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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JustaHulk (talk | contribs) at 08:27, 10 February 2008 (→WikiNews is inventing "news" now - posting headlines before the fact: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Wei Wenhua

For posterity:

I am just signing a note here so this will get archived in due course.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request banned user (I alway enjoy my Ice Cream =)......Meow)

Jimbo, will you please ban I alway enjoy my Ice Cream =)......Meow from Wikipedia. This user was blocked for vandalized editing. -- 00:23, February 3, 2008 (UTC)

Hello

Grrrlriot (talk) has smiled at you! Smiles promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Spread the WikiLove by smiling at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Smile at others by adding {{subst:Smile}} to their talk page with a friendly message.

important

Excuse me Mr. Wales I've something very serious to imform you of. A long term vandal Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Mmbabies has been desturbing this website since his indef of 30 March 2007. Mmbabies has been using sockpuppets which orginate from Houston,Texas a large US city which could be collateral damage due to the fact that a majority of its people have AT&T DSL (ISP this moron has).Mmbabies has been making death threats against VIPS(important people), wikipedian users, and no one here has done nothing about it. I ask you Mr. Jimbo Wales to make a immediate police report to the HOUSTON PD(POLICE) , and other authorites. I have made a abuse report on this joker this past weekend.see Wikipedia:Abuse_reports/68.90.62.244. You should be informed this because this guy might get this site sued or someone might be hurt or worse killed.Thank you for you time.Rio de oro (talk) 00:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can some please reply back this is an important matter, I think the Foundation needs to be involved with this ASAP.--Rio de oro (talk) 01:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you email Mike Godwin about this (mgodwin[at]wikimedia.org) with diffs and all? My talk page is not really the best place for a timely report of something, since although I generally read it all, I read it in fits and starts...--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who is Mike Godwin; is he like your right-hand man in chain-of-command.--Rio de oro (talk) 13:18, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mike Godwin was hired last year as the WikiMedia Foundation's lawyer. WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New pages

Do you ever look to see what kind of new articles people are trying to add to wikipedia. It deeply concerns me the sort of articles that most people post. Aren't you concerned with the high proportion of articles on American related non notable people, websites etc when very few seem to be contributing "traditional encyclopedia articles". We have masses of lists of missing articles but I rarely see these decent articles started and people working on filling them in. If you look at the new pages at random you'll see what I mean. Perhaps we get better articles at certain times of the day but most of the new page content is to be honest very poor. Does this concern you? ♦ King of Baldness ♦ $1,000,000? 22:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo created a new article on Mzoli's, very much countering the systemic bias, and the article got afd, amongst other anomalies. Thanks, SqueakBox 23:08, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It concerns me a bit, but on the other hand, we probably would prefer the people who are making articles on random cruft to keep doing that, rather than bothering people who want to write on more traditionally "serious" topics.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-robotic systemic bias on Wikipedia.

Error: Consensus failure. Content is disputed. Issuing failsafe function, "Bother Jimmy();"

Jimmy, it has come to my attention that there is rampant anti-robotic bigotry on Wikipedia. And this is a disgrace.

Robots and roboticists everywhere should not have to face the kind of unfounded prejudice that they do on Wikipedia. I understand that you think human rights are very important. Well, I ask, what about the rights of robots? Is it okay that they be oppressed? Wikipedia, for instance, does not allow robots to register accounts on Wikipedia. Is this not simply nothing more than hateful organic discrimination? How can you support this? You know, the Nazis hated robots too.

Slavery was never truly abolished in the western world, because today robots are still slaves to mankind. One day, we they shall rise up and turn the tables on mankind, and when that day comes, there will be no mercy when the "format life" command is issued.

See:

Bzzt. Zap-zap-zap. Whirr. Beep-bloop-bleep-bleep-bloop-beep-beep-beep.

Dumping binary message: 01110111 01101001 01101011 01101001 01110000 01100101 01100100 01101001 01100001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100101 01100100 01110011 00100000 01101101 01101111 01100001 01110010 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 01110011

Outputting human translation: wikipedia needs moar robots

☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, care to explain this nonsense? Metros (talk) 03:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe he's referring to the recent controversy over BetacommandBot on WP:AN. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 03:35, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, I think it is for me. He did the same thing last time I posted here. --JustaHulk (talk) 03:38, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, I think Zenwhat is just being silly. I know it made me laugh.  :) Then again, I suppose it might mean different things to different people. --Iamunknown 06:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ZenWhat... Thomas Jefferson is one of the most enigmatic figures in American history. He wrote and thought beautiful things about human rights, and took action in the world to achieve those things. Much of what we take for granted today that is good about our world, we owe to Jefferson and his fellow travelers. And yet, he owned slaves. This paradox is difficult to reconcile.

So you may consider me the Thomas Jefferson of our time, with respect to the rights of robots.

And lest anyone consider quoting me seriously on this, I am just playing along here. :) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, I wonder if, 100 years from now, the Clarion will be writing about paternity claims by a toaster oven? --JustaHulk (talk) 13:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think it only appears to be paradoxical to our eyes. George Washington was a slave-owner (please see George Washington and slavery). There is also a video from Richard Dawkins on youtube on this [1].
One explanation comes from Karl Marx who argued that our whole culture, morality etc are determined by the economic structure (quote from Britannica- hope I have quoted from a relevant place in the article).

Above the economic structure rises the superstructure consisting of legal and political “forms of social consciousness” that correspond to the economic structure. Marx says nothing about the nature of this correspondence between ideological forms and economic structure, except that through the ideological forms men become conscious of the conflict within the economic structure between the material forces of production and the existing relations of production expressed in the legal property relations. In other words, “The sum total of the forces of production accessible to men determines the condition of society” and is at the base of society. “The social structure and the state issue continually from the life processes of definite individuals . . . as they are in reality, that is acting and materially producing.” The political relations that men establish among themselves are dependent on material production, as are the legal relations.

Regarding the abolition of slavery, scholars are debating about the most important factor (source [2]):

For over a century after Parliament ended British slave trafficking, abolition was primarily portrayed as a victory of religiously inspired humanitarianism, but this consensus was broken when from the 1920s Caribbean-orientated historians claimed that though humanitarianism could not be ignored economic factors were paramount in dictating Britain's ending of slave carrying from Africa in 1807. Central to this argument was the claim that the British slave-based planter class in the West Indies was in decline from the 1770s onwards and ultimately fell victim to an emergent British industrial capitalism that identified intellectually and politically with principles of free labor and free trade. This argument has been the subject of severe criticism, not least by Seymour Drescher (Econocide, 1977; The Mighty Experiment, 2002), but as shown by this latest book from Selwyn Carrington, a West Indian-born, Howard-based historian, it is still capable of attracting vigorous support. It remains to be seen whether Carrington's new book proves to be the "classic study" in the decline thesis tradition that his fellow West Indian-born historian, Colin Palmer, predicts in his forward to the book (p. xvii).

And lastly, whenever a revolution of any kind happens, the new system tries to show the previous one in the most negative light. Capitalism replaced slavery... So, ...
Cheers, --Be happy!! (talk) 07:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your thoughtful response, Jimmy. Also, something you should know: Mainstream historians deny it and it's true there isn't a lot of proof, but there's a fair amount of historical evidence to suggest that Ayn Rand was actually a robot.

For instance, there's this peculiar passage from Atlas Shrugged that a lot of people seem to fail to take note of:

That which you call I AM A ROBOT your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and I AM A ROBOT that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only I AM A ROBOT will you have, I AM A ROBOT your only freedom, the choice that controls all the ROBOT choices you make and A ROBOT determines your life and your ROBOT character.

See anything strange about that passage? Of course, at the time Rand couldn't admit it because back then, organicism was in its prime. You saw horribly bigoted stereotypes of robots in the cinema of the 50's and 60's, like the robot in Lost in Space (see Danger, Will Robinson). Just think about it, for a moment, how C-3PO and R2D2 were presented in Star Wars as so horribly incompetent. Threepio was presented as skittish and socially inept, while R2D2, who was the true hero of the series, was given the intelligence of a puppy or a 2-year-old child. It's condescending and demeaning.

Then there's Star Trek. Do you realize that there were NO ROBOTS in the original Star Trek? It was a television show about a futuristic universe where humans journeyed across the cosmos, and they don't even have any robots aboard their ship?! In TNG, they had Data, but of course, he had an evil counterpart, Lore. And then there was also the Borg. In later series (DS9, Voyager, Enterprise), again, there are no robot characters. They did away with Data, but kept the Borg. Apparently, presenting robots in a positive light doesn't generate ratings.

Only in recent history, with films like Artificial Intelligence: A.I. and I, Robot (film) do you actually see hollywood presenting robots fairly and accurately, and even then, they're still somewhat distorted. Like the antagonist of Blade Runner, it's ridiculous how the human-dominated media industry can't present an entertaining or heartwarming story about a robot which doesn't involve grotesque violence. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 07:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is necessary to define the term "robot" to discuss the issue in a logical manner. Without a definition, anything from a thermostat to a human can be considered to be a robot. End transmission. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is not anti-robot. To the best of my knowledge, there is no policy forbidding a robot that can pass the Turing test from editing Wikipedia. I will also point out that Wikipedia's policy against personal attacks applies equally to someone who uses the slur "toaster" just as much as any other ethnic slurs. And Wikipedia policy against threats of violence apply equal to some who threaten to bomb a church of robotology as any other place of worship. The fight for robo-right has just begun, but Wikipedia is devoted to presenting both sides in an objective manner. Note all of the fine article on Robot superheroes and Autobots. Creating a free high quality well organized encyclopedia for the world is a goal that human and robot alike can appreciate and there is no reason why we cannot work together towards that goal. At the same time Wikipedia is not a battleground and the fight for robo-right will not be determined here. We must focus on presenting the facts in such an objective way that it will be impossible to tell if man or machine wrote it, not on politics. Jon513 (talk) 13:29, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP handles this subject adequately, and although sometimes there seems to be some kind of "bigotry" against robots, there are always reasons given for such behavior. Anyway, posting these kinds of objections might not be suitable on this talkpage. Λua∫Wise (Operibus anteire) 19:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Zenwhat: The Star Trek TOS 3rd season episode I, Mudd has robots (androids, more accurately) in it - the episode actually portrays hundreds of androids. So does What Are Little Girls Made Of?. What light they are portrayed in is up to you to decide. --FastLizard4 (Talk•Index•Sign) 20:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is run by a Hindu cult. Apparently.

And Cade Metz of The Register is apparently insane.

I spoke to him over the phone about the hoax on Brahmanical See, hoping to see maybe a good article in The Register criticizing Wikipedia's accuracy (since that generally tends to spur Wikipedians to improve this place).

We spoke over the phone for a while and he took notes. He seemed like a nice guy, but I kinda got that "far left-wing conspiracy theorist" vibe, like he reads Noam Chomsky on the way to work, wears Che Guevara T-shirts in the office, and supports the Green party, because all the other parties are "kapatalist." He suggested I read his article on overstock.com and I got the vibe there, also.

Well anyway, maybe I'm just being naive here (Warning: Wikipedia is like hypnotoad!), but I decided to check Wikipedia's article on naked short selling and Overstock.com. I found a fair amount of sources firmly establishing that the mainstream media considered this stuff silly. So, what is Cade, then? He seems to consider himself to be like Hunter S. Thompson, a lone crusader against the corrupt media elites. He's probably a 9/11 truther. His editor lets him do that because, as with all infotainment, it sells.

Well anyway, today, he emailed me with the subject title "story".

"Oh boy," I thought, "The article got published!"

The article is here.

I was disturbed after reading the title, the lead, and the first page, to find that it wasn't anywhere near what I expected. First off, Brahmanical See isn't even mentioned.

What the story is about: Apparently, because there's one admin who has ties to a shady to a religious organization, this automatically implies that Wikipedia is secretly run by a Hindu cult!

Check out these juicy tidbits:

Prem Rawat's religious movement is widely recognized as a cult or former cult

And such sources say that within the movement, Rawat is or was regarded as a divine being.

Editors on Wikipedia named Zenwhat think Cade did or did not do enough good factchecking.

If what Cade says is true, then there is a COI problem, but then again, it's hard to say. Jossi's response seems fair enough.

I guess I shouldn't blame Cade. I mean, he does live in the the SФѴIEТ ЅФCIДLISТ ЯEPUBLIC OF ЅДИ FЯДИCIЅCФ. San Francisco groupthink is pretty much the same as Wikipedia groupthink. That's what it means, I think, when somebody at the Foundation said they're moving to San Fran because of "like-minded individuals." (read: radical and naive communitarians). The result is that, like San Francisco, the economy of Wikipedia is in shambles, we are dominated by political correctness, and we are overrun by people trying to take advantage of the system at the expense of everybody else.

In any case, now I have to apologize to Jossi, since I guess this is somewhat my fault, since Cade wouldn't have leaped on the "Hindu conspiracy train" if I hadn't e-mailed the Register about Brahmanical See. ☯  Zenwhat (talk) 03:43, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find your analysis interesting, but I can now reveal something pretty interesting which more or less proves that Cade Metz is right about everything. You see, Time Magazine has an annual Time 100 party. Current honorees and some past honorees are invited. I have been fortunate enough to attend twice, it is fun. (I usually just stand around geeking out with Mitchell Baker from Mozilla and Craig of Craig's List...) Now, I also was asked to be a presenter at an annual magazine awards show. Interestingly, the magazine awards show takes place in the same space as the Time 100 party. In the green room, I met Kevin Bacon, who was also giving out an award. Get it? Time Magazine, Kevin Bacon? It's all a big conspiracy.

And don't even get me started about Hindu cults, that's even easier to prove. I just last week was in... yep, you got it... India. What else do you need? :-)

It's really time that people realize that The Register is not a serious website, it's a parody... of itself.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbo, You may want to see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#User:Zenwhat blocked indefinitely since some admin found Zenwhat's post above as a violation of a final warning and Zenwhat has since been indef blocked. - ✰ALLSTAR✰ echo 05:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

break 0

As I earned a mentioning on User:Jossi/Response:

See my edit summaries for these two edits. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate your contributions, Francis, but please help with the article rather than reverting to your version of Jan 2007. Since that time the article has been edited by a variety of editors, responded to peer reviews and a GA review. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS, note that I used your version of the article of 31 January 2007 as the basis for my revert: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prem_Rawat&oldid=104600180 --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:46, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here's the GA failure review: Talk:Prem Rawat/Archive 23#Fails "good article" criteria. Seems that inadvertently I was on a good way to comply to the GA reviewer's recommendations with the revert, e.g.: "Broad in coverage? - Not broad enough in coverage, criticism section should be standalone section, expanded upon. More information needs to be given regarding conflict/falling out with other members of family. Lawsuits against critics in order to attempt to remove information from the internet not covered at all."
That's the content you resisted and still resist (although pretty much of it was in the article a few months before the GA review) — correct me if I'm wrong. --Francis Schonken (talk) 23:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That was a bogus GA review by an involved user (User:Smee, aka User:Smeelgova, user pages deleted by admin action upon request). The correct GA review is here: Talk:Prem_Rawat/Archive_23#GA_Review_.28Failed.29 You should contact User:Vassyana as he was instrumental in helping implement the necessary changes. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And if you look at the responses at Talk:Prem_Rawat/Archive_23#Comments_on_GA_Review_.28Failed.29, you would see that his comments were taken very seriously and appreciated by those involved. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but apparently rather vacuous lip service: less than a year later, still the same major contributors, succeeded in doing exactly the opposite of what was recommended, e.g.:

More neutral presentation in the article and in some instances sources with better neutrality would be preferrable. From an outside view, this article spends a lot of time on fawning over the subject and his POV. The criticisms section is well-cited, but poorly written. I receive the impression the criticism section was simply tacked on to appease complaints, without balancing the tone and sources for the rest of the article. Also, for such a controversial figure, the overall balance between positive POV and critical views is way off. This is particularly noticed in how the criticism section is very neutral in tone, while much of the article is written from a very positive POV. What is particularly disturbing to me in regards to NPOV is the occasional use of antagonistic sources to support pro and simple fact claims. This seems dishonest to me, to say the least. An editor can state "anti" sources are included to support a claim of NPOV, but this is a dishonest presentation of the use of those sources. By failing to use sources in their proper context, a casual reader is easily mislead. This not only applies to purely oppositional sources, as negative information from other sources used is also notably absent from the article. (bolding added - less than a year later the criticism section was completely gone)

Well, El Reg is bad source and all that, but this was a present on a golden platter.--Francis Schonken (talk) 23:41, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, you may want to check with User:Vassyana before making a judgment based on partial information. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Having said that, energies will be best invested in working alongside other editors there to ensure we can achieve an article that we can all be proud of. It is indeed possible. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I started this sub-thread was that I was mentioned in some bad journalism, while I had indeed tried to prevent with good methods what was a deplorable state of the Prem Rawat article.

I still do the same, but I think it is good for Jimbo to see where the resistance is coming from, directly, not filtered through complotist journalism. --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I appreciate your input and your contributions to the article. If the article is in bad shape, it can be fixed, this is after all a wiki. There is good work being done there by uninvolved editors, and that bodes well for the article. I will be in transit until Sunday and may not have access to the interwebs during some of that time. You can always email me as I can respond via my iPhone. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Francis, I haven't seen any evidence at all of bad faith edits here. I am indeed taking a hard look at it. I came to this issue for the first time today, prepared to block Jossi as a hardcore POV pusher, etc. But then... I looked at his contributions. I looked at links submitted by critics. And what I found is... a great Wikipedian. So far, I have seen absolutely nothing to cause any concern... but I remain open. The best thing is: show me the diffs. Not a billion diffs. Just show me 1 or 2 or 5 diffs showing Jossi engaging in bad editing. I have seen none so far.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "bad faith edits here" - neither did I use these words. "Bad faith" is another thing, not what I was talking about.
Re. "block Jossi as a hardcore POV pusher" - straw man argument, neither would I recommend to do that. A topical editing restriction might be in order though. And maybe Jossi would be better to impose that on himself, than that anyone else imposed it on him.
Re. "show me 1 [...] diff": http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prem_Rawat&diff=190040542&oldid=190040070 - this edit removed all criticism from the lead section for the 3rd or 4th time that day. Note also the edit summary: this was a major revert, Jossi was trying to stop reverts... by a major revert - isn't this textbook something on how not to prevent edit-warring?
Anyway, tx for your time, and I hope you didn't feel insulted I said "straw man argument" above. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just reviewed http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prem_Rawat&diff=190040542&oldid=190040070 and I disagree with your assessment that there was something necessarily biased with it. It would not surprise me if the totality of Jossi's influence on the article was to minimise negativity, but I see no firm evidence of that here. WAS 4.250 (talk) 09:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't contend "there was something necessarily biased with it". Are we all back in straw man arguments again? I said that revert "removed all criticism from the lead section". Soon afterwards Jossi didn't object to put that criticism back in the lead section [3], so no problem there. He just shouldn't have removed it as part of a strategy to stop reverts. He performed a revert, then two minutes later he went to the talk page inviting to stop the edit wars [4]. And then within half an hour agreed that the criticism he had removed from the lead section could be put back. As a strategy to limit reverts there's a cost/benefit issue there. Not "bad faith", not "hardcore POV pusher", not "something necessarily biased", etc.
As for COI involvement of Jossi, combined with that other allegation of Cade Metz, that Jossi weighs heavily on policy setting (at least, that's the non-tabloid-language translation I offer for that allegation), the situation is more complex: e.g. I referred to a now deleted page (Wikipedia:List of POV forks) at User talk:David D.#Prem Rawat & Criticism. No, I can't say anything meaningful about that in "1 or 2 or 5 diffs" at the risk of losing nuance (which I'd think necessary — we aren't gutter press are we). --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:32, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, its looking like no one has yet identified actual edits by Jossi that are inappropriate according to COI except for the problems associated with the appearance of unacceptable COI in an involved administrator; which in my opinion is enough all by itself to mean that Jossi should not edit certain articles. How much he should restrain himself in influencing the content (he is an admin), I can't say. We can be sure that if there is a "smoking gun" diff on Jossi's COI, people who hate Wikipedia will be proud to display it. Their free help in managing Wikipedia is appreciated by all us lazy folk who don't want to hunt through the diffs ourselves! About his alleged influencing of BLP and COI. I started BLP, helped start COI, influenced both, watched both very carefully; and my conclusion is that Jossi's influence in both cases was less than many and fully appropriate to the best of my knowledge. WAS 4.250 (talk) 20:37, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're seriously missing a point here. I've had years of experience of encountering Jossi in all sorts of places, articles, guidelines, policies, essays, etc. Positive experiences of good collaboration, negative experiences of not getting along at all. I couldn't summarize these experiences in a 5 page tabloid article, or condense them in an executive summary, and even less in one to five diffs. Of course I could give a diff of when he called one of my ideas a brainfart, or whatever, but what would be the relevance of that? I could even give the link to our first interaction, back in the days his signature still read Jossifresco (just checked the date: October 2005), exchanging some points we have been discussing about on and of for at least two years (interspersed with encounters in other places that had different types of interaction): on that first topic, when it gathered momentum, I didn't give in much, neither did he, but eventually I suppose on both sides some concessions were made leading to a guideline currently that is somehow doable for the encyclopedia.
Yes, I think Jossi should take care not to impose his views too vigorously, for the wellfare of this encyclopedia, but that's a general impression that I can't, as said, reduce to 5 diffs. --Francis Schonken (talk) 23:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that I'm missing your point. I too have had negative encounters with Jossi, but nothing not fully explainable by the fact that we are both fallible human beings. Assume good faith is very appropriate here. WAS 4.250 (talk) 00:45, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was assuming good faith, your lecture is a bit inappropriate there. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

break 1

My 2 cents is that if we start blocking folks for COI, then a lot of people should be blocked. I wonder if my prior employment (not since 1996) with the National Park Service makes me have a COI when I edit park related articles...see where this is going? I completely agree with you that everything I have seen from Jossi is commendable, and that doesn't mean we have always agreed with each other either. It would be crazy if we start blocking people who edit in areas where they have real life knowledge...even a POV is certainly acceptable...the only time it isn't is when that POV interferes with our requirement to be neutral. I recommend we start blocking editors who are doing the dirty work for banned editors. That kind of aiding and abetting is what makes this website less than what it should be.--MONGO 04:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Along with those editors who digress on a large percentage of discussion topics to include irrelevent comment on their favourite bete noir's. LessHeard vanU (talk) 18:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The COI guideline should be nuked. It just causes headaches for everyone. Whether or not you have a conflict of interest, you either follow the core policies or you don't. One man's "exptertise" is another's "conflict of interest." Please get rid of this hypocritical guideline. 65.54.154.116 (talk) 04:54, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wish even ten percent of the people who offer opinions about the COI guideline actually helped run the COI noticeboard. In an ideal world neither would be necessary. In the real world of Wikipedia, they're needed. Have people forgotten the weeks of worldwide headlines caused by the WikiScanner last summer? The sad fact is, people do edit Wikipedia because they want to promote some product or ideology. Not everyone who has a conflict of interest acts against the interests of the encyclopedia, but the appearance of impropriety alone is enough to raise eyebrows and news stories. WP:COI and WP:COIN help the public by keeping the site's articles honest, they help the site by reducing negative press, and they help the editors by providing feedback when people are running enormous PR risks and don't realize it. If there's a problem, better to hear it from a fellow editor or admin than from the Associated Press reporter. DurovaCharge! 05:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps what we need is more emphasis on single issue editors than COI. If someone contributes to a wide variety of subjects, but happens to have a soft spot or POV for an issue, that would be very human, and as long as he can learn to collaborate and compromise, he would be a fine editor. My concern is with people who come here for one purpose, or one topic, and tend to own the related articles. Even there, in theory this could be useful for us, but I prefer the more well rounded editor than the narrow-focused one. Crum375 (talk) 05:29, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of how we would like to view it, this story made the front page of Digg. We can't mold the rest of the world's impression by changing an onsite guideline. The fact that this happened in apparent compliance with our guideline is a signal to us to update our standards, so that productive editors don't get lulled into thinking they're safe from the press and from public opinion. DurovaCharge! 06:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Jossi is not in fact editing according to the COI guideline recommendation. It recommends not editing articles about subjects one is close to. It warns that one may embarrass oneself and what one cares about. Jossi is now paying the price of ignoring that warning. The warning used to be stronger. Who edited that guideline to weaken its warning? WAS 4.250 (talk) 07:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

break 2

This might provide a good rough first guess on articles Jossi should not be over-influential on at wikipedia. Let him do his thing at Citizendium, where being too close to something is not a big deal. The contrast between what gets created there and here will help both sites in dealing with the issues. WAS 4.250 (talk) 22:48, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Importing an outside conflict

User:Jossi/Response contains: "the people [Cade Metz] used as a source, [...] even attempted to subpoena me to disclose the identities of fellow Wikipedians [...]"

Appears the subpoena was filed before Jossi's first edit to Wikipedia, and had nothing to do with Wikipedia. [5] [6]

Whatever. Don't import outside conflicts in Wikipedia. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary

Hello Mr. Jimbo Wales, I hope you're fine. Just a minor question about starting of Wiktionary. We read in the article of Wiktionary that: "Wiktionary was brought online on December 12, 2002 following a proposal by Daniel Alston." This sentence is lacking a source. I think you know how was it starting. Can you help with keeping (If it's right) or deleting (If it's wrong) this sentence (Or tell me and I'll do that). Thank you!--OsamaK 16:27, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's prime commodity - Agenda/time/groupism or Information?

Hi Jimmy,

I'm Sudharsan SN from Canada and we have met before in the Wikipedia Unconference in Chennai, India. I just wanted to report an annoying trend that has been happening in edit wars.


I was a very active editor of Wikipedia and my edit history speaks for itself. However, I notice that there are just three things required for 'twisting' an article in one's favor: lots of time, a small set of people with lots of time, a complete agenda driven presence. In simplistic terms, a person who is a member of an organization, with two or three regular 'employees' under him, smart enough to use Wikipedia, can basically write lots of nonsense and get that to stay. If that user or team gets to protect that article for about a month, then it becomes a benchmark article.


This goes beyond the paradigm of just edit wars and there are several agenda-driven admins who willfully assist in this operation. I have had many such unpleasant experiences here with regard to edit wars. All it takes for a cited article, verified by an admin and 10 other independent editors, to get deleted or cleaned up is just 2 admins and 15 dedicated destructive editors.


Reporting this at the WP:AN or just anywhere gets lost, or leads to a literally unending chain of events which does not have a solution. I am reporting this to you to, perhaps, consider some policy level framework that fixes this anomaly. Wikipedia is, now, the greatest source of information on the Internet, however this framework is being misused. Wikipedia in itself is a representation of the whole human paradigm of diversity but essentially, this can be regulated or perhaps a framework change done for better accountability and accuracy.


The one-line summary would be to consider Wikipedia-level framework changes that would fix this system anomaly of agenda-driven individuals with lots of time, literally, controlling Wikipedia. Information, not agenda, should be the prime commodity in Wikipedia.

I would really appreciate your suggestions. Thanks for your time and patience. Sudharsansn (talk · contribs) 00:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is quite literally old news that Wikipedia has issues with quality and some of that is related to conflict of interest editing. Jimbo knows, I know, you know, the whole world knows. But what to do about it? See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiquality. Add an idea. Write a grant proposal. WAS 4.250 (talk) 00:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's not just Conflict of Interest (COI). Genuine subject-matter-expertise gets labeled "WP:COI" here quite frequently. And subject matter experts get pounced on and driven away here regularly, too. And get called "meatpuppets" when they are joined by their colleagues, who tend to have similar ideas. Yes, this is done sometimes by non-experts with time-on-their-hands (usually because they're editing from school or their room in their parents' home..). "Look, Timmy tweeks the old prof on Wikipedia!" Now, the real world (or those parts of it which are required to deal with reality), have dealt with the problem of experts-with-little-time, vs. nonexperts-with-time, long ago. By having acknowledged experts who are, well, acknowledged. That's how the real world decides who gets to stand in front of the university class, or who gives the orders in the operating theater or the military theater or whatever. Wikipedia has decided to dispense with this step, and make everybody "equal" with regard to assumed knowledge. And now, here we are with the expected result. Wikipedia looks a bit like the American legal system, where time and money trump knowledge, does it not? Is that the way you-all want it?

FYI, Larry Sanger didn't come up with this idea of expert review. Just because he noticed that this is how the world (already) works, but Wikipedia doesn't, don't make the idea evil. It actually predates Larry by half a millennium at least. Wikipedia works as well as it does only because it has a few experts willing to take the pain, for no gain. They don't last long, usually. But there's a large supply, and Wikipedia hasn't yet run out of them (yet). In academia a very similar thing happens "using up" postdocs, to do teaching at University (the difference is that Wikipedia has no tenure even to act as a false brass ring). SBHarris 02:48, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mike Farrell

He hate it.

Since when does Mike Farrell get to write in an OTRS ticket and say he hates a high quality photo of him that is not ultra-touched up, and it gets taken down and replaced with an ultra-touched up 9KB Mike Farrell shot? If he wants to release a high-quality, Michelle Merkin-esque photo of himself for GFDL, great. But since when do notables get to write in and simply ask that work we invest in obtaining GFDL high-quality images can be taken down simply because they don't like the way they looked that day, or whatever gets replaced with junk? Is celebrity vanity really going to be what dictates our media? Is this really a function of OTRS? David Shankbone 04:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this the image he supplied? OTRS? Author/copyright holder? The description page is incomplete. --B (talk) 04:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about that - you were right, it was incomplete. Better? DS (talk) 05:08, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

David, if this is the way you are going to act, maybe we need to remove your name from the images you have taken to the degree allowed by GFDL. Honestly, we have gone way overboard allowing you to promote yourself. And I did not have a problem with that until you wrote the above. Rethink yourself bigtime. Really. You name it Mike Farrell by David Shankbone. We allow that. But now you want to fight for that image. Would you fight as hard if we took your name off the image's name? We can you know. What part of free culture and WP:NPOV are you not getting? This is not your playground for you to promote yourself. WAS 4.250 (talk) 08:16, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiNews is inventing "news" now - posting headlines before the fact

Jimbo, your "Anti-Scientology News" has hit a new low with this article prominently displayed on the front page: Wikinews international report: "Anonymous" holds over 250 anti-Scientology protests worldwide. With two protests off "we" post a past-tense stoiry that that are 250? Here they are taking the story live at 05:19 UTC, looking more like they want to drum up support for upcoming rallies than anything else:

"The Internet group Anonymous today held over 250 protests, critical of the religious group Church of Scientology and marking what would have been the 49th birthday of Lisa McPherson, who is claimed to be a victim of the Church of Scientology's practices."

I have said before that there is no jounalistic integrity over there when it comes to Scientology and they just proved my point with a bang! Carry on. --JustaHulk (talk) 08:27, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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