User talk:Jimbo Wales

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GOCE Newsletter

Greetings from the Guild of Copy Editors Backlog Elimination Drive! We have now passed the halfway point, so here's an update.

Progress Report - Progress toward the targets has been good. 751 articles out of the approximately 1,610 we would like to get completed by the end of the month were done by July 16, so we will be very close to meeting the target for volume. However, we would like to clear all of the 2008 articles from the backlog, and there are still 899 left to do. Please consider choosing one of these older articles when looking for something to copy edit. If we focus our firepower we can completely wipe out 2008 from the queue.

Participation Report - 95 people signed up for the July drive. This is a great result compared to May, when we had 36. However, in May only one person that signed up didn't do any copy edits, and in July only 54 of the 91 have posted any copy edits on the big board.

The task may seem insurmountable but please remember that if all 95 participants copy edit just one article a day from now until the end of the month, we will eliminate 1,323 more articles from the backlog. So please consider participating at whatever level you can! All contributions are appreciated.

This newsletter was prepared for the GOCE by Diannaa ^(Talk), S Masters (talk), and The Raptor ^{Lettuce talk}.

Hello.

I need help. I want to be a researcher so I can research deleted pages, I only need it for a short time. Sorry if it is the wrong place, I don't want to be an admin. Thank you. AboundingHinata (talk) 15:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I thought (per this conversation) you were so busy with college that you didn't have time to edit Wikipedia? Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I need to look at a deleted article that is important to me. Sorry, I cannot tell you which it is. AboundingHinata (talk) 13:42, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Appeal of June 18

Thanks for underlying the lack of sources for the absence of recording of the speech; I suppose I didn't bother because this is actually a quite well-known fact in France. I added a source from the Charles de Gaulle website (made by the Charles de Gaulle Foundation), I suppose one could find other sources in history books. Cheers, Tazmaniacs (talk) 16:11, 21 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Non-profit?

Jimbo,

I'll make this quick. It says here that "all contributions made to the Wikimedia Foundation are tax deductible". Is that only in terms of money? I ask because there are good, hard working people who spend the equivalent of a 40 hour work-week editing and maintaining Wikipedia alone. Doesn't that kind of contribution, that kind of dedication, count as "tax deductible" under the auspices of Wikimedia?

I'm sure this will be deleted off your talk page in a matter of minutes, but I had to ask if only in the interests of those editors who have made Wikipedia into what it is today. Thank you for your time sir. 68.71.52.18 (talk) 00:19, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikimedia Foundation has no control over what is tax deductible - that's up to the various taxing authorities (governments) of the world. In general, in all jurisdictions that I'm aware of, it is not possible to get a break on your taxes for doing volunteer work for a charity. Whether that would be a good thing or not is of course a complex and interesting question, but not one that the Wikimedia Foundation can really do anything about! :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bummer... I for one, would love some variation of earned income credit for my work! :D Thelmadatter (talk) 00:29, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you sir.213.229.87.40 (talk) 00:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the U.S., you cannot deduct the value of your time, but you can deduct out of pocket expenses. For example, if you pay by the minute (instead of a flat monthly rate) for Internet use and you have documentation showing how many minutes were spent doing things for Wikipedia... More commonly, if you pay for electricity, then you could try to calculate how much electricity you use doing stuff for Wikipedia and how much it costs you. Do not take this too far; if your home computer breaks and you have to go to the public library to work, and you say that you went there only to do stuff for Wikipedia there, and you try to claim the fuel used driving there, the IRS is not going to believe you... 71.109.145.81 (talk) 19:20, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would you restore order?

There was an AFD on Dick Cheney's health. It was closed as no consensus. I actually believe it is a keep since it passes all bullet points of the WP:GNG. Anyway, any disputes of the original decision of the AFD should be handled by deletion review.

As the most important person in Wikipedia, you should uphold procedures and say that is very important. The MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do is to ask that people follow the written rules which is to help write the article or use the deletion review process, not edit war to re-open or re-close the AFD.

Instead, an administrator re-opened the 7 day old AFD and a rush of delete votes came in. I mentioned the problem on ANI and those delete people rushed to close the ANI thread and re-re-open the AFD.

Please restore order. I know the article is unfinished but only a crazy person is going to work on an article that is going to be deleted in hours. I was trying to be so polite that I didn't even vote in the AFD but once people started to re-open it, this is the last straw. I created the article, by the way.

Again, whether you love or hate Cheney is not the point. If you want the man deleted, that has no bearing on the article. There are years worth of articles about him and hundreds of scientific details (not gossip) that can make Wikipedia the only place in the world that compiled this health related topic. MVOO (talk) 00:27, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's generally helpful to supply me with links. My first instinct is that Dick Cheney's health is not an appropriate article for Wikipedia - whatever is in it should be in the main Dick Cheney article, if it is relevant to anything. I don't know of any cases of articles about the health of individual people. I suppose it is possible, but it would have to be a pretty interesting situation. But you didn't give me links, so it is hard for me to look into it. I'm going to sleep now but I'll look in the morning.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:31, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Health of Dick Cheney is the article and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dick Cheney's health is the AFD. [1] was the close as no consensus and [2] is the same admin reversing his/her own close. (I haven't looked into it, I'm posting the links as a public service without comment.) --B (talk) 00:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I guess I'm really being asked my opinion about the procedure here, not about the content issue. I think it is fine for an admin to close an AfD and then reverse it a few minutes later upon further reflection. No harm done, particularly in a case where there was no consensus and people wanted to talk about it some more. It isn't the best possible thing to have happened, but it's harmless too.

On the content issue, my view (up above) is unmoved by reading the article, which doesn't provide anything other than excessive detail, that couldn't be provided much more effectively in the main Dick Cheney article. His health is clearly an important part of his biography - there is no reason for a standalone article.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:39, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Upon looking at the article, I agree that it isn't really an appropriate topic for a standalone article. One other note, MVOO, it's hard to tell because it looks like the admin in question is in the middle of being renamed, but it doesn't look like you tried to discuss the issue directly with Ryan Norton (talk · contribs) himself. If an admin does something you don't like, there's a really good chance your questions can be resolved by directly contacting them rather than going straight to ANI / Jimbo's talk page. --B (talk) 00:48, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was the original closer, and I indeed did reverse my decision after consultation (I.E. I asked his opinion of how I closed it) with another administrator within an hour. There was no secret delete cabals or anything of the nature. Ryan Norton 01:03, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This thread is asking Jimbo Wales about the process, not the individual article. There's a huge can of worms done by re-opening it. As far as secret deals, you may have been used and a pawn. Quite conceivable that some people who didn't like it got you to re-open it and then flood it with deletes.

A little advice about life. Ryan (and others), thinking about process and how to do things helps. I've given Ryan some advice elsewhere on how to resolve this mess. Such resolution is not the best for the article but is the best for Wikipedia. That would be to keep the original decision, allow some time for the article to get better (it's a unsightly beef stew now), and then allow those delete people to renominate it after a fair period of time. No sane person is going to edit the article if it is threatened with deletion in a matter of a day. MVOO (talk) 01:15, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested resolution by Jimbo Wales

Another admin suddenly deleted the article. This is the advice about life in general that I gave him. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ATim_Song&action=historysubmit&diff=374777261&oldid=374695372

You may resolve this in many ways. One is to ignore and stonewall. If I were Jimbo, I would end the situation at least by commenting here that when administrative actions are done, they must be done with caution and much contemplation. What we see here is a mess created by a re-opening of an AFD and a sudden flood of "delete" votes, followed by a delete vote administrator closing the ANI thread early (which could be seen as trying to cut off any opposition or discusssion) and an administrator asking one person (a friend, no doubt) to delete the article, which he promptly does.

Jimbo, your #1 goal is to uphold Wikipedia, not get into content disputes. By cautioning others in general to be cautious and contemplate every administrative action serves as a reminder but keeps you at a distance, as any VIP in Wikipedia should be mindful of. I am confident that you have the smarts but some administrators seem to lack the managerial talent that admins should have. MVOO (talk) 01:30, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

For any neutral third party reading the above, I feel compelled to point out the MVOO is grossly misrepresenting what happened, as will be clear from the diffs. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:34, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Frankly, I couldn't care less about the supposed "advice". For the record, I closed the AfD first, at 00:57, 22 July 2010 (UTC), then Courcelles informed me, at 01:08, 22 July 2010 (UTC) that the page has been moved during the discussion, such that my AfD script only deleted the resulting redirects. So I deleted the actual page as well, and lo and behold, it is apparently some sort of indication of top-secret cabal activity by Courcelles and me. Honestly. T. Canens (talk) 01:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)The admin decided to revert his close (in effect relisting). It received a few more delete votes, you took it to ANI and everyone saw, which in turn caused more delete votes to roll in. After seeing a now clear consensus another admin went ahead and closed it. There was nothing out of process requiring ANI or an appeal to Jimbo. Feel free to take it to DRV, who knows? It may be overturned. Mauler90 _talk 01:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

categorization of living people

religious and non religious categorization of living people

Hi Jimmy, in January you were added by User:Metal termite to this list List_of_nontheists_(surnames_T_to_Z) using this supporting citation http://bigthink.com/ideas/4870. Would you help clear this up, are your comments in that link the type of comments that should be allowing us to categorize living people as affiliated with this or that philosophy or group. My position would be, no, in the quoted text, atheism and your self identification or affiliation to that group or philosophy is not mentioned in the dialog. You say you are a complete non believer but don't truly specify if this is aligned to an atheist doctrine. Off2riorob (talk) 09:44, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think that, in general, such lists are problematic in a lot of ways. However, if we do have a list like this it should likely be limited to people who are notably non-theist. I'm doubt that I am notably so, as I do not engage in any activities around that, i.e. I don't make speeches about it, I am not the member of any organizations devoted to it, etc. The quote, in particular, is not a very good one because without context, someone might assume that I am a nihilist. I believe lots of things. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:59, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Appreciate your comment. I agree that the question, is this actually noteworthy in the life of this person should be high on our list of inclusion criteria. Just to let you know, the question arose out of a little discussion at the BLPN. As per this discussion, removed Off2riorob (talk) 18:15, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List like these always seem to be a little sloppy (perhaps someone has changed their mind, but nevermind we've got a quote so that'll do) and a bit campaigning (looks at all these atheists!). I agree that such should be confined to those notable for the ideology in question, or better use a category. Your religious views, if significant, belong on your biography.--Scott Mac 18:24, 22 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]