User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Japanese business income 2

The answer contradicts the fact. As for WCJ2009, Wikimedia Foundation does a patent of the holding right to them.Komura of Wikimedia Foundation permitted this[1].In the event of wikipedia 10 in kyoto, Wikimedia Foundation is written that the project composition was done as "Sponsors"[2].Wikimedia Foundation offered T-shirt and the pin batch.I sent your video visit[3].Director of foundation Ting Chen participated over a video telephone using Skype.

FormerIP: A foundation provides it with the business trip travel expenses of Jay Walsh.Based on a Japanese price level, I think that I am non-reasonable.Severe use is not decided though it is written that the residuary estate belongs to the group, and will be used it for those cost in the future. The group may donate to the religious organization and the political party for instance, and you are supposed buy an individual personal computer.The meeting place is IZAKAYA called The WATAMI[4]. IZAKAYA is a bar where plonk and meal are sold.Drinking is possible in a fixed amount system if order NOMIHODAI.In this store, the system is　[5].Because this shop is a very cheap shop, it is low fare.--山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 12:57, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I understand your concern, but I think you are wrong. First, to repeat, the participation of some members of staff in an event does not mean that the event is organized by the Wikimedia Foundation. I made a video which was made available freely, and it was viewed by dozens or possibly hundreds of different local events large and small. However, none of that is really relevant because I agree that if local events are being organized by community members, and there is some money involved in the organization, I want people to be thoughtful and responsible about it.

It occurs to me, then, that you are asking the wrong people and in the wrong place. This is English Wikipedia, and it seems obvious to me that no one here knows any more about this than I do.

Have you asked politely to the people who actually organized the meeting? How much money was collected, how much was spent, and what is to be done with the surplus?

In my very long experience, I would suggest that everything is usually completely fine in situations like this. The party was organized, everyone had a good time, some small amount of money was left over, someone has the money, and it will be used for some future event. I really doubt if there is a problem here.

If you come to them as you have come to me, I don't blame them for not answering. You accused me of pocketing the money personally for an event I had no knowledge about, an outrageous accusation. If you approach people in that manner, they are likely to simply ignore you for being rude.

Here is another idea: why don't you find some member of the Japanese Wikipedia community who speaks very good English, and ask them to help you communicate with me. Your posts here read like they were made with the help of Google translate. That can be perfectly fine, but it does mean that some of your sentences don't always make sense. For example, when you write "I think that I am non-reasonable" you almost certainly meant to say the opposite: "I think that I am reasonable". I fear that other bits of meaning may be getting lost in translation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It is correct that you think.However, the information addressee of the event has only here.I paid propriety four months ago, and inquired of the group.However, there was no response at all.It was written the Wikimedia　foundation official meeting in the document that they had made.Permission by the foundation was written giving, the logo was used, and it was confusing.You take responsibility for having consented tacitly to it.

You gave a patent. To the Japanese group. The abandonment of the authority, a domain transfer, transfer of the management."English speaker" that you say are their all groups. In Japanese Wikipedia, nobody helps.

You have the responsibility of proving the accountability and the fact. In Japan when you granted the group a management right transfer and official permission. --山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 19:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I am going to ask someone with dual linguistic skills to assist, as there seem to be nuances of meaning here that are not properly understood on both sides. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Check here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:User_ja . It shouldn't be too hard to find somebody to translate. 山吹色の御菓子, if you can try posting your concern here in Japanese, I'm sure someone will come along and translate it for you. Zaereth (talk) 21:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

What would be nice for this is a script or tool that can identify users who are in both of two given categories, and also have edited within the last week (or similar). Anyway I've dropped an email to one such person. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Did someone call for a translator? 通訳者が必要のようですね。Just so everyone knows, I was contacted by Demiurge1000 and do not yet have a grasp of the details of the argument. 最初に断っておきますが、今日Demiurge1000さんに頼まれてまだ議論の内容を把握していません。I will just try to convey what 山吹色の御菓子 wants to say. I don't have a lot of time to put into this. この件にかけられる時間が限られているので、とりあえず山吹色の御菓子さんの言い分を皆さんに伝えておきたいと思います。 So, maybe 山吹色の御菓子 can tell me in Japanese what s/he wants to say on my own talk page. まずは山吹色の御菓子さんに日本語でご自分の言い分を僕のTalkページにて教えていただければと思います。よろしくお願いします。Matt Thorn (talk) 14:57, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Whoa. I just did some digging. This person, 山吹色の御菓子, has apparently been banned from contributing to the Japanese version of Wikipedia. I don't know why yet, but it seems s/he is basically venting here because the folks on the Japanese side have had enough of him/her. In short, and I apologize for being blunt, it would seem the person may be a kook. Sorry, I just call them as I see them.Matt Thorn (talk) 16:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, his rolling up here and accusing me of pocketing the money he's concerned about was not a good sign, but I say assume good faith. He does raise a valid question: if someone is having events in the name of the Foundation and turning a profit, then who is it and where is the money going? My point is: it's perfectly valid to ask that question; it is not valid to assume the worst and issue random accusations.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:42, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I have scanned theJapanese material (There's a lot of it) that 山吹色の御菓子 refers to. It's a lot of good-faith, hair-splitting discussion that you see on Wikipedia anywhere. I see no sign of the sort of coup 山吹色の御菓子 describes. I haven't read it all, but I've read enough to conclude that 山吹色の御菓子 threw around a lot of unsubstantiated accusations that are no more coherent in Japanese than in English, and eventually made such a nuisance of himself that he was banned. If there was a genuine faction of ja.wikipedia editors who felt something sketchy was going on, you would be hearing from more than 山吹色の御菓子. He says there was plenty of dissent. There was plenty of discussion, and as far as I can tell, consensus was reached, and 山吹色の御菓子 didn't like it. He is acting entirely on his own. He has blown up the tab from a meeting at a pub to the scale of a JFK assassination conspiracy. Nothing to see here, folks.Matt Thorn (talk) 02:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Matt. You do know, of course, that you've accidentally volunteered to help me whenever something interesting and complex is going on in Japanese Wikipedia. :p--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:59, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Oops. Matt Thorn (talk) 03:26, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't worry, Matt. Jimmy will be able to pay you using cash from the Japanese conferences, which is sitting in a secret Hamas-linked Swiss bank account. --FormerIP (talk) 03:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Haha. FormerIP, I think that's supposed to be a secret. It is a secret, that's what I said...--FormerIP (talk) 04:06, 30 January 2011 (UTC) UPDATE: I read the discussion on the proposal to block 山吹色の御菓子 indefinitely. Contributors were nearly unanimous in support of the indefinite block. Even those opposed agree that 山吹色の御菓子 is a serious pest, but felt he should be given a limited ban of several months. No one took his side or defended him. The proposal was introduced on April 19, 2010, and approved on July 7, 2010.Matt Thorn (talk) 03:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Matt Thorn. Please do not describe my impression but translate the fact. It is necessary to translate taking the responsibility as a specialist.In Japanese Wikipedia,Translate paging web all.the translation like Matt Thorn that is irresponsible, and fabricated is done, and the intention of Jimbo is not transmitted either. --山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 02:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

山吹色の御菓子, make your posts in Japanese and let someone else translate them. I don't know if you realized this, but translation software often garbles what you're actually trying to say, making it hard to understand. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!)} 19:52, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The translator refuses to translate it.--山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 08:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I trust Matt Thorn. I'll also trust Britty/Aphaia from Japanese Wikipedia, or any admin from Japanese Wikipedia. But if you want to continue this conversation, I am afraid I must insist that you get a human to translate for us. And I may insist that we move this conversation to email or to my user talk page in Japanese Wikipedia - I'm sure it is beginning to bore visitors to this page.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It is correct to trust the person.However, the problem has occurred. It is not understood whether the act is correct even if you trust them.You have the responsibility of investigating the fact.If you do not take action,You are the same as giving them a patent.--山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 16:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Seriously, 山吹色の御菓子, post your replies in Japanese. Your grasp of English is not very good, and it is making it hard to understand what you're saying. —Jeremy ^{(v^_^v Hyper Combo K.O.!)} 21:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

May I write really in Japanese?Up to now, nobody has translated. --山吹色の御菓子 (talk) 02:50, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia's coverage in The Economist

Mr. Wales,

I was wondering whether you’ve been following the coverage that Wikipedia has been receiving in The Economist. The most recent issue of The Economist published a letter from me in response to an article about this in their previous issue. My letter is here, the first one listed under the “WikiTweaks” heading.

The Economist edited my letter in order to make it fit in their magazine, which may have slightly altered the meaning of some parts of it. I’m aware that you began delegating your authority to ArbCom before 2007, but the point of my letter’s last paragraph is that this trend and the decline in participation still seem correlated with one another. The Economist also left out where I mentioned who was the user whose reason for leaving I described in detail. The user I was referring to is user:Varoon_Arya, and my letter is summarizing the reason for quitting the project that he gave in this comment.

My goal here isn’t to undo any specific decision made by ArbCom or by the community, so I’d rather not get into specific decisions that I think were examples of the problem that I described, although I can do that if you think it would be productive. What I’d like is just to reduce the incidence of this sort of problem in the future. During last month’s arbitration election, some of the candidates also brought attention to this issue—for example, this is how Sandstein described it:

In my view, the main problem with policy enforcement is not that it is either too strict or too lenient, but that it is conducted unevenly, because in practice it is shaped too much by social dynamics and not enough by rules. Popular and experienced editors can often get away with problematic behavior more easily than new editors who espouse fringe opinions. But it should be the other way around: The longer somebody participates, and especially if they hold positions of trust such as adminship, the higher a standard of conduct should they be held to, because they are expected to know better.

I think this statement is intended to be referring to community-imposed sanctions rather than to ArbCom, but the same problem theoretically applies in both situations.

Do you think it’s worth making an effort to do something about the problem described in my letter and Sandstein’s statement? If so, I have some ideas about how a system of checks and balances for Wikipedia could work, but I’ll only explain it if you’re interested. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Your letter seems to reflect the assumption that minority viewpoints are under-represented on Wikipedia. The truth is diametrically different. For virtually any minoritarian/fringe/extreme-fringe viewpoint, Wikipedia is almost guaranteed to contain more coverage than any comparable serious reference work. And I'm talking orders of magnitude more coverage, much of it written by adherents of the minoritarian view in question. For example, our article on AIDS denialism is twice as long as our article on penicillin; I'm not aware of any comparable reference work which so much as mentions a view as far-out as AIDS denialism.

Of all the problems faced by Wikipedia, an under-representation of minortarian viewpoints is not among them. And while incivility undoubtedly drives away good users, I would argue that many more leave after months or years of trying to "collaborate" with single-purpose, agenda-driven, often frankly obsessive editors who are never shown the door out of a misguided sense of priorities. MastCell ^Talk 19:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow! Have you had your blood pressure checked recently?--Aspro (talk) 19:33, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

No; it's somewhere between "unconscious" and "splitting headache". Although according to Wikipedia, a few garlic capsules will fix me up... :P MastCell ^Talk 19:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

My letter has nothing to do with any viewpoint being under-represented or over-represented on Wikipedia, and I don’t understand how you’ve drawn the conclusion that it does. Both my letter and the comment I quoted from Sandstein are about policy being enforced selectively, especially the policy about civility. Civility is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia, and should be required to the same degree from everyone regardless of their viewpoint, or whether that viewpoint is under-represented or over-represented here. Can we please keep this discussion on topic, and not bring up irrelevant tangents like this? --Captain Occam (talk) 19:30, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

You wrote: "The basic problem is that without a system of checks and balances, Wikipedia cannot ensure that people who hold minority viewpoints are treated fairly." I inferred that you were concerned about the suppression of minority viewpoints, and that you considered this the "basic problem". MastCell ^Talk 19:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Even if people who care about unpopular viewpoints being represented here are often driven off because of incivility directed at them, and a lack of action taken about it, there still tend to be enough who stick around that the suppression of the viewpoints themselves probably isn’t a major problem. But that doesn’t make the driving off any less problematic. Continuing with Varoon Arya’s example, the majority of his involvement in Wikipedia was in archaeology articles, and he didn’t become involved in race articles at all until after he’d been active here for more than two years. But because nobody appeared to care much about the incivility that was being directed at him, the project has now lost his contributions to articles about archaeology as well as about race. This is an example of how it isn’t just articles about controversial articles that I think suffer because of this trend; it’s the whole project. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Captain Occam, thank you for your comments. I agree with the quote from Sandstein, although I think not as severe as some people seem to think, and I would be eager to hear ideas in this area. It's probably important to keep in mind that ideas have to be practical, i.e. have to be about changes to policy that we can actually enact and enforce in some reasonable way. "How to get there from here?" should always be at the top of our minds. One aspect of this is that we are really a pretty small community - always have been - and this community does run (and properly so!) on friendship and mutual respect. That necessarily introduces some dangers of subjectivity.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:37, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to inject my two cents here; the general gist of Occam's comments seems to be that "rules get enforced selectively" on Wikipedia. I wonder Occam, wouldn't you agree that this is just a fact-of-life? Rules get applied selectively in a whole bunch of places and contexts (e.g. academia, the legal system) and they are similarly subject to the "social dynamics", that Sandstein refers to, in those contexts. Is WP really any better or worse than other places where people have to interpret and apply laws and/or rules?

And echoing Jimbo Wales's comments; if it is worse, can you identify how or why it's worse and what practical measures might be taken to make it be better? NickCT (talk) 20:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Mr. Wales: I appreciate your open-mindedness about this. What I would suggest is that it might be a good idea for you and other members of the Board of Trustees to appoint an independent body whose job would be to supervise both administrators and ArbCom. The really essential thing is that they be accountable to you and to the Board of Trustees, not to the community. I think this would help eliminate the problem I described in my letter, which is that since administrators and ArbCom are accountable only to the community, biases which exist in the community can end up being reflected in administrative decisions, which in turn propagate this trend by driving away editors who disapprove of it.

This body would not have to be considered a “higher” authority than ArbCom. Going with the analogy of the system of checks and balances in the U.S. Government, I’m imagining you, ArbCom and this new body to occupy roles similar to the president, the Supreme Court, and Congress. ArbCom would still be the uppermost authority for resolving individual disputes, and the purpose of this new body would be just to evaluate the performance of admins and arbitrators. Although since you theoretically have the authority to overrule ArbCom, if this new body were to ever determine that ArbCom has shown improper judgment in some case, they could make also a recommendation that you make an alteration to that aspect of the ArbCom decision. I think this would be an improvement over the current system, where if an arbitrator ever misuses his or her power, the only negative consequence is for them to not be re-elected in the next ArbCom election.

Another benefit of what I’m suggesting is that I think it would improve the accountability of ordinary admins. The way things are at present, admins can use their tools with a certain amount of impunity, because even though bad decisions will usually be undone by other admins, it tends to take a very long and severe series of misuses of the tools before an admin is desysopped by ArbCom. This can involve dozens or hundreds of users being incorrectly blocked, some of whom end up not returning even after their blocks are lifted. The reason why arbitrators can’t evaluate every case of admin misbehavior is because they’re somewhat overloaded as it is, but creating a new body whose job is specifically to evaluate admin and arbitrator behavior would take some of this strain off of ArbCom.

I think the benefit of this body would also extend beyond taking action against administrators or arbitrators who show poor judgement. Just the fact that a body exists that’s devoted to evaluating their performance, and that has the authority to suspend or demote them if their actions ever warrant that, would encourage both admins and arbitrators to show more caution in making sure their decisions show the proper amount of responsibility and neutrality.

In response to NickCT’s comments: I don’t have enough experience with academia or the legal system to say whether Wikipedia is better or worse in this respect than either of those. However, one thing I can say is that I think it’s below-average by the standards of online communities I’ve been involved in, even those that have a comparable number of members. One forum where I’ve been active had around 300,000 members, but its rules were still enforced fairly and consistently because the head admin cared about this a huge amount. He was the sole person responsible for appointing the other senior administrators, and he made sure that all of them would hold the normal admins to a high standard. I think if Mr. Wales were to try something along these lines at Wikipedia, he might be able to obtain a similar benefit. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]}. Can you name any current or former sysop who has incorrectly blocked hundreds (or even dozens) of users? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:43, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Seconded. Also, I notice how the benevolent dictator model has worked so well wherever it has been tried... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking in particular of Betacommand. The finding of fact from his arbitration case states that within a period of one month, he blocked around 1,000 editors for alleged violations of the username policy. The evidence presented against him lists 16 of those which were subsequently reversed, but the finding of fact implies that the actual number of erroneous blocks may have been much higher than this.

Betacommand was eventually desysopped by ArbCom, which I think was clearly the right decision. But that decision wasn’t made until May 3rd, after misuses of admin tools stretching back at least to the previous November. In cases like this, I think there needs to be a way of evaluating admin behavior which doesn’t require the several-month delay that’s inherent to arbitration.

YellowMonkey is a more current example. Assuming that the initial statement on that page from Serpent’s Choice is accurate, in a period of six months YellowMonkey has blocked over 80 users with whom he has had no interaction other than the block itself, either to warn the user beforehand or even to put the “blocked” template in their user talk. Most commonly the reason he’s listed in the block logs of these users has been “sock”, although he’s blocked them without an SPI or checkuser, and without any indication of who the purported sockmaster is. In YellowMonkey’s case, ArbCom took no action because YM stopped participating in Wikipedia on November 24. I suppose that’s appropriate, but it makes me wonder how long it will take for his inappropriate use of admin tools to be dealt with if he ever resumes it. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Under the system that I’m proposing, this body whose job is to review admin conduct would have warned Betacommand after the first several times that he blocked users based on the username policy when they weren’t violating it, and would have warned YellowMonkey after the first several times he blocked users with “sock” as the block reason without an SPI or checkuser, without putting a block template in their user talk, and without specifying who the sockmaster was. If either of these admins had continued the same conduct even after being warned, this body would have desysopped them, most likely temporarily at first, and then for longer and longer periods if the misuse of their admin tools continued even after they were reinstated. That’s the system we use while dealing with vandalism—we don’t allow someone to keep repeatedly vandalizing pages for several months before anything is done about it. I don’t think it makes sense that Wikipedia is more lenient about misuse of admin powers than it is about vandalism. Vandalism can be reverted by anyone, but inappropriate blocks require another admin to undo them, and even then the user who was erroneously blocked is sometimes so discouraged from participating that they don’t come back even when the block is lifted. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

As a point of information, the Betacommand desysopping was four years ago and things have changed a lot since. As a further point of information, admins frequently don't specify the sockmaster per WP:DENY. You may also be seriously misinformed about YM and his use of checkuser. In any case, many socks exhibit distinctive behaviour rendering checkuser superfluous: we don't publicise these for WP:BEANS reasons.  Roger ^talk 18:44, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Agreeing with Jimbo's principle that persons in authority on Wikipedia ought to be held to a higher standard, I would suggest a different response to the problem raised by the ArbCom case on Race and intelligence. The response I suggest is that persons who claim to be editors of an encyclopedia (rather than commenters on a political blog) learn to look up scholarly sources, and use reliable sources when editing Wikipedia, especially when editing articles on topics that the sources show are contentious topics in the world outside Wikipedia. Most of the 6,849,633 articles on Wikipedia are still in dire need of improvement by better sources, as a goal set in the Wikimedia Foundation strategic plan acknowledges. The best way to increase participation by editors who know sources and use sources according to the best standards of scholarship is to make sure the Wikipedia's leadership is held to the high standard of digging into sources and checking to make sure that Wikipedia article content doesn't put undue weight on fringe viewpoints found only in questionable sources. Much work needs to be done in this aspect of quality improvement on Wikipedia. The best way to encourage volunteers to do this work is for leaders to lead by example by taking the time and effort to look up reliable sources and check what those say, and what the overall weight of emphasis in the published sources is. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

If what you’re suggesting is that ArbCom ought to familiarize themselves with the source material for every topic about which there’s an arbitration case, I don’t think that’s going to happen. ArbCom is already short on time; there’s no way they would have time for this in addition for everything else they need to do. The fact that they don’t have time for this is one of the reasons why ArbCom never rules on content. This also wouldn’t address the problem of users being held to differing standards of civility, which is a completely separate issue from who’s right as far as content is concerned. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:09, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

User:WeijiBaikeBianji/IntelligenceCitations (the list you spam that everywhere you can) are some sources that you personally like and they usually share your personal POV not all reliable sources about the topic. --Dezidor (talk) 00:16, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Dezidor, your comment suggests that you know other sources. What are those? The source lists I maintain include links to allow other wikipedians to suggest sources (as Captain Occam did quite a while ago), and all such suggestions are posted even-handedly for all editors to see. If you are here to edit an encyclopedia, and have opinions on what sources are good, then surely you must have some sources to suggest. Feel free to make the suggestions. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:27, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Mr. Wales, before this thread gets archived I would appreciate you letting me know what you think of my suggestion. You told me you were eager to hear ideas about this, so now that you’ve heard my idea it would helpful to let me know whether you think it’s worthwhile. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:26, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it merits more discussion, for sure. I have some doubts/questions about the precise structure you've put forward, but I didn't take you to be saying you had found the perfect solution but rather to be opening a dialogue (with me, but also with the broader community) about how we might think about governance structures which would deliver more consistency as well as faster justice.

I'm not sure that a body tasked in the way that you have described it would be the right way forward. It just sounds like another layer on top of what we already have. But perhaps I just haven't thought through it clearly enough.

As an alternative, imagine the ArbCom as continuing in a "supreme court" mode, so that the new body (or bodies) don't sit in judgment of ArbCom, but rather a group of lower courts (or juries) which can act more quickly, and whose selection is somehow randomized to prevent them becoming politicized. (For example, I would not like to see a Climate Change Court, unless it were composed of admins chosen somehow randomly, because otherwise it would just become a focus of political wrangling itself.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Jimmy, I find this remark interesting, and I'm open to the concept of juries for some questions (especially things like civility, where common editors are more likely to understand precisely how obnoxious certain behavior is than arbitrators), but could you explain what you mean about the "Climate Change Court"? Are you suggesting that ArbCom should not operate in such politicized disputes? Cool Hand Luke 18:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Mr. Wales: I wasn’t intending to imply that I’d found the exact right solution. The essence of my idea is just to have a body whose primary purpose is to review admin and ArbCom conduct, and whose members are chosen in a manner that isn’t subject to politics. All of the other details were just speculation about how such as body might operate.

The way I’m envisioning the new body I’ve proposed, it wouldn’t really be “on top” of ArbCom but on the same level, in the same way that Congress and the Supreme Court are on the same level. ArbCom would still carry the exclusive authority about resolving most types of disputes, and the new body would be limited to evaluating how administrator and arbitrator power is used. And members of the new body would still be subjected to arbitration rulings about articles and editing, the same as everyone else.

Also, I would appreciate it if someone could do something about personal attacks in this thread. I have a problem with Mathsci’s suggestion that I attempted to commit libel in my letter to the Economist, and that this is the reason why my letter was edited before publication. If anyone actually believes this, I guess I’d be willing to post the un-edited version of my letter on-wiki, so that others can see that this assertion is false. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I think you misread Mathsci. UK's libel laws are thought to discourage all kinds of speech. Because the Economist cannot easily ascertain whether the things you write about third parties are true, it would be legally imprudent for them to include such claims. That does not mean, however, that your proposed letter was libelous, and Mathsci does not claim that they are. Cool Hand Luke 19:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I too agree with Sandsteins observations,"..the main problem with policy enforcement is not that it is either too strict or too lenient, but that it is conducted unevenly". Here is the problem. Consensus is the ultimate authority. Consensus in wikipedia above all else is political. Rules are based on observed truths. How do truths and politics mix?--scuro (talk) 04:13, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

In the circumstances ArbCom seems to have been quite lenient towards Captain Occam. One of the other editors involved in the R&I case, Mikemikev, has expressed extreme views on wikipedia using multiple alternative accounts and in more direct terms on YouTube. I am quite surprised that moderators on YouTube have not also banned him there. The premature lifting of my ban on the initiative of ArbCom might possibly be what what was referred to as "leniency" in the letter to the Economist. It might be that that letter was not published in its entirety because of problems with UK libel laws; but I have no idea about this. Mathsci (talk) 08:37, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

imagine a more extreme hypothetical situation. let's say a nazi sympathizer who collects nazi artifacts, has a grilfrend who has a nazi fetish, and who holds nazi war generals in the highest regard comes to wikipedia to edit articles related to his personal hero arther jensen. this nazi sympathizer then embarks on campaing to insert pov statements about race, recruiting other editors for all parts of the internet. how should we handle this sort of situaton ??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.21.169.116 (talk) 18:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Uh, ban him? Cool Hand Luke 18:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

How is this relevant to what we’re discussing? We’re talking about inconsistent enforcement of the civility policy, and how to deal with irresponsible behavior from admins in a timely manner. If a person is POV-pushing, that’s a completely separate issue, isn’t it? --Captain Occam (talk) 18:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

The behavior described in the hypothetical situation would certainly warrant at least a topic-ban, and might well warrant a community ban (site ban). But how might the community build a culture to prevent, rather than react to, such disruption of the effort to build a neutral point of view encyclopedia based on reliable sources? What can encourage a culture of editors checking one another's sources and especially checking articles for skewed points of view resulting from undue weight on questionable sources? Over the long haul, will Wikipedia rise above the level of content accuracy expected in blog comments to reach the level of content accuracy expected in serious reference books on controversial subjects? -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:35, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I've thought a good deal about this issue. Policy is conducted unevenly because process is conducted unevenly. For any possible sanction event to occur a process with a set criteria should have been followed first. For arbcom to get involved further processes with a set criteria should have also been followed. In the name of consensus you can ignore any of these processes and I have seen an administrator talk about the quick way of doing things that avoids proper due process. Granted, in rare cases immediate action is required but that sort of action should also require process and criteria.

Instead we have the wild west here where one administrator using a metaphor told me it's like a land of gangs here and you have to join one and pay your dues before people will act on your behalf. In the end it might come to showdown where you hope that your gang has more "firepower" then their gang. That is oh so wrong on so many levels. But wikipedia has built a culture which disdains bureaucracy. Is it any wonder that injustices happen on a regular basis here? That people get really pissed off? The foundations are good, what was constructed on top of it has obvious blemishes.--scuro (talk) 18:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I think this is an apt metaphor. A State of nature gives way to rule by mob and ad hoc warlords. Structure and process is desperately needed, but there's a deep-seated mistrust of these things. Cool Hand Luke 18:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

That is the conundrum, isn't it? This culture won't like reform that insists on process. Perhaps baby steps, small little reforms implemented over a longer period of time. As a stop gap measure perhaps some transitionary and totally independent body free of the warlord's influence, to look at the most egregious cases.

The other big issue not yet mentioned yet is that wikipedia tolerates bearing false witness against other contributors and that should be discouraged as strongly as possible especially during sanction processes. That sense of freedom that contributors feel from oversight shouldn't extend to doing other contributors harm.--scuro (talk) 22:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

<sigh...> Once more, beating one of my two favorite drums...

The problem under discussion here is actually not difficult to resolve, it's just difficult to get people to commit to resolving it (for a number of reasons I probably won't get into). Understand the problem, first: as best I can tell, the original (undeclared, informal, idealistic) conception of Wikipedia was as a cultureless, pleasantly anarchic, rationally collaborative system in which people would get together and add what they knew to articles. Articles in that model would gradually grow and improve through a kind of pseudo-scholarly debate process, and everyone would find their own little niche to work away in happily. In fact, that model probably worked as advertised at the very beginning (I don't know, I wasn't there) when wikipedia was relatively unknown and editors were a small, relatively homogenous group of technophiles. Unfortunately, no one planned for success. Success brought with it people interested in mucking around, people with real-world agendas to push, people with broadly varying degrees of knowledge and competence, and all of these mixing together created tensions. The reactions and responses to those tensions is the problem we're trying to cope with. There was no rational approach to solving these problems: editors would encounter specific problems and create a specific solutions to deal with each. What grew out of that was an uncoordinated, ungainly, often self-contradictory mass of written policy and guidelines, informal suggestions (like essays), unwritten social conventions, loosely organized but strongly identified cliques of editors organized around incommensurate project goals (incommensurate because they are concerned about different on-project problems). Out of this got born a whole lot of tendentious on-project politics, and (as Scuro put it) a serious Wild West attitude across much of the encyclopedia.

I don't think any of the original editors anticipated Wikipedia developing its own noxious political undertow - too much Locke in the original conception, I suppose, and not enough appreciation for Hobbes. c'est la vie...

At any rate, what we have now is no longer cultureless and pleasantly anarchic, and there's no getting back to that. What we can do is start to enforce the 'rationally collaborative' aspect of the encyclopedia. This would mean protecting content discussions from a broad assortment of disruptions (incivility, rants and tirades, off-topic distractions, etc.), primarily by creating strong, well-defined, and clearly limited rules about civil interaction on project, and seeing that they are enforced stringently and uniformly to everyone. If you keep discussions from turning into cock-fights (which they all too often do), then discussions will naturally start to become productive - editors who aren't allowed to snipe either have to get to work or sit in silence, no?

I actually have a project that I started fleshing out some time ago, and just recently got back to in discussion with other editors - it's the Town sheriff project (riffing off the wild west metaphor). It would create a cadre of volunteers who (at the community's behest) would step onto a page with expanded rights and powers (and strict limitations) to ensure civil interaction without interfering with content. It's a simplistic police model - wrap authority and accountability in one individual and give them a clearly defined and restrictive mandate to make the page 'fit for decent folk to gather and talk'. It still needs development, but if put in practice I think it could obviate a lot of these kind of problems. Trust me, if there had been a town sheriff of that type on the Race and Intelligence debacle it would have cut down the nastiness of it by a factor of a hundred and the volume of produced text by a factor of a thousand. And no, I'm not exaggerating those numbers: I actually put it into practice there as best I cold without a sysop bit, and it was working very well for a while (at least until people remembered I didn't have a sysop bit - one can't psych out people endlessly on things like that... ).

Yeah, advertising, sorry. Check it out, comment, suggest revisions, and look at the discussion here where I've been going over it with others. --Ludwigs2 00:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I find the title of this thread, "Wikipedia's coverage in The Economist", quite interesting. From what I can understand, The Economist itself wasn't covering Wikipedia, but rather a contributor wrote a letter to "The Economist" and the magazine published the letter online. I think it is a bit of an exaggeration, (possibly even self-indulgent) to state that a letter to the editor represents The Economist actually reporting on Wikipedia. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:08, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

If you actually read the letter, you’ll see that it was in response to a recent article about Wikipedia by a staff writer for The Economist. The letter was also published in the print edition of The Economist, not just online. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:17, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

This must have already been brought up

Lets hope that Wikipedia can figure out ways to increase female editing participation as was discussed in yesterdays New York Times here. I think the article touches on some of the reasons why we have far fewer female editors than males, but there must be more to the story.--MONGO 03:34, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

There was a discussion right here on this subject in mid-January. Stephen 04:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

In all seriousness, I do not see how you can "attract more female editors". I agree we need more female editors but the current system really doesn't attract many women for a number of reasons. Unless you offer some sort of special incentive wikipedia will remain as masculine as it always has been.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:40, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

There was a discussion on this topic, as Stephen pointed out. I wasn't involved, but I do know what resulted.-RHM22 (talk) 17:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Not to open up this can of worms any further, or to play the devil's advocate, but I really dislike all of this "let's attract women to WP" sentiment. Perhaps it's my general distaste for affirmative action, but it strikes me that WP is open to anyone with a computer and an internet connection, who chooses to participate. If women aren't participating, it's because they are choosing not to.

The Time's article makes no real effort to explain why women are less prevalent on WP beyond this -

“ Jane Margolis, co-author of a book on sexism in computer science, “Unlocking the Clubhouse,” argues that Wikipedia is experiencing the same problems of the offline world, where women are less willing to assert their opinions in public. ”

I'd ask, is it WP's fault that "women are less willing to assert their opinions"? Is WP obligated to adapt to compensate for this unwillingness....? I say no.

Now, before I open myself to reams of hate mail, let me temper the above by saying I think it would be a great thing if more women did participate on WP. I just don't think WP should have to change to make that happen...... NickCT (talk) 19:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

So if, I'm understanding you right, you think that it would be a good thing, but you also think that nothing should be done to encourage it (?) --FormerIP (talk) 19:33, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

What must be understood is that women's brains are functionally different than men's. [6] What is critical in any environment is that the environment supports who in habits it. Wikipedia is constantly changing, and not a static environment that has to be maintained as "it always was". Women don't choose to be some way, they've evolved this way as have men. If Wikipedia was designed by men then its worth looking at its structures to see how better it can accommodate both sexes. For example dispute resolution often depends on a short statement and a diff. For many women the situation cannot be explained in a diff. Women may be will be gathering certain kinds of subtle information men may not pick up. I have no idea how Wikipedia can change to adapt to women. I've always worked with men on an equal basis and defend my right to do so, so would have to think of this more. Online collaborative communities of which Wikipedia was one of the first have to deal with these issues as they evolve. Of course this has nothing to do with intelligence. We all know women are more intelligent than men.:o) (olive (talk) 19:46, 1 February 2011 (UTC))

@FormerIP - Yep. That's right. I really feel the onus is on women to participate, not on WP to try and adapt itself to appeal more to women. WP should only really be obligated to ensure there are no obvious barriers to entry based on sex/ethnicity/religion etc... As far as I can tell, there are none. Given that few people are offering many concrete examples of policies or practices that exclude women, I figure others can't identify obvious barriers to entry either.

@olive - re "For example ..... cannot be explained in a diff." I think we're free to engage in dispute resolution in any form we wish, no? re "We all know women are more intelligent than men" I'd dispute, but my girlfriend might read my post and then I'd get pummeled. I know my place... :-( NickCT (talk) 22:35, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

"We all know women are more intelligent than men." Mmm, and you removed my comment Jimbo for being "sexist".....♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this discussion isn't going anywhere perhaps not here you might discuss at a more relevant noticeboard. Off2riorob (talk) 23:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The apathy displayed here by a few commentators indicates they are unwilling to make adaptations that might rectify this situation. All I did was ask what we might do...and the responses are generally unconcerned, callous and clueless. I'll work on some ideas after discussing this matter privately with the dozen female former editors I know that have been run out of this website.--MONGO 01:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I am with you, Mongo. This discussion was embarrassing, and those who expressed such opinions should be ashamed of themselves. They won't be - and that's a big part of the problem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:35, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Well, my intent wasn't to open a can of worms as one editor visually suggested, nor to platform this matter here per se, though it really doesn't fit a noticeboard. Anyone who has been around as long as I have knows full well that male editors are more interested in the project...but 15% female involvement (as shown in the NYT piece) is something that needs to be addressed. I can say that I have heard from a few female editors that they find the discussions with some of the males to be intimidating and that they find some of the males to be rude, condescending and even cruel. I have heard a few females complain that Wikipedia is a "man's world"..I have never heard a single male Wikipedian complain that the opposite is the case...now some of this is a reflexion of the English speaking world...amd I cannot say what the gender breakdown is at the Spanish or German Wikis...but the 15% caused alarm bells to ring for me (I assume the NYT piece was about en.wiki)...I would have guessed 30% (which is still too low) but 15% represents a problem. So, I ask myself, not being female, what I can do to maximize the interests here for females, and ask other males to do the same. But more importantly, how do we retain our female editors and encourage them to explain to ogres such as I what we can do to expand female participation.--MONGO 03:15, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• Does it hurt women more when their stuff is deleted? Did the rise of the deletionists drive them all away in greater numbers than men? There are 43,051 articles on the Recipe Wiki [7]. The wiki for the Twilight series has 934 pages. [8] Women are editing things they like. Just some of those things aren't welcomed on Wikipedia anymore, so they are shifting their attention elsewhere. Dream Focus 01:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Women suffer more than men do from a given painful stimulus.^[1] Hurt feelings from social rejection, and hurt from physical pain are, neurologically speaking, the same thing. ^[2] So it is possible that women hurt more than men do from perceived rejection - but the research on that hasn't been done yet, as far as I know. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 03:22, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
    • Women also might not want to edit at a place where regulars suggest that Twilight and cooking are the two things most women care about.--AniMate 03:49, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Mongo. I'd be very interested in discussing this further and in seeing if I can help arrive at solution. I assume that no one took my comments lightly ..(well except for the little joke at the end). Brain function is something I deal with in my teaching, and understanding how it plays a vital in human interactions is at the basis of designing an environment that supports both sexes. I also have a strong interest in how online communities develop and evolve. Thanks (olive (talk) 02:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC))

While I hear stuff like this quite often, I'm not so sure it's as black and white as women being smarter or men more assertive. Everybody has different talents and different things that interest us. It's true that men and women tend to gravitate in different directions. Men are often thought to be more oriented to the technical aspects of things and women more toward the creative, but in reality that's not always the case. I've met many women who are mechanics, fighter pilots, engineers, and other professions that are typically associated with men, and visa-versa. People are as varied as they are many, and what attracts one may ward off another. It is for this reason that I have to question whether or not it's a good idea to try to attract users based upon such a broad spectrum, (ie: race, sex, religion, etc...).

Instead, I think it would be better to try to attract users based upon what specifically they can offer to the project. Users with a talent for copy editing seem to be in high demand. Users who are interested in writing, or doing research (secondary) on a topic will always be a great asset. So are users with a talent for the sometimes ruthless art of editing content. Added to that is something rather new in writing environments, editors who are well versed in formatting codes, mark-ups, programs and other computer magic.

Now I can't speak as to what specifically will attract women to Wikipedia. Nor can I speak for anybody else for that matter. I can only say that what attracted me here is the oppotunity to make information, which I have spent a lifetime collecting, readily available to to anyone. It is a very rewarding feeling to know that I may possibly ihave helped that kid out there somewhere who wants to be a pilot someday, or a scientist who needs to build a laser, or helped the next director who will re-make the movie "Top Gun" to achieve some level of realism. In much the same way, it's also rewarding to be able to help out other users when they need it. It's nice to gather expertise and then not let it got to waste. The way i see it, unless you're a troll, spammer, or public figure, Wikipedia doesn't really have much else to offer in the way of attracting users.

On the flip-side, I think there is also a lot to ward off users, new and old alike. Cpt. Occam brings up some good points about civility in the section above. I think we should strive to be friendlier than the standard internet-site-comment-section. (Although I think it is up to the community, and in particular, those who would normally just stand by and watch but say nothing, to speak up and help set the level of decorum that is tolerable.) To those like me, who are not very adept at computers, Wikipedia can be very intimidating at first. I'm often confounded at things like wikimark-up, and most of what I've learned so far came from looking at edit screens to see how someone else did it. The list of policy and guideline pages is very large and complex. (I tend to lean toward small and direct.) Something like a parent-policy page --one to three pages, with a paragraph summarizing each policy and demonstrating how they interrelate-- would've been helpful to me. I don't know if it's possible to make the environment more user-friendly, but that would surely make it more attractive to new users, male and female alike.

In the end, I think it is our personal interests, experiences and talants that attract most of us here. There is a subject here for just about everybody, and the rewarding feeling helping out is very powerful. Maybe what we should really be concerned with is what drives people away. Zaereth (talk) 02:29, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I get the distinct sense that my light hearted comment about women being more intelligent than men, and that should have been taken in the context of the comment and the page I linked to, wasn't. Brain functioning and the page I linked to which describes why brains function differently, clearly makes the implied point that intelligence has nothing to do with any of this. I assumed editors interested in the topic and this discussion would read the page I linked to. Maybe not. Teachers are familiar with this topic and as a teacher I assumed a bottom line of awareness which may not have been appropriate. Not only does a good teacher have to know male and female children learn differently but that every child has complex learning styles that must be understood to teach effectively. This isn't simple and multiple ways of looking at learning and brain functioning could possibly help us set up something ground breaking. I agree with the editor above as well.(olive (talk) 02:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC))

In the end, none of this is going to work. Those interested in it should go out there and change the world, then wikipedia's base will change; it's not gonna happen the other way around. We've come a long way from my Grandma's perspective — "Money is for men" — but it didn't happen because some club started teaching women how to run a bank-account (they knew that already anyways). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 03:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

@Mongo - Re "The apathy displayed here by a few commentators indicates they are unwilling to make adaptations that might rectify this situation" - Well, I hope I'm not part of those callous and clueless "few commentators". I just don't understand why affirmative action folks can't accept that maybe there are different strokes for different folks. Sometimes subjects appeal to guys that don't appeal to gals and vice versa. It doesn't necessarily reflect negatively on either gender or the subject in question.

My message is simple. Don't generalize, of course. Try your best to make sure you're not discriminating, yes! Treat everyone equally, to be sure. But at the same time, don't try to force equal participation from all groups of peoples in everything. You'll end up trying to force square pegs through round holes.

If that opinion makes me a sexist pig, then I guess I'm guilty as charged......

@olive - Re "my light hearted comment about women being more intelligent than men, and that should have been taken in the context of the comment and the page I linked to, wasn't." - For the record, I took it as a light hearted comment. Peoples' nerves become so frayed on this subject. I don't understand why...

@Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 - Re "Those interested in it should go out there and change the world," - Agree. This issue is much larger than WP. Unlikely much is going to get done here.

@Off2riorod - Re "you might discuss at a more relevant noticeboard." - Probably right... I'm going to cease cluttering Jimbo's talk page. NickCT (talk) 03:47, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

If this is going to be continued elsewhere, please post a link here. LadyofShalott 04:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

NickCT...it isn't about affirmative action...it was a question posed as to what can be done to encourage more female participation and to better retain active female editors...(as if more female participation would be BAD?!)...no one says you have to quit Wikipedia to make sure there is room for a female to replace you!!! Nor are you or any men at risk of being passed over so we can promote a female in your place.--MONGO 00:36, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Ya'll love talking to Jimbo, but you may also want to try the gendergap mailing list, or something. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 04:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I would have to say that its more embarrassing Jimbo that you and Sue think you can manipulate what proportion of editors edit wikipedia. If you are serious about it (I agree ideally we'd have equal male and female editors) then issuing a public statement without actually doing anything to attract women to the project isn't going to magically improve the percentage to 25%. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:08, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It would be embarrassing if we thought that at all. Of course we don't. If you want to be a more effective advocate, I recommend that you start by assuming good faith and paying attention to the facts of reality.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

The truth hurts. You've accused me of being "sexist" and a "troll". Never mind the fact that I've have never even received a word of thanks from you for the years of work I've done for wikipedia. Thanks Jimmy, I'm out of here.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:13, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

• - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7QZ6L8d5h8 - having walked offstage Leonard Cohen comes back to play, "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" (live 1972) - Off2riorob (talk) 15:31, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Could it simply be that this Wikipedia is an area where men choose to volunteer more frequently than women do at present ?--— ⦿⨦⨀Tumadoireacht ^Talk/_Stalk 14:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia, in general, appeals more to technically-minded folks. The coding, formatting, and rules are all presented in a manner most appealing to folks who are already immersed in such systems. And, generally, the academic world has encouraged men to follow such paths while, if not actively discouraging women, certainly has not gone out of its way to appeal to them. Yes, there are "geek girls," but they're not common. Wikipedia's not difficult to learn, but it's structured in a way that seems extremely complicated at first, which turns off many people in general.

Wikipedia certainly can't change the world, as some cynics have pointed out, but it can at least attempt to restructure to be more appealing to folks who aren't necessarily interested in the minutiae of formatting their posts, coding tables and so forth. That would not simply encourage women, but would also help bring in folks in general. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 23:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the last comment. That and working out some better way to handle content disputes. This is far more pressing than worrying about doing some kind of female affirmative action. Besides, most of the reasons here are nothing more than speculation. Thelmadatter (talk) 23:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Most regulars on here fit something of a profile:

• Slightly geeky
• "Power" internet users
• Mid-twenties

If you look at that carefully I bet you will find it a predominantly male group full stop, not just on WP (studies tend to show that younger women tend towards casual internet use over active involvement). The bottom line is that most women don't fit into our main demographic. BUT 15% is damned good and we should be a little proud. Take a look at some other sites on the net that appeal to the same sort of demographic and you will be lucky to find 1% female population. It might be a product of such a large user base of course, but I suspect it is because of the nature of the project that it attracts more women than usual.

It is impractical to expect 50% female population :)

On the other issue the article raises (girly topics receiving less interest), that is of course a product of the system - but wherever you go (on the internet and real life) you will find military topics well filled in because there is a massive group of military enthusiasts who exist to document such things; so I think that is an unfair comparison. We have plenty of "boy topics" that are in need of work (Meccano, Lego). You'd expect computer topics to receive a load of interest, but they don't. People here have their specific interests, and most of that focuses outside of the core topics (look at the sorry state of the core topics...). Our heaviest areas seem to be law, socio-political topics, physics (particularly astro-physics), some areas of Maths, politics (ish), medicine, military and history.

The issue (or, rather, the elephant in the room) is not WP being a sexist environment (most of us don't disclose our sex... so I hardly see how it could affect things). The "problem" is we accidentally have ended up with a fairly specific demographic; the system rewards people with experience in typing/working on the internet, who are slightly passive aggressive and who can devote fairly lengthy amounts of time. It's just how it is; of course, anything to widen the appeal is a good thing :)

The article isn't very good, it makes poor comparisons and fails to address any of the real problems. It demonstrates a lack of understanding of our eco-system, and is an example of the typical bad mass media journalism. It's out to make a point, not to identify a problem we can fix. This is not a story about sexism on Wikipedia. --Errant ^(chat!) 09:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It's also worth pointing out that female editors being hounded off the project is a separate problem, and a very real one. And also one we can probably address. --Errant ^(chat!) 09:57, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

If I may offer an analysis. My theory is that topics like Meccano and Lego in a seemingly paradoxical way languish exactly because Wikipedia is male dominated. Most articles on toys and such are first created by enthusiasts or collectors. When it comes to say, doll articles, male editors looking through these articles and not being familiar with the subject matter scrutinize them from an outsider's point of view, and tag and delete them and so forth depending on how well the conform to Wikipedia's content policies. (And in some cases also expand doll articles with material from general sources.) This outside scrutiny and contribution has lead to quite a few doll articles reaching decent quality, several have good article status. Meanwhile articles on male oriented toys do not get this outsider scrutiny, and stay enthusiast-centric. They are allowed to sprawl with minutiae that is often inpenetrable to those not already familiar with the subject (aka WP:FANCRUFT) both with regard to the material in articles, and in the number of articles covering the subject. Category:Transformers (franchise) is one of the most infamous examples, but the same pattern is repeated over and over. Compare for example Category:Barbie and Category:G.I. Joe, in particular Category:G.I. Joe characters, and note that Barbie is probably the most sprawling of all girl-oriented topics on Wikipedia.

Rather than focusing on ways to coddle or not chase female editors away, put more focus on male topics and subject those to more scrutiny and convergence with content policies. This might also have the side effect of chasing some male editors away, and even out the gender ratio that way (half-joking here.)

But I'm not sure female editors being chased off is an entirely separate matter. I have seen new female editors get bitten hard when trying to create new articles on clearly notable topics that would be unfamiliar to male editors. Article(s) get deleted and the editor accused of WP:COI (which in one case was almost humorous as the subject was dolls from the 1800s.) Siawase (talk) 14:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Not to stereotype females as more social, but: females are more social, or at any rate differently social.

Consider another popular internet site, Facebook. Facebook has even more participants than Wikipedia, and the participation is about 50-50 male-female - a bit above 50% female, even. They don't have this problem.

Oh, well, sure - Facebook. But here's something to wrap one's neurons around: on any given day, the information posted to Facebook is n times more valuable than the information posted to Wikipedia, where n is some large number. Because the Facebook information tells its users useful and important information about people that matter to them, whilst the Wikipedia information is, at this point, stuff like the gross tonnage of a 19th-Century Chilean light cruiser.

Wikipedia is not Facebook - We even have policy to this effect, WP:NOTMYSPACE. Well why not. Would you rather fail? Prove to me that changing Wikipedia to make it more social would be a detriment.

IIRC correctly, we had a social component, WP:ESPERANZA, which IIRC was more or less hounded into the ground (maybe I have that wrong, I'm not really up on the particulars).

I mean, fine - of course we can't be like Facebook, it serves a different purpose - but do we have to be hostile to the idea that people are social creatures?

For instance, thinking outside the box: we could (obviously after partnering with Facebook and doing much software magic) have a button "post this article to my Facebook list of favorite Wikipedia articles" (or "...Wikipedia articles I have contributed to" or whatever), with maybe a button on Wikipedia "access user's Facebook page" (opt-in, obviously), and conversely a link on Facebook to one's Wikipedia profile or something.

(Obviously we would have to beg Facebook to agree to this, and why should they, but you never know - we are a popular website.)

Or something. Herostratus (talk) 15:06, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Facebook as a humungous user base - basically the majority of internet users below a certain age. But they are casual internet users; the vast majority of (male or female) people are. The vast majority of Facebook users, male or female, would not be interested in contributing to Wikipedia. Only a tiny portion of the population are - and that comes from a demographic of internet users that is mostly male (probably about 70-80%) - i.e. the "power" user group.

we could (obviously after partnering with Facebook and doing much software magic) have a button "post this article to my Facebook list of favorite Wikipedia articles"; interestingly Facebook "Pages" often have Wikipedia content :) --Errant ^(chat!) 15:15, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

(I'm not sure how to indent this, because it's a response to something quite a ways up, not to anything directly above.) I can't let this thread lapse into obscurity without objecting to the strong statement made above "What must be understood is that women's brains are functionally different than men's" sourced not to scientific research but to the website of an "executive coach." The actual scientific research is equivocal on this question; there is research that suggests that there's no functional difference between men's and women's brains as well as research that suggests that there is. So the most definite statement that can be made on the basis of scientific research at this time is that the jury is still out. The Wikipedia article on this topic is actually not bad, making it clear that there's not a settled consensus in the research and citing some good literature reviews for the reader to consult. Woonpton (talk) 19:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

My statement was not meant to be sourced. I'm not writing a Wikipedia article, I was simply linking to an overview article that others might find interesting. The article references in general that there is research on the topic and I assumed anybody really interested would look further. I don't agree that the jury is still out, but this is neither the place or the time to debate the topic and the research...(olive (talk) 02:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC))

There really isn't any need to continue this discussion but I wanted to say that I was simply surprised that we only have a female participation level of 15%. I wasn't at first aware of a previous discussion on this matter...I should have closed it after being provided that link. For the record, we have room for everybody that is being constructive...and so there is always plenty of room for more females...having more female editors wouldn't push a single male out. Perhaps more female involvement would enhance articles that interest females more than males...that surely couldn't be a bad thing. Anyway, I commented at Dr. Blofeld's talkpage after seeing he retired after engaging in this discussion, an impact that I would never want to see happen...in case anyone didn't notice, Dr. Blofeld has started more than 70,000 articles...a truly impressive achievement.--MONGO 01:22, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

RE: Prem Rawat

Whilst I agree with the action you took regarding the lead, I would give a general caution regarding the rather curiously controversial nature of the article (two separate ArbCom cases, at least two formal mediations, several informal mediations (one of which I oversaw) and countless RfC's and general debates, along with the Jossi controversy). In fact, the mediation that I settled regarded the placement of a five word sentence pertaining to a particular interpretation of Rawat's teachings. Just a cautionary statement! :) Ronk01 talk 04:29, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I made my one and only edit, and I'm going to steer clear of it now. (I haven't even looked yet to see if my edit survived.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

And what an absurd edit it is. The sources you cite for this "important" info, Bob Larson and Ron Rhodes are extreme Christian fundamentalists. Larson preaches against "sexually suggestive lyrics, Eastern religious mysticism, and the antisocial behavior of rock musicians" and is justly famous for "performing exorcisms of callers on the air". Your other expert, Ron Rhodes, is the author of such classics as "The Wonder of Heaven: A Biblical Tour of Our Eternal Home", "Homosexuality: What You Need to Know" and "Correcting the Cults: Expert Responses to Their Scripture Twisting". Anyone else making a sloppy and undiscussed edit would be reverted and cautioned but people are obviously reluctant to apply the rules to you. The best thing you could do for Wikipedia is show everyone how to behave and self revert. Giving such undue weight to two authors who believe anyone who doesn't believe in creationism is in a "cult" is the worst possible example of distorting reality to push a POV.Momento (talk) 18:50, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Prem Rawat - Hi, Jimmy has only made a singe edit to the article and users are as able to revert him (our leader) as much as anyone else in a WP:BRD manner. Its clearly a contensious article and looking at the lede, it does appear to be missing any of the issues that surround the controversial leader of the group, but anyways, I suggest you follow usual editing procedures if you dispute the bold addition. Regards. Off2riorob (talk) 20:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I have been banned from edit Prem Rawat etc otherwise I would have reverted it immediately for being undiscussed and giving undue weight to two totally biased sources. Reputable scholars and reputable encyclopedias allow that DLM has been described as a "new religious movement, a Hindu or Sant sect, a cult, a charismatic religious sect or an alternative religion". It is not appropriate for an editor, even Jimbo, to select the term that suits their POV and stick it in the lead without discussion.Momento (talk) 01:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, Momento's topic ban includes "all related discussions". Until it expires, in August, he should not be commenting on the topic on any page.   Will Beback  talk  01:34, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Due Process Denied In Arbitration

[Note from Jimbo: I have glanced at the following but not read it all. If anyone is interested in doing so, I would love to see this marked up with links to relevant bits as they are referred to. I have to confess that off the top of my head I don't even know what some of this is about, "SAQ" means what?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:19, 2 February 2011 (UTC)]

"Shakespeare Authorship Question"? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 21:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Here are some links (sorry for the duplication - I wasn't sure whether to put this here or at the bottom of this thread, so I put them in both places. Mr Wales - feel free to delete one of them!: ArbCom Case (Workshop): [9], Jimbo's comments:[10], and discussion of Jimbo's participation:[11] and[12], the last of which are more in the nature of accusations than actual proof. Smatprt (talk) 23:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

In the interest of full disclosure, here is the link to my evidence: [13] and my proposal (which apparently isn't a proposal that ArbCom can even consider: [14]. Thanks Smatprt (talk) 23:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

---

Dear Jimmy Wales,

You are the originator and the public face of Wikipedia, and have just raised millions to keep this wonderful project going. However I think people would have donated funds to Wikipedia would be shocked at the way in which Wikipedia's arbitration process denies due process to editors.

You have intervened in the current SAQ dispute on the issue of the merge, so I know you are aware of the arbitration. What you may not be aware of is the way in which I am being denied due process in this arbitration.

I've copied below the exchanges [15] which show that my request to the arbitrators to clarify the case against me so that I could put in evidence was ignored, and that I cannot even learn whether the two drafting arbitrators have made the other arbitrators aware of my request for clarification, or whether they are withholding that information from the other arbitrators in order to rush to a decision against me.

This refusal to clarify the issues so that a party can present evidence makes it clear that Wikipedia arbitrations are free-for-alls which do not follow the rules of any type of real-world arbitration, and that they have become ad hoc tribunals in which extreme sanctions such as indefinite bans can be handed out without the editor in question having been given any indication of the case he/she has to meet.

I will be putting forward some suggestions for the amendment of the Wikipedia arbitration policy on the Workshop page. I hope and trust you will take them into consideration, and that you will see that something is done to provide for due process in future in Wikipedia arbitrations.

I also hope and trust that there is something you can do to ensure that I obtain due process in this current arbitration, although I do not fully understand your role in Wikipedia. It appears that perhaps, although you are the founder and the fundraiser who keeps Wikipedia going, it may be that you do not have the power to prevent abuses in Wikipedia.

Sincerely,

Nina GreenNinaGreen (talk) 17:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

3) Request For Clarification Of The Case Against Me

January 30 is the final day for submission of statements of evidence, as I understand it, and I would like clarification from the arbitrators concerning the case I have to meet, if any.

This arbitration came about because Bishonen first canvassed the Administrator' Noticeboard in an attempt to involve other administrators, and then personally requested LessHeard vanU to act because 'you're so big and strong'[15]. I'm a new editor, so I don't even know whether these actions on Bishonen's part comply with Wikipedia policy for administrators. I would hope not.

LessHeard vanU then brought the matter directly to arbitration without having taken any intermediate dispute resolution steps, on the false ground that there is a 'co-ordinated campaign' among Oxfordians to push their own POV on the authorship controversy articles. One of the arbitrators has stated somewhere that the arbitrators will not be looking at evidence for this 'co-ordinated campaign', so I'm assuming that that issue is off the table.

In any event, there has not been any evidence introduced that I am part of any 'co-ordinated campaign', which I most certainly am not. Nor has there been any evidence introduced that I have pushed any POV, which again I most certainly have not (the evidence introduced establishes that I have consistently maintained a neutral POV and that I have consistently said that the authorship controversy articles must unequivocally state that the consensus of the Shakespeare establishment is that Shakespeare of Stratford wrote the Shakespeare canon). There has been no evidence introduced that I have engaged in any personal attacks, although there is much evidence that I have been the consistent victim of them. There are some specious and unsupported allegations that I have engaged in Tendentious Editing. I believe those allegations are amply answered by the example on this very Workshop page of how the substance of a point made by me concerning merger to advance the project was entirely ignored by Tom Reedy and Nishidani. Instead of dealing with the substantive point involving merger, Tom Reedy and Nishidani engaged in a lengthy series of untrue allegations, snide remarks, ad hominem personal attacks and revelation of personal information which comes close to violating Wikipedia policy on 'outing'. In this way, my raising of a substantive point concerning merger on this Workshop page was turned by Tom Reedy and Nishidani into yet another opportunity for them to force me to defend myself against a series of false allegations and personal attacks which steadily became more and more irrelevant. As I pointed out in that section of the Workshop page, this is what has happened time and time again during the month or so I edited on Wikipedia, unchecked by any administrator. I have been constantly forced to defend myself against Tom Reedy and Nishidani's false allegations and personal attacks because Wikipedia is a public forum which can be accessed by anyone on the internet. It is clear that it is Tom Reedy and Nishidani who are involved in Tendentious Editing and 'disruptive behaviour', unchecked by any administrator. There are many many examples on the Edward de Vere and SAQ article Talk pages for the arbitrators to see if they require further evidence.

Since no other allegations have been made against me in the statements of evidence, so far as I can see, I do not know what case I have to answer, if any, and I would request clarification from the arbitrators on this. If there is anything the arbitrators would like me to answer, please specify it and I will do my best to answer it.

I'm a new editor, and in my first month of editing I contributed one full-length article to Wikipedia which is thoroughly sourced to WP:RS reliable sources and fully linked to dozens of other Wikipedia articles (the Edward de Vere article). Thereafter I was only permitted by Tom Reedy to add 4 references to the SAQ article for facts which were already in the article and to tidy up one other reference already in the SAQ article. Every other edit I either made to the SAQ article or placed for discussion on the SAQ Talk page was either instantly reverted by Tom Reedy, later silently deleted from the article, or the Talk page discussion of my proposed edit was turned by Tom Reedy and Nishidani into an extended and irrelevant personal attack on me as per the example on this Workshop page.

Bishonen has stated that she wants me banned from Wikipedia editing for a year, and it seems clear that that was almost the sole reason for bringing this arbitration, to subject me to a very lengthy ban, thus eliminating almost the only remaining Oxfordian editor contributing to the authorship controversy pages. I do not wish to be banned, and I do not think it is a healthy thing for Wikipedia to ban me. I have a great deal to offer in terms of background knowledge, and I am committed to a neutral point of view and to working with editors and administrators who do not engage in personal attacks and who do not turn every substantive proposal I make into an excuse for yet another endless digression into personal attacks and false allegations.

In summary, my question to the arbitrators is: Is there any case against me which I have to meet? I can't see one, but if there is one, what is it? What do the arbitrators feel they need to hear from me on before the statements of evidence are closed?NinaGreen (talk) 21:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I have heard nothing from the arbitrators concerning the above, and the final date for submission of evidence has passed. It is therefore clear that there is no case against me, and I am therefore requesting the arbitrators to dismiss the case against me forthwith, as justice and equity require.NinaGreen (talk) 17:51, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I received no reply from any of the arbitrators to my request that they clarify the case against me before the final date for submission of evidence had passed. Having received no clarification, and the final date for submission of evidence (January 30) having passed, I then requested the arbitrators in the statement above to dismiss the case against me, as justice and equity require. I again received no reply. Yesterday I wrote to the arbitration clerks requesting that they inform all the arbitrators of my request, in case any of the arbitrators had not seen it. The arbitration clerks declined to do so. However arbitration clerk AGK today forwarded a blind copy of my e-mail to arbitrator Newyorkbrad. I replied to AGK that I still required assurance that all the arbitrators had seen my request. I received this reply from AGK on my Talk page:

== Your request for the arbitration case to be dismissed ==

In relation to your recent e-mail, I've contacted the first drafting Arbitrator of the case (User:Newyorkbrad) and made him aware of your request for the case to be dismissed. His response was this:

her request for dismissal will be reviewed along with the evidence as we prepare the final decision. We hope to have a proposed decision posted within the next few days.

This should I think conclude our earlier e-mail discussion. AGK [•] 23:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

This is unfair and inequitable. At the beginning of the case, the arbitrators stated that they wanted me to put in my evidence first so that others could respond to it. This was clearly prejudicial to me since the arbitration was brought on grounds (see above) of a 'co-ordinate campaign' which had nothing to do with me, so there was clearly no case for me to meet. I stated at that time that I could not put in my evidence first because I did not know what the case was against me. As stated above, two weeks later, with all the evidence now in except for mine, I still do not know what the case is against me. Despite my request to the arbitrators, I have not been told by them what Wikipedia policies I have allegedly violated, and in fact I have not violated any. The case against me has therefore not been clarified in any way, despite my request that the arbitrators do so, and as a result I have been denied the opportunity to submit evidence because I do not know what I am supposed to submit evidence on. It is unjust and inequitable that I should be required to continue as party to an arbitration in which the arbitrators will not clarify the case against me at my request, thus denying me the opportunity to submit evidence on my behalf. I am requesting that all the arbitrators, not merely the drafting arbitrators, deal immediately with my request that the case against me be dismissed.NinaGreen (talk) 00:08, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

You have been advised before that the desire for your evidence to be submitted earlier than that of the others was strictly informal; and indeed, that desire was explicitly rescinded in response to your repeated objections. If you want to, assert repeatedly that there is in your view no case for you to answer, but please do not continue to misrepresent things. AGK [•] 00:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

AGK, informal or not, the making of that suggestion was extremely prejudicial to me, particularly since I am a new editor. I am not imputing any fault to you in making it. I assume you were merely the messenger relaying a request by the arbitrators that I put in my evidence first so that others could rebut it.

To clarify your second point, I am not merely asserting that there is no case for me to answer. I am asserting (and it is true) that I have never understood what case I have to answer because the arbitration was brought on the basis of a 'co-ordinated campaign' that has nothing to do with me, that on 29 January I requested clarification from the arbitrators on the specifics of the case to be answered by me, if there was one, before the final date for submission of evidence on 30 January passed, and the arbitrators ignored my request. I have therefore been prevented by the arbitrators from presenting evidence in the case, and it is unjust and inequitable for the arbitrators not to dismiss the case against me forthwith. I am therefore requesting that the arbitrators dismiss the case against me forthwith.

Moreover I still have not received assurance that all the arbitrators are aware of my request.NinaGreen (talk) 00:38, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Comment by Arbitrators:

The arbitrators are aware of NinaGreen's request for dismissal (although it was very difficult for me to locate in the context of the excess verbiage all over this page). The request will be considered in connection with all the other evidence as we prepare the decision in the case, which will be forthcoming within the next few days. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:45, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad, thank you for the reply. That is not acceptable. The arbitrators have refused to clarify the case against me and have thereby prevented me from putting in evidence to meet whatever case they consider there is for me to meet. That is contrary to the basic principles of any arbitration, and I feel certain that it is against the principles of Wikipedia arbitration even though Wikipedia arbitrations obviously operate under very different rules than other arbitrations. No arbitration can impose a decision on a party whom the arbitrators themselves have deliberately prevented from putting in evidence. I am therefore requesting once again that all the arbitrators, not merely the drafting arbitrators, immediately dismiss the case against me on the ground that the arbitrators have refused to clarify the case against me and have prevented me from putting in evidence.

I would also like to be assured that by 'the arbitrators' in your statement above you mean that every arbitrator is aware of my request, not merely the two drafting arbitrators.NinaGreen (talk) 02:13, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you find it not acceptable, Nina, however, that has no bearing on this case. And as for your other point, once the proposed decision for this case is posted (hopefully this weekend), all the arbitrators will vote seperately on whether to support or oppose the decision/. SirFozzie (talk) 02:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

SirFozzie, your last comment is unclear. Are you saying that all the arbitrators who will eventually vote do not yet know that on 29 January, before the final date for submission of evidence had passed, I requested that the case against me be clarified by the arbitrators so that I could present evidence if there was any case for me to meet, and that when the arbitrators ignored that request and the final date for submission of evidence had passed (30 January), I requested that the case against me be dismissed because the arbitrators had refused to clarify the case and had thus prevented me from presenting evidence? It sounds as though that is what you are saying, i.e. that you and Newyorkbrad, the two drafting arbitrators, are the only two arbitrators who are in the know concerning these matters, and that all the other arbitrators know nothing about them. To remove any ambiguity, could you please clarify by their Wikipedia names which arbitrators are aware of my two requests. This Workshop page provides for motions and requests to be submitted to the arbitrators, not merely to the two drafting arbitrators, and I clearly submitted my requests for clarification of the case against me and for dismissal of the case against me to all the arbitrators.

Your statement that the arbitrators' failure to clarify the case against me 'has no bearing on this case', is clearly wrong. In every normal and usual arbitration in the real world, the issues are clearly defined and the parties present their positions to the arbitrators based on those clearly-defined issues. If Wikipedia arbitrations do not permit parties to present their evidence based on clearly-defined issues, then Wikipedia arbitrations are by definition not arbitrations, but rather are ad hoc tribunals which permit minor functionaries (administrators) to drag whomever they please through a process in which the parties are subjected to sanctions and loss of rights without being permitted to know the case they have to meet or to present evidence on their own behalf. I am certain that this is not what was intended when arbitrations were provided for in Wikipedia. NinaGreen (talk) 04:37, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

SAQ = Shakespeare Authorship Question. Apparently, it's some sort of long-standing, contentious issue here on Wikipedia. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It's not just Wikipedia. There's a very vocal minority who insist that someone other than the man from Stratford-upon-Avon authored what are know as the works of William Shakespeare, with varying opinions on who that "other" is. A few new books about "the true author of the works of Shakespeare" come out every year; occasionally one makes the bestseller lists. --Carnildo (talk) 22:48, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Here are some links: ArbCom Case (Workshop): [16], Jimbo's comments: [17], and discussion of Jimbo's participation: [18] and [19], the last of which are more in the nature of accusations than actual proof. Smatprt (talk) 23:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

So far, from what I've read, it sounds like the kind of heel-dragging we've seen in ArbCom discussions before. The individual accused disputes that the evidence is accurate, then claims that this means there is no evidence, and demands a clarification of the cases' scope. When the evidence is accepted, the individual then claims due process has been violated and they're being persecuted. That's a misunderstanding of how evidence works: even if the evidence is disputed, the arbs will at least consider it and then accept or reject it on its merits. Appealing directly to Jimbo doesn't seem to be the best move, in this case. Hopefully it's just a simple misunderstanding on NinaGreen's part, due in part to the (perfectly natural) defensiveness of being put up for arbitration. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 00:08, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it may have started out that way, and frankly, Nina is quite inexperienced and has brought a lot of this upon herself - but the ArbCom case has become less about Nina, and more about all the editors and administrators that have become involved over the last 12 months, particularly since the flawed merge decision of March and the resulting complete deletion of the former SAQ article, only to be replaced in early October by a completely new article written by two like-minded editors to the exclusion of anyone who disagreed with them. Mr. Wales did weigh in on a minor point and has now been attacked by administrators and editors alike. It's much bigger than Nina, and will effect future coverage of the topic from here forward. The minority view has been stifled and denigrated, and true neutrality has gone out the window. Pillar number two is taking a beating with only the mainstream "truth" being represented as "the best view", and any opposing views becoming the subject of scorn and ridicule. My experience as the primary anti-Stratfordian editor for several years (most of the others being bullied off) has left a poor message for any newcomers. Oppose us and we will ridicule you til you leave. If that does not work, we'll get you banned. Sigh. Smatprt (talk) 01:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Nothing in the above bears any resemblance to the facts. That you labour under the impression you were the 'only anti-Stratfordian editor for several years' is indicative enough. Check the edit history. There were at least 8 anti-Stratfordian, or pro anti-Stratfordian editors working that page supportively before I joined it in Feb 2010. Many respected editors for the orthodox academic perspective have said they were exhausted by wrangling there long before I or Reedy began serious editing there. Neither Reedy nor I are interested in the truth of the matter, but only in observing WP:RS and WP:V to the letter. Since October many editors, pro, neutral, and contra the orthodox interpretation have joined up to pass that new article under the microscope as we strive to get it to FA standard. Judgement on whether it meets the strictest standards required of articles optimally is in the hands of the wider wiki community, something the earlier article you stewarded never aspired to. But this is not the place to argue all this. Nishidani (talk) 03:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Many have "said" they were exhausted, but no diffs are ever provided. Upon investigation, several of these so-called "many" have found to be misrepresenting themselves. I'll be back with diffs shortly if you like. Smatprt (talk) 03:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Valery Nikolayevsky

Dear Mr. Jimmy Wales, The article of a famous Russian writer and dissident has been deleted (for having no “notability”) after the proposal of the Russian admin “Andrei Romanenko”. Mr. Romanenko obviously has set the goal for himself to harm Valerij Nikolaevskij, being a personal enemy of his ever since the author's life in Russia. The article is very important. In this article, we get to know how the writer Valery Nikolaevsky lived in Russia and fought against the Gang of Eight during the times of Gorbachev. Obviously the likes of Romanenko still can't get along with it. The article includes precise quotes, dates and sources. The deletion of the Russian article by Romanenko (one of the best articles in the Russian wiki) demonstrated his hatred for the talented Russian intelligentsia and for the writer Valery Nikolaevsky. The article must not be deleted. In it, we read the truth about the Gorbachev era in the city of Tolyatti. The creative intelligentsia is observing this process. We need your help for the recreation of the article, which without a doubt is “notable”. The German and French “Wikipedia” refused to participate in the deletion of their respective articles on the writer/dissident. We attach a copy of the entire deleted article. With everlasting respect to you, Son of the writer, Dan Nikolaevskij PS: My father is 72 years old. He has a bad sight and doesn’t use the computer.

(Copy of the deleted article Valery Nikolayevsky (posted here) removed, for clarity; there is a copy in Wikipedia:Article Incubator/Valery Nikolayevsky. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Valery Nikolayevsky (2nd nomination)  Chzz  ►  18:59, 2 February 2011 (UTC))

--80.109.29.11 (talk) 17:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Dispute resolution quandry, higher level issues (Univ Prof)

Mr Wales:

You can forward this as you wish. There is no need for you to personally attend.

I am a University Prof that likes to be able to use Wikipedia in research and teaching, and so am a sometime contributor.

My edits and contributions have in particular have been toward error correction, both factual and in underlying "tone" (scientific presumption)—especially in cases where a reader that is a layman in an area might make decisions deleterious to health based on Wiki content (content related to my expertise). A secondary area is to transfer information from another reliable source, when there appears to be conflicting interpretations or understandings, so conflicting information can stand side-by-side (content unrelated to my expertise). Note, I have done much more editing than what is listed under the "Meduban" login, in my areas of expertise, because I have not always been able to log in (when traveling, limited time, etc.).

I am writing you now because I am nearing the point of dropping participation, and my general recommendation for Wikipedia use and participation as well.

The reason is an apparent preponderance in particular areas of **strongly guarded content** — e.g., natural products/agents with reported nutriceutical or other health benefits — maintained by individuals with limited expertise, where the status quo content is favored over major change. Alongside this is the difficulty, at least perceived, of quickly making major changes, so as to move the whole of the content of Wiki toward greater accuracy and sophistication. In this regard, having overseen undergraduate students using Wikipedia for research, the disputed content flag is simply not enough.

In such guarded areas, there need to be a better process of rapid substantive chance, and for resolving major disputes—especially when there is potential human dietary or medical therapeutic impact. **It is not always the case that having an article extant is better than having no article at all!**

Bottom line, I would like to talk with someone to discuss my concerns. Some of this might be alleviated by Wiki training, but I haven't the time to arrive, alone, at the acceptable set of steps to deal with the different sorts of problem content that I encounter. And I will not use a site that I cannot impact in a positive way, nor will I continue to recommend a site that is not moving in the direction of highest quality scientific content in areas impacting human health.

Finally, in honesty, a part of the exasperation might arise as a result of the overall egalitarian nature of Wiki hierarchy—which, while commendable, also grates at times. I find myself having to debate content issues with people with no or little training in my area, with resolution coming usually in the form of (i) change cannot/will not be made as you are attempting, and so (ii) reversion to status quo. Hence, contributions that are naive, lack sophistication or nuance—often applying "if most web sources say..." approaches instead of "best, most authoritative sources say" approaches to content validation—remain in place. Hence, Wikipedia has areas where it is contributing to, rather than resisting (as it might significantly), the "dumbing down" of web content.

Fundamentally, status by contribution **quantity** alone ignores an obvious psychological down side—in whose experience is it the case, that the most chatty individual on a subject, or the one with most time and motivation to expound, is most frequently the one most well informed? Moreover, it ignores that a person might be of extreme value even if he/she never writes anything of length, but simply removes/flags problem content for correction (a service which a busy Prof might be able to offer). The bar for getting to a point to do such good has to be made very easy, esp. with regard to time required, for qualified individuals. In this regard, I would estimate that >98% of my colleagues do not bother, either to contribute, or to write such an email as this, simply because of the opportunity cost. (And I can't afford to write another.)

Feel free to forward this, to someone to set up a call. My email is medubanAMPRSNDnorthwestern.edu.

M-E Duban — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meduban (talk • contribs) 20:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Can you give me a specific example? I find questions like this very interesting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It looks like the above user inserted what was basically a discussion at the top of Polyphenol (diff:[20]) and then edit warred when another editor moved his contribution to the talk page.[21] By now it looks like a third editor had incorporated some of the material into the article. Siawase (talk) 00:16, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Dr. Blofeld

I have just noticed on Dr. Blofeld's talk page that something you said has upset him so much he is leaving WP. I have no idea what the dispute is about - I will write to him later. I am just very concerned as I know him to be one of the most prolific and well-meaning editors I have had the pleasure of meeting on WP and he will be sorely missed by myself and thousands of others if he leaves for good. I have worked with him on many articles and have always admired his search for truth and balance (with a dash of humour where appropriate) and his willingness to seek help when working on subjects he feels he doesn't know enough about. Truly, he has been a real inspiration and support to me and countless others. As I said, I have no idea what brought all this on - but is there any way you two can make up and you could (please) encourage him to return? Many thanks. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 04:45, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

[22] and [23] is what upset him.  -- Lear's Fool 04:52, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. I'd have to say he was likely upset before those edits. Jclemens (talk) 05:36, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

We are engaged in an email conversation that I hope will be productive.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Good to know. His stats are amazing.Thelmadatter (talk) 14:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I saw the "rm sexist remarks" revert and felt that that was a very unfair characterisation. Or maybe a misunderstanding? Women get children earlier than men do, and once they have children they are more likely to care for them while their partner is occupied with a hobby than the other way round. Whether we want things to be like that or not (I don't), these are facts that make it appear likely that Wikipedia will always have more male editors than female editors.

But be careful about Dr. Blofeld's ideas. They usually involve creation of massive numbers of almost identical stubs on various borderline notable topics. This also explains the inflated editing statistics. Hans Adler 21:18, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

We're fine. He's a sensible and calm human being and so am I. We're talking. Nothing to see here, move on. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)