User talk:Jimbo Wales

Minutes of the November 9, 2018 Board of Trustees meeting

Please see David Gerard's wikimedia-l message pointing out the proposal with its concordant pre-determined decisions advanced in the foundation:Minutes/2018-11-9,10,11#Branding Board meeting. Is that why no Board meeting minutes have been published for over a year on the eve of a new Board election? EllenCT (talk) 21:01, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

There is no relation between the two at all. I don't agree with David's interpretation of the situation at all. There were no pre-determined outcomes in the 2018-11 board meeting, nor do the minutes say that there were. The idea that this was or is being imposed by fiat from the top is simply a distracting and manifestly false narrative.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Well what is the hold up with publishing the minutes? By the way, did you watch the "Concept Presentation"? "Comments are turned off" and the live chat transcript -- which had several hundred comments from dozens of decades-long community members including high-level functionaries during the presentation -- has been removed from the video. [Update: the chat transcript is back.] On Zoom, the managers involved, including a C-suite Officer, were present and had their cameras on, but never spoke, letting their line workers be the only public faces recorded on the published video. The selected "unifying concept," "interconnection," was not one of the 23 concepts on which the community had been asked to comment and "like." Could anything be more top-down and willfully ignorant of community input? I note that the next stage, developing a naming convention, has been removed from the community involvement checklist after I, as had been requested previously, provided an actual naming convention from a peer reviewed literature review in informatics. Since then, the community involvement checklist has been removed from the project timeline. Do you believe that the project management is actually desirous of any further community involvement; if so, what evidence do you see? EllenCT (talk) 17:04, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Labor unionization

Jimbo, it has recently come to my attention that many Foundation employees already enjoy the advantages of membership in a labor union. However, none of the employees who have been asked to be the public face of unpopular decisions from the c-suite (including falsification of statistics for which such officers have been forced to apologize after a lengthy period of requiring their rank-and-file to attempt to justify them) enjoy the same advantages. Would you have any objections to union stewards of Foundation employee unions organizing the remaining line workers? EllenCT (talk) 01:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo, consider this: "RebrandingWikimedia.org would have been provocative." To whom? Not the community. Not the board. Not to you or me. It's a completely milquetoast name for what would have been, under that name, a completely uncontroversial project (beyond the question of why money is being spent on it when the legal department hasn't addressed the continuing blatant paid editing from Status Labs for the better part of a decade.) Not to any Foundation employees other than one: the same c-suite manager who asked Zack and his colleagues to misrepresent their own survey statistics until she was forced to apologize. How else could it possibly appear provocative from Zack's perspective? EllenCT (talk) 21:00, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:The 50,000 Destubbing Challenge

If anybody is interested I've created a 50,000 article long term challenge. It's gradually gaining momentum but needs more contributors long term if we are to achieve it by 2030. To get 50,000 stubs improved I think would be a great achievement! † Encyclopædius 20:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

How do you make your money?

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

---

Note: This message is for Jimbo and Jimbo ONLY. It should be answered by Jimbo or not answered at all.

I am seriously confused. You run a 'free encyclopedia', yet numerous sources have stated your net worth is about $1 million US dollars. In an interview with The Guardian, you stated was salary "isn't Silicon Valley money. It's not even London money." You have made numerous attempts to downplay your wealth.

Moreover, you have hundreds of thousands of editors slaving away for free. You are not paying them, yet time and time again I see begging messages from you on this website trying to ask users for money. What the hell are you doing with money that is donated? Where are you getting your money from? --Stringency Auditicale (talk) 06:50, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Stringency Auditicale, It is unlikely you'll get Jimbo's response, but I've been wrong before :) Jimbo is not paid by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation [1], whom oversees Wikipedia. Jimbo gets his money from speaking engagements and Wikia, which is seperate from Wikipedia and its sister projects [2]. He's certainly not poor, but he's no Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, not even close.

The money that Wikipedia asks folks for, raised by donation, goes to keep the servers running and the Wikimedia Foundation employees paid. As one of the world's largest and most visited websites, Wikipedia maintains large server farms to host all of its data. Those need to be built, maintained, and kept on. The Foundation also uses the money on its several hundred employees. They are not doing the day-to-day editing, but rather keeping Wikipedia as an organization alive. That includes lawyers (Wikipedia gets sued several times everyday, though no-ones been successful yet), coders and computer scientists to build the back-end, public relations folks, and a bevy of other individuals required to operate projects in hundreds languages that sees billions of views each month. The Wikimedia foundation is funded entirely by donation, which ensures that it is not beholden to corporate interests or its subjects. It is beholden only to its readers. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 07:06, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Stringency Auditicale, I suggest you try to read the Jimmy Wales article (e.g. its Jimmy Wales#Wikimedia Foundation section, containing e.g. "[Wales's] work for the foundation, including his appearances to promote it at computer and educational conferences, has always been unpaid."), which may already answer part of your question, before coming here and trying to alter the rules on whoever can answer questions posted on this talk page.

References

--Francis Schonken (talk) 07:13, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this excellent answer. You have eased all of our collective worries. Often, over-hyped Wikipedia admins immediately shut down anything considered to be critical of Jimbo on here, but you didn't do that. --Stringency Auditicale (talk) 07:28, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

It looks like this has been answered already but I wanted to add some details myself. First, "you stated was salary 'isn't Silicon Valley money. It's not even London money.'". There's clearly a typo in there but for clarity that is not a quote of me, as I've never said that.

Second, as noted, I have never taken a salary from the Wikimedia Foundation. Further, I generally don't take expense reimbursements for my work as a board member - I typically pay for my own flights. There are exceptions: when I've been asked by the Foundation to specifically go on a diplomatic mission to meet officials on a trip that I wouldn't have taken otherwise, I do let the Foundation cover my travel expenses (hotel+flight). Sometimes when we have a board retreat, the Foundation bulk books rooms in a hotel and I take one of the rooms. There are also some meals covered. I may have forgotten some other minor specifics but the overall point is that I don't have an "expense account" in the normal sense.

Third, the main way that I make money on a day to day basis is through giving speeches - typically at tech conferences, corporate events, and universities. As you can well imagine, my income for the coming here has been put entirely on hold as conferences and events of all kinds globally have been cancelled or postponed.

Fourth, I don't think it's generally true at all that admins typically shut down anything considered to be critical of me. In this particular case, there's no reason to shut anything down because as far as I know, there isn't really any substantial criticism of how I earn money. Certainly, I find it very helpful in terms of my work fundraising (for the endowment fund, for example) that I can say: I'm a volunteer, I'm not asking for money for me, but for the project.

Finally, the press loves to make a big deal out of me not being a billionaire, but I think that's rather stupid. I don't think I've made "numerous attempts to downplay my wealth" unless that means that I don't find it a particularly interesting topic. I have a lovely house outside London and I'm here with my family on lockdown. My main hobby is cooking (you could check out my Instagram for food pictures!) and I'm doing a lot of that these days. I'm not poor, and I don't make any apologies for the money that I do have. For me, though, the primary reward is not money but a very interesting life.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

CaptainEek also suggested Wikia in their reply above: afaik Wikia has been renamed and/or split, traded, etc. Are internet-related sources of revenue (like former Bomis etc) completely out of the picture by now? --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:07, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikia has been rebranded to Fandom, to more accurately reflect the communities there. I'm still a board member and shareholder. I don't take a salary there. The company is doing spectacularly well lately (though the current economic situation is hurting, as it is hurting everywhere) and I expect that in the future, I will make money from it in some liquidity event or another. But it isn't really how I make money right now in a day to day sense.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Fandom.com claims "over 200 million monthly uniques" which is about 22% of the English Wikipedia. According to what looks like a reasonable answer on Quora (in which you also hold stock, if I remember right) that works out to a gross income of about a billion dollars or more annually. Assuming you ended up with a typical proportion of founders stock, I agree wholeheartedly that press saying you aren't a billionaire is stupid. EllenCT (talk) 21:30, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

While that would be lovely, the numbers aren't remotely similar to that. I'm not at liberty to discuss revenue figures, but you're off by an order of magnitude. Also, remember that the company has had several rounds of major investment, and I've had a divorce, so my ownership percentage is a lot lower than what you might imagine. :) I'm very far from being a billionaire, even with optimistic speculation on the numbers. Still, I'm fine, and as I said up above, my reward is really more about having a very interesting life.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

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

Withholding Funds from WMF until article is modified

Hi Jimbo, I was wondering if you saw this article, [3] where Edward Kosner writes that he threatened to withhold funding from the WMF until his Wiki article was changed? Because now, I tried changing the article, based on impeccable sources, and his very own Streisand effect article, but the OTRS admins are reverting me telling me that because the subject raised concerns, I can't put it in. While beforehand it may not have been notable, once he writes about it in a national magazine, that and the other impeccable source, makes it notable. That, and I also note how he tried going after Patapsco in the real world to find out who he is. All in all, many points to this story and I wonder if you have any comments on any part of it, because it was a very interesting read. Thanks. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 00:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I would question this edit [4] on WP:DUE grounds, just because the subject writes it doesn't mean we should include it. But it was an interesting article. You could add it as a WP:EL. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:52, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Richard Feynman would blow his top if he was referred to as Jewish. He wasn't a fan of the Jewish religion (or any religion for that matter). Nevertheless, he was of Jewish ancestry and the Wikipedia article notes this. Who is a Jew? looks at this question. This type of debate has occurred before on Wikipedia, and has led to long running arguments on the talk page of Jeffrey Epstein. Some people were very keen to point out that Epstein was A Jew™ but this type of language runs into problems. This is an area where care is needed and it has to be notable to say that someone is Jewish.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:46, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Fairly long related discussion at WP:AN from dec-jan. It's not an easy topic. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:38, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Ianmacm, it wasn't included in the article until he wrote about it in a national magazine and mentioned Wikipedia and called himself a proud Jew, ala Streisand effect. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, but does WP-editors noticing the article he wrote count as Streisand effect? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I only have a general comment as I can't really speak to the specifics of this example, not knowing anything about Edward Kosner, who I believe I only ever heard of just now. In the past when I have done a quick spot check, I believe that for many prominent people (Nobel Prize winners and business people come to mind immediately) we are more likely to mention Jewish heritage than we are to mention other heritages. This is only my impression, but it should be noted that many other prominent people have commented to me that they have the same impression. I think the reasons are two-fold and contradictory. First, there may be a problem with anti-semites wanting to make sure that everyone associates people like Jeffrey Epstein and Bernie Madoff with being Jewish. Second, there may be a problem with pro-Jewish people feeling a certain amount of pride in Nobel Prize winners or successful people generally and wanting to include their Jewishness. Neither of those is good, although obviously the former is more problematic from a BLP point of view.

There is also a further complication in that Jewishness is both an ethnic identity and a religion in a way that, say, Roman Catholicism isn't. I full agree with ianmacm up above: "This is an area where care is needed and it has to be notable to say that someone is Jewish."

What I'd love to see is some (casual, doesn't have to be super formal, but should follow a reasonable methodology) basic research into the question: are we more likely to over-emphasize Jewishness than other religions/ethnicities?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, some good points, but my comments were specific to this example. In this case, even with impeccable sourcing, the religion was not included because the subject did not want it on his page. He then wrote about it in a national magazine, where he said he threatened to withhold WMF funding unless it was removed. He also said that he was a proud Jew. And he also said, he investigated one of the editors of his article and tried to find out the identity of that person. I was more interested in the WMF/withholding funds and threatening editors aspects. I know once he writes about his religion and that he's a proud Jew, he tripped the Streisand effect and ironically it's now notable for inclusion. I was though wondering if while OTRS was deleting all these tags, should they also have mentioned that the WMF was threatened with funds withholding (even if it would never happen or if it was minor), and I was also wondering if you've ever seen or dealt with someone threatening an editor of an article, as Kosner did. Since people might now be a bit more hesitant to edit BLP's if powerful people can track them down. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 13:27, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I very much don't agree with you. WP:NAVEL almost certainly applies here. This absolutely does not rise to the level that makes the fact relevant to his biography. Remember, we are writing a biography of him which means that it should contain the most important facts about him. If anything, he's established in a RS that being Jewish is not an important fact about him. The bit about withholding funds - I think you putting it that way is plainly ridiculous. He says that he answered a fund raising email saying that he'd be more inclined to give if he saw a better way to solve what he regarded (quite rightly) as a BLP issue. That hardly amounts to a "threat to withhold funds". Such an approach makes me feel inclined to review your edit history - others are likely to - just to be sure you aren't some kind of POV pusher on this topic.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I'll just leave this here. ‑ Iridescent 14:35, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Iridescent, thanks for highlighting this. It shows the discrepancies in blocking. After all, my last block was for telling someone, on my own page, that I don't want to engage with them anymore and I want them to stop talking to me. Swarm then came and decided that was disruptive and not only reset my prior block, he took away talk page access. But hey, I'm sure you had a point in bringing my block log, or was it to show all the Coffee blocks? Sir Joseph ^(talk) 15:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, I haven't edited his article until a week or so ago. As for the threat, I suggest you read his article. He emailed the WMF and told them he won't donate until his article is fixed. He then went on a hunt to find out who Patapsco is. Again, I didn't touch his article until after he wrote about this episode in Commentary magazine, so I'm not sure how you get calling me a POV pusher. You might also want to read the AN thread linked above. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 14:56, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

On the general point that Jimmy has discussed, I've been more active than most admins in working with editors who insist on highlighting Jewish ethnicity/religion as, or in place of nationality. As Jimmy notes, this takes two forms. Some editors want to mention Jewish affiliation as an expression of pride in accomplishments. Others follow a watered-down version of the anti-Semitic triple parentheses or echo meme, to tag individual in an expression of otherness. This has been an increasing problem, and it was seen prominently with single-issue editors with Jeffrey Epstein. There is general consensus on how this should be handled in the lead paragraph, but not so much elsewhere. We don't for instance, highlight that someone's a Presbyterian or descended from Presbyterians unless they are clergy or religious scholars. Acroterion (talk) 13:59, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I would definitely agree there is a trend for some editors to be vested in going to what lengths they can to identify those of the Jewish faith (not those of Jewish decent), more as because they are proud of the Jewish faith and want those that are also Jewish to be known, but this can led to poor sources or inference (such as mixing up faith vs decent); plenty of AN and related discussions on this. It goes back to the fact that for any single BLP, the BLP's religion (not just Jewish) should be something that is sourced to a self-statement made in a interview w/ a reliable source, or from a self-published work, so that there is no question of the BLP's intent of there religious stance. This was not the case with the sources that were in Kosner's original article, it appears, so the OTRS pull was appropriate. Ideally, unless someone's religion is centeral to their line of work, we as editors should not be trying to chase it down if it is not clear from top-level skimming of sources. --Masem (t) 14:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Masem: Correction: it was the case that Kosner self-identified, even originally. It's in his autobiography (he spends pages talking about his Jewish identity and upbringing). The autobiography wasn't cited in-line to the "Jewish" statement, but it was always cited in our article.

The sources supporting "Jewish", which are on the article talk page, include the New York Times, Wall St Journal, his own autobiography, three books about prominent Jews which include him. Now, we also have his own piece in Commentary (the one that prompted this thread).

To me, this isn't at all about Jewish identity–there's way more than enough sourcing to establish that this is reliable and due. This controversy is, instead, about a BLP subject emailing OTRS and saying they won't donate until their biography is changed, and then OTRS members changing the biography, and asserting to other editors that they can't change it back because it's an OTRS thing, and then the BLP subject writing an op-ed to brag about it.. This is corruption of our processes. Jimbo, I think you should say publicly that no, articles won't be changed just because the article subject emails us and threatens to withhold donations. Kosner wrote in the piece that this is what happened, and that this approach is the "key" to getting one's article changed. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

But to go to Jimbo's point above: how essential is his Jewish heritage to his career today? I mean, in general for BLPs, there's details that I feel we don't need to rush to include, like faith, unless they are a core element of the person's notability or importance. I don't see that with Kosner here with the rest of what's documented in his article. The latter issue of using WMF/OTRS to force a chance to remove content they may not like but can't be document, however, is a separate and disconcerting manner, one that, when brought up at BLP/N outside OTRS, we generally do not remove if the proper sourcing is there. (That is: If Kosner brought up that he didn't really want his Jewish background to be on his wiki page as a discussion on the talk page, and consensus agreed it wasn't needed as not being DUE to his notability/importance, this could have been solved easily.)--Masem (t) 17:20, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't have to be "essential" to be included, it has to be "significant", per RS. When the NYT or WSJ writes a 500 word blurb about him, "Jewish" is one of those words. Three books about "prominent Jews in the media" list him. His own autobiography spends 10+ pages – so maybe 3-5% of the total or so – on his Jewish upbringing. Every RS agrees this is significant enough to include. Why should we exclude it?

In any event, whether it's WP:DUE is a classic content issue, and reasonable people can disagree about that, for sure. It should be handled with talk page discussion and consensus, and an RFC if necessary. (The discussion is ongoing on the talk page.) Personally, I don't think he's notable enough for a stand-alone article at all, and I don't have super strong feelings about DUE, but I do think it's covered enough by RSes that we should cover it, too, so I support inclusion.

The OTRS bit, yes, is the more disconcerting part.

The other part that really bothered me was where he accused one of our editors (with damn near 100k edits) of being a stealth anti-Semite, and then published an OTRS email in which the OTRS member appears to confirm that and to state that the editor's contributions were being reviewed as a result. I find that to be defamatory, and I think someone on behalf of Wikipedia/OTRS should say "no, there was no consensus or finding that this editor was acting in anything other than good faith", or some such. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

The basic gist of Kosner's article is that there was a Jew-tagging anti-Semite running around Wikipedia and nobody noticed or cared despite Kosner and his son's prior efforts (which consist, BTW, of one reversion one time from an IP with no edit summary), until Kosner threatened to withhold donations (or, if you prefer, told us he'd be "more inclined" to donate if we address his issue), at which point the Jew-tagger was caught and stopped by OTRS. This narrative is bunk and ought to be straightened out in the media. Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 17:34, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic, but this WaPo article [5] comments on readers looking for "are they Jewish" in BLP:s. Apparently it's not the first thing they are looking for, but still. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:59, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Another slightly off-topic thing: In lockdown I am doing P.E. with Joe Wicks every day with my children (not personally, it's live on youtube every weekday morning), and this morning I remembered that I used to do "Body by Jake" and wondered what Jake is up to, so of course I ended up here: Jake Steinfeld. Under "Personal Life" I see: "He is of Jewish descent.". No source, but judging by his name, it's almost certainly true. I googled it and yeah, it's mentioned sometimes.

Now, in fairness, the biography of Joe Wicks has a "Personal Life" section with exactly two sentences. One about his wife and children, which is quite standard. And the other: "His maternal grandparents were from the Isle of Man." So, the truth is, we often have a rather random collection of information in there. (I would argue, by the way, that neither of these facts really belongs in a biography given the general irrelevance to their lives.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:00, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Ukrainian Wikimedia's chapter is going to fill all Wikipedias with Ukrainian government's point of view

Hello, Jimbo. What do you think about it: MFA Launches Mega Campaign To Saturate Wikipedia With Unbiased Information On Ukraine and the World? Раммон (talk) 18:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Anything to counter with facts the Russian bot farms and disinformation campaigns is a great idea. Zaathras (talk) 18:36, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Раммон, Good news, well-informed Ukraininans to counter the GRU disinformation campaign. Guy (help!) 18:39, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

JzG, do you think that all other Wikimedia's chapters should do the same? That is Wikimedia Russia should announce cooperation with MFA of Russian Federation, WMF should announce cooperation with US State Department and so on? Раммон (talk) 06:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• JzG, you can't seriously think that a government ministry of foreign affairs actively skewing content in a language encyclopedia is "good news," can you? How about the US State Department, would they therefore by extension be OK to coordinate editing on matters of concern to the Trump regime? This is a terrible thing, not a good thing. Hopefully there are enough speakers of Ukrainian to fend off the assault on NPOV. Carrite (talk) 18:51, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

  @Carrite: According to the page linked above, the effort will not be limited to the Ukrainian Wikipedia, and will include "various languages". This is being done "in cooperation with Wikimedia Ukraine". I can't tell from the page whether this will actually involve edits from Ukrainian government employees. --Yair rand (talk) 23:38, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

  Carrite, I am assuming that a WikiMedia chapter is unlikely to be a wholly owned subsidiary of a foreign government, but I could of course be wrong in the current political climate. Guy (help!) 23:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Interesting. It's concievable that parts of what they want to add is decent content. More work for the Wikipedians. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Gråbergs Gråa Sång, as long as they steer clear of the many crappy sources that plague those articles, we'll be better off for their input. Guy (help!) 23:56, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Time will tell. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 04:13, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• There was an alike attempt from Russian authorities that failed, here is the big report in Russian, one can use autotranslator if needed, or ask Russian community members for details. --ssr (talk) 06:12, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Via google translate: "Launching the "Virtual Front", the organizers had a superficial idea of ​​Wikipedia. During the action, they had to understand Wikipedia’s device in parallel with organizational tasks. If before the start of the action they independently mastered the work on Wikipedia and consulted with experienced Wikipedists, they could have developed a more effective strategy." ... "True, the teacher himself must understand the Wikipedia device in order to pre-advise his students." We'll see if the Ukrainians manage to take that onboard. Another takeaway is FOR ----'S SAKE, STOP COPYPASTING!!!! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

It was done by some obscure patriotic organization, not Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Wikisaurus (talk) 00:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

By State Duma. --ssr (talk) 03:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

By Youth Parliament of State Duma (Молодёжный парламент Государственной думы); despite the name, it looks like Nashi and other semi-official pro-Putin organizations, no? Wikisaurus (talk) 09:19, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Nevermind, it was a state-driven initiative to activate state-driven resources, no matter which, to edit Wikipedia, and it epically failed because editing Wikipedia is not that easy as they thought, and yes of course, abovementioned copypaste problem. Wikimedia RU issued a dedicated press release priorly, where they tried to explain how to do it better (didn't help). Russian wikimedians in regions, like m:Wikimedians of Bashkortostan User Group, held seminars for them to try to help—didn't help as well. --ssr (talk) 12:02, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

That press release was also interesting reading. Google translate does a very decent job on russian these days. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:18, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Good to hear, maybe now is time to use Russian texts in such talks widely as people like you say they understand it normally. The Signpost people seem to read and use Russian content properly. I find this hopeful. Because there are many international wikimedia-community issues to solve, like this "czar problem". --ssr (talk) 07:17, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

• As a board member of the Ukrainian chapter, I need to clarify a few things.
  • Firstly, this initiative is coming from the Ministry. Wikimedia Ukraine is in no way a government subsidiary, but we believe that this project will be much better with Wikimedians involved than without.
  • Secondly, we intend to be there to explain how Wikipedia works, what are the relevant policies, including copyright and NPOV. We are not sure the authors of the press release have a full unterstanding of Wikipedia at the moment, this will be an opportunity for us to train them (and we start tomorrow).
  • Thirdly, for us the main goal is getting more content about Ukraine in foreign languages and about Ukrainian diasporas in Ukrainian Wikipedias. While English Wikipedia which has a healthy amount and a reasonable quality of Ukrainian content, many languages have next to nothing. While Ukrainian Americans or Ukraine–US relations are well-documented, this is not the case for many other countries. This is the thing Wikimedia Ukraine wants to change, and MFA is a good partner for it.

  Vice-chair of Board of Wikimedia Ukraine, NickK (talk) 11:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

  @NickK: it sounds like you've got some interesting perspective to share. The way you phrase that makes it sound like there hasn't been much discussion before the press release was issued - how long has this been in the works, if you don't mind me asking? Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:12, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

  @Naypta: The new Minister of Foreign Affairs took office on 4 March 2020. There were some discussions before his appointment in late autumn 2019 but for a different project which did not materialise as the team changed. This collaboration really accelerated with the appointment of the new minister and, strangely, due to Covid-19 as contributing online became quite a norm. Thus a bit more than a month I would say. All discussion were non-public before this official release — NickK (talk) 22:28, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

  @NickK: That all seems reasonable. I'll admit I have my doubts as to whether this will be effective and positive, but I do genuinely hope it is, and I certainly don't doubt your good intentions. Best of luck with it! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 22:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Edit suggestion: clickable Email

I thought about making the presswikimedia.org (in the contact me section) into a clickable link using mailto: press at wikimedia.org. I am a very new wikipedian so I can't edit directly, so if someone thinks this is a good idea he/she can make the aproppriate changes. Happy Editing --TheFibonacciEffect (talk) 19:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@TheFibonacciEffect: Clickable links or links that contain the email address in clear text are a magnet for spammers automatically harvesting emails from webpages. That is why on Wikipedia such addresses are encoded by replacing the "@" with an image. See the {{no spam}} template for details. Regards SoWhy 07:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@SoWhy: Oh, okay, good to know, very considerate. --TheFibonacciEffect (talk) 07:33, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, mailto: links on a website are a huge magnet for spambots, so Jimbo's page avoids them.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:15, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

WMF relationship with USAGov re: coronavirus testing

Jimbo, in light of WMF's networking/good relationship with USAGov., I am wondering whether it would be helpful for WMF to contact the USA Coronavirus taskforce and encourage them to be more transparent with the American people concerning coronavirus locations that the people or their doctors may be able to access testing.

As you will see at the US Task Force Briefing yesterday starting at 1:10:55, reporters ask Trump if the task force could release to the media the maps that they showed at the previous day's briefing showing 5,000 locations of testing facilities.

You will see how Dr. Brix of the task force, after a lot of distractive jibberish, says that "it's like coke and pepsi" in terms of those locations being "proprietary information" among the competitive businesses in the coronavirus testing business and so she/they can not release that info to the public at this time.

I find this holding back from the general population of such "life and death" information disgusting and exceptionally mean spirited toward average Americans, as I am pretty sure the wealthy and the expensive top level doctors will be able to quickly find out and access those locations.

Regardless of my own opinion about this, could you please ask WMF to weigh in on this matter. Nocturnalnow (talk) 17:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what relationship you envision here. I suppose the WMF may have some connections to some people in some government departments, but I don't think there's anything particularly high level (especially with the current administration). If this were a UK issue, it would be a different matter, since I do have a lot of friendships here and could reach the right people pretty easily.

Now, on the substantive issue, I do agree with you that it's completely bizarre to not share the locations of testing centers (i.e. places one might go in order to have a test) but I believe that conversation, if I understand it, was about the location of laboratories, which isn't really the same thing and not really all that important for individuals to know. Still bizarre to keep the data secret - if I understood the motivation of the reporters question is that they would like to check the information to see if it is valid, i.e. is Trump lying about the testing capacity by showing a fake map? Not that a President would ever do such a thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

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	thanks you have made homework so much easier Williamburkett (talk) 19:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Where political bias is taking us

Obviously not where we want to go, or should go but the very things that made the project remarkable are failing us now on so many levels. Ouroboros comes to mind. We need stronger enforcement of our core content policies and less POV pushing, inadvertent or otherwise. We have become a reflection of the political division we see globally (where people are allowed to vote) during an important election year, and because we are reliant upon mainstream media news, we have become mirrors of it. Hopefully, you can help pull the snake's head out of its ... ahem. It is only going to get worse if something isn't done. The warning signs came early but little was done in the way of prevention beyond attempts to silence one side in order to give the other a stronger voice, or so it seems based on the results. I'm of the mind that ArbCom's decision to grant admins the authority to take unilateral action at their own discretion has not helped; rather, it has opened the door to POV creep, and I'm not alone in that thinking. Several arbs have recognized the problems but nothing is being done. We have fallen ill to the numbers game at AE, and the protection of alliances is stronger than ever, particularly those whose POV aligns with our own - it's human nature - and not necessarily good for maintaining NPOV or the well-being of the project. Of course, we have exceptional admins and most of their actions have been justified but something isn't quite right, or we wouldn't be seeing a growing number of articles in media criticizing WP like the ones I just posted. Jimmy, you said something a while back that made perfect sense. I'm of the mind that what's happening now is important enough to at least be considered, and hopefully, motivate you to provide some input. What will happen in the long term if we don't enforce NPOV, RECENTISM, and NEWSORG now, as it was meant to be enforced without POV creep, especially when some of the most aggressive individuals cannot or will not recognize their own biases? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Holy smokes, are you still at it?? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 13:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I'll just quote the relevant passage in the link above: "We have chosen a very tough job: NPOV. Dislike for the President, fear about things that are happening in the world, may make it emotionally harder to remain neutral, but remain neutral we must. I happen to personally think that given the decline in quality of the media across the board (there are still fantastic journalists out there, but overall the landscape isn't great) the best way for us to help the world heal is neutrality." I'm glad that those words were noticed.

Having said that, I think that many (not all) cases of apparent political bias in Wikipedia are better understood against the backdrop of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. That is to say, the media outlet above made a direct comparison between our articles on Brett Kavanaugh and Joe Biden. I suspect no one has really made that direct comparison before. Kavanaugh was relatively unknown (not totally unknown, as he was already an Appeals Court judge) when he burst onto the scene with his nomination to the Supreme Court and the subsequent media circus around various allegations. Biden, on the other hand, has been very famous for a very long time, with multiple runs at the Presidency, 2 terms as Vice President, etc. And so it is easy for me to see and understand how the imbalance in how the allegations have been handled in Wikipedia, as we tend to mirror the media. However, as an encyclopedia, it's quite important that we step back from time to time and reflect - as was noted above, WP:RECENTISM and WP:NEWSORG are important here. I'd also add what may have been intended: WP:NOTNEWS.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:46, 29 April 2020 (UTC)