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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 119.95.25.38 (talk) at 14:05, 6 February 2009 (→‎Example of what Flagged Revisions on all BLPs would have prevented: freedom). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Just make it so...

Jimbo, time to just get 'er done - WP:CONEXCEPT. (archiving comment. Fram (talk) 20:55, 3 February 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Maybe a solution

Well I maybe have a solution but it's somehow heavy at the beginning. Each article needs to be confirmed by the moderators when they have time. Wiki can put a warning message in the article that have been changed recently and not confirmed yet by a moderator.

If the articles have been confirmed and the information they have is true, then wiki put a message (in a green background) saying that this article have been confirmed and its content is correct.

The other articles that have been modified have a warning (in an orange background) saying that the content of this article have been modified and have not been confirmed yet so maybe the information here isn't 100% correct. The articles will have this warning until it's been confirmed by a moderator.

In the case the moderator read an altered article and this new version presents wrong content, he will refuse it and the old version of the article will be restored.

This solution is not very hard to implement (in programming terms) but it will be hard at the beginning because the admins will have to confirmed every articles. So for resuming to help the programmers (if this is accepted) (I'm a programmer and webmaster so...)


Every articles can be created, altered without waiting for the confirmation.

Every articles that have been altered or created will have a warning until it's been confirmed.

Every confirmed articles will have a note saying the content is true and have been checked.

Every articles will have a backup in the case the content changed and the moderators refuse the new content.


This solution mean the requirement for two databases (one for the actual content and anther for the backups).

EDIT: one more thing to help the moderator. If anyone suspects wrong content in an article, checked or not, there will be a link for them to warn the moderators. They can enter a short message saying what's wrong.

PS: Sorry for errors but I'm french —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aerodark (talk • contribs) 17:45, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hope this will help. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aerodark (talk • contribs) 17:44, 31 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Little revision : It'll be better if, when an article has been changed and not confirmed by a moderator, there is a link to the unmodified one (an older version, but more realistic). (I also apologise for my english) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.201.12.223 (talk) 09:35, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One of the points to this was to stop the "edited but not accepted" version from public view until it has been "accepted". It is no use if the page says "this may not be approved yet" and instead of the article the page says "shit cock mofo" --Chaosdruid (talk) 19:05, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Libraries" and Larry

In the "WEBISODE" video found here, with about 54 seconds remaining in the video, you say, "...and publish them and put them in libraries..." It sounds like you pronounce the word as "lie-berries". Am I mishearing your speech pattern, or is that typically how you pronounce the word "libraries"?

Also, at the beginning of the video, there is a text overlay and your voice describing you as "Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia". The Wikipedia article about Wikipedia indicates that "Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales are the founders of Wikipedia." Would you object or have a problem if there were a video presented on a prominent website (such as USAnetwork.com) featuring Larry Sanger, describing him as "Larry Sanger, founder of Wikipedia"? -- 3 Good 1 Comment (talk) 15:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I believe you are mishearing, yes. I never say "liberries". Of course, I might also have messed up a word at some point, too. My views on the founder thing are well known, so I'll decline to answer your second question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, I pronounce the word "ly-burries" and was totally unaware of this until it was called to my attention when I was a lad of ~20. WilyD 19:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I used to think I pronounced it ly-berry, but then my wife pointed out that I (and a lot of my fellow Pennsylvanians) actually pronounce it "Ly-bree". Huh. --SB_Johnny | talk 19:56, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

German archives

These images donated from the German Archives really are amazing. We have some fantastic historical images of places and people not just from Germany but from early German expeditions to Tibet etc and the German arrival in west africa etc. Amazing. I wonder whether anybody would consider contacting national archives from any other country and informing them about wiki's goals and aspirations. It might be a good idea to do so if it meant we could drastically improve our image resources in this way. It is something anybody has ever considered or was did they donate on their own accord without any request? Dr. Blofeld White cat 17:07, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think The Christian Science Monitor might be open to donating historical images of the United States. 122.107.135.153 (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FlaggedRevs and WikiLove

I was hoping we might be able to have a nice cup of tea and a (rather large) sit down ("we" being everyone relating to FlaggedReves (supporters, opponents, etc.)). --Thinboy00 @082, i.e. 00:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I will be catching up later this week, and this weekend reviewing as much of the discussion as I can, in order to set out a proposal that will get a very very high degree of support. I am quite sure there is a strong middle ground, based on many of the comments of both supporters and opponents. It has been very sad and disappointing to me that the media has misrepresented us all so badly. There is an easy but false idea that the opponents of this are in favor of some kind of radical free speech that doesn't tolerate any limits on publication in wikipedia at all. And an easy but false idea that the supporters of this are in favor of closing down open editing. The truth is, of course, significantly more complex, and significantly more interesting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative technological solution - Historic Views

Change Wikipedia so the default view is what the page looked like an hour ago. Vandals would lose most of the incentive and almost all of their audience. Editors would have time to correct vandalism.

Users could have a preference that set whether they wanted to see the page as it was most recently edited, an hour ago, yesterday, last week, last year. Bear1952 (talk) 02:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This wouldn't work to solve what is perceived as the problem though. Plenty of even well-patrolled pages do not have vandalism reverted within an hour. That's been my experience. And less popular pages can have days before anyone notices. --C S (talk) 04:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, instead of seeing vandalism immediately before it is reverted two minutes later, it would become visible one hour later (for two minutes). This does not solve anything. Fram (talk) 08:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Heh, good point! I didn't think it through :-) --C S (talk) 08:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would definitely be a good step to solve the problem for high traffic pages which are the main targets of vandalism and which are monitored by lots of people. True it wouldn't catch all rogue modifications, but it would prevent a lot of them. If we talk about a trial period then this intermediary solution is a much better candidate for a trial than manual flagging (less rigid, semi-automated). Let's implement and activate this first for a month and see what happens. We can always go back to more aggressive solutions like manual flagging if it doesn't prove effective enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.18.136 (talk) 08:09, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See Fram's point right above though. Delaying the vandalism by one hour would do nothing! It just time shifts everything by one hour. Bear1952's solution, as far as I can tell, is based entirely on the premise that vandals seek only immediate gratification. The loophole is that I'm sure many of the more persistent vandals would be perfectly fine with their vandalism showing up one hour later instead. --C S (talk) 08:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously, there should be special revert action the result of which would appear immediately, effectively cancelling out the vandalism. And there should be a rule that if the last action was a special revert then it cannot be reverted by another special revert, but the page can be edited of course. Revert should be distinguished from a normal edit anyway. If we want improvement then the edit process must be improved too. You cannot build a solid building on loose soil. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.18.136 (talk) 10:33, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suspected you would respond like that. What you are in effect describing is a flagged revision where instead of approving changes, you would have time to disapprove them. The advantage of an approval system versus diaspproval system, is that if nobody approves the changes, then it doesn't show up. In your disapproval system, if nobody disapproves them in one hour, then the vandalism will show up. In the situations I imagine you are envisioning, there would be plenty of eyes to watch and disapprove of obvious vandalism. In those situations, however, there would also be plenty of eyes to watch and approve of non-vandalism edits. So I see only disadvantages, not advantages, with a disapproval system as you describe. --C S (talk) 11:35, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are most of the edits vandalism? The answer is no. Vandalism is only a small percentage of all edits. Consequently, a system which delays showing the results of an edit and displays it if noone disapproves it will allow through mostly valid modifications. On the other hand a system which relies on manual approval will accumulate a pending backlog of unapproved edits which will very likely will grow with time, since all edits must be approved. A system as large as Wikipedia shouldn't rely exclusively on manual filtering, because it will surely be a bottleneck sooner or later. That's why the semi-automated, delayed approach is better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.182.18.136 (talk) 12:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, logged-in users could see the current revision of a page. Jchthys (talk) 16:58, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

hi

hi jim :)

-- Zachera (talk) 03:43, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Assign me some homework

Please leave a list of links here for me regarding Flagged Revisions - be liberal - what should I be reading? I plan to spend a major amount of time this weekend (including Friday) looking at everything and trying to come up with a proposal that will be met with near-universal acclaim. Well, that's my dream but of course with a large community and a lot of opinions, that's going to be difficult of course.

Then we'll vote again and see where we stand.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have fun! --MZMcBride (talk) 14:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have a delightful pre-course research paper on Dow Jones v Gutnick, should you have some spare time for more homework once this is done :) Daniel (talk) 14:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(EC) I guess you should read through the straw poll completely. It has quite a large amount of discussion for a straw poll and I doubt you read those 360kB+ of text already ;-) SoWhy 14:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You may also add Wikipedia:Deferred revisions to your list. Cenarium (Talk) 17:54, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The following is not trolling. I think you should read this thread on Wikipedia Review (feel free to do so via a proxy). I think the comments of Doc Glasgow, Kato, and One (who's User:Cool Hand Luke here, if you weren't aware) are especially perceptive. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:25, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could usefully gather and clearly broadcast (e.g. via an official FR FAQ) some reliable information: partly, facts about the impact of FR at the German Wikipedia, and partly, ground rules for the future implementation at en:wp (discussion now is bogged down due to a list of not-very-well defined "trials" with little clarity on what rolled-out configuration the trials are intended to prototype).
  • Would FR create an unmanagable backlog? The statistics for de:wp are widely misunderstood, e.g. claims that it typically takes a week or longer to flag an edit (wrong). Discussed at WT:FLR#21 days?, with links to useful graphics on the German situation kept by de:Benutzer:ParaDox.
  • There was a debate on this page about whether there was a decline in new users at de:wp coincident with starting FR. The most easily accessible statistics (Eric Zachte's) suggest this, but IIRC this is an artefact and really there is no decline. This should not be buried in your talk archives.
  • Somewhere in the talk linked above is the claim that the Recent Changes Patrollers at de:wp have refused to cooperate with FR. If true this is a minor organizational disaster, as ideally FR should work seamlessly with RCP. So find out what happened and why. (RCP people are not notably supportive at en:wp, either).
  • The recent reader's survey included questions about FR. Why not announce the results?
  • If FR is to be used to protect BLPs, answer the many queries about whether editors will incur any liability if they inadvertently "validate" libel.
  • Lack of clarity on who would be eligible to flag is causing opposes claiming this would be a small elite. You could at least say that on "roll-out" the qualifications will be "no harder to get than XXX", with a plausible estimate for the (minimum) number of users who would qualify. PaddyLeahy (talk) 21:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. The unanswered FR posts on your talk page and its recent archives.
  2. This section of Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions about Ted Kennedy
MickMacNee (talk) 22:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A suggestion for spending your money

Hi,

Just defended my dissertation; I'll be losing access to my university library's databases in a few months. I suggest that Wikipedia get the same access to various databases (JSTOR, AcademicSearchPremier, etc) that your local university has, and choose a team of volunteer researchers to utilize that access. Of course I volunteer to be one of them. ;-) Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 11:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Count me in too!:) prashanthns (talk) 11:58, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What companies own the databases we'd like some access to?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:33, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure there are tons of them. Some well-known ones for starters:
Are those all independent companies, or are they owned by major publishers?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If this could be pulled off somehow, and reasonably on price, it would be made of awesome. rootology (C)(T) 14:45, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am not in academia and JSTOR would be so useful for Wikipedia. I have thought the same. I suggest Wikipedia invest in this and newspaper archives. I don't know how it could be co-ordinated, though. Computerjoe's talk 15:13, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Many universities offer borrowing privileges for people who donate $US250 (or other amount) to their library. I'm not sure if off-campus access to databases is included. That probably depends on the university, and if it is included, it may be more restricted. That's another option to look into, and the borrowing privileges would certainly be helpful too. --Aude (talk) 15:22, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This has been suggested several times before in various forums. The main issue is that no company wants to give away their resources to everyone capable of registering a Wikipedia account. You've go to be able to set some sort of threshold for who gets access. Or, alternately, I suppose the Foundation could buy licenses similar to those that universities buy, but the cost would likely be very prohibitive. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:30, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nonetheless worth talking JSTOR atleast. It would go a long way in improving several important categories of articles...also, JSTOR is non-profit. Worthwhile for the fondation to buy access and have a Wikiproject with access to it. prashanthns (talk) 18:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm asking for selfish reasons, but what would that kind of individual access cost per year/month? — Ched (talk) 17:29, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most of them don't offer individual subscriptions (including JSTOR). This was indeed discussed at length and in detail on the mailing lists recently. Might be useful for participants in this discussion to look that up and see what useful information has already been dug up. Avruch T 18:56, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
@Ling.Nut. My public library, one of the best in the nation, offers a limited selection of such databases to any cardholder. These databases are remotely accessible via a proxy. The only authentication is that you have to enter your library card number. [1]. A godsend for those without access to a large university's subscription. I suggest that the public library (online and off-line) is a valuable alternative to subscribing to private databases. -Truckbest23098 (talk) 18:41, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not always an option. I live in a small borough. Our libraries don't have access. Computerjoe's talk 19:20, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't be so sure. Do some research. There are many free resources available. Many universities allow local residents to enter their library for free and use their collections online and off-line. The resource I cited is available to anyone who lives in Massachusetts. Residents of many small towns in the western part of the state like North Adams and such have access to the BPL's entire circulation network. What is the general area of your residence? I bet I could find something.--Truckbest23098 (talk) 19:31, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do have a university nearby but I don't fancy trekking there and back. It would be good if Wikipedia could get editors access (perhaps editors could apply to view specific articles to ensure it's not just used by the general public) in the right of Wikipedia. I don't see how/why they'd object. Computerjoe's talk 22:09, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My point, of course, is that Wikipedia is a non-profit organization that was most recently having trouble raising money and considering ad placement. As such, the organization is not in a position to spend money unwisely. High quality database subscriptions are expensive, reaching into the five figures for institutional access. As you yourself demonstrate, a free alternative is easily available. Moreover, the distributed nature of Wikipedia ensures that someone somewhere will likely have access to a particular requested article. In other words, the plan of giving a limited subset of Wikipedians access to these databases is already in place. There is already a large number of people on Wikipedia who have access to these databases. Perhaps those with access can flag themselves so people in need can contact them and they can pass a copy of the article along. Now, if you're talking about paying for every Wikipedian to access these databases, I'm listening. --Truckbest23098 (talk) 00:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While it is true that Wikimedia is a non-profit without a large budget for things like this, I just wanted to say that we were not "having trouble raising money" and absolutely were not "considering ad placement".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:48, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
saying "The plan is already in place" is true in theory but more or less false in practice. There is (or there used to be; deletionists probably got it) a userbox for folks with JSTOR access who are willing to share. But a clearinghouse of requests is lacking. And my original idea still stands as a superior alternative. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 01:43, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I should say that the plan is in the process of being carried out. The hard part, access, is already solved for a subset of Wikipedians. I'm not sure your original idea is superior. Firstly it will cost extra money: around four figures per database to allow several thousand people to access it, for a total in the mid-five figures -- per year. Secondly, you will have a whole series of issues regarding who gets access and who does not. Thirdly, it will take time and administrators to negotiate the deals with each subscription. If a significant subset of Wikipedians already have access to these databases, it would seem not only more economical, but more expedient to simply set up a request clearinghouse much like the Admin notice board or Req for deletion board (Legal issues aside). -Truckbest23098 (talk) 02:27, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Getting official access is far and away superior because of the last three words of your post: "Legal issues aside."
  • "Time to negotiate deals"? That sounds a lot like someone's official, paid job.
  • "Who gets access and who does not" is a trivial question. Two options:
  1. Depending on how many seats (or whatever they are termed) are acquired, select a number of folks (raul, Sandy, G-guy, TimVvickers, various WikiProjects such as MILHIST and BIO, etc.) to invite a set number of other folks to have access. My First choice, since you start with trusted individuals. Also you can deliberately spread topic coverage, so folks in the Video games WikiProject don't get every single access seat (or whatever it's called).
  2. Let the community decide. My second choice.
Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 02:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Choice of access is not trivial. That was a long explaination you had to give. Imagine the fight over who gets access and who does not. If implemented, it would be a vaulable commodity, and I assure you tempers will flare / accusations of unfairness etc. I for one do not condone futher stratifications of Wikipedia users as it is a major turn off for me. Legal issues, I conceed. A _formalized_ system of article exchange will likely violate T&C. But, it would be very hard for database providers to enforce or stop such an exchange system. It does go against the spirit of such things and takes advantage of the database providers. -Truckbest23098 (talk) 03:14, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) I'm a veteran arguer, and I don't think there will be arguments. There's no power whatsoever involved, and only a truly modest amount of prestige. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 03:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, from personal experience, I can assure you that access to JStor sadly confers neither prestige nor power. That's not the point: I object to providing the real economic value that access to Jstor confers. Quick research also shows that T&C may not be as big of a problem as I thought: Jstor for example allows for "ad hoc" distribution of articles. -Truckbest23098 (talk) 03:24, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What a wonderful idea! When I was an undergrad at Columbia we had access to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) database. That was incredibly useful for more than just definitions and can definitely be useful for building articles. Valley2city‽ 03:28, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I started the thread, and added a suggestion about how to allocate seats/choose volunteers. I think I've added all the value I can add to this thread. Unwatching– Good Luck & ping me if anything ever happens. Later! Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 04:33, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Britannica uses Commons images

Jimbo, I just read your interview in Deutsche Welle with Michael Knigge, where you suggest that traditional encyclopedia's might look to our images to cut costs. Britannica has actually already been doing this for some time. See, for example, the lead images in "soundboard" and "Edward O. Wilson". Although they don't explicitly credit Wikipedia or Commons as the source, they are using both under the GFDL and as far as I know our projects are the only place they would have found them under that license. I've found a few other of my own images on Britannica as well. I'm not sure what the scale of free image use is overall, but I think most of the new images they are adding these days are free, with many coming from us. I first noticed my images being used in September 2008, and more have popped up since then.

Nice interview, by the way.--ragesoss (talk) 20:21, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

EB is very nervous, since it is 249th while Wikipedia is #8

E Britannica has gone wild. It wants a chunk of the online thing. It has studied the matter, though. For me, since this is democracy. THERE MUST BE A VOTE on this from a) registered users and b) anonymous, to be submitted to Jimbo Wales for final countdown.

I just want to convey the message accross the news-internet on this, starting with Beebs (BBC), and hopefully, after January 29, a viable, happy and cheerful solution will be reached. *Encyclopaedia Britannica fights back against Wikipedia, soon to let users edit contents;

Jimbo's philo

"You may edit this page!" Really, you can! Please feel free to do so. Just do it! Make an edit! Make several edits! Make thousands of edits! After all, that's what Wikipedia is all about! --124.106.80.18 (talk) 11:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Example of what Flagged Revisions on all BLPs would have prevented

There has been a lot of discussion about the Ted Kennedy edits that speedied the latest FR implementation suggestions, and how such fast reverted edits are not a good reason to have flagged revisions and so on. People also asked about examples of actual BLP problems.

I just came across a typical (thankfully relatively rare) example of a low-profile WP:BLP (some 100 views a month only) where very serious and open vandalism (a.o. the false claim that someone was sent to jail for ten years for molesting a five year old) went unnoticed for nearly two months[2]. We have to take our responsability and take every measure reasonably possible to prevent such dreadful things to appear in what is supposed to be an encyclopedia. Flagged revisions is one (good) solution to achieve this, despite the drawbacks it has for well-meaning new editors. Fram (talk) 11:55, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But the phenomenal success of Wikipedia lies in all sorts of editing

When Jimbo created Wikipedia, he never knew it would cripple the giant EB, so, let us be conservative. Let free editing go.[3]--119.95.25.38 (talk) 14:05, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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