User talk:Jimbo Wales

How much more blatant FAKE NEWS headlines by mainstream media are we going to take as reliably sourced?

Jimbo Wales, now mainstream media are in unison publishing headlines which misrepresent, by omitting the term "fake news", what the President said in a heavily reported tweet! Instead of reporting the fact/reality that the tweet clearly says "the FAKE NEWS media is the enemy of the American people", they are mostly headlining " media is the enemy of the American people". Their headlines are lieing ( by omission of crucial qualifying words) to the world by inferring that Trump called all media the enemy of the American people. Here we have the headline and the actual tweet both on the front page, but as you hopefully are aware, headlines matter (that's all a lot of readers see or remember)! And this is not the first time. Main stream US media have been aggressively conflating the term "immigrants" with "illegal immigrants" ever since Trump announced his candidacy. Jumbo Wales , what are we as Wikipedians going to do about mainstream fake news in terms of using these articles as reliable sources? Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:22, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

This is a general discussion about the media not particularly relevant to Wikipedia, but I'll answer because I think you're just wrong and ignoring something important. I'd like you to reflect on this and let me know if you see my point.

If Trump had tweeted exactly this: "The FAKE NEWS media is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!" and if the media then interpreted this as him saying "the media is the enemy of the American people" then there would be a very justified complaint. The initial meaning of the term 'Fake News' referred to a spate of what are unarguably and uncontroversially termed as fake news site - literally made up websites with false and misleading headlines designed to be viral with names such as Denver Guardian. If Trump meant that such sites were enemies of the American people, and people in the mainstream media pretended that he meant the media in general, then I think your complaint would have some validity.

As it is, Trump didn't tweet just that. He clarified it in a parenthetical: "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!" This represents, rather obviously, an attempt to smear the bulk of the mainstream media, not just with potentially justifiable complaints like 'biased' but actually "FAKE NEWS". He knows what he is doing, and so do you. Pretending that he isn't directly claiming that these serious high quality media outlets are literally the enemy of the people would be misleading.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:01, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Trump also attacked BBC News, "Just like CNN" at solo press conference (see: full transcript, at "impartial"). -Wikid77 (talk) 17:18, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Keep grinding that ax. Wow, that's some kind of fantastic contribution history you're showing for February... NOTHERE, anyone? Carrite (talk) 15:30, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

• Carrite, Ad hominem is next to the bottom on the chart, you know that. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:34, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

  I think what Carrite meant was what you have written is nonsense, perhaps just poorly reasoned SOAPBOX. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:39, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Fake news is a strong contender for Cliché of the Year and it is only February. I propose a swear box for anyone who uses it, and Donald Trump and his supporters would probably fill it in no time.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:34, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Actually, factually, it was the Democrats who first started talking about it as something Russia used to help Trump in the election, and the Democrats then used that term, as well as "alt right" to put down Breitbart etc. Trump just jumped on the 'fake news" bandwagon, I think. I don't remember who inseted the Fake News topic in the most recent archived Jimbo talk page discussion, but I'd be surprised if it was a Trump supporter. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:41, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

here it is, would you put that contributor into a swear box, or most likely you're being facetious? Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:47, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Trump has previously called all of the major news outlets "fake news", so this seems to be a reasonable condensation for headline purposes. "Trump declares Media except for InfoWars, Breitbart and Rush Limbaugh the enemy of the American People" does not make the best headline. Of course, we can't be sure what Trump means anyways. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:10, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I am surprised that you, whose work here I admire, would offer that explanation. That condensation might be reasonable for an overtly left of center publication but not for so many mainstream publications. The widespread omission of such crucially qualifying words, i.e. "media" as opposed to actual quote "FAKE NEWS (even in caps) media", as well as my second reference to the widespread reference to illegal immigrants as simply "immigrants", makes me positive that we have a really big problem of misrepresentation, in our mainstream media. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:55, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Stephan Schulz, even accepting your argument, the headlines should read "Trump declares "Major" media the enemy of the American People". There is a huge difference between most and all, but more importantly is the ethical integrity to not misquote ( by omission) a short one sentence statement...and this misquote is incredibly widespread among mainstream media today. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:06, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

The "President" is using "fake news" as a pejorative against media outlets who report critical things about him. "Fake news" is correctly defined as people or organizations who knowingly publish or disseminate false narratives. Inforwars' continued assertions that the Sandy Hook massacre was fake is a prime example of fake news. TheValeyard (talk) 17:01, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I definitely think that many major news organizations are knowingly publishing and disseminating a false narrative about Trump and Trump's attempts to govern through negative spin about 90% of every thing he says and does. And I am asking right here if we should link to articles ( by using them as sources ) which have such obviously misleading headlines. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:14, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

90% of everything he says or does is absolutely atrocious so that just falls under reliable reporting. That press conference the other day was the most terrifyingly embarrassing political spectacle I've every witnessed in over 40 years on this planet. Capeo (talk) 17:27, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

And it continues to get worse - see here[1] for a BBC interview where his deputy assistant attempted to defend Trump's actions and whenever he was asked a difficult question by the reporter, he claimed the BBC/reporter were creating false news. DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:21, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure it will get even worse before it gets better. The only silver lining at this point is that seems that it will be sooner rather than later that Trump does something so wildly unconstitutional that even the Republican controlled Congress won't be able to save him from being impeached. Capeo (talk) 16:29, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Headlines are not reliable sources, so there should be no problem. TFD (talk) 18:30, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

• I disagree that there is a real problem here. The press is not lying when they omit that phrase, because it's not relevant to the central part of the story: Trump made a sensational claim to manufacture and promote distrust. You can sensationalize the omission however you want by using claims of "crucially qualifying", bold print, and capital letters to make it seem important, but whether it's in there or not is truly inconsequential in terms of building an encyclopedia. If that is what is most bothering you, I encourage you to focus your attention on real harm from this administration, not the imagined kind. I JethroBT ^{drop me a line} 18:40, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

• On 24 December 2015, OP Nocturnalnow was topic-banned from American Politics after 1932.[2] Their opening of this section seems to be very much about American politics, as do many previous comments on this page, for example [3], [4]. 79.73.244.79 (talk) 20:05, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

• Unfortunately the collapsing of settled cases tends to mess up links. This link seems to work better; you can uncollapse the relevant section. In any event my understanding is that Jimbo's talk page is the one place on the project where editors can disregard their topic bans. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:21, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

• I would say that's a common misunderstanding. It's a place where someone can appeal a topic ban, not somewhere where bans are disregarded (WP:BANEX). -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 20:46, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

• Reminded/warned here. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:04, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

You guys realize that silencing his would-be "voice of truth" with over-the-top Wikipedia process is not actually winning the argument, right? I'd say only that we don't reference headlines, we reference articles - it doesn't matter if the headline is a bunch of numbers as long as the article text is a RS that includes stuff like the actual Twitter posting in question. Well, that and that people have long been bemoaning the concentration of ownership of the media, so if someone names five big corporations as all being "enemies of the people" they practically have denounced all the media.

Nor will I say Trump is wrong, because ... without their incessant, infuriating wall of political correctness and identity politics and Clinton-can't-lose propaganda, we never would have been stuck with Trump! Wnt (talk) 21:09, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

If this is addressing enforcing the topic ban, you realize he's banned from making any arguments related to post-1932 American politics, right? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:15, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't like seeing this ban at all: prohibiting editors from discussing any American politics is not something that a free-thinking site does, and if enough editors are so penalized it will clear the way for an official political platform to be imposed on Wikipedia from above. This editor did a bit of edit warring about Huma Abedin at a contentious time. First, for deleting others editors' contributions without discussion, he was hit with a 0RR on one article in a discussion that blamed other editors about as much. Then he restored some unobjectionable text a few times and they hit him with a ban on all American politics since 1932. Where did they get that huge scope of restriction? Hmmm, let me feel around, it might be somewhere behind those peanuts I should have chewed better last night... no, wait, it was from an arbitration case that he wasn't involved in! And the discussion there had a lot of opposition to the idea. But now... the seed was planted, and the farmers at Wikipedia begrudge the loss of any grain of haughty proceedings and enduring rancor that can be harvested from it. You could just accept that a ban like this is incredibly overbroad and impossible for anyone to follow 100% indefinitely, and allow that a Jimbo talk page discussion is not really anything to do with it, provided it is not itself out of bounds by normal policy. Instead you're planting another seed for another harvest. I want Wikipedia to have a saner admin process where editors get progressive warnings with narrow scope and without radical escalations, and where action taken is genuinely interpreted to keep them within the bounds of what normal editors do rather than being designed as a method of exit processing. Wnt (talk) 12:31, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

On this note, Google News Search lately seems less useful for finding reliable sources. Over at Israel on Campus Coalition, there was a minor problem. So I used Google news search to look for better sourcing. The top three search results in Google news search (not logged into Google, private browsing) [5] are Algemeiner (Jewish), Breitbart News (alt-right), and Mondoweiss ("progressive and anti-Zionist"). That's a miserable set of choices. There's nothing on the entire first page of news search results which is a neutral reliable source. It's discouraging to see Google putting such sources at the top of search results. John Nagle (talk) 20:43, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, that's Google for you. In my experience it's hard to find reliable sources by casting a wide net, as you have found. It's actually easier to search known reliable sources, like "site:bbc.com israel campus coalition". Unfortunately there's no way to specify multiple sites within a single query as far as I know. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:07, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Sigh... that is the least of it. The main problem is that news sources are getting very good at spamming all their current headlines back into their older stories, so that most Google News results don't even include the story you searched for. Asking for it to sort "best" is more than I hope for (or even really want - am I writing the article or is Google?). But it's getting to the point where my usual approach is no longer sure to work. I had been date-sorting the results and paging through ten or twenty result pages at a time, then smaller increments, to the first stories that came out that actually reference the event. It is my general belief that the first story is usually the best story, and the rest are just middlemen looking for a stray penny; or if not the first story, then generally one not much after. But when there is newsspam mixed all up through the results in large amounts, it can be hard to find the first story at all. Wnt (talk) 21:09, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

As I recall, the first time I heard the phrase "fake news" in a political context was with regard to stories on Hillary Clinton's health. Candidate health is legitimate topic but speculative stories were labeled "fake news." This was separate from regular click-bait stories that most news outlets now have right next to news. Labeling inquiries into legitimate topics such as health as "fake news" began the now continuous assertion of fake news. Students of politics and current affairs know where stories of Clinton's health were on sound footing whereas others were unfounded. In politics, fake news is not black or white and like we've seen with political fact checkers, there is always an ideological taint that shades all conclusion. There are backstories and grains of truth whether it's a story speculating on a stroke or about immigrant sexual assaults in Sweden. Virtually all claims that a story is "false" or "fake" has grains of truth and it includes claims made by Trump, Clinton, their aids and spokespeople, the media of every outlet and everyone squishing their thoughts into a tweet. Everyone who edits Wikipedia has come across alternative sources for facts even in scientific fields and we incorporate these points of view into the encyclopedia without a second thought about deciding who is correct. What is most alarming is that people are asserting their ideological beliefs with more authority than they are asserting reasoned facts or reporting reasonable dissension. Editors are using ideology as reason to squelch views not palatable or label views as false, fake or untrue. --DHeyward (talk) 23:38, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Hillary Clinton did not give away U.S. uranium

WP might need a guideline about Trump's attack-speeches. Also in Trump's solo press conference, he seemed obsessed (unhinged?) with attacking Secretary Hillary Clinton, mentioning her a peculiar 25 times[!] and claiming a uranium giveaway (see: full transcript of 76-minute U.S. telecast, at "uranium"). Next day he left for a small campaign rally in Melbourne, Florida, and seems still trying to get elected President by the American people, where Hillary won the 2016 popular vote by a staggering 3 million more votes. Trump's U.S. approval rating is still dismal, at 41% while 55% disapprove of his performance. See fact-checking in "Donald Trump claims — falsely — that Hillary Clinton gave Russia 20% of US uranium" at CNBC.com. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:18, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Alas, poor Sweden, too, but can't we just say 'he's wrong, according to, like, everyone' every-time it is relevant. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:26, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, for a few weeks, we could be removing disputed text, but after a few months, sources which quote Trump's speeches against Secretary Hillary Clinton or Senator Charles Schumer (etc.) should be directly linked to opposing sources which debunk Trump's peculiar comments, as a guideline to maintain wp:NPOV coverage in the Trump pages. Otherwise, I see Trump as this generation's "President Nixon" (Tricky Dicky) claiming "Peace with Honor" to end Vietnam, but 6 years later, the War was not over, while another +21,000 of classmates/relatives have been killed in battle, and each year the wait for the U.S. draft lottery to pick your number next; also instead of protests over Nixon's racial "integration", now there are protests over Trump's restricted "immigration" (combat refugees, but not from Vietnam now). It is amazing how fast the years pass, and instead of Watergate being a building, it becomes a sequence of Watergate hearings, and sources who warned about Watergate before the 1972 U.S. presidential election would have been linked in each page as events unfolded. It takes many years to uncover facts and remove a rogue President. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:02, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

There have been suggestions that we could still accept the Daily Mail for theatre or sport. Need there be any exceptions to a ban on using Donald Trump as a reliable source? 92.19.26.31 (talk) 00:06, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

And there's the rub. Are you aware about "what" Trump is talking about when he is discussing uranium and clinton (start with NYT as a source)? Do you know what he said happened in Sweden (once again context starts with a NY Times article)? Twitter has an attention span of a gnat but I'd expect more from editors that cover people's biography. Trump has poor soundbite control and that makes his statements appear random but it's relatively easy to find richer context if editors don't rely on twitter for tone. NPOV requires this level of context, not strawman arguments where meaning is manufactured. --DHeyward (talk) 17:09, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

It would be WP:OR for us to decide what Trump meant when he spoke of "what's happening last night in Sweden" and WP:SYNTH to contextualise it using prior WP:RS such as the NYT report you cite of what happened in Sweden seven months ago. 92.19.26.31 (talk) 23:50, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• Per WP:NOTNEWS, it is actually quite a problem working out how to cover what, for want of a better name, I term "shit Donald Trump says". There is such a relentless rolling tide of bullshit, and such an obvious public good in covering the extensive fact checks in multiple reliable sources, that I have to wonder if we should actually have a number of articles perhaps in project space covering these bullshit talking points, as a service to the reader. A perfect example would be something like the 9th Circuit 80% claim. This turns out to be almost true on a very narrow definition, but since SCOTUS only reviews around one tenth of one percent of Federal cases, and mainly accepts the ones which it thinks are likely to be wrong, this it's grossly misleading. Snopes covers this one particularly well. #JeSuisIkea and all that. Guy (Help!) 17:34, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia Audio

I have just discovered, in the last few minutes, Wikipedia Audio at http://wikipediaaudio.com.
—Wavelength (talk) 01:11, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

It looks good and sounds good. Take a listen to Jimi Hendrix. I wonder whether we can link to this in our articles.

The website owner, Michael DeMichele, says he worked with the WMF, so I'm guessing everything is cool, or could be made so pretty easily. A couple of questions though a) Is wikipediaaudio.com a trademark violation? and does the site need an explicit CC-BY-SA license statement?

If those are problems, I hope they can be worked out smoothly. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:35, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I put a link to the WikipediaAudio version in the external links of the Jimi Hendrix article. It doesn't feel like the right place to put it and would be pretty hard to find by people who might need it. Any better suggestions? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:56, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I have left a message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia.

—Wavelength (talk) 04:34, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I've reverted the link addition per my edit summary. It's a good start, but it'd be nice if it worked in every major browser. Graham87 07:56, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Andrea James, Wikipedia, and deletionism

I wanted to direct the readers of this page to this article recently written by Andrea James, a trans woman who used to edit Wikipedia as Jokestress. The article explains how multiple WP pages have been deleted because, in some cases, the editors who created the pages left the project long before the pages were nominated for deletion, and in other cases, the page was replaced with copyrighted text and then speedied as a copyvio. Specific examples of these cases cited by James include Chickenhead (song) (the former) and hemovanadin (the latter). James also asserts in the article's title that 40% of WP pages could also be deleted this way because they are stubs. I am curious what other editors think about her criticisms of the way WP works, e.g. her allegation that these deletions represent "misuse of Wikipedia's deletion policies." Everymorning (talk) 04:02, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

An obvious remedy would be to write a bot that goes to archive.is and archives pages as soon as they are marked for deletion. (sample archive: [6]) A caveat being that it would have to be fast, and ideally should have some way to search back before any recent large deletions, since some deletionists take a two-track approach, nominating articles because they don't have enough sources or don't assert notability while editing out large chunks of content to make that be so. Wnt (talk) 04:34, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

There's also Speedy Deletion Wikia, which archives copies of WP pages that have been speedied. Everymorning (talk) 04:35, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

How does that work anyway? For example, there is a nice little article on there about Rashi Singh, but I don't see an obvious notice or log telling me there ever was a deletion let alone why. How did speedydeletionwikia find it? Wnt (talk) 04:44, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

There are two possible titles, Rashi Singh and Rashi Kumar, and neither has ever had an article. The linked article Kisne Pyaar Hogya also appears never to have existed. Guy (Help!) 17:53, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

There was a follow-up article by James that I couldn't find right now, plus a summary with comment by AV Club. I understand the concerns, it sometimes seems that some good things get deleted. My usual experience with this involves photos, both here and at Commons. The methods described to delete seem pretty devious, and I've seen some of that. OTOH, a part of editing that many Wikipedians seem to forget is removing bad or even just sub-par content. Anytime I've graded student papers, I'd get the urge to say "edit this down to half the size, and then add some real content."

We do have a lot of bad content on Wikipedia. A bit more than half our articles are stubs. About half of those are "substubs" Use the ORES ratings to see what I mean. [7] The 4 articles rated there are Raja Khishtasub Khan, Seel, Central Java, Showgirl (album) and Coleophora impercepta. These aren't hard to find. Hit the random article link 10 times and you'll find 2-3 of these (or similar).

There are certainly some substubs that I think are worth keeping. A lot of them are biology or species articles. They don't add much, they may not have been edited by a human in years, but I can't see where the hurt anything. But there are substubs that can be very harmful, e.g. poorly thought out 1 paragraph OR. A lot of them could also be merged into a real article that could use another paragraph. So among the 20-25% of our articles that are substubs we could easily edit out , merge or delete at least 10% of our articles. And these articles would account for much less than 1% of our page views.

The only problem I'd see with doing this is that it would take a huge amount of time - because we all like to argue so much. Here's a modest proposal. Find the 5% of our articles every year that meet the following conditions: 1) ORES "Stub probability" in the highest 10% (probably greater than 90%), 2) less than 30 page views per month avg., and 3) hasn't been edited by a human in at least 2 years. Have a bot tag them for speedy deletion. Find 1,000 editors who will consider, edit, merge or delete one of these every day (250 per year). Do this forever. After 2 or 3 years, we might have to reconsider if we find that too many "real articles" are being deleted. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:25, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

What exactly is the point of deleting an article nobody reads? The deleted article is still stored on the server and still available to certain special people who are better than me. The number of page views ... doesn't change much. The only difference is that if someone wanted to try to do something with it, they would have more work. Wnt (talk) 13:51, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

While the stuff that gets caught in that sort of net probably qualifies as 'not very important' or 'likely to be missed by a fairly small fraction of readers', as with Wnt I have trouble seeing how one justifies the leap from there to 'harmful and in need of deletion'. Copyvios should obviously go. Totally unsourced (or extremely-poorly sourced) articles should be remediated or deleted, as they fall afoul of WP:V. Promotional cruft won't be missed; Wikipedia's not a webhost or a marketing platform.

Otherwise-sound articles – even stubs – that are merely obscure or of interest to a narrow audience? Merge where appropriate, sure. (I'm a big fan of reducing duplication, keeping information in context, and making it easier to maintain our content.) But speedying content that doesn't have any problems just because not very many people use it? Really? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:35, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I'll just note, that a recent experience of mine, just confirms for me that this argument you often see in many different types of discussions that a whole lot of stuff no one watches (from promotionalism to 'no one cares about this') is "not harmful" is wrong. I just by serendipity happened on an article of a major church in Munich - if I try to reconstruct how I got there, I just happened to be reading the Munich Cathedral article because for some vague reason I had a slight interest, and it popped into my head that knowing Bavaria was historically Catholic with a long history of inter-confessional violence, I was slightly curious what Lutheran establishment might exist in Munich - through some twists (again at each step only being very slightly motivated to continue) I wound up at a notable "Catholic" church article. At first, I just thought I wound up at at an article, I was not looking for - and was going to quickly move on -- but I just happened to press on about it and discover the problem that I ultimately figured out after some digging -- it was vandalized over two months ago with the first-half everything "protestant" having been changed to "catholic". That's just too much relying on total luck, and kismet that I cared, and then cared to research and correct it. Now, multiply such things over 1000s upon 1000s of articles . . . -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:14, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

It's an interesting question of balance. Of course, if an article only gets one page view per day, and it stays vandalized for two months, then sixty people were served the vandalized version of the article. If we take a moderately popular article (at this moment, Aziz Ansari is at the bottom place on WP:5000, with just shy of 28 000 page views last week) and it stays vandalized for thirty minutes...we also serve the vandalized version of the article to about sixty people. Is it meaningfully 'better' or 'worse' if the people who see the vandalism are closer together or more spread out in time? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:04, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

The thing that is concerning is my "correction" was so random - and there is no real reason I should have happened on it to correct it. FYI, I went back now in my editing history, and it was a month and a half (not two months, sorry), and for the record, here is the diff. I did not bother with anything else about the article that might be wrong, I know little to nothing about the subject (and, yes, kind-of-don't-care about it). Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:58, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

• • I'm not sure what article OiD is talking about. Hopefully it's not somebody involved in this discussion!
  • IMHO, it's best to talk about specifics in this discussion. I hit the random article link 5 times this morning. The fourth article was a substub, but not one that would fit the conditions in my modest proposal. Chaeron of Pellene had a "stub probability" of 91.7%, 3 short sentences, 2 offline references. Though a reference had been added in 2014, it was really only edited by it's original author in 2009. It took me about an hour, but I was able to add 2 more sentences plus a long quote from ancient Greece, as well as 3 online references. It's actually kind of interesting now and its stub probability was reduced to 88.6%. I think that's the more likely type of outcome from tagging these articles than deletion, at least if people take the possibility of deletion seriously.
  • My fifth use of the random article link took me to Ityopp'is which has one sentence and 1 offline link. It's stub probability is 96.3% - there are a lot of articles worse than this! In this case I will probably merge it into Book of Aksum, a stub (not a sub-stub) that could use another sentence. Looking at real cases makes clear that the encyclopedia will be improved by doing such a review. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:12, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

SOFIXIT. Carrite (talk) 02:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• Melissa Highton made the opening speech at the 2017 Wiki Education conference in London yesterday. She sponsors Wikipedia activity at her university and highlighted a recent case in which she herself needed help against crass deletionism. The topic, Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, was obviously notable but was nominated for deletion within two minutes of its creation. That was just a few weeks ago. Andrew D. (talk) 08:47, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

To be fair, that AfD was quickly dismissed, on obvious grounds. When she created the article it appeared without any references. Personally, I find the 'Under construction' tag quite useful in this regard. Karst (talk) 12:26, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I guess. But the criteria for voting to delete something is supposed to be, not does the article have references but do references exist or probably exist that, if and when added, will make the article OK.

Right now I'm fighting for James McCown, which IMO is the sort of article that a large encyclopedia should have -- Historical figure, Confederate officer, led a regiment throughout the American Civil War in many famous and important battles. I'm just perplexed that people are like "Well, that's trivial, that's not the kind of thing we want here". I'm not getting it. Do people think we save publishing costs by deleting stuff like this, or something?

But right now it's running 4-3 Delete, so it's on the edge. Granted when it was nominated and the first Delete votes came in it was short and poorly sourced. But even so.

IMO this is a bit a trend in recent years, having to defend perfectly good articles that a reasonable number of people would probably find of interest (I could be wrong, maybe it's always been like this) and it is a bit worrisome. Herostratus (talk) 16:26, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Evidently, those who voted keep on the Eisenstein article did their research and the nominator had not. And I think that was mentioned in the AfD. Personally I think this all can be easily avoided by going through AfC and having a fresh pair of eyes to look over your article can only improve the outcome IMHO. Karst (talk) 17:04, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• I would echo OiD's comments here: before buying into James' narrative too strongly, I recommend you read Galileo's Middle Finger, and then check those allegations for yourself. Professional axe grinder is a pretty accurate characterisation, and you'll note that James is undoubtedly not a fan of Wikipedia any more following the arbitration case. I agree with James more than Cantor on the subject matter, but cannot dissent from the conclusions of that case: it's impossible not to have some kind of POV in the area of human sexuality, but this strayed into biased editing of biographies, which is not cool, and there is strong evidence that this was SOP for James. I find this personally very disappointing. Calling someone's child her "precious womb turd" is very hard to excuse or forgive. Guy (Help!) 16:38, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Too late, I have been muzzled. As a BLP violation apparantly. Someone has not actually read Dreger's peer reviewed paper that substantially dwells on James' methology. Ironically 'professional axe-grinder' is the only bit that cant be sourced in less than 2 minutes regarding James. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:56, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• I'll just point out that the deletion cases noted above, James McCown and Judith Kaplan Eisenstein, are completely difference than the substubs I noted earlier. Please look at Whittenburg Creek - we've got something like 500,000 articles like that. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:48, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Slavery and rape

Hi Jimbo. What do you think of Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown's comments on slavery and rape? Do you think Wikipedia is covering them accurstely? FloridaArmy (talk) 14:13, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I have never heard of Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown nor about his comments on slavery and rape. You didn't link me to where Wikipedia covers them, so I'm not sure where to start looking. Normally it is fairly straightforward to check the reliability of such a thing by looking at what we say, following the link to the source, and assessing whether we accurately report what the source says. In some cases, there can be a subtlety that makes that less straightforward, of course. If you give me more information, then I may be able to offer some helpful comments, but more importantly, people can discuss it here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:33, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Me neither. Google spit out this (at the WaPo), which makes it seem like some ill-considered words and a mob that was ready to run with it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:44, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

This in all likelihood has to do with this. It is being discussed on the Talk page here. Karst (talk) 17:50, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Freedom of speech aspect

This at the WaPo "He said that after the lecture he and his family were threatened anonymously with rape and death. Other scholars of Islams, he said, contacted him and said they were worried about the same kind of reaction if they discussed such issues." reflects a global morphing of political correctness into an aggressive, albeit stealth, attack on the freedom of speech. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• @Nocturnalnow: Yes. That article is already mentioned on the Talk page that I mentioned above and linked by Stephan. Karst (talk) 16:30, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

While certainly not condoning death threats which are not at all appropriate responses, "Freedom of speech" was never ever ever "any speech - always without ramifcations". If you "free speech" something stupid or hateful, expect people to call it out as stupid or hateful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.15.255.227 (talk) 20:27, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

@Karst: I think the freedom of speech aspect is the most important aspect of what this man is saying, in a university lecture, and the reactions to what he is saying. When professors have to start watching what they say in class, then the new intellectual dark ages really are within sight. The fact the Washington Post is reporting this as "news" adds to the "big brother is watching" aspect, except in this case, big brother is not government, it is the even more oppressive, omnipresent and dumbing down norms and mores of our current culture. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:53, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

In its basic form, "freedom of speech" is a restriction against governmental power limiting it. At the other extreme, it is not a guarantee against others reacting to what you said. North8000 (talk) 23:04, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

From Freedom of speech, "Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction"....the societal sanction is what I'm talking about. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:18, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Where is that latter concept supported in the US Constitution? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:29, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

What do you think about ads on Wikipedia?

Really, what do you think about putting ads on the wiki? Are you against it? What are your thoughts? Ry00001 (talk) 18:21, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

It would be self destructive. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:15, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I predict Jimbo is generally in agreement with WP:PERENNIAL#Advertising. 75.171.249.84 (talk) 00:21, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• I predict we'll get advertising after the WMF misses their fundraising targets a couple times and decides they really, really want to preserve the size of their bureaucratic fiefdom. They honestly don't care about what the "power users" have to say about it... Carrite (talk) 12:23, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• I have made the same prediction with more detail in an upcoming Signpost editorial. You can see my draft version (and suggest improvements!) at User:Guy Macon/Draft of Signpost Editorial. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:45, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• I doubt Wikipedia will ever have conventional ads. In addition Poisson statistics argue against imminent collapse immediately after record fundraising. Wikipedia is fundamentally a service. Adverts are not required for monetization and WMF has already figured it out. The non-profit organizational answer to advertising is grants. WMF applies for and receives grants. I suspect if there was a funding crisis, the response would be to pursue grants more aggressively. It's not hard to imagine WMF hosting and integrating more content from organizations with symbiotic missions. The "search engine" kerfuffle was a bit of growing pains but illustrated how Wikipedia can generate revenue through grants. -DHeyward (talk) 18:56, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• Grants are fine as long as they are not from forced taxation sources or are tax deductible. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:09, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

• That'd be a good way to get into a death spiral. Ads -> Less money from fundraising -> More ads -> Less money from fundraising -> More ads. All the while hemorrhaging the editors who guard against spam, paid editing, etc. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:16, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Question about legality

Ref-desk mushroom permalink, bottom thread. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:03, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Does the WMF have a policy about providing how-to information about illegal activities? In this particular case, it was a ref desk question about psychedelic mushrooms, which are illegal in America and most of the English-speaking world. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:56, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

You mean like, "if it aint growin' in cow manure, it aint a cool mushroom" (psilocybin); perhaps note suicide risk and link WP page "psychedelic mushrooms". -Wikid77 (talk) 23:03, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs is asking the other parent because he doesn't agree with WP:NOTCENSORED and doesn't like the answers he is getting at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk#Ref Desk removal (Drug mushroom). --Guy Macon (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

If I was certain of my take on it, I wouldn't be asking here. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:41, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

One thing we often miss on Wikipedia: just because you may do something doesn't mean you should. Guy (Help!) 17:46, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

There's nothing illegal about giving people information on how to do something illegal. There are quite legal how-to books out there on just about every illegal activity there is. Now you might end up on a watch list but America isn't at the point yet that level of governmental censorship exists. That said, Jayron's answer was pretty much perfect and it should have been just left at that. Capeo (talk) 17:19, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

That appears to be objectively false. Whether it applies in this case I do not know, but [8] by a criminal alwyer says it can be an offence to instruct someone in the commission of an offence. And it would be bizarre if that were not so, in fact. Guy (Help!) 17:42, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

There are some jurisdictions where advising someone on how to commit a crime is itself a criminal act (depending on the crime of course). As all editors are legally responsible in their own jurisdictions for their own contributions, I expect the response by the WMF is 'Its not us the police are going to knock on the door of'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:22, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

As I understand it, there has to be some aspect of incitement or encouragement or direct knowledge that the person you are giving the information to intends to commit the crime as outlined. It gets fuzzy when it comes to all the new "terrorism" laws though as they've generally stomped all over some basic rights in the US. Capeo (talk) 17:39, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Not necessarily, I think. Knowing that it might be used for illegal purposes and doing it anyway, could be construed as reckless and thus create liability. IANAL, though, and Jimbo knows someone who is :-) Guy (Help!) 17:45, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The original question from 116.58.205.128 (talk · contribs) was "Drug Mushroom: − How do I grow the drug mushroom? A step by step guide please?" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:46, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Well technically I could answer that by giving a gardeners guide to growing decent mushrooms (Keep em in the dark and feed em shit). 'Where do I get the drug mushroom' would be answered with 'the woods'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:48, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

We have Mushroom#Psychoactive mushrooms, so censorship itself is not at issue. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:51, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Robbing banks is illegal in the US (and all other countries as far as I can tell). Driving a getaway car involved in a bank robbery is illegal in the US. If anyone reading this decides to rob a bank, I advise getting a reliable getaway car and filling up the tank before the robbery. I also strongly advise against trying to outrun the cops if they are on your tail, because if you hit some kid you may very well end up turning a robbery charge into a murder charge. BTW, bank robbing is usually a bad idea; very high risk for fairly small returns.

There. I just provided how-to information about illegal activities. I post using my real name. I encourage anyone who really believes that it is illegal to instruct someone in the commission of a crime to report me to the police. I will turn myself in as soon as there is an arrest warrant. I make this offer because I believe that in the US I have a constitutional right to free speech that includes the bank-robbing advice I just gave. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:06, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

"Free speech" is not a factor on Wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:22, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Seriously? You wrote a section heading that says "Question about legality" and now you are claiming that an answer that directly addresses your question about legality is "not a factor"? There exists no US law that makes providing how-to information about illegal activities illegal. There exists no Wikipedia or WMF policy that prohibits providing how-to information about illegal activities. Of course, as others have noted, just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:32, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Countless times, I have seen the response to cries of "free speech" that Wikipedia is not a free-speech zone. There is no constitutional right to edit Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Free speech for further info. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:35, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

True, but irrelevant. If you don't want answers about legality, don't title your post "Question about legality". If you only want answers about Wikipedia policy, title your post "Question about policy". Don't ask a question about legality if you don't want answers about legality. This is my last comment on this. I will not go back and forth with you indefinitely. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:48, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

I will defer to what Jimbo has to say about it, and you should do likewise. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:52, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The question is poorly worded. It should be if we "can give references" to such information, not to give the information itself, which implies that we might just make it up off the top of our heads. ApLundell (talk) 22:30, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

There are about 390,000 entities in the world that write legally binding laws, and those change daily. For example, many activities which are legal and fashionable this year in the USA are illegal in other countries or were illegal in the USA. And the reverse. So what would "illegal" mean regarding deleting Wikipedia articles? A rhetorical question. North8000 (talk) 18:56, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not provide "how-to" guides on how to grow anything, let alone psychedelic mushrooms. If someone is capable enough of understanding how to edit a Wikipedia page to ask the question, they can use Google where answers on such topics are plentiful. This is an encyclopedia. Stop feeding the trolls. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:58, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Suppose that the US Congress is going to appease Donald Trump and we end up with many things becoming illegal that are legal today, will Baseball Bugs then argue that Wikipedia should be de-facto censored by the Trump regime? Count Iblis (talk) 19:55, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

The refdesk is not about providing "how-to" guides. Just references. I imagine there are many references to dangerous information in the project.

But more importantly, I oppose the automatic labeling of anyone who asks for such a reference as a "troll" whose comments must be deleted on sight. As if we lived in a world where nobody could possibly be interested in such a reference. I don't understand how that's compatible with WP:AGF

ApLundell (talk) 21:55, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

(Incidentally, I was asked how this was compatible with WP:AGF and was told by the involved and closing admin that "You aren't going to be given an answer. Get used to disappointment.") ApLundell (talk) 22:30, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Restricted speech and scientific advancement

Well, dancing might be banned at the Doright Antioch Baptist Church because it could lead to harder stuff, like Olympic synchronized swimming (in swimsuits!). However, with the current drug epidemic of fake-crack or meth addiction (smashing mirrors), we should be careful not to suppress talk about "psychedelic mushrooms" or psilocybin which might be adapted as supervised treatment to reduce addictive, psychological cravings in various patients. I would think if users link to warnings about associated suicide-risks and link to current WP pages, then we might encourage people to help explain medical research related to these topics, even about growth of illegal mushrooms if the cultivation affects the potency of controlled substances for medical research. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:08, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Hey, as of today 21 Feb 2017, we don't have page "smashing mirrors" (bad drug trip) or even "Breaking mirrors" as a major superstition to cause "bad luck". If people want easy topics for new users to write.... -Wikid77 (talk) 23:20, 21 February 2017 (UTC)