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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by JustaHulk (talk | contribs) at 16:02, 10 February 2008 (→‎WikiNews is inventing "news" now - posting headlines before the fact: partisan a candidate for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees.??). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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.

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 [1], 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 [2]. 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]
See Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#User:Jossi_and_Prem_Rawat_2. Andries (talk) 13:35, 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]
There is some truth in it. The article Prem Rawat grew one-sided mostly because it was left alone to warring factions by the wider wikipedia community. Dispute resolution had repeatedly been tried hy me but failed. Eventually one faction got the upper hand. Andries (talk) 14:57, 10 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. [3] [4]

Don't import outside conflicts in Wikipedia, per WP:NOT#BATTLEGROUND. If you had a conflict with Marianne over webcontent you produced for Prem Rawat or his organisations (or whatever), don't even dream of implicating Wikipedia in that via your "Response" page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:23, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Jossie Fresco has referred to my libel lawsuit in his wikipedia entry. His statement that I tried to find out the identities of wikipedians is completely false. My lawsuit was filed in February, 2004. The libel complaint is based on numerous statements made on the internet which falsely claimed I was involved in illegal activity. The libel complaint details many of the statements, which occurred between 2001 and 2003. Wikipedia is never mentioned. A superior court judge authorized a subpoena to Jossi so he could be deposed about his knowledge, as Rawat's webmaster, of the identities of the people making these libelous claims - again, none of which involved wikipedia."[5]

Perhaps Jossi is referring to Wikipedia editors involved with the subpoena that together with him have helped to maintain related articles??? Just guessing, here. WAS 4.250 (talk) 10:21, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tried not to speculate, I think it's better that way.
Anyway, I'd abhorr the idea that Mike Godwin, on Wikipedia's behalf, would need to intervene to protect the identity of premies sought for outside the context of Wikipedia, but of whom Jossi now revealed they're Wikipedians too. That would not be money well spent, and Jossi should have done better to avoid the slightest chance of that ever occurring. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WAS, Francis, you could have asked me via email about this, rather than here. You do not have all the information, the subpoena was served to me while I was actively editing Wikipedia. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 11:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please remove "They even attempted to subpoena me to disclose the identities of fellow Wikipedians (etc)" from your "response" page. It was entirely inappropriate to bring that up on a Wikipedia user page. Our comments were in the same medium as where that was brought up. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did. Now, you could consider investing your attention to maintain some basic talk-page discipline, by refactoring blatant personal attacks, such as [6] and others. I am not fair game, neither that article is. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 11:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are also BLP violations on that page by that user and others. Neither that article, nor me, are fair game, in particular as I have done no wrong. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 11:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For PA's I prefer to keep to WP:NPA#Initial options as long as possible. "Refactoring", which is in no way an obligatory option, (See WP:NPA#Removal of text) is almost never done by me (just the wrong guy you're asking). But to show I was annoyed too, and not of bad will, I posted this remark [7].
I would have expected at a minimum a {{uw-npa2}}. I guess I will need to place a request at WP:/ANI so that someone else can warn that user about our policy of WP:CIVILITY ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As you might remember, I tend to dismiss things that might be perceived as personal attacks with slightly out of place expressions like "over the hill", and leave interpretation to others. That was my attitude then, it is still the same. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:28, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I know, and I may be learning from you some of that :) Does it work? We shall see, I guess. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Of course it worked, as you also know. But indeed it works all the time. I consider myself a pretty controversial Wikipedia editor. Nonetheless I'm almost jealous of never having been at the center of some media attention. Lately I was thinking that might be caused by leaving endless lists of people saying not-so-nice things (intermingled with compliments) on my user talk page, neatly archiving these messages afterwards. ;) --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:54, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "as I have done no wrong" — you say we don't have the evidence about that, so that assertion is empty, and irrelevant. Aka: Verifiability not truth. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:13, 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]

You know Was, you're not Jimbo Wales so why do you seem to feel you are the self-appointed person who answers for him the most? What's the deal with being combative with someone who has contributed a lot more content than you have over the last year and a half? This doesn't come down to self-promotion, it comes down to having the highest quality photograph up. I didn't complain when my Sean Combs photo was no longer in the lead; nor my Al Franken, nor my Kerry Washington. What's the "we" crap you talk about. Are you speaking on behalf of Wikipedia, in addition to speaking on behalf of Jimbo? Wow, WAS, you have really self-promoted your own standing on this project. Well, with all due respect, speak for yourself and use "we" only if you are siamese twins sitting at the computer terminal.David Shankbone 14:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to point out that it was me that appointed 4.250 (as I have always referred to him) as the person who answers on behalf of "Jimbo The Most". FourPointTwoFive may have misunderstood slightly, since Jimbo The Most is a rather oversized Pink Elephant that frequents my life after a few too many beers - but it is unlikely since I never actually got round to telling him that he had so been appointed. Under the circumstances, your original point may have indeed been correct... What was it again? LessHeard vanU (talk) 14:56, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, a larger version of the pic has been uploaded (107KB vs 9 KB). Farrell supplied it to us in a friggin' HUGE.pdf, so it had to be shrunk down, and I guess it was shrunk down a bit too much. (Also, I don't think we really need a photo of Farrell in a bikini, do you?) DS (talk) 14:03, 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 story 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]

What does this have to do with the English Wikipedia? Lawrence § t/e 08:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is a communication from me to Jimbo, on a page he reads. If you are not interested then you are free to move on to something else. --JustaHulk (talk) 08:57, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that Jimbo has an email address, which is the perfect way to communicate from 'you to him' on subjects that aren't related to building an encyclopedia. Repeatedly using this (high-visibility, high-traffic) talk page to bring up non-Wikipedia topics might be seen by some as soapboxing. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:52, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am on a soapbox - the soapbox that perhaps the captain of this ship, and perhaps some experienced and intelligent editors over here, might want to take a bit of responsibility for a sister project whose excesses reflects on this project, too. I see that my correction of the title of the aforementioned article, in which I removed the partisan crystal-balling in a neutral fashion, has been reverted and labeled vandalism by one of the main partisans, an admin there that says: "I am currently a candidate for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees."

"Please do not removed sourced, true information from articles. That is considered vandalism. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 15:19, 10 February 2008 (UTC)" n:User talk:JustaHulk

"I am currently a candidate for the Wikimedia Board of Trustees." Scary stuff, that. --JustaHulk (talk) 16:02, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And for those that would say "sofixit", well, I did (good thing someone with some "common sense" checked in over there - I could use some help with that). Let's see if it stays fixed. On a side note, it is interesting that WikiNews reports 800 at Sydney while a "reliable source" says 150. I will leave that alone as doubless the "reporter" will stand by his "reporting". --JustaHulk (talk) 09:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm so glad that the "Church of Scientology" is teaching us how to be unbiased. Just don't sue us, OK? You'd think with all your money that you'd build a soup kitchen or something, but I guess posting here about that story is just as good. I never knew that stating plain facts qualified with such adjectives as claimed would be bias, though. But, I'm sure Jimbo will take time out of his day to delete those facts for you. So, despite what some people may think, your post made a difference and we all appreciate you taking OUR time to discuss it.--The Smartass (talk) 10:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikinews does original research with a variably-reliable editorial process - that's why wikipedia can't in general use them as a source. WAS 4.250 (talk) 10:05, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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