User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Fate of "important" articles at FAC

Hi Jimbo -- I recently spent some time doing a bit of crude statistical analysis of the FAC process, with results that I think might interest you; see User:Looie496/Analysis of FAC. I should point out that this has given rise to a lively discussion at WT:FAC -- most of the comments there do not agree with my conclusions though. Looie496 (talk) 03:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

You might wish to repeat the process with Wikipedia:Vital articles.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:19, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

It will not change the insight. All one needs to do is look down the list of VAs and see that the vast majority of them are below GA (ten years into the project). And that that VA project is "dead" (no activity in the talk). I think that pretty clearly shows the massive "miss" for Wikipedia. Something that people at the Sue/Jimbo level should care about. (And if they don't, maybe we need more critical external essays, to prod them.)

For that matter, if you just look at the current list of 30 FACs. Only one, "Brain" is from the VA top 1000 list. "Fluorine" is from the top 10,000. The other 28 include such cruft as the 1860 hurricane season and an 11,000 person "neighborhood".

Interestingly, 3 days ago, we had a TFA on an obscure abondoned station of an obscure abandoned railroad. The article should not even be a GA as it is not "focused" on the topic of the obscure station, but padded with info on the railroad. (Actually, we maybe should not even have an article on the station as the sources mentioning the station do so in passing rather than as the subject.) Yet this criticism was not raised within the 2009 FAC, which had only a single "working" review, which looked only at ref formatting and the like. The other supports were RFA "me too" short. And then this was passed by arguably our best and most critical FA director (Sandy). And it was from one of our community leaders (a now-skipped arbitrator).

That's fine from a "star collector" perspective, if people want to work on minutia (have seen several recent FAs that got less than 20 pageviews per day). But from a LEADERSHIP and PROGRAMMATIC standpoint, it is important to realize that "the encyclopedia" is not getting built. Let's go get a grant and spend some money and figure out and take action on THIS issue.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.246.147.40 (talk • contribs) 23:01, 13 October 2011‎

To be clear, I don't have any problem with the number of FAs on low-importance topics -- the more the merrier. My concern is whether there is anything we can do to increase the number of FAs on high-importance topics, lest FA become a mark of triviality. I am convinced that there are things we can do. I also think it is important to maintain an attitude of optimism -- angry criticism is rarely productive. Looie496 (talk) 00:35, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

(I'm not stalking you, Looie.) I was impressed by the efforts of some editors sponsored by Google, who addressed some important medical articles a year or so ago. Mr Wales, do you know whether there's been a critical review of that experience? I'd like to see another trial of that sort of thing, informed by lessons learned from the first trial, if Google, or another sponsor, is willing to support it. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:07, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

I think negative lessons are important as well. Like I loved that we did outreach to universities and such. We should learn what worked and try to continue programs without funding and the like. That said, I also got the impression that very little came out of the program in terms of real conversion to editing or in terms of important content getting done. Perhaps public policy was not the right direction to go after. I'm also interested in some learning being reflected back by the participants (for instance I find our community WAY too accepting of the MISERABLE user interface here.) Why they heck would someone who is a real expert or a superior prose writer want to write on Wiki where the edit window is so tiny, the formatting all shows with extra characters and worst of all the inline citation templates make it about impossible to read the actual prose when edit mode is open.71.246.147.40 (talk) 07:59, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Plagiarism guideline

Following up you comments on Talk:Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury. There is a guideline called Wikipedia:Plagiarism. It not only gives guidance on when plagiarism is a problem but how to annotate copyright expired text such as that in the article Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (see the section "Public-domain sources"). It also includes a section on where to place attribution.

The template {{1911}} can take parameters like article title, volume and page number (see Template:1911). This helps the reader locate the original source. Unfortunately Wikpedia still has just over 10,000 articles tagged with {{1911}} with no parameters set (mostly placed there long ago before the template accepted parameters). Without such additional information the reader is informed that "somewhere in the 29 volumes of the 11th edition you will find the original text of some or all of this Wikipedia article (but I'm not saying where)".

-- PBS (talk) 23:14, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, this answers my question comprehensively!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:48, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Open confessions of a closed mind

Sometimes we encounter people who seem to give evidence of being closed-minded about one thing or another. Rarely we meet someone who speaks openly about being closed intellectually to evidence that would contradict a position already chosen. You might be interested to read the words of Richard Lewontin, as found at the following page.

• RICHARD LEWONTIN: Billions and Billions of Demons

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

Other statements by him can be found at Richard Lewontin - Wikiquote.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting reading, thank you. I'm not fully persuaded by his argument, but it is worthy of consideration. In particular, I don't find his examples of scientific claims that are supposed to be "patently absurd" or "against common sense" very compelling.

For example, that light has a speed: "Astronomers tell us without apparent embarrassment that they can see stellar events that occurred millions of years ago, whereas we all know that we see things as they happen." But I explained this to my daughter a few years back while we were sitting on the bank of a lake playing with echoing sounds from the other side. It made sense to her that sound takes time to travel across the lake and bounce back, and so then when we talked about light, it made sense to her that light takes time to travel. And just as when you hear the echo of your own voice, you know that what you are hearing happened some time ago, it makes sense that when you see light from the sun, it's light that was emitted some time ago. I don't see any reason why I couldn't give the same explanation to someone living 5000 years ago. This is hardly an astonishing counter-intuitive construct of science.

And I have a hard time thinking of really good examples of things that are against common sense but supported by science. Bits and bobs of quantum mechanics, perhaps, although I've always chalked up most of my perplexity in that area to a lack of interest in seeking out good explanations designed for the educated non-physicist. But I suppose it's possible or even likely, given the curiosity of QM, that this makes for a good example.

But we see that the difficulty of finding good examples of this phenomenon undermines Lewontin's central thesis, which appears to be that providing people with clear scientific explanations won't shake them of accepting all manner of nonsense put forward by various "arguments from authority" since, he claims, we simply must accept a lot of fairly ridiculous stuff from scientists themselves as "arguments from authority".

Perhaps that is true in some rare cases like QM. Maybe there are things that scientists ask us to believe that we've no really good way to understand and therefore must simply accept on authority if we are to accept them at all. But in the main, that just isn't true.

Most relevant to our work here is probably the question of climate change. Wavelength gives this as an exanple. And surely there is some truth to the idea that due to the random and wide fluctuation of daily temperature over time and across distances, an intuitive first guess for most people would be that "the weather nowadays is the same as it was when I was a child".

But I think this example is much like the example that light has a speed. If you ask someone (a child) who has never thought of the issue before, they might say that "we see things as they happen" and think that the idea that when I see you wave at me across the room, I am viewing something you did in the past as silly. But as I showed above, explaining this is pretty easy, and after it has been explained, it is no longer perplexing.

Similarly for climate change. Yes, at first you might not guess it, but the explanation that it is a real phenomenon and that we can and have in fact measured it doesn't strike me as something most people will find as against common sense or patently absurd. Actual scientific explanation seems quite efficacious in this regard.

Many people's initial resistance to the notion of climate change is political in nature. That's a problem, yes. But it's a different problem from the one Lewontin wants us to consider.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:36, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Not quite sure what your point is, but of course any sane person is closed to almost all propositions. I am closed to the proposition that the my teacup is the planet Jupiter, for instance, and countless similar propositions. You yourself, in creating this message, implicitly accepted a number of materialistic assumptions, i.e. that pressing the keys would set in motion a sequence of material events. You didn't just shout your message into a hollowed-out pumpkin and pray that it would be delivered to Jimbo's talk page. (If you did, and since the message did appear, then I'd be willing to reconsider some of my assumptions.) Herostratus (talk) 17:41, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

He spoke of a "commitment to materialism" that led to an acceptance of "patent absurdity" and "unsubstantiated just-so stories".

—Wavelength (talk) 18:36, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

But a commitment to materialism has some rather impressive benefits as well. After all, we don't die of smallpox or end up paralyzed from polio anymore. Diseases like active tuberculosis, pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or Hodgkin lymphoma were death sentences for all of human history except the past 60 years or so. Even HIV/AIDS was transformed from an invariably fatal disease to a largely chronic illness in the space of about 15 years. That's not even getting into the freedoms afforded by easily accessible ground and air travel, telephone and electronic communication, and so forth.

Obviously, materialism has its flaws and its place, but surely it's a bit one-sided to ignore its benefits. Spirituality, prayer, and metaphysical ideas are great, but sometimes there's no substitute for penicillin. MastCell ^Talk 18:46, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

After having read the article (admittedly not every word of it yet; it's pretty long; but enough to "get it") I have a suspicion that the point Wavelength is trying to make is not quite the point that Richard Lewontin was making. But first it would help to know, Wavelength, what point are you trying to make? Neutron (talk) 19:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Some people are closed intellectually to evidence that would contradict positions already chosen. Avoiding the inconvenient truth can happen in various fields of study, including cosmology and climate change. As a general point, it is helpful in discussions for us to be aware of the thinking that might be behind some claims, and such awareness can be applied to discussions in specific fields of study.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:49, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The article "Materialism" (permanent link here) says: "In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the result of material interactions." Materialism is not a prerequisite for scientific progress.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:49, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

• Scientists who name things after Biblical figures seem very open-minded. For example, the "Methuselah gene" was named after Methuselah (in Genesis 5:27, who lived to be 969), as a gene which slows the use of growth hormones and presumably stretches the use of hormones to allow a longer, healthier life over 100 years? -Wikid77 (talk) 20:32, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

There is the Methuselah Foundation, named after Methuselah, but that does not prove that its co-founders, Aubrey de Grey and David Gobel, were open-minded about the possibility of Methuselah as a real person. There is the book The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life?, named after Goldilocks in The Story of the Three Bears, but that does not prove that its author, Paul Davies, was open-minded about the possibility of Goldilocks as a real person.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:18, 15 October 2011 (UTC) and 19:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Status of computer hash-coded image names

I know you are very busy, so this is just a status update. We still have photo images which are named by computerized hash-codes, instead of English words (or any word-based language). I have been copy-editing many articles about India, and now I noticed the hash-coded photo names, such as this one (photo at right) from June 2010 (last year) in town article "Berachampa" (near Kolkatta):

File:OAAAAIqxmm-4LoNsEJZgi4rR3yy8bm91uuPSUjdBljj-xhw1rQIqb1RyHcXUQmQeJdlg-rmgJJmsoWkGf5mxvoIBLD8Am1T1UOG1H-vbReVO2JYD7S7rkMxuiRaB.jpg

Photo in article "Berachampa".

• Image name: File:OAAAAIqxmm-4LoNsEJZgi4rR3yy8bm91uuPSUjdBljj-xhw1rQIqb1RyHcXUQmQeJdlg-rmgJJmsoWkGf5mxvoIBLD8Am1T1UOG1H-vbReVO2JYD7S7rkMxuiRaB.jpg

I am a big fan of computer-generated article content, when it provides common-sense information, but computerized hash-code names for images is somewhat frightening, as if spammed photos do not even need to meet the simplest of quality criteria. Perhaps other editors will provide more status about ongoing plans to control image names and quality, of images massively uploaded onto Wikimedia Commons, in the past year. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:08, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I'm not sure what can be done about it, it's really up to commons to deal with, and I have no idea of the size of the problem. It doesn't seem to me too much to ask to give photos sensible file names - it will be helpful to many.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:38, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Such image names trigger a big red flashing warning light, that they are most likely copyvios pasted from somewhere. As is almost certainly the case with the example cited above. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:53, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

There was an editor a while back who nominated for mass deleting all the files with meaningless (like numerical) file names on en.wikipedia. We saved a few babies from the bathwater but most of it was crap. I know the deletion process over at commons is far less efficient, but something similar could probably be done. Gigs (talk) 01:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

The new software

My apologies if this has already been brought up here. I know you are a busy man and can't reasonably be involved in every little detail of the Foundation's business, but has it been brought to your attention that the new software is causing numerous problems, including blocking innocent users, moving block settings from renamed accounts back to the old names, autoblocking users and IPs for no apparent reason, and effectively making it very difficult for anyone who is not a checkuser to clear any of these erroneous autoblocks, or any other autoblock? The folks over at WP:VPT seem to be telling us that if we only appreciated how awesome the new features were we wouldn't be so upset at the several dozen problems it has created and/or that bugzilla reports have been filed and that is all there is to say about it.

If the new software was a bot we would turn it off. If it was an admin it would be desysopped and banned. I realize the Foundation is not made of money, but this new package seems to have been dumped here without any testing at all of how it would affect adminsitrative actions and the various admin interfaces.I'm no software engineer but the problems it is causing with block settings seem like a major flaw in that it is very much opposed to WPs open editing model to block anyone, ever if they didn't actually do anything to earn it. If there is anything you can do to either temporarily remove it pending fixes to these issues or accelerate actualy getting the problems fixed I'm sure it would be much appreciated by the admin corps and the various users who have been unjustly blocked. Beeblebrox (talk) 02:31, 16 October 2011 (UTC)