrite and Cla68 haven't been paid with WMF-donor dollars to spruce up articles about vendors to the WMF. So, the conversation here really isn't a "parody". The core hypocrisy of the WMF purchasing the services of a firm that itself violates the sole founder of Wikipedia's clear and simple ethical rule against self-interested editing stands on its own, regardless of who wishes to comment further on that hypocrisy. - Checking the checkers (talk) 22:03, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I have to tell you that the idea that WMF paid someone in "donor dollars" as you put it doesn't exactly push my "horror" button, as a threshold issue, unless the WMF has violated its tax exempt purpose. Do you think it has? I don't see it. If it has, you should feel free to notify the IRS and it will yank the WMF's 501C3 exemption in a New York minute. But I don't see that happening. Now, having paid somebody in "donor dollars," you now have found that this firm has done some nasty self-editing. Well, as you know, I think that's pretty bad. But honestly, getting back to my point, here we have two self-declared COi editors, meaning you and Cla68, taking up this issue. I have to say, having no allegiance to the WMF whatever (and finding its attitude on this subject rather chickens--t) that I have no problem with you two gents raising the issue here. More power to you. But is it hypocritical? Yes. I mean, you do agree that it is, don't you? As for hypocrisy on the part of the WMF, I don't really see it. Now if they hired you or some other paid editor, then yes I think it would be a hypocritical act on their part. I tend to doubt that they have their vendors under such scrutiny that they hare aware of this kind of thing, though I guess it's always possible. Again, I don't feel so cozy with them that I feel the need to defend them. I am happy to see them excoriated, as a matter of fact. I think it keeps alive the issue of paid editing, so thank you for that. Coretheapple (talk) 23:17, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Was he really talking about me? Jesh, I didn't take it that way. As I say on my page, quite clearly and in English, "I've never accepted money for editing at Wikipedia, but I do have an ad up now on oDesk and I will eventually do a total of three (3) "paid" jobs..." I'll let you know when that changes. I don't think my friend Core was actually talking about me though. Were you? Carrite (talk) 22:50, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

No, I was actually talking about Cla68, who has a big fat notice on his user page (and nothing else that I can see by way of notice) and our old friend Mr. 2001 a/k/a checking the checkers, who had a heart-to-heart with me on the subject a day or so ago. Checking the checkers knows this; he's a mischievous "old soul" as it were. But I like him. Coretheapple (talk) 23:10, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

I've also come to like Mr. 2001 after a protracted adversarial relationship. It's really pretty unfortunate that he was banned in the first place. I suppose he provides the classic object lesson that banning things doesn't make them go away, it just makes them harder to identify. Carrite (talk) 03:06, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

And more tenacious, one might argue! - Checking the checkers (talk) 03:58, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

• Frankly, having worked on the benches of Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Business a fair bit, I can posit that something like 80 to 90% of the small company wiki pages are probably written by someone with an obvious COI or by a SPA who can be assumed to have one. So by random chance alone, any small firm's page, whether they do business with the WMF or not, is probably going to have that kind of problem. Someone not using his real name (talk) 18:13, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Jimmie, our community hopes for your response on this matter. - 50.146.187.80 (talk) 14:21, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with 50.146.187.80. Jimmy should respond to these questions. Right now, it appears that he is actively hiding from them. - 144.26.117.20 (talk) 17:41, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I doubt that the community gives a hoot about this totally specious issue. Coretheapple (talk) 22:36, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

The problem here, Coretheapple, is that Jimmy Wales and WMF say that they don't support paid editing, but then they keep declining to back up that stance when one of their business associates gets caught doing it. Cla68 (talk) 01:24, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Uh yeah. I get that. Duh. It is as subtle as a forest fire. But it begs the question of why there isn't wider interest. I think that there are two reasons. One is that posts like the one at the top of this section, and the ones previously offered by Mr. 2001 before he was blocked, tend to be routine examples of COI editing, nothing really shocking like BP effectively dictating the content of its article for months at a time. The other is what I pointed out earlier about paid editors monotonously raising these issues, so it just really stinks of hypocrisy and cynicism, and people are put off by that. Just my opinion, but that's the sense that I get.

Just one thing I wanted to point out: you call this "paid editing," but it isn't. It is COI editing, and a very banal example, not a really flamboyant example of the kind that...well, you yourself engage in. There is a "paid editor notice" on your talk page, but you don't disclose either the articles that you are paid to edit or how much you are paid, either per article or in the aggregate. I can't find any such disclosure anywhere on your user page (please correct me if I am wrong), so your "paid editor notice" really functions as an advertisement of your services, replete with a link to your email. I wouldn't call it a "disclosure" if I were you because you really don't disclose anything to other Wikipedia editors other than that you engage in paid editing in certain unspecified, unknown articles. And of course, you don't disclose anything to readers of the articles that you are paid to edit. Now I'm not saying you're doing anything against Wikipedia rules, but it's really ironic that you describe this as an "ethical disclosure" because a) it doesn't "disclose" much of anything, as I said, and b) it is about as far removed from anything ethical as one can imagine. It's really almost comical that you call it that, that you feel that your "disclosure" is "ethical," and then come here and make a fuss about someone else's COI editing. Coretheapple (talk) 13:21, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Attacking the messenger, Coretheapple? Believe me, after seven years of participation in this mess, I'm used to it. A big problem with the WMF acting so hypocritically is that their leadership example, or lack thereof, filters down to WP's administration. How is WP's administration ever going to get its act together when their leaders are sending such mixed messages? Cla68 (talk) 22:51, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

What do administrators have to do with this? Which administrator forced you to put a "disclosure" on your page that doesn't disclose but actually advertises your paid editing services? Which administrator or WMF functionary compelled you to solicit articles for pay, and then had you get on a high horse and lecture other people about "hypocrisy"? Do you have any idea how strange it sounds for a paid editor who doesn't properly disclose to behave this way? What I'm suggesting, just to be crystal clear, is that your own behavior is far more revolting than anything you and Checking the Checkers are highlighting. Coretheapple (talk) 05:03, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

By the way, I don't want to be unfair to you. If you've posted a list of the articles you've been paid to edit or to otherwise manage on Wikipedia (such as by offering rewards on their behalf on the Reward Board), by all means provide a link to it, and then it's just a question of your not disclosing in a clear fashion rather than, as seems to be the case, your not disclosing a damn thing. Coretheapple (talk) 05:10, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

You are using and ad hominem argument. The topic here is the apparent inconsistent or hypocritical behavior by the WMF and WP's administration regarding COI and paid editing issues in WP. An ad hominem argument is a logical fallacy. I have noticed that Wikipedians often resort to logical fallacies in debates on issues that cast Wikipedia's administration or the WMF in a pejorative light. So, you're in good company. Cla68 (talk) 05:14, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you serious? Really, are you joking? Do you think I give a good goddamn about the "Wikipedia administration" or the WMF? The only reason I monitor this page is because this is where paid editing is discussed. Now, Cla68, who keeps raising the issue of paid editing? See if you can guess. Is it people like me (people who don't engage in paid editing)? Uh... no, it isn't. It's people like you who, I'd say, raise the issue at least three-quarters of the time. In fact, the majority of the time it is one particular editor, the gent who started this particular discussion, and who freely admitted to me in a separate conversation that he is a paid editor. Don't you think that's interesting? I mean, that the primary group of people who keep coming here and initiating discussions on the issue, complaining about picayune examples of COI editing that they exaggerate out of all proportions, are themselves paid editors? Now, if people like yourself, paid editors, were raising egregious examples of paid editing I would view it as a valuable public service. But you're not. Instead you're talking about minor examples, not of paid editing, the crappy stuff that you guys do, but examples instead of ordinary COI editing. It's editing that's bad, and which I don't like, but what you guys do (and don't do, like failure to disclose) is much worse! I mean, really, are you guys trying to be comical? Do you understand the irony of what you're doing? Or do you think that people are just so dumb that they don't notice that, for instance, you're lecturing about "hypocrisy" while you've got a big fat "paid editor" notice on your user page that doesn't disclose whose articles you're paid to edit. Oh, and to make it even more comical, when challenged you become indignant! I swear, this is definitely about as weird and creepy an experience as I've encountered on Wikipedia. Coretheapple (talk) 05:33, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

I suspect that Coretheapple is Lisa Jo Sagolla's husband, exploiting Wikipedia to enhance a biography of Joan McCracken, to ridiculously feature heavy, heavy, heavy reference bias to one book, authored by Sagolla. Since Coretheapple doesn't disclose who he is, nor is there any way to tell if he's being honest about not being a paid editor, I think we just have to look at his edits and assume the obvious from them. Only someone with a conflict of interest in favor of Sagolla would cruft up one Wikipedia article with over 130 edits and over two dozen references to a single book source about one person. Coretheapple has traded "Neutral Point of View" for "Sagolla's Point of View", thereby proving that COI editors are actually quite a bit worse than mere paid editors. Wikipedia's biography about Joan McCracken is now just a book report of Sagolla's The Girl Who Fell Down, thanks to Coretheapple. - 2601:B:BB80:E0:25DB:D830:ABC5:BD7C (talk) 06:25, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, you've nailed me to the wall with that one. I am the illegitimate son of Joan McCracken and LeRoy Prinz. By the way, you used to be Mr. 2001 and now you're Mr. 2601. Does that represent a gain of 600? Coretheapple (talk) 06:52, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Has Jimmy contacted Thompson Coburn about Wikipedia's guidelines against conflict of interest editing? - 70.192.137.96 (talk) 13:38, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

This reminds me that a few months ago, before I realized that agitating on this topic was futile, I compiled a list on my user page of all the bad effects of paid editing. One negative factor, which I left out, is illustrated by the above exchange and other "Mr. 2001" posts in the past: conflict between paid editors and other paid editors, as they seek to gain advantage over each other and to undermine their competitors. Coretheapple (talk) 21:45, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Do you think Jimmy abandoning his Talk page for 6 days has anything to do with his disgust at Thompson Coburn breaking the Bright Line Rule? - 2601:B:BB80:E0:ACA0:1006:7A54:DADB (talk) 11:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't sound likely but I guess anything's possible in this crazy world. You seem really upset about this. Why don't you call upon him to resign? The petition below is insufficiently ambitious, if you ask me. Coretheapple (talk) 17:03, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

small petition to Jimbo

Jimbo, could you kindly go to the guys at Thompson Coburn, and tell them that, as lawyers of the WMF, they have a reputation to keep in wikipedia? Explain to them that they shouldn't edit their own article. Explain to them that they shouldn't edit articles about their clients. Explain to them what would happen if they were caught doing such things. Please. kthanksbye. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:27, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Reliability of Wikipedia

Hi Jimbo. May I ask you a couple of questions about Wikipedia's reliability as a source? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 10:42, 14 February 2014 (UTC) Clarified 04:28, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

• You might also consider Reliability of Wikipedia ;) WilyD 14:00, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• Database revisions unstable: The recent unreliability of revision storage at wp:ANI (or the Science Reference desk) has been documented and discussed at wp:PUMPTECH as Template:Bugzilla:
                      • wp:VPT#Discussions disappearing and reappearing
  In general, if a page seems to be unreliable when displayed, then wp:purge that page, such as appending "?action=purge". An edit-filer has been installed at wp:ANI to help warn when the edited-page is not current. Also, for any major update to a page, consider storing a local copy of the wikitext into a local computer data file, just in case. Otherwise, we could rename it: "Iffypedia" as will it or won't it work... -Wikid77 16:11, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

• Speed of math-tag cache fixed 15 Feb 2014: By 00:02 15 February 2014, a fix was deployed (https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/113481) by User:Aaron_Schulz as an update so math-tags run over 2x times faster, than during 8–14 Feb 2014. I have confirmed the math-tag caching speed as double (2.4x), similar now to Simple WP, so new equations edit-preview 2.4x faster than before (124 math-tags in 38 seconds, formerly 92 sec.) and then will re-display from cache within 3 seconds. -Wikid77 12:59, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Ah. I see [3] you haven't been active here for a few days. No worries. I'm happy to wait until you have time. Meanwhile, I'll post the first question. Do let me know if you'd rather not discuss the issue. (I'm looking for answers from you, our figurehead and international spokesperson, not community input - though of course I'd welcome others' thoughts. But if you'd rather not discuss the question, I'll take the topic to the village pump.)

If anything is, this collection of articles is, for the present, the world's encyclopedia. Even our best work, though, is unreliable.

While Google "knowledge panels" (infoboxes) take many of their summaries from Wikipedia, on an important topic like medicine they take from the US National Library of Medicine when they have the option;[4][5] and when they don't have that option, they tend to leave the "knowledge panel" off medical search results, rather than trust Wikipedia.[6][7] I'm sure you'd agree that is the prudent course.

Does the world deserve an encyclopedia it can trust for important information? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 03:41, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: I think Jimbo has generally advised people to focus on major topics, and avoid pages about trivia which is difficult to verify (which would eliminate huge numbers of minor pages), such as limit items to list entries rather than being 100 separate stub pages. Then verify the major articles/lists, update the text, and place the pages under Pending Changes control or such. However, the issues are unclear about POV-pushers who create usernames to authorize changes which can slant pages, except that it is harder to slant a page under change-control. We know, by counting the amount of unstopped hack-edits, how some improper wp:Recent_changes are often allowed, as being screened acceptable, even though some editors would have reverted those changes if other editors had not cleared them from the recent changes. It might require a 3-step approval process to deter errors, by having a 2nd reviewer who reviews the actions of a 1st reviewer; however, that could be done by sampling, as done during wp:GOCE copy-edit drives, where 1-in-10 pages is checked to ensure even long-term editors are fixing enough problems before untagging a listed page. -Wikid77 09:08, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

You've probably put your view on this a million times already, and I can understand you not wanting to go through it all over again. Perhaps you or a watcher could link me to where you address the fact that not a single page on Wikipedia is reliable and if you think that matters and something should be done about it? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Bluntly, the question is based on the faulty presumption that "reliability" is a binary, yes-or-no property. We have this same discussion on a smaller scale several times a month at WP:RSN and WP:FTN, and it goes like this:

• Q: Is Publication X a reliable source?
• A: That depends; we can't give you a blanket answer. Which material do you want to use, in which article, for what purpose?

Someone looking to determine the reliability of information from Wikipedia would, presumably, ask those same questions. The truth is that Wikipedia is sufficiently reliable for some purposes and uses, but not for others. If you're asking when Wikipedia will declare that every page within it is etched-in-stone perfection, the answer is 'never'; no reference work has ever made such a claim. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:02, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but it's worth asking "How can we improve the reliability?" without falling into the trap of believing in yes/no reliability. How reliable is Wikipedia? Nature say a smidge worse than Britannica, though the conventional wisdom (at least, in my field) is that half of all results in Nature are wrong. It's worth noting at least two projects have aimed for increased reliability Citizendium and Veropedia, with limited success. Which is probably worth understanding before we cut open the goose to get at the gold. WilyD 18:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I can't say I disagree with that sentiment at all, or that it isn't a question that we shouldn't ask—or, more accurately, continue to ask every time we edit an article. I think it's unfortunate that that isn't the question that was asked here. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:18, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Legal action at Greek Wikipedia

A reminder that editors can be sued: WP:VPM#We are all Diu (permalink). Johnuniq (talk) 00:39, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Beyond the obvious concern about an editor who is basically being harassed by a thin-skinned politician, I find it absolutely hilarious that Katsanevas has not only brought the Streisand Effect down upon himself, but proven the contentious addition to be right. Resolute 00:57, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

FYI: Wikimedia support. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:03, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

It's a reminder that if you are not an administrator, bureaucrat or other cherished person, but just an ordinary user, and you are sued for libel, you are on your own. The only exceptions to that rule are a series of exceptional circumstances set forth here. Coretheapple (talk) 03:58, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Where does that say that "cherished persons" are entitled to legal representation? To me, the takeaway is simply to take heed of BLP policy, and not libel anyone. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:56, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Are you familiar with the case in question? In this context, your comment may suggest that the Greek editor failed to take heed of BLP policy, and that they they libeled someone. That's a rather sweeping suggestion. Moreover, the implication that it is possible to predict whether the subject of an article might object to a particular edit is not correct. The legals are so confused they are also suing an organization that has nothing to do with Wikipedia (apparently they think it does).

The mention of "cherished persons" is a reference to the fact that the WMF will cover, under certain rather wide circumstances, admins and above, whereas they will not cover humdrum editors (unless certain rather restricted circcumstances apply). Johnuniq (talk) 09:06, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I am expressing no judgment about the specifics of the case in Greece. However, as I place confidence in the justice systems of civilized countries, I think that people who don't commit libel won't likely be convicted of libel. And, I think that adherence to our BLP policy helps greatly in reducing our individual legal vulnerability in such cases. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:01, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

There's a more detailed page about what WMF will cover at meta:Legal and Community Advocacy/Legal Fees Assistance Program. It does indeed set admins and above as "cherished persons". That's a good reason to apply for adminship, by the way. Or to oppose RfA of controversial editors on grounds that they may embroil the WMF in costly lawsuits if they have the admin bit. (Although "WMF’s sole discretion" still applies to any such legal aid.) Someone not using his real name (talk) 11:07, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Or quietly redact insults posted by an admin, to hide potentially libelous text which could anger people against WMF. -Wikid77 14:24, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Indeed that is a questionable inequality. Yet... the inequality we see here is so much greater. An editor posts something that a rich person doesn't like, and it's supposed to be worth 200,000 euros. Literally, dollars and sense, many people's lives are worth less than a rich person's smile, which I suppose is why throughout the world economy so many proles spend their whole lives working for no more than the brief smile of one of the upper caste. Someday, whether by a miracle of understanding or a miracle of adversity, this will be set right. Wnt (talk) 14:06, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Or perhaps set right in the "fires of Hell". Another valid warning, "You can't fight city hall" as it is often easier to pay them and then spend the extra time making money elsewhere. The Bible notes if a person is not forgiven, then they carry those sins to their grave, for final judgment. Recall, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than...." (Matthew 19:24). -Wikid77 14:24, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, it seems to me that sociogeny recapitulates cosmogeny. Or as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Wnt (talk) 20:09, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

It is definitely questionable. It elevates administrators, some little more than children, to exalted status in the event some idiot gets sore and decides to sue. In this Greek case I believe the person sued as an ordinary user, so, if my assumption is correct, the WMF is using good judgment in helping him. I understand why the WMF is making that distinction, but it is yet another reason to be wary about contributing to Wikipedia in contentious topics. Coretheapple (talk) 17:57, 15 February 2014 (UTC) I spoke too soon. The user in question is an administrator. Coretheapple (talk) 18:01, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

See, for Defense of Contributors policy. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:12, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Note that the defense of Admins and other "support people" is only relevant when they are acting in a "support role". I take it that this means that ordinary editing by an Admin, 'crat, or ArbCom member, or the like would get no more assistance if it lead to a lawsuit than would a similar edit by an ordinary editor. Only an action in pursuit of the special role would get special assistance in defense, if I read this right. DES ^(talk) 14:32, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, DES. :) meta:Legal and Community Advocacy/Legal Policies#Defense of Contributors and meta:Legal and Community Advocacy/Legal Fees Assistance Program are two separate things with separate functions. The former covers content contribution and may apply to any contributor; the latter covers support roles only. It doesn't matter what role a contributor has when it comes to legal action related to content - all content contribution is covered by the Defense of Contributors policy. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 14:24, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

At least in my state, home owner/renter insurance covers situations where one gets sued for volunteer work. Secondarily, editors should set up their own association with small annual dues and help each other. It's silly to complain about WMF when we have the power to take care of ourselves. Jehochman ^Talk 12:15, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

You'd need an "umbrella policy" in most instances. They can be expensive.[8] Coretheapple (talk) 15:18, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

As for your suggestion about "small dues," I suggest that you price libel/slander insurance and see how "small" it would cost. Coretheapple (talk) 18:02, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

This really should be a signal to all editors. This is what could happen to any of us just for making edits. This isn't the first time its happened either and it certainly won't be the last. 108.45.104.158 (talk) 20:59, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Has anyone tipped off news sites - Wired, Techdirt, etc. - about this lawsuit? This is, from what I can tell, nothing more than an ill-thought-out SLAPP, which on its merits should die if what I'm reading is accurate. —Jeremy v^_^v ^Bori! 21:12, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Since most named editors are anonymous (and IP addresses are not per se individuals) and since really stupid stuff happens even in civilized countries, all the more reason to not store (or store only briefly) information that can be used to tie user names to individuals. The only truly safe information is that which has never been collected or which has been 100% deleted. North8000 (talk) 18:55, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

There was a mention of no single user having rights to all the information in Arabic Wikipedia at [9] - I wonder if this measure has been fully rolled out. But the biggest problem here may be one of simple outing, which editors here have shown is not so hard to do. The easiest way (don't know if this happened in this case) is you as Black Hat send the editor a Wikipedia e-mail and, not being paranoid, they Reply to it. Wnt (talk) 22:09, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Yikes, that link from Wnt just above warrants attention. According to the brief article, a high-level admin (a checkuser) at the Arabic Wikipedia was detained by secret police in 2007. They attempted to force him to reveal the IP address of an editor who wrote something about an (unnamed) country's leader. Maybe having advanced rights is not as attractive as first appeared in this thread. Johnuniq (talk) 05:30, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

That article raises a number of serious issues. One is whether volunteer personnel at the projects are entrusted with too much sensitive, private, personal information that could have adverse consequences if disclosed to governments. Coretheapple (talk) 06:17, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Good points about the one layer of defense, which is protection of information. The next layer is to not gather, or to fully delete information. If it is stored, it will get out through breaches or legal action. North8000 (talk) 16:42, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. Personally identifiable information should be regularly and swiftly purged. The danger is not just governments but private litigants too. Coretheapple (talk) 17:22, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I think the best improvement we could make right away would be to come up with an alternative e-mail function that offers an encrypted drop box. The way I picture this is, we have a table in the database that consists of a dictionary of public keys, messages, and dates. Alice sets up her account with a (hidden) preferences to email to a public key. (Ideally she can generate the public and above all the private key with either her own software or software provided) Bob sends a message via a Wikipedia https web interface which is immediately encrypted with this public key as it arrives (including a header that indicates Bob is the one who sent it), then held for a brief delay before the time of official posting is recorded in the database. (The time is needed to expire old messages and allow Alice to download only recent messages) Alice (or anyone else) can access the server and get all the messages sent to that public key, but there is no way to tell from those records who sent it, and no way to tell without cracking Alice's preferences who received it either. (Accessing any large set of messages at once would be seen as an attack and hopefully thwarted, since eventually they will be decryptable). Alice then decrypts with her private key on her own computer. Optionally, Alice posts a second genuinely public key on her user page that Bob uses to encrypt the message on his own end so that cracking https gives no joy - which is almost to be assumed; see Lavabit. Optionally, Alice's public keys (the genuinely public one and the one in her preferences) are drawn from a long list of single-use sets in her preferences, so she can intentionally expose a single message text (say, if it's a link to a Stuxnet web site or something) to prove what Bob sent to her. Optionally, the encryption software at either end is sent via https as a javascript or the like, though obviously this is weaker than a more careful method with good checksums. In any implementation, the result of the decryption should be plain text, not html with inline images that allow Stalker Ex to send Alice his Flickr upload of a kitten and get her IP address the moment she gets her e-mail. It should also link conveniently to the reverse alternative e-mail to Bob, rather than any insecure e-mail reply. I think if these things were done well, the result would be a practical and widely used replacement for e-mail that would make it much, much more difficult for bozos to out users, and make it nearly as difficult for spy agencies to spy on Wikipedia personal communications. Wnt (talk) 22:45, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Resistance to progress is severe

During the past month, I have met extreme resistance to improvements. Forget all those fears of "None will be left to edit WP" (no) and instead, know that grammar/format edits are being actively reverted, new pages are being deleted, and progress is quite difficult. Plus, it is not just recent editors who are difficult, but rather several long-term editors who should know how to discuss issues beforehand. Instead, the trend is: "Delete first, and perhaps discuss later". As a long-term editor and professional tutor, I can only imagine the impressions which newcomers must quickly form, when I have degrees in computer science, math, and information science, and still people are deleting my new templates, new math articles, and reverting changes to computer-typeset tables, plus removing technical replies I post to noticeboards. I wonder if there is a "violence-begets-violence" trend now, as "revert begets revert" where long-term editors have sunk to just passing the negative attitudes along to the next user. In fact, I think it has been months since anyone asked, "Could you explain the reason for that text?" and then discuss options, rather than just delete pages or remove comments. I am beginning to feel as if I must conduct education classes here, first, to be allowed to edit pages. So now the big question resurfaces: "What if an encyclopedia were being written by people who cannot understand the contents?". That would explain why a Micropedia could exist elsewhere, but few could understand the benefits of maintaining small, focused articles here, and avoiding the growing ocean of specialized data-hoarding in mainstream articles. On a positive note, there has been talk by developers in trying to control the rampant swamp of data, and pre-plan how WP could handle 9 million articles here and still reformat them with current contents. The recent deletion of 71,000 stub pages seemed like a desperation move, but perhaps it is tied to an awakening of the future here. Making improvements is a struggle in this environment. -Wikid77 (talk) 00:12, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

(1) Did those "difficult" editors explain their actions in their edit summaries? Did you ask them on their user talk pages to explain their actions? (2) You might be interested in Wikipedia:Article Rescue Squadron and Wikipedia:WikiProject Navigation templates.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:45, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Well, people did state some reasons but the act was mainly wp:IDONTLIKEIT, as indicating the debates will be lengthy to gain their "approval" to allow edits. -Wikid77 19:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

More importantly, how about some examples? What stubs were deleted and what was/were the rationale(s)? How about some specific examples of supposed progress that were reverted? Resolute 20:21, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

To me, the most-obvious (deleted) progress would have been Template:Tbold, as {tbold|Song Title} → "Song Title" to show a quoted gray-bolded title. Many editors want bolded text in lists of titles, but standard bolding is too-dark, or oppressive emphasis, while gray-bolding would work, and curly braces, {{tbold|__}}, catch markup typos faster (compared to the mis-matched quotes/apostrophes in: "''Song Title'''). Spotting an unclosed {{tbold|__} is easier than spotting 3-versus-2 tic marks in bolding text. Well, I explained all those issues in the TfD, but {tbold} was deleted anyway. Perhaps editors need to spend years copy-editing music pages. -Wikid77 19:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia requires constant maintenance to uphold our standards. To leave it in it's current state is a travesty. Like it or not, all edits need to be scrutinized and no edits must be overlooked. "Delete first, and perhaps discuss later" is procedure. Otherwise there'd be thousands of bad pages and non-notable microstubs lying around because someone thought they had potential and vowed to improve it, then promptly abandoned it. Deletion is necessary. KonveyorBelt 18:17, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• Specialist-mindset bias: I guess a major problem is articles still written in specialist formats, with math pages written with too many "math-speak" equations, or sports articles written with "sports-speak" scores, or similar specific jargon and formats for other specialities. Hence, it seems as though re-education is needed to reword pages for general readers, with a general overview of the topic, as an encyclopedia entry. Otherwise, the editors close to a subject keep adding more specialist-mindset text, worded as indepth tangent essays, and expand the articles even further from general-reader viewpoints. A major factor is the wp:grandstanding of special terms to wikilink in the intro lede sections, as if simple "Addition" will be described as, "The adding '+' of typically non-transcendental quantities, even leading to Riemann sums, irregardless of the Einstein-Bose condensate" or other such stuffing of tangent wikilinks into the intro text, in order to increase the advert links to other topics which people seem to push. The pages are treated as boosterism for abstract jargon. It also happens in psychology or sociology topics as well. For many general users, they are unsure if "Riemann sums" should be removed from the intro text, or perhaps other users would re-add the term back into the page. Likewise, some Help pages are written as if being developer-training notes to help programmers configure the MediaWiki software, rather than help people to write articles. More later. -Wikid77 19:00, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 35#Easy as pi? and wikt:regardless (and wikt:irregardless).

—Wavelength (talk) 19:10, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

• I'm a little surprised to see you sounding so jaded, Wikid77. Do you have any solutions in mind? --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 02:40, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Other users here noted resistance as wp:OWNership of pages, and I have met similar roadblocks. I guess the first solution will be to allocate extra time to open discussions with each resistant user, to assess the blockage, but the level of negative reverts predicts major difficulty in those discussions. Obviously, some issues need to be elevated to 30-day wp:RfCs, to gauge the community Zeitgeist or willingness to change (see below: "#Example RfC to auto-correct cites"). However, recall the cryptic math-page issue was discussed in 2008: "wp:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 35#Easy as pi?" with now almost 6 more years of cryptic math-page text. -Wikid77 19:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• Sure, the first 500 words (ish) of any article need to be a human readable summary for the lay person. Only when this is done can a main section be added that permits techno speak and specialist jargon. Saffron Blaze (talk) 05:10, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I know that some don't want me to post here because they are tired of hearing me criticize how broken the system is but I'll vouch for almost everything Wikid77 said. There is zero interest in this community for doing anything that makes editing easier or would make the editing environment better. There is almost no interest in writing pages or building up the project except when that improvement reflects their own POV or interest, I've given up editing outside discussions and every effort his been made to completely ban me from the project for my criticism of abusive admins, the Arbcom and other areas of the project that need to be corrected. As with Resolute above though, why were 71000 sutbs deleted and can you provide an example or 2? 138.162.8.58 (talk) 16:34, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

As I recall, the 71,000 sub-stubs were marginal pages, tagged for improvement but abandoned, with no one to champion their topics, although some users noted examples which were notable, easy to rescue. More later. -Wikid77 19:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Oh! Are you referring to abandoned submissions at Articles for Creation? Resolute 19:22, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll repeat the request for more information about the 71,000 deleted pages. It is hard to form an opinion about such a deletion without knowing more.--S Philbrick(Talk) 19:33, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I think most of the stuff that was deleted withing the stale drafts was probably rightfully deleted based on what I saw (Copy vio's, poorly written, poorly sourced, etc.) I did also see quite a few that should not have been deleted or denied. There was a substantially higher standard set for articles going through AFC than if the individual just created the thing straight out. That probably caused a lot of them to just leave because they can see what other articles look like and then they are being told their submission wasn't good enough because the reviewer was looking for a B-class article. Jimbo even mentioned a case here a few weeks ago. I think we probably lost at least a few hundred articles when those were deleted because many of the people reviewing them for deletion didn't really review them, they just deleted them and that can be seen by the rapid succession of deletes they did. Some had several a minute so there is no way they could have reviewed the article in that time. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 22:38, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

• Article count confirmed mass deletion: Recall how WP passed 4.5 million articles earlier, but after the deletion of "over 70000" then the count dropped below 4,450,000 (now {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}: 6,849,628). Hence, when I noticed the total article count, I did not doubt the mass deletion had occurred. -Wikid77 03:45/16:58, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry User:Wikid77, but this seems a bit out of character. You are usually a very through, detailed editor. So when I saw a reference to a "recent deletion of 71,000 stub pages seemed like a desperation move" I took it seriously, but needed more information. Now it seems you simply noticed a change in aggregate courts and leaped to a conclusion. You don't know whether it is a rogue editor gone amok, or some task force did a massive cleanup, or some combination of things. How do you know it is "desperation" when you don't even know what happened? As you know Jimbo's page is a highly visible page, and I think posting on it carries some responsibility. I think you should do a bit more homework before making such charges.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:16, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

• About 70000 pages: Well, I had hoped some users who worked with those "76,000" deleted pages (or renamed?) would clarify, but apparently the wp:G13 deletions spanned months, and it was not overnight deletion; plus many pages might have been undeleted, so see January 2014 discussion at /Archive_154#G13 where one user had over 35 pages (not all deleted), see: User_talk:87.252.44.179 for warnings. -Wikid77 16:58, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Example RfC to auto-correct cites

As a suggestion for a wp:RfC to promote change, I think the wp:CS1 cite templates (with {{cite_web}} etc.) should be changed to auto-correct for invalid parameters, rather than issue red-error messages in thousands of live articles. I think an RfC is needed because repeated discussions have not led to any auto-corrections in reducing the backlog of 230,000 invalid cite pages (see 19 error categories: wp:CS1CAT). For example, the cite template parameter "|other=" is rejected, rather than considered an alias for "|others=" as follows:

• {{cite_book |title=Some Book|author=John Doe|other=Mary Doe}}
  now shows: John Doe. Some Book. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |other= ignored (|others= suggested) (help)
  could show: John Doe. Some Book. Mary Doe.
• {{cite_book |title=Book 2|author=Jane Doe|contributor=Mary Doe}}
  now shows: Jane Doe. Book 2. {{cite book}}: |contributor= requires |contribution= (help)
  could show: Jane Doe. Book 2. (contributor: Mary Doe).
• {{cite news |title=News report|author=John Doe|occurred=2 pm, 4 May 2009}}
  now shows: John Doe. "News report". {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |occurred= ignored (help)
  could show: John Doe. "News report". (occurred: 2 pm, 4 May 2009).

The general idea behind auto-correction of cites is to assume a close keyword is the same parameter (such as "other=" treated as "others="), or else show the unknown parameter in parenthesis brackets at the end of the cite, such as "(occurred: 2 pm, 3 May 2009)" or similar. The unknown parameters could still trigger a link to some error-tracking category, but the live page would not show an error message as: "Unknown parameter |occurred= ignored (help)" but instead show the extra parameter data as "(occurred: 2 pm, 4 May 2009)". Then more than 25,000 cites could be auto-corrected to show the actual contents of the unknown parameters, at the end of each cite. Treat the unknown cite text as free-form data, not red-error text. Anyway, that is the type of major system-wide change to be proposed in an RfC, to allow more users to consider the effects of auto-correcting over 25,000 cites. Local discussion for the past year has not led to change. -Wikid77 03:45, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't trust scripts to correctly "guess" which correction is, in fact 'correct", and if an autor-correct gts it wrong, ite merely hides the problem This would be a DIS-improvemnt, in my view. DES ^(talk) 03:58, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

• Auto-correction can hide problems but error text can invent more: I agree how there is some danger in auto-correcting data and guessing the wrong parameter, but auto-invalidating is often even worse, on many levels. When a template rejects "|other=" as not being "|others=" than that just adds busy work to edit a page for a trivial typo, but when an editor has written several cites with unknown parameter "section=" then flagging all those cites with red-error messages just floods the page with a sea of red, and risks distracting the reader/editor away from important issues on the page. For example, I read a page with several error messages also rejecting date "Sept." as being invalid (but obviously September), and meanwhile, the document page number was "89-993" (no error message, for 904-page cite!) and when reading the source, I finally realized "89" should have been page "989-993" as a 4-page cite, but obsession with trivial errors eclipsed the major problem of an incorrect page number more difficult to handle than "Sept." in a date. When the emphasis is on reporting all (minor) problems, rather than auto-correcting simple ones, then the result can be a flood of trivial distractions which hide the major problems. Likewise, error-message categories are flooded with thousands of minor (easily auto-corrected cites) which obscure the pages which really need work to correct major problems in sources. Among each set of 200 flagged pages, there might be only 7 which need major edits to identify source documents; the other 193 pages are clutter as obscuring the pages which really need to be fixed. Plus, error messages often hide the partial data, such as "Unknown parameter |occurred= ignored" which does not show data "occurred: 2 pm, 4 May 2009" or similar partial data omitted during an error message. Consequently, during the 1960s, computer software began auto-correcting to show partial results, rather than terminate a program with: "FATAL ERROR: DOES NOT COMPUTE" and provide the user with no further data. Overall, the risks from auto-correction are much less than the risks of red-error messages obscuring (or limiting) what the user sees. -Wikid77 07:29, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

IMO there are some here that we can correct with a bot and some that cannot be. I partially agree with DESiegel above but I don't trust all editors either. I think there are a number of these we could fix with a bot to reduce the number that need to be fixed by a human, a human will undoubtedly need to fix some though. 138.162.8.58 (talk) 18:01, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Generalized "auto correcting" for any purpose rapidly runs into trouble (just picture a program savaging the references in The The). This is yet another incarnation of the multiple comparisons problem. But what Wikid77 is suggesting here isn't auto correcting, just a less obtrusive error message. In particular, put an unknown field error in parentheses instead of red font, and then you can file messages with that particular error in their own special category of error message to be ignoredtended to when time permits. Of course, no matter what the error format, if a bot went around telling people "did you know... there's no such cite field as occurred", it might do more. Wnt (talk) 22:22, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

There are other issues, see below: "#Other auto-correction of cites" with a list of more auto-fixed issues. -Wikid77 10:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Other auto-correction of cites

Perhaps it might not seem like auto-correction, of an unknown parameter name+value, to show parenthesis brackets "(__)" around the data. It is a tactic to fix almost 8,500 pages in category:
Template:Nb10• Category:Pages with citations using unsupported parameters‎ – 0 pages
However, that is just one form of auto-correction, where other forms include:

• Treating lone "http:_" text as parameter "url=http:_" (common mistake).
• Translating major French parameter names into English (accept: "auteur=" as author, "titre=" as title, or "année" as year/date, etc.)
• Auto-respelling of misspelled keywords ("ulr=" as url, "auhtor=" as author, "acesdate=" as accessdate, "insb=" as isbn, "OLCL=" as OCLC, etc.)
• Allowing new aliases (common: "isbn10=" or "isbn13=" as isbn, etc.)
• Auto-reducing large page ranges, such as "89-492" as 489-492 or similar.

For each case, there could be a special warning-category link, separate from major problems such as a cite with no title at all. Also, when several parameters are invalid, then there could be an extra category to list pages with severely garbled cites (as difficult to auto-correct all parameters). Currently, thousands of pages with trivial cite typos are cluttering the maintenance-category lists (see wp:CS1CAT), and obscuring pages which contain severe problems, where the cite is almost unreadable to users. The original estimate to manually correct the invalid cites was over 3-4 years, but after almost a whole first year of Lua cites, there are still 230,000 pages yet to be fixed. The prior auto-corrections made by the wp:CS1 Lua cites have been careful, such as auto-inserting dashes in page numbers, where "pages=3-7" shows en dash "pp. 3–7" but "page=A-7" retains the hyphen in "A-7". Overall, it seems 80% of problems could be auto-corrected, to reduce clutter which has hidden the pages with severe cite problems. -Wikid77 10:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'd be against auto-correcting large page ranges, since it's often ambiguous. For example, the "89-993" example given above could just as easily have been "89-93" as "989-993". The other ideas seem fine though. MChesterMC (talk) 10:57, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Hypothetical geo places

Purely hypothetical;

Let's say, the land of ning-nang-nong has a spreadsheet 'census data'. Or rather, had, and so it's only available in web archives.

And that spreadsheet said, the town of nong-nang-ning had a population of 5. And the town of Non-ning-nang was listed as not having any population at all.

OK, so this is not hypothetical; let me give concrete examples;

• [10]

So our policy WP:GEOLAND says, "Populated, legally-recognized places[1] are considered notable, even if their population is very low."

This is a bit of a problem, because "if it's OK" I can use a spreadsheet and make a bazillion articles about potholes in the UK, based on a spreadsheet.

This is 'the sum of all human knowledge' right? But there's gotta be a limit. Based mostly on V - I can't write an artice about my kitchen just 'coz there is a person in there and I can verify it?

Problem we have here is - why are geo places an exception? I suspect it's because of political correctness; we want contribs from india, so if someone makes an article about a place called "मुर्गा बेकार", we deal with it more reverently than we would a user creating Cock sucker village.

But that'd be racism? 88.104.19.233 (talk) 08:36, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I doubt that your kitchen or very many potholes are considered "legally-recognized places". There are a large number of small Polish and Eastern European villages with Wikipedia articles, but I've never seen anybody complain about this. You might just consider ignoring these articles if you don't like them so much. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:13, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

The potholes are recorded by the government council, so they're just as well-recognized legally as the type of places I'm talking about. 88.104.19.233 (talk) 19:50, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Obviously giving power to any decision by any government can be problematic - just ask the people on Commons trying to observe source-country copyright restrictions. Perhaps tomorrow the Russian tourist bureau will classify each of its citizens as a Potemkin village, and use it to bolster a claim that Russia is the most urban country in the world. Then we would have to recognize the limits of the policy. Nonetheless, in practice, I imagine that Iranian census people probably are pretty professional about what they do, and archive some places analogous to entries on the List of ghost towns in the United States. The point is, if there's an information resource out there that is standard and comprehensive, should we idly peck little holes in our version so it is never really useful as a replacement for proprietary sources? Wnt (talk) 20:55, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

233, if what you refer to as "a spreadsheet" is in fact an actual publication of a national government, then it is at least probably a reliable source. I don't think that a location, such as a pothole or an intersection constitute "legally-recognized places", I would expect that to mean that some note is taken of the locality or type of locality in actual legislation or regulation. In the US, I would think this covered incorporated municipalities, census districts, and larger entities such as counties and states. It might will cover unincorporated villages as well. What the corresponding entities for other countries might be, I wouldn't know, but I would expect them to be named, identifiable, and consisting of multiple inhabited dwellings at the very least. It may be that the guideline needs to be refined. But the idea that it permits an article about "every pothole" is not in my view a plausible interpretation, and trying to actually do that would be a case of WP:POINT. DES ^(talk) 21:27, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Why don't you just stop beating around the bush and admit that you are forum shopping about a specific complaint? Anyone who wants some background (and a reason to bash their heads against their desk) might choose to look at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Carlossuarez46 mass-creating _articles, where 88.104 is demonstrating a breathtaking inability to drop the stick. I see this has also devolved down to reductio ad absurdum since I last saw this three days ago. Resolute 21:05, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Could somebody close that ANI so we can mercifully move on? Carlossuarez46 (talk) 22:43, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to 'forum shop' - my intention was to ask Wales' opinion on the general question of notability of places, not to re-hash the ANI discussion. So with that, I won't say any more here; I'll just hope ANI can help deal with the specific problem instead. 88.104.19.233 (talk) 05:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

The Guardian

A reporter suggested to me that Gregory Kohs was the person who had written the original article about The People's Operator, and I said that was mistaken (which of course it was) and that I'd rather not talk about him. I explained why I would rather not talk about him (the infamous photo that he posted of himself with a gun and his "joke" about getting into a shootout with me). I'd rather not have to talk about this at all, but as Mr. 2601 seems insistent. When I said "I'd rather not talk about him" I was referrring to Kohs, whom I fear is obsessed with my family and children and personal life and should not be given attention lest he grow worse. When I said that he didn't edit the Wikipedia entry about The People's Operator, I meant it. It is very well established and not a matter of current controversy at all there was COI editing of the TPO article (though, it should be said, I am told that it was not at the behest of the company, but by consultants doing a variety of "social media" work) long before I ever even heard of them or got involved with them. When I came on board I read them all the riot act about never ever under any circumstances editing Wikipedia, and that's very firm company policy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:00, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
not useful Jimbo, that's a lovely interview you had with Carole Cadwalladr at The Guardian. I notice, though, that something you knew from here on your Talk page some weeks ago, [redacted per WP:BLPTALK], but she had the actual evidence to back herself up. Here's the exchange: CC: But there are problems, aren't there, with commerce entering Wikipedia? One example of this was mentioned in the comments beneath an article about the People's Operator which claimed the Wikipedia entry for the People's Operator was written by its marketing consultant. Jimbo: No, it wasn't. I'd rather not talk about him. CC: But, when I looked at the Wikipedia entry for the People's Operator and looked at the history of the article, and then Googled the name of the person who had written the initial entry and looked him up on LinkedIn, it stated he was a marketing consultant for the People's Operator. Jimbo: I'll have to look that up. That's very interesting... Two questions for you here, Jimbo. When you said, "I'd rather not talk about him", who did you mean? The guy who commented beneath an article about The People's Operator, or the content executive Dale Marshall? Why would you deny that The People's Operator was written by a marketing consultant, when on January 21, User:50.153.112.1 clearly notified you here on your Talk page about this very situation -- that a UK-based marketing consultant created the article, and then how Dale Marshall enhanced it while being paid by The People's Operator? You had all of the facts spoon-fed to you, but when talking to Ms. Cadwalladr, you decided to say, "No, it wasn't", then when caught in your misstatement, you said, "I'll have to look that up", as if it were the first time you'd heard about it. Clearly you saw the evidence that User:50.153.112.1 presented, because you responded to it on the very same day. It seems to me that you're regularly caught telling [redacted per WP:BLPTALK] about various things. Shouldn't the sole founder of a great encyclopedia like Wikipedia be more honest? I'll close on a high note: it doesn't appear that Carole Cadwalladr was authored by any single-purpose or conflict-of-interest accounts. Yay! - Checking the checkers (talk) 20:33, 7 February 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:B:BB80:E0:ACA0:1006:7A54:DADB (talk) Jimbo, I still don't understand. There's nothing in the Guardian's article to suggest the reporter was asking you about Gregory Kohs. You state that Gregory Kohs has nothing to do with article, and looks that's is correct. From the questions of the reporter it is clear (IMO) she was talking about this user Dalemarshall20 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) Remember she told you that she "Googled the name of the person who had written the initial entry and looked him up on LinkedIn, it stated he was a marketing consultant for the People's Operator.", and so did I, and here's what I found. So here are my two questions for you. What exact reasons you had to believe the reporter was asking about Gregory Kohs? Now, when you know the reporter was probably asking about Dalemarshall20 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), do you want to talk about him? Thanks.69.181.193.108 (talk) 19:32, 19 February 2014 (UTC) I can't explain why the reporter asked what she asked in the way that she asked it and it's possible that there was a confusion between the two of us as to what she was talking about. I'm happy to talk about dalemarshall20, but I'm afraid that I know very little, but that's likely because there is very little to know. A part-time contractor at TPO before I joined the company made some edits that he shouldn't have but as we all know, it happens all the time so there's no real reason to be shocked by it, even if it was wrong - which it was. I'm not sure what else you'd like to know, but feel free to ask a specific question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:40, 19 February 2014 (UTC) Here's a specific question. You said: "A reporter suggested to me that Gregory Kohs was the person who had written the original article about The People's Operator", but there's no mention about "Gregory Kohs" in the interview published in Guardian. So may I please ask you if Gregory Kohs was mentioned offline? I mean what made you to believe the reporter was asking you about Gregory Kohs? Thanks.69.181.193.108 (talk) 21:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC) Yes, we had a discussion of Gregory Kohs. Because I consider him a danger to me and my family, I was, I'm sure, visibly upset. I asked her not to write about him and explained why. She seemed to think that he had claimed to write the entry on TPO, and I said, no he didn't. She went on further, insisting, and I said I would have to look into it. One thing to keep in mind here is that the quotes in the article are quite breezy and loose as compared to my actual words. For example, the part about what Tony Blair wrote about Kate in his memoirs was something that the reporter said (in part) and I loosely acknowledged. (That it made her sound 'scary' - that was the reporter's word not mine). This is not a transcript but a write-up (generally accurate but not in every last detail) of our conversation. Rereading, I see that it is not clear that I was reacting by saying that I didn't want to talk about Gregory Kohs and that he didn't write the entry. One possibility is that she mis-spoke the question, and another possibility is that I mis-heard the question. I don't see that it matters very much.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:16, 19 February 2014 (UTC) The above comments about Gregory Kohs being a "danger" to Jimmy Wales are complete and utter grandstanding and showmanship. They are not based in fact, though -- merely delusional myths to deflect attention from Mr. Kohs' valid criticisms of how Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation have been mismanaged and exploited by Mr. Wales. Jimmy, you have been contacted by Kohs (and he has publicly avowed), where he has assured you in no uncertain terms that he bears no threat whatsoever to you, your spouse, your children. NONE whatsoever. That you would continue this charade publicly in order to advance a false "victim" pretense is really an embarrassing reflection on your inability to engage with reality. - 70.192.150.105 (talk) 22:46, 19 February 2014 (UTC) I've said all I'm going to say about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:56, 19 February 2014 (UTC) Guys, just lay off him, alright? Doesn't matter whether he was telling the truth, misspoke, was covering something up, or anything else, this is his life we're dealing with, not Wikipedia! Some questions at first were fine, but this is really pushing the limit. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 22:59, 19 February 2014 (UTC) For god's sakes, that's the most over-the-top hatnote I've ever seen. That's only short an airplane skywriter and a 120-piece marching band from the maximum attention possible... If it makes you feel any better (probably won't), I was also creeped out by said gun imagery and a couple waaaay-too-personal posts from a couple years ago. (Your own videotaped blowing up of produce also took me aback, on a related note.) Starting off as a pretty bitter opponent of his, I've since discovered that Mr. Kohs is an intelligent, perceptive, funny, and reasonable person — although a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes... You've got more to fear from any random stranger on the street than you do him. (Now, about that hatnote... Really over-the-top...) Carrite (talk) 00:42, 20 February 2014 (UTC) If you knew the whole story, you'd know how reserved that hatnote is. I wrote it several times and ended up choosing the mildest version which revealed the least about the details of his reign of terror.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC) I have followed the story for eight years, and, in this, I agree with Carrite: this was over the top. Unless you consider that having your every public statements scrutinised equal to a "reign of terror"? The Guardian journalist asked a question about paid editing, not mentioning Kohs at all, .......and mr Wales automatically thought of mr Kohs. That says a lot more about mr Wales, than is says about mr Kohs. And about guns...it seems to be a hobby for more than one American male. Should mr Kohs feel he and his family is in danger, as one of his opponent is pictured having "Fun with a Mossberg Mariner"? -- 41.130.4.55 (talk) 16:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC) Given the gun pic - which I hadn't heard about before - and Jimmy's stated fears, I'l suggest that anybody who has felt harassed by Kohs email the details to the Wikimedia Foundation. I'm certain that there have been other cases of harassment, so we should have a centralized record just in case. Smallbones(smalltalk) 01:24, 20 February 2014 (UTC) The key to stopping cyberbullying is standing up to it. There's nothing here, it's a bunch of irrelevant allegations with no causal relationship at all. Jimbo puts up with a lot in the name of openness, but this is ridiculous. He has a right to refuse to discuss this nonsense, and we need to support him in that. This is the same basic moral support we should give to every harassed editor. Wnt (talk) 03:40, 20 February 2014 (UTC) Well, I am special, which means ironically that I expect less support than most editors in dealing with harassment. But yes, at some point, when conference organizers are so freaked out that they ask for extra security, there has to be a limit that we reach.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:06, 20 February 2014 (UTC) Jimbo, I have not seen the image you're talking about, and I am not a friend of Mr. Kohs, but I think that, if you truly believe that as you stated above Kohs "is obsessed with your family and children and personal life", and, if you truly "consider him a danger to you and your family", you should contact the police. I don't think your Wikipedia talk page is the right place for such statements. Besides, I might be wrong, but aren't such statements are violation of Kohs's BLP? Thanks.69.181.193.108 (talk) 05:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC) Jimbo is an intelligent, sane individual. If he felt it necessary to contact authorities, then I'm sure he has - and would have NO need to tell anyone here about it. For wisdom, common sense, and safety sake, this topic should be considered closed; period DP 09:58, 20 February 2014 (UTC) @Mr. 69.181. That's pretty much my point. Kohs is a real world person, not a cartoon. This is a very highly read page. I don't think anything here runs afoul of American libel law (having seen the video, image, and posts in question — and having objected to the latter myself in writing at the time, as I recall). I do think it runs afoul of the way we are supposed to treat living people at WP. The hatnote is too much, too much, as is some of the commentary that follows, and I urge that it be redacted. Carrite (talk) 17:45, 20 February 2014 (UTC) since Jimbo has said his "last word" on this matter, it is only fair to point out that the incident has been explained here. the explanation is reasonable, and anyone who wants to research Jimbo's repeated accusations about Kohs should have a look at that post. 2001:4C28:194:520:1A03:73FF:FE0A:7269 (talk) 17:19, 20 February 2014 (UTC) edited 184.8.108.37 (talk) 19:11, 20 February 2014 (UTC) To be fair, that's only part of it. Blowing up produce was the starting point. Kohs tried to be witty or funny captioning a gun photo and failed badly. (Hint: Don't ever fail badly if you think you are being witty or funny captioning a gun photo.) Then, unrelated to these two closely related images (a Wales video and a Kohs still photo, as I recall), there were on either Wikipedia Review or its successor a couple posts dealing with Wales and his family members that had a tone which reasonable people would feel had a certain "obsessive" quality, phrasing things delicately. This amplified the previous stupid photo-with-caption into something menacing. It should not be taken that way, I repeat. Carrite (talk) 17:53, 20 February 2014 (UTC) I have no objection to you or anyone else hatting the whole thing. But I suspect if you knew the full story, you'd not feel so relaxed about the threat here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:07, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor Newsletter—February 2014

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has worked on some small changes to the user interface, such as moving the reference item to the top of the Insert menu, as well as some minor features and fixing bugs, especially for rich copying and pasting of references.

The biggest change was the addition of more features to the image dialog, including the ability to set alignment (left, right, center), framing options (thumbnail, frame, frameless, and none), adding alt text, and defining the size manually. There is still some work to be done here, including a quick way to set the default size.

• The main priority is redesigning the reference dialog, with the goal of providing autofill features for ISBNs and URLs and streamlining the process. Current concept drawings are available at mw:VisualEditor/Design/Reference Dialog. Please share your ideas about making referencing quick and easy with the designers.
• A few bugs in the existing reference dialog were fixed. The toolbar was simplified to remove galleries and lists from the reference dialog. When you re-use references, it now correctly displays the references again, rather than just the number and name. If you paste content into a dialog that can't fit there (e.g. ==section headings== in references), it now strips out the inappropriate HTML.
• You can now edit image galleries inside VisualEditor. At this time, the gallery tool is a very limited option that gives you access to the wikitext. It will see significant improvements at a later date.
• The character inserter tool in the "Insert" menu is being redesigned. Your feedback on the special character inserter is still wanted, especially if you depend on Wikipedia's character inserters for your normal editing rather than using the ones built into your computer.
• You can now see a help page about keyboard shortcuts in the page menu (three bars next to the Cancel button) (Template:Bug).
• If you edit categories, your changes will now display correctly after saving the page (Template:Bug).
• Saving the page should be faster now (Template:Bug).
• Any community can ask to test a new tool to edit TemplateData by leaving a note at Template:Bug.

Looking ahead: The link tool will tell you when you're linking to a disambiguation or redirect page. The warning about wikitext will hide itself after you remove the wikitext markup in that paragraph. Support for creating and editing redirects is in the pipeline. Looking further out, image handling will be improved, including default and upright sizes. The developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments, some behavioral magic words like DISPLAYTITLE, and in-line language setting (dir="rtl").

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) 04:20, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion for Wikipedia

two ideas that will make Wikipedia an extremely good web site:

• A new font for Wikipedia, perhaps Calibri or a derivative of a easy-to-ready font.

• in the View history section, add a new color purple to denote changes that both add and subtract bytes. Dark Liberty (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:43, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

User-interface changes take years: Those are interesting ideas, but currently, large changes to the user-interface take months to approve and more to schedule. Also, Jimbo has noted the major impact of changing the way 500 million people are reading Wikipedia, and so a complete font change is unlikely. For the page-size changes +/-, the software would likely need to store the 2 counts of increase/decrease bytes, but it would be great to see combined +/- history counts such as "(+60/-68= -8)". In general, I have noticed how a small count, such as +4 or -3 bytes is almost always a small update of 1-3 areas of a page, whereas larger counts such as -53 often indicate several changes. Perhaps if there were 2 competing sets of user-interface designs, then Wikipedia's features could be improved in either interface within months, rather than years. Currently, progress runs at snail's pace, and common problems are typically not fixed, such as wp:edit-conflicts or the cramped page-format limit (wp:post-expand include size), while unusual rare things are altered instead, such as math-tag cache algorithms or writing music-notation markup (with tag: <score>). However, the authorization of the new wp:template editors has led to actual rapid improvements, with hundreds of templates recently updated after 2-3 years of stagnation due to lack of time/motivation to handle protected pages. -Wikid77 19:14, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It's really not hard to set font to be Calibri if you want. Just go to Special:Mypage/common.css and type the following:

p {font-family:calibri}

dd {font-family:calibri}

And save it, and you'll enjoy the, um, marvels of this font. (That is, provided you haven't set your browser to override the document font settings like I had, and forgotten about it...) For those who don't want to edit the css, just rub a little honey on your monitor and you should get the idea. :) Seriously, the way that Wikipedia minor format improvements ought to work is viral - you learn a little bit of CSS playing around with Help:User style, pass it on to your friends, once something gets some legs the devs can see about making it an option. Wnt (talk) 20:06, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Terms of Use change, re: Paid Editing

This is a huge news item: Terms of Use: Paid Contributions Amendment. I'm inclined to think this is a positive step forward towards normalization — paid editing needs to be declared, I think everybody more or less agrees on that. There also needs to be corresponding site policy changes to ban the harassment of paid editors, but Rome wasn't built in a day. Carrite (talk) 19:26, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure how important this is, or if it is even on the agenda. Who is proposing this? Couldn't anyone propose anything to the foundation board? See https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Terms_of_use/Paid_contributions_amendment#.22We_plan_to_ask_the_Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_of_Trustees.22 Coretheapple (talk) 20:51, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It seems to have originated from a WMF staffer. It is not an official WMF proposal, just something that may or may not be considered by the board at some unspecified meeting in the future. I've left him a note on his page asking details about the process. One question I have is whether anyone can make a suggestion to the WMF board. Not being a contributor I don't have much standing, but they seem like a pretty open bunch of people. Coretheapple (talk) 20:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I would go further than the proposed amendment, since it does not cover the sort of undisclosed COI editing that is apparently now fairly commonplace among English Wikipedia functionaries. That is, however, no reason not to support the amendment as it stands - since attempting to perfect the amendment through amendments is more likely to cause it to fail than to improve it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

It's an official proposal from the WMF legal department. —LuisV (WMF) (talk) 22:38, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

That was my take, based on header after header after header advertising the change. Good stuff, I think this is actually the correct path forward here. Carrite (talk) 23:29, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Really??? Well I appreciate your clarifying that, Luis, but I think that should be stated explicitly in the relevant page over there on Meta, if that hasn't already been done. It says "we" propose this, but doesn't say who "we" is. Kind of important, don't you think? Coretheapple (talk) 00:24, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Coretheapple. Please refer to this section of the talk page on Meta on this topic. --JVargas (WMF) (talk) 01:13, 21 February 2014 (UTC)