User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Closing RFDs

I am concerned that when you closed Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2011_November_13 as a speedy deletion you violated Wikipedia:SPEEDY, unless, of course, it was an office action. I don't believe it's appropriate for admins to super-vote - even if they are voting correctly. Please consider not taking abrupt unnecessary action in the future - there is no rush, and not only did you prevent non-admins from reversing your action, you also used your gravitas as "founder." Such actions should be reserved for things that really need it. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 13:46, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that from time to time it is valuable to remind people that WP:NPA is hard policy, and that civility really does matter. Snarky comments should not be given the luxury of a serious discussion and debate as if this were a serious matter to consider. Delete, salt if necessary, move on. Users whose talk page shows an astonishing degree of incivility should be blocked permanently without batting an eye, as they are destructive to our purpose of building soman encyclopedia - I won't take that last step myself, but it would be good for the encyclopedia to re-establish the principle that insults are absolutely unacceptable.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:51, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I have added your new speedy deletion category as G13. Hipocrite (talk) 13:53, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but there is no new rationale needed, no new policy needed. Existing policy more than covers this sort of thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:13, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Could you point out where? Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 14:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The right place for this discussion is at the talk page of Wikipedia talk:Wikiquette assistance
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Jimbo, it appears that at least one member of the community disagrees that incivil pages can be speedily deleted. Please defend your new speedy deletion rationale at WP:SPEEDY. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 14:02, 14 November 2011 (UTC) sadly User:Nikkimaria has deleted it - I support it and we should seek consensus to replace it. Off2riorob (talk) 14:02, 14 November 2011 (UTC) There's no new category needed. It's an attack, it's vandalism, delete. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 14:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC) (ec)I hope you mean "defend it at WT:SPEEDY", not at "WP:SPEEDY", as that would be a call to edit war on a policy page. Furthermore, perhaps that one person disagrees that policy can be set by Jimbo alone, and that a talk page discussion is needed for this anyway, no matter if he agrees with the sentiment or not, or perhaps he feels that the new policy and the page deleted under that then not-existing policy don't match (i.e. that that redirect was not a PA), or perhaps he had another reason (like that G10 already applies if it is really a PA). Please don't ascribe motives to persons without very good reason. Fram (talk) 14:07, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry to bother you again but... somebody's losing it... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 14:14, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

WP:POINT is a blockable offense, and I think it's about time for it. When you add to his shocking violations of WP:NPA (see his talk page for example) I'm astonished it hasn't happened already.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:17, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo, creating a template page does not disrupt the encyclopedia. I'm really concerned that you are advocating for a block here. Hipocrite (talk) 14:19, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Ahem. Just saying... Delicious carbuncle (talk) 14:38, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

That is loud quacking indeed. Can someone block him - User:WebHamster indefed on November 6th 2009 - User:The Pink Oboe created November 6, 2009 - with an unbelievable liking of some totally obscure articles - Off2riorob (talk) 15:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

This "Stalker" output apparently only outputs pages where both editors edited. There is no list of discordant pages which have been edited by exactly one editor. The output is worthless for making decisions about sock-puppets. It is shocking that Off2riorob would call for a blocking and label that crap "strong quacking indeed". It should be shocking that Hipocrite (well, maybe not, considering the name) Delicious Carbuncle would post such smearing output in such a passive aggressive manner. (16:46, 14 November 2011 (UTC) Updated: My apologies to Hipocrite for the confusion, which is especially bad because I know that I should double-check names. Sincerely, KW)

That said, a non-lazy editor might do some further digging on these pages and some analysis. It is unfortunate that editors accuse any editor of being a sock-puppet so thoughtlessly.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 15:44, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

What smearing output are you referring to, exactly? I don't recollect posting any smearing output. Hipocrite (talk) 15:54, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Not sure why but there is a lot of opposition to this sock claim and it is quacking so loud its untrue - its been closed down like lightening at SPI. Off2riorob (talk) 15:57, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

The administrator said that the Stalker (so-called) tool's output was utterly inadequate to warrant an SPI search. Your reading will improve if you remove cliches from your thought: You should have to give 25 USD every time you refer to "quacking" on WP.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:00, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

You are free to draw your own conclusions about the link I posted earlier, but perhaps you should look at this one before making up your mind completely. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:36, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

If you want to make an accusation, write it and deal with the consequences. Please stop this passive-aggressive behavior. Here, your posting the raw output from a very crude tool for detecting only concordant edits (meat-socking/puppet-socking tool) makes a lazy and cowardly accusation against three accounts. Your last smear against two of them was taken to SPI, by Off2RioRob, who at least made a few sentences of intelligent analysis; his SPI-request was declined.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 20:00, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Its totally clear, it's unquestionable for anyone that spends a half an hour investigating the edit history that the three users are the same person. Off2riorob (talk) 20:40, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Kiefer.Wolfowitz, The Pink Oboe is heading towards being indef blocked in the near future for their own actions, so it isn't a good use of anyone's time to do more than point out the obvious. If you think there should be consequences for that, feel free to start a thread on ANI. I'm sure you can find a sympathetic admin who will be only to happy to rap my knuckles. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:01, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

This all is one of the main reasons why out-of-process deletions like this one are so often a bad idea. If you had let the discussion run its course, probably none of the current problems would have happened. Fram (talk) 14:22, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Please see the DRV. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Timeline

I think that from time to time it is valuable to remind people that WP:NPA is hard policy, and that civility really does matter. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:51, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

1. 14:24, November 13, 2011 An admin, Stephan Schulz, tells two users to "Shut the fuck up" at WQA.
2. 18:13, 13 November 2011 (UTC) SandyGeorgia starts a discussion of the civility double standards at Malleus's talk page.
3. 19:02, November 13, 2011 (UTC) approximately The Pink Oboe posts a "Run to mommy" redirect to WQA.
4. 19:26 and 19:27, November 13, 2011 (UTC) Off2riorob posts (then removes) a vulgarity directed at Pink Oboe.
5. 12:45, November 14, 2011 (UTC) While missing two gross instances of uncivil posting-- one from a admin, both specifically directed at other editors—Jimbo goes out of process to close an RfD that might offend a vague "someone" while curiously stating that "civility really does matter".

So, if "civility really does matter", why didn't you (YOU, Jimbo) do something about the two gross instances of incivility or say something to those editors while you deleted the redirect and dealt with The Pink Oboe? Is there nothing that will draw attention to the civility double standard on Wikipedia, and how it is frequently (and falsely) claimed that content contributors get a free pass while admins get away with whatever they want? I apologize if you actually did do something to address the underlying uncivil admin post that led to all of this, but if you did, I can't find it. An admin can tell two other editors to "shut the fuck up", and no one bats an eyelash at the Administrators' noticeboard. Yep, civility really does matter. So, ANI is a cesspool, WQA is "run to mommy", and now you, Jimbo, have put yourself in a position of "run to daddy"-- like many fathers, you wandered in to a scuffle, listened to half a story, meted out some punishment, and wandered off, while the real "civility" abuser got off scot free. If you are serious about civility (and there was no NPA except the retracted one from Off2riorob), then DO something about it as BOLD as you did about the Redirect-- start with Stephan Schulz. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:10, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't punish anyone. I am serious about personal attacks, particularly coming from admins, this is the first I have heard of it. I didn't "wander off" I'm right here. No one has gotten off scot free. And if you think there was no personal attack from The Pink Oboe, you haven't been paying attention. Go read his talk page. Look at his edit history. It is a constant stream of abuse. He called me a "fucking programmer", whatever that means. It's not acceptable. And yes, if an admin behaves in that way, they should be desysopped. There should be no double standards on civility, and crying about double standards should never be a reason to let someone get away with bad behavior. Let's clean house. If people are here to work together in mutual respect to get something useful done, then great. If they are here to abuse and harass others, let's be done with them so we can have a better environment. Gentle outreach to newcomers who are behaving badly is the right thing to do. But for a user who has been around - sockpuppet or no - as long as The Pink Oboe, there's no reason to put up with it any more.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Correct that you haven't "wandered off", correct that I didn't know you were addressing The Pink Oboe's entire editing history in the one diff to his talk page, and for "cleaning house": money --> mouth --> Stephan Schulz. No way is this "civility" business ever going to be anything but a double standard and a joke if Malleus gets blocked for "arse" while admins can tell two editors to "shut the fuck up" and not an eyelash is batted an AN. If we're serious, let's start where the problem starts (admin abuse and double standards in enforcement of civility and personal attacks). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:30, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I have now spoken to both Stephan Schulz and Off2Riorob. Thanks for calling those things to my attention. My primary interest here is to encourage everyone to reach within ourselves for a higher standard of behavior. Responding to people like Malleus when he's misbehaving by misbehaving further does not resolve the problem. Instead, insisting that everyone behave themselves is the right way forward. I don't think there is a huge and ongoing problem with a double standard, but there are people - respected editors, respected admins too - who really should rethink this issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:33, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the quick response. Now, as to Malleus and moi-- as long as admin abuse goes on and is frequently directed at Malleus (or any editor who has contributed as much as he has to our mainpage), I will try to cheer him on whenever he is affected. The notion that all that has been directed at him doesn't bother him is bunk, and that is why others rally whenever it inevitably happens again. That is not the same as defending any perceived misbehavior-- since it is almost always about pointing out the double standard. When admins are dealt with the same way that Malleus is dealt with, then folks will have an argument about Malleus's perceived indiscretions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:39, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding Malleus, Jimbo, your comments are really unfair. If you look at his talk page now, you can see that he has immediately rushed to help high-school students with their AP Biology projects and given a lot of help to other users. You should not be spreading the scapegoating of Malleus here, particularly when he is being so helpful to new editors and acting as an exemplary Wikipedian.

In my experience, Malleus describes others' behavior roughly only when he is responding to rudeness or personal attacks or when anybody would be exasperated by another editor's cluelessness.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:12, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't really say much about Malleus, so I don't see how it is unfair. My point is that when he misbehaves (you concede that he does, although you justify it on his behalf), the right answer is not to misbehave back at him. I don't see how that's unfair to him.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:20, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I did not justify misbehavior by MF. Violations of WP:Retaliation or exasperation are human failings. I object to your bringing up MF, gratuitiously and without mentioning the context, especially the frequent provocations/personal-attacks by administrators against him, in a discussion of double standards. Your error was alleging that MF is the one misbehaving and that others should not retaliate against him, when a look at the record shows that the first blood drawn has usually been his.

You are quoted (like objectivists quote Ayn Rand) by the youth at RfA deform, who mimic your behavior without your careful phrasing. The RfA discussions feature frequent PAs against MF, and you can set a better example.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:33, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I didn't bring up MF, someone else did. I don't see how you can characterize me responding to someone else as bringing him up gratuitously. I do not agree with your analysis of the record in his case.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Let me add that I didn't tell anybody to shut up. I told two editors engaged in what can be politely phrased as "an unconstructive personal discussion" that they can shut the fuck up. Apparently this subtle distinction was not universally perceived. I'll try for less subtlety in the future. However, I'll strongly maintain that indeed civility is more than skin-deep, and is not determined by a list of seven dirty words, but rather by cases of personal attacks, suggestions of bad faith (no matter how politely phrased), cases of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, intentionally missing the point, splitting hairs when either of the half hairs leads to the same result, and so on. In other words, it requires people to pay attention to semantics, not just to syntax. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:40, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, well, non-admins don't have the luxury of making the same argument about semantics v syntax-- instead, they find themselves on the end of a block, and then escalating blocks as other admins use the block log as a further excuse to block. So, best advice to you is to stop rationalizing your inappropriate response and behave as expected of admins so civility enforcement will be equal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:52, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I dislike the administrator/writer double standard, however .... Stephen Schulz's comment seemed to me at first, and still seems to me, to have been intended with humor/good-will, and should be read in the context of the thread, which was then closing. It was not Stephen's first comment to an editor, coming out of nowhere, where it would have been utterly inappropriate. Even so, its reception, even by the tolerant SandyGeorgia, reminds us to use caution with "fuck" and to use winks and smiles liberally. :)  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

On Stephen's talk page, somebody explained that "Shut the fuck up" is often used humorously, recalling (my hero) Walter Sobchak.

Now, all of you who cannot find something better to do are about to enter a world of pain ....  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 08:47, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia....those that feel Malleus is at the very least "difficult" aren't delusional.MONGO 17:33, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

And yet another discussion of the double standard goes off-topic to Malleus, who had nothing to do with the entire incident (other than me posting about it to his talk). Beating this dead horse is boring: simple point is, what would happen if Malleus told two editors to "shut the fuck up" and why can an admin do it and then argue "semantics"? I'm equally dismayed at Jimbo's characterization of Malleus ("people like Malleus"), but that's enough for today from me. If the point hasn't been made clearly, it's hopeless. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:38, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

There is no reason to have hope. Hope is not a natural but is a theological virtue.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 17:42, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Sandy...yes, double standards.MONGO 18:05, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Speaking for myself, I'm rather fond of the f word. So fond, I utter it only amongst close friends, or if not in anger or whatever, perhaps to those who can see my face and/or hear the spin of how I say it. In my travels throughout the world, I've said to folks who didn't learn how to speak English with other kids on the playgrounds, don't even think about trying to say it, you'll get it wrong and sooner or later piss someone off, or turn them off. Likewise me saying it to the latter and more or less never online (alas). Anyway, if there's any topic where Jimmy and I seem to think alike, it's this one. Be cool, try to be what he calls "professional." It takes one far, in ways both seen and unseen. It's worthwhile. Only my 2 pence. Oh and as to hope, my take on that is straightforward. Without some kind of meaningful faith, yep, give up all hope. Gwen Gale (talk) 17:47, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I would point out this is the English language Wikipedia. Some words which are considered highly offensive in the US are commonly used in the UK and other English-speaking countries and are considered casual slang rather than serious insults. Let's be aware of cultural differences, and that we are separated by a common language. iow, stop using words once you know others interpret them differently than you do, and stop assuming everyone using a word means it in the worst possible way. AGF and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 75.59.227.116 (talk) 17:58, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think any of this is about particular words.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I do agree: these are double-standars and Jimbo encourages them. -- ClaudioSantos¿? 19:07, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I do not encourage double standards at all. Can you explain to me why you said this?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

What a surprise; like a bad smell made even worse by a short retirement, MONGO again wafts into a room to have a pop at Malleus, and in doing so calls a range of editors "delusional". And note the distinct lack of any NPA warning on his talk page. Parrot of Doom 21:11, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Hum...no, not what I wrote at all...in responding to SandyGeorgia, I merely stated that those that think Malleus is "difficult" (which was an extremely kind generalization from my perspective) are not (aren't) delusional.MONGO 21:29, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It's quite clear that your only reason for posting here is to have another pop at Malleus. Perhaps you should spend more time defending poor-quality articles. Parrot of Doom 21:50, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

That isn't the case. It's very disappointing that chronic and persistant incivility by any editor is defended.--MONGO 03:31, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

One doubts that you read this page Jimbo, before making that reply. MONGO is obviously here with an agenda that has little to do with civility. Parrot of Doom 09:34, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Why are Mongo and Malleus not under a community sanction not to interact with or comment on each other's actions and motivations? It's not quite six of one half a dozen of the other, but neither party is all sweetness and light (and one-sided interaction bans rarely work, cf Russavia-Biophys). This should allow both of them to get on with more productive tasks than throwing mud at one another? Thryduulf (talk) 10:57, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

WTF? MF isn't here. Does he have a history of seeking out Mongo?  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know. I was responding to my reading of the discussion Parrot of Doom linked to as much as what is written on this page (I should have made that clear, sorry), where the back and forth between them was not a good advert for anything, regardless of who started it. Also, as I did make clear above, one-sided interaction bans very rarely work. Thryduulf (talk) 12:00, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Odd, it was the comments made by Malleus at that GAR and the talk page of the article in review which led a neutral admin to place a warning of impending topic ban (per arbcom expectation) on Malleus's usertalk...I made it clear that having that article remain a GA was of less importance than ensuring conspiracy and fringe theories (which Malleus wanted to see added) were minimized. IF I was "targeting" Malleus...I could have already submitted an arbcom case with his name flashing atop it...instead the hope is that the next time an admin blocks someone (including me if need be) for persistent incivility, one of the editors buddies doesn't sweep in to unblock without a clear mandate to do so.MONGO 18:00, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Elizabeth Windsor is a large shareholding retiree, who was predominantly unemployed throughout her working life, and occasionally a celebrity or military support worker. She has large unspecified political powers. And she keeps her emphatic-adjective mouth shut in public about politics, because of the examples of her extended family members who didn't, and lost their crowns or heads. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:53, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

• Perhaps sentence them to 100 WQA replies: I have tried to remind people that, in olden tymes, the punishment for saying the "wrong things" was having the tongue cut out. For WP's personal attacks, I am thinking a better action would be to "sentence" NPA-violators to have to post "100 replies" for WP:WQA, to explain to people how snarky comments are poisonous to WP collaborative efforts. Having to defuse 100 other snarky comments is probably the best method for teaching people to remain more civil. Plus, we would be fighting fire with fire: people who have so much time to insult others could spend that time trying to remind others to be more polite. Think of the result: 1,000 people each posting 100 reminders at WP:WQA. They would be fighting each other as to who could be more polite. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:15, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
  • For the record, I absolutely did not block Malleus for using the word "arse". I blocked him for repeatedly insulting Tbhotch and Nick Levinson after I had warned him against making personal attacks. The fact that Sandy is gladly willing to excuse any abusive behavior from her friends but insists that an admin using the word "fuck" is grounds for action is the height of hypocrisy, especially since Malleus tells people to "fuck off" on a regular basis, but no one bats an eyelash.[1][2] So who has the double standard? Kaldari (talk) 07:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
    • I agree. Those who are upset about double standards should be careful not to have one themselves.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
      • Then really Kaldari, it is long overdue that you yourself become transparent, and give the precise diffs for which you now claim you blocked Malleus. It certainly seemed clear to me at the time, and I presume most everyone else, that you made your block on Malleus because he mentioned the word "arse". I'm amazed that you stood aside all this time if that was not the case, and allowed all this venting on Wikipedia. You must be aware by now that in the United States, for reasons I would not dare to speculate on here, there seem to be many people profoundly terrorized by the mere mention of that, to them, most fraught word. A reaction not shared by people from other countries. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:26, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
        • I don't know how Kaldari decides on admin actions, but in my experience, blocks are rarely issued for "precise diffs", but for a persistent pattern of problematic behavior. Remember that blocks are supposed to be preventative, not punitive. I've not followed Malleus activity on Wikipedia (in fact, I was barely aware of him (gender assumed from the user name) before this unexpected outbreak), so I won't comment on the specific case. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:48, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
          • As an editor inserting myself into this discussion I will just say that I have never been blocked but have been given a gentle "advisement" by Kaldari which, under the cirumstances was totally appropriate though I might have wished he had also adived the other editor involved. My personal favorite editor is Off2riorob who, in my opinion is fair and just and if he loses his temper now and then, is generally for good reason. My trouble, speaking as a woman, has been with the unfairness of certain women administrators, who, quite frankly, and speaking as one who has had power in my past vocation, do not know how to use their power. They come in and edit an article as an editor and then come down like a hammer on other editors that do not agree with them, as an administrator. When you attempt to engage them they ignore you and delete your remarks off their page as if you were non-existent. They do not even feel the need to reference their changes and leave it up to others to do. I wish something could be done about these certain few who I am sure you all know. That is all I have to say and I am sorry if this is not quite the right place to say it but it had to be said since it is getting out of hand. I would never aspire to be an administrator because it would take all the fun out of Wiki for me. Mugginsx (talk) 12:30, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
            • I sincerely hope that Off2riorob is not an administrator, certainly not with views like this. Parrot of Doom 12:35, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
              • Changed it, I thought he was. I cannot comment on your example because I do not know the people involved he is talking about. We all have bad days. I will say that he is a veteran editor and if he isn't an administrator maybe he should be. He can cetainly find the abusers. My point is that not enough is being done to monitor especially certain blantantly abusive women administrators. It serves to make editors feel useless. Mugginsx (talk) 12:38, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                • This is fairly inflammatory talk, Mugginsx. Unless you can back that up I'd lay of categorizing any class of administrators grouped by sex, ethnicity, religion, or national origin as being demonstrably inferior to any other class of administrators. Sheesh. Herostratus (talk) 15:19, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                  • I said "some" and "few" and "certain women" and never said "inferior". I stand by it and it is not nearly as inflammatory as some of the statements made here on this very page so, like it or not like it, is entirely your own decision. Mugginsx (talk) 16:18, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                    • Not necessarily. If you're going to double down on the path of deprecating a class of editors (even with the modifier "some", which doesn't much help) by sex, ethnicity, religion, or national origin, then your fate may pass out of your own hands or mine. This is just flat unacceptable and not what we are about here, I would say. Herostratus (talk) 16:53, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                      • "by sex, ethnicity, religion, or national origin" - does this apply to age too? Or not? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:43, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                        • Not always. It depends. But constructions like "Gang of forty-something geezer admins ruining Wikipedia" and so forth are probably not helpful either. Is this a common problem? I don't recall Mugginsx mentioning anyone's age. Herostratus (talk) 19:19, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                          • It depends? Hmm, I think the acceptability of mentioning the sex of a group of people "depends" as well then. I imagine different people have different views on whether either situation is commonly problematic. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:39, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                            • No they don't, not people who wish to live in civil society and be considered gentlemen. Look, there's a difference between saying "Is Wikipedia turning into an Eternal September?" and saying "Is Wikipedia turning into da hood?" or "...a gay bathhouse" or "...a powder room" or whatever. "You kids get off my lawn!" is not the same as "You Koreans get off my lawn". I can't believe you're defending this guy. Am I really outnumbered here? If open and overtly expressed misogyny, racism, homophobia, and so forth is going to be just a "different view" here, then game over, I'd say. Herostratus (talk) 19:59, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                              • I'm not seeing any "open and overtly expressed misogyny, racism, homophobia, and so forth" on this page. If there were any, I believe it would be a breach of Wikipedia's policy on civility, which is one of the five pillars, and thus should be removed. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:07, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                                • If you are talking about me Herostratus, I am not a guy. Mugginsx (talk) 21:05, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
                                  • "[T]he unfairness of certain women administrators". "[B]lantantly abusive women administrators". There's no reason to use the term "woman" in those passages except simple misogyny of the most loathsome stripe. If it was in the context of complaining about woman administrators abusing power to push POV in the Susan B. Anthony article or whatever, it would make some sense (though still being an egregiously inflammatory construct). But it's not. It's simply a general attack on women administrators as a class. Unbe-freaken-lievable that this is considered acceptable discourse here. Functional organizations don't permit that, period. Herostratus (talk) 07:27, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
                                    • Concur with Herostratus - that was a misogynist comment, and I'm stunned that anybody is denying it. The coy refusal to name which admins are being referred to is no help, either. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:44, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
                                      • Wonderful - a female editor accused of misogyny by two male editors, complete with random bold text, hyperbole, and a bad case of "why use the word agree if concur makes it sound more important?" People already seem to have enough trouble agreeing on what civility is and then following it, without surreal out-of-control political correctness being thrown into the equation. WP:WQA may be very little use for anything at all - which is a pity - but I think this sort of unconsciously ironic material maybe belongs there. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:22, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

                                        My reading of Mugginsx's comment was that it was a personal attack against a single specific admin or two who just happen(s) to be female. Not that that's much better, but I think discussing this much further wouldn't help. Hans Adler 18:39, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

• Well you are right in the centre of the Burmuda Triangle of Political-Correctness here on Mr Wales' talk page. --The Pink Oboe (talk) 18:32, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

• From what I'm seeing today, more like the Twilight Zone! --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:42, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • I concur with my colleagues above that the remark was most unhelpful and that we should lay off generalisations of admins or other editors based on their backgrounds (or assumptions about their backgrounds)—gender or otherwise—unless somebody would like to present hard evidence. Continuing to make such comments after this advice to lay off might well result in a block. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:28, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
                                          • I saw the comment as foolish and inexplicably embittered, but, disagree with it or not, I'll stand up for Mugginsx's right to express her opinion on this page just like anyone else is allowed to. Unless, that is, you're planning to enforce political correctness blocks of the same sweeping nature across the board for all generalisations of this type - in which case you will be rather busy. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:42, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
                                            • I don't know why you would find "embitterness" "explicable". This place gets most people down in one way or another after a period of time. I think it's something do with the enforced unnatural behaviour we have to put up with. --The Pink Oboe (talk) 18:47, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
                                        • Feminist women have long learned from male feminists, whether John Stuart Mill or Amartya Sen. I believe that we all can learn from Orangemike, especially in his discussion of behavior that sounds sexist.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 18:31, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
                                        • The comment looked sexist to this female editor too though I'll assume it wasn't intended that way. Actually I feel a little silly even mentioning my gender that way since I don't think my gender, Orange Mike's gender, Mugginsx's gender, or the gender of the unkown and possibly abusive admins should come into this at all. I'm just giving that detail about myself in response to the comment that it's "a female editor accused of misogyny by two male editors". Cloveapple (talk) 19:00, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
                                          • Thank goodness at least one person remembers to assume good faith rather than joining in with accusations and then following up with threats! And, indeed, assumptions as to the reasons for your better people skills can be left to the reader. Some of the comments made by others above suggest to me a need for a refresher course on WP:AGF in particular. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:43, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
                                          • I think Cloveapple has hit the nail on the head. The reason why several editors have found the comment quite offensive and sexist is because the gender of the admins should be irrelevant. Even though it may not have been intended this way, it is rather unfortunate if people can't see why making comments which sounds a lot like you are making generalisations about editors or admins based on their gender is seen as offensive and sexist and therefore withdraw those comments, when it's pointed out to them. It sounds like it was directed at certain admins, even though insufficient info has been provided that will lead to them being identified. It's of course even worse if the admins were identified, since it could easily come across as a personal attack against certain editor based on their gender. And although I'm male, I would say the same thing if another male made comments about how certain 'male admins' behaved. And I don't care whether the person making the comment considers that behaviour inferior, the point is there's no reason to suggest the behaviour has anything to do with the persons gender. The same of course if someone prescribes behaviour to race or sexuality. (Although in reality, I suspect if the comment had been 'unfairness of certain black/Jewish/Australian Aboriginal/gay/lesbian administrators' and 'not enough is being done to monitor especially certain blantantly abusive black/Jewish/Australian Aboriginal/gay/lesbian administrators', I'm not sure we would still even be discussing this, regardless of the race or sexuality of the person making the comment as I don't think anyone would have jumped in to defend the person.) Now, if the intention was not to relate the admins behaviour to their gender, but simply to use it as a form of emphasis or giving an idea of who you're referring to, consider the recent case of 'shove it right up that black arsehole' or on the topic of unfortunate things Kiwis have said, the older case of 'cheeky darkie', as to how these comments can lead to the common perception of the person saying them being a bigot, and also as an example of how when people make such comments and others take offense, a better way to deal with that is to simply apologise rather then try to defend the comments. Nil Einne (talk) 20:13, 17 November 2011 (UTC)
                                            • There's a difference between "jumping in to defend" the comments (which I haven't, in fact I've said what I think of them) and pointing out the problem with the accusations made against the editor who made them. In the UK, there's less hesitancy about mentioning facts where they're considered relevant - BBC News website's top story summary right now talks about a "black teenager" and has used that epithet every time they've mentioned that story over many weeks. All that's happened here is that Mugginsx, angry at perceived injustices, thought that certain facts were relevant. She was wrong in that (and therefore shouldn't have made the comments in that way), but that doesn't make her someone guilty of "misogyny of the most loathsome stripe" nor an urgent target for a piling-on by two male administrators and one male ex-administrator, complete with threat to block. I'm sure they, and everyone else, do actually have better things to do. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:43, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

US-centrism: a big problem for Wikipedia

This Signpost page on recent featured content presents a nice summation of a big problem in Wikipedia, and one which US Wikipedians invariably pooh-pooh, because they can't see a problem. The problem is this: Wikipedia is supposed to be an international encyclopaedia, catering to an English-speaking audience around the world. Many of these people will not have a good grasp of global geography. The US is routinely presented in Wikipedia as the 'default' country, although no one country is supposed to have primacy (and I'm not talking about numbers of readers by country - I'm talking about content). Rarely in a US-based article is the country given. It is considered sufficient by the US editors who write it just to give city and state. "Because, of course, we all know that Boise, Idaho is in the US, don't we? And if we don't, we should, and besides, it's only one blue click away to find out." My point is: we shouldn't have to blue click. Such utterly, utterly basic information as the country involved should be presented on the page.

A quick survey of the blurbs on the Signpost page:

Non-US based articles

• Geoffrey 'England' mentioned
• St Nicholas, Blakeney 'UK' and 'English' mentioned
• Knowle West, Bristol 'UK' and 'British' mentioned
• HMS Eagle 'British' mentioned
• Chaplain–Medic massacre 'Korean' mentioned
• List of Tranmere Rovers F.C. managers 'England' mentioned
• List of official County Championship winners 'England' and 'Wales' mentioned

US-based articles

• Philadelphia Phillies all-time roster (T–V) No country mentioned; not even the state
• List of Arkansas Razorbacks head football coaches No country mentioned, just the state
• List of Clemson Tigers head football coaches No country mentioned, just the state
• Babe Ruth Award Hurrah! The country is mentioned!!!
• List of Chicago White Sox managers No country mentioned; not even the state

So we can see that every single non-US entry has its country given, while only one in five, a measly 20%, of US entries has the country mentioned. The US has a reputation for being parochial and inward-looking; this arrogant assumption that the US is so important and well-known that editors need not bother to specify the country is infuriating, and I see it time and time again in Wikipedia articles. It makes Wikipedia look ridiculous too - how can it claim to contain as comprehensive coverage as other encyclopaedias if it doesn't even bother to give absolute basics? Try clicking on 'random article' and see how many US-based ones don't bother to give the country, even indirectly.

Please can something be done to ensure that such basic information is provided, every single time? 86.143.70.9 (talk) 10:22, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

When you provided it, who reverted you and when? :) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 10:46, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I checked the 26 US-based entries of Paris at Paris (disambiguation). There's only 2 out of 26 that don't mention the US in the lead: Paris, Tennessee and Paris, Virginia, but they do mention it in the infobox. - DVdm (talk) 10:47, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I volunteered to add what needed to be added. Now there's 0 out of 26 :-) - DVdm (talk) 12:40, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree 100%. English Wikipedia should be global, but unfortunately it is often very US-centric (or anglophone centric in general). You have listed some good examples. The US is way too often the "default" country. And many articles only discuss the United States- or Britain- related parts of the article subject. We need more attention to this problem, and a coordinated effort to solve it. The problem includes two aspects: 1) Often, information about non-Anglophone countries simply does not exist in articles even when these articles claim to discuss the subject in a global and general way. This can be fixed by adding the missing information. 2) Often, the United States (and other anglophone countries) are given preferential treatment (like in the examples listed by 86.143.70.9 above) or the article is otherwise biased towards an American or anglophone POV. This can be fixed by making editors more aware by the problem. Some possible tools to achieve this include essays, signpost articles and new Wikiprojects. Even just a simple statement by a high-profile person (such as Jimbo) admitting that English Wikipedia still has a lot to do if it aims to be truly a global, and not just an American or British Wikipedia, would help a lot. Nanobear (talk) 10:56, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

All that might be true, but why the OP doesn't know where Idaho is while I'm supposed to know where Romania is is beyond me. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 11:02, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Romania is a country, Idaho is a sub-national entity. Expecting people to know that e.g. Wyoming is a US state is the equivalent of expecting people to know that Charente-Maritime, Cuando Cubango, Bimini and Almaty are first level subdivisions of France, Angola, the Bahamas and Kazakhstan respectively. In my view it is reasonable to expect people to either know where a country is or to look it up if they don't, but it is not reasonable to expect them to know which country a subdivsion is in. While many more anglophone readers will know Ohio is a US state than will know that Oryol is a Russian Oblast, NPOV requires us to treat all countries equally. Thryduulf (talk) 11:54, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

You are correct. It is rampant within articles about people/places in the U.S. As an American, I never noticed it until now, but perhaps there should be an guideline or announcement of some kind. Mugginsx (talk) 16:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

There is one at WP:PLACE#United States. The beauty of online encyclopedias that contain wikilinks, is that the articles don't need to include every single mundane detail. Clicking on links helps eleviate most of that. Also there is little reason to disambiguate a place name in the United States once it has been identified.--JOJ ^Hutton 20:28, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

We're not talking about article names here. We're talking about adding the words "United States" (or similar as appropriate) to the lead sentence of articles dealing with places/topics realted to that country. For example (taking the first US place that I arrived at from a random article link), we're talking about changing "Mammoth Mountain is a lava dome complex west of the town of Mammoth Lakes, California in the Inyo National Forest of Madera County and Mono County" to "Mammoth Mountain is a lava dome complex west of the town of Mammoth Lakes, California, United States in the Inyo National Forest…". Hardly earth shattering. The point is that the country is not a "mundane detail", nor does "Place, State" necessarily identify a location as being in the United States to a worldwide audience. Compare, the Simonsberg article: "Simonsberg (Afrikaans:Simon's Mountain) is part of the Cape Fold Belt in the Western Cape province of South Africa". Thryduulf (talk) 21:08, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually WP:PLACE is and has been interpreted by many others to refer to more than just article titles, but to the article as a whole. These proposed changes are not within the MOS guideline. Disambiguation is not needed beyond. many Americans may not know that Liberia is in Africa, but we don't add Africa to the end of it now do we. It matters little whether or not non-Americans know that Iowa is in the united States, as long as there are wikilinks to click on.--JOJ ^Hutton 21:56, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I know that U.S.-centrism is a problem here and I favor reasonable corrective measures. Maybe its just me, but when I read "The CN Tower is a communications and observation tower in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada", I can't help thinking that mentioning Toronto alone would have been sufficient. Looking at Big Ben, I note that England is not mentioned until the fifth sentence, and is not wikilinked. That being said, I can't really object to the United States identifier being added to the lead whenever any editor sincerely thinks that it is useful. To disclose my personal bias, I am a Californian, have been to the top of both Mammoth Mountain and the CN Tower, and once saw a spectacular view of Big Ben from an airplane window. In my opinion, some cities and subnational place names are so well known that they don't require the country name immediately thereafter. London, Tokyo, Paris, Beijing, Rome, Cairo, Toronto, Baghdad, Brasilia, Hanoi, Stockholm, Athens, Sydney, Kathmandu, Lagos, Capetown and many others come to mind. I think that the better known U.S. states also qualify, such as California and Texas, as well as provinces such as Ontario. But I wouldn't object if someone wants to add Japan every time a topic located in Tokyo is first mentioned, just as long as its in good faith rather than pointy. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:06, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec) While I agree in general that Wikipedia tends to be US-centric, I can't agree with this specific criticism. First, England and Wales are subnational entities very much like US states. It's unfair to treat them as equivalent to sovereign states/countries/nations in this context just because the UK has such a weird terminology for its four major subdivisions. (Three of them are routinely called "countries" in many contexts, and even Northern Ireland is referred to in this way in certain formulaic contexts. At least one of them is also commonly referred to as a "nation". They are never referred to as "states", although they are very much the equivalent of states in the US or Germany.) While most people from outside the UK have no trouble locating England (if there is any problem here then it is a lack of awareness and understanding of the more or less subtle differences between "England", "UK", "Great Britain" and "Britain"), a not all our readers will be aware that such an entity as Wales even exists.

Languages come with a package of cultural background that every reasonably educated speaker is supposed to be familiar with. As someone who learned English formally as a second language I was actually taught this package more or less systematically at school. People who learn English informally normally become familiar with the English-language mainstream culture simply because it forms the basis of almost all texts and broadcasts. It is perfectly reasonable for an encyclopedia to assume this mainstream culture as a given.

With this in mind, the question becomes whether it is tricky for too many typical readers to resolve location information such as the following without confusion:

• "Oregon" (US or Canada?)
• "Victoria" (Australia, Canada, or somewhere in Africa?)
• "England" (sovereign state or subnational entity?)
• "Wales" (WTF is it?)
• "Rhode Island" (US state or island near the African coast?)

The answers will differ from case to case, but in the interest of a certain degree of uniformity that makes the encyclopedia easier to use, the way we handle this should be somewhat consistent. Of course it should also be idiomatic. ("London, Ontario" is fine and necessary, but "London, England" sounds weird to British English speakers in most contexts.)

I am afraid there is no perfect solution to this problem. But I consider it perfectly normal and natural if the sovereign state is usually omitted for certain anglophone countries, but always given in full for all other countries. In my opinion this is a harmless built-in bias of any English-language encyclopedia. While I would not mind systematically mentioning sovereign countries in all cases just for consistency, I doubt that this would work in practice. A much more important problem can be seen in many medical articles, for example, which switch back and forth between purely scientific descriptions and specific legal regulations in the US, or US-centric statistics, as if the US covered the entire globe. Hans Adler 22:11, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

"England and Wales are subnational entities very much like US states." No. Just wrong. How many US states have their own language, for a start? Have you ever met an 'Idaho Nationalist'? That such a statement could be made is surely indicative of the very problem we are discussing - it takes the US as the default, to which everything else should be compared. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:52, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

You say that like its a bad thing. As for language, you should hear my ex pronounce "oil" with 1 syllable sometime. Pretty much counts as a separate language. Tarc (talk) 22:55, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Are you trying to be gratuitously offensive? Of course its a bad thing to take one particular nation as the default. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:00, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if it is technically possible to accidentally do something gratuitously, so, there you go. English Wikipedia for a primarily English audience, there's nothing wrong with that. You bizarrely see grave offense in that, while others see a tempest in a teacup. Tarc (talk) 03:55, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

"Have you ever met an 'Idaho Nationalist'?" Yes. Granted, they're well outnumbered by the Alaskan Nationalists, Hawaiian Nationalists and (of course) Texas Nationalists. 28bytes (talk) 23:01, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Interesting point, Andy. I should start giving "Navajo Nation" instead of AZ or NM; after all, that is officially a sovereign nation (see treaty, 1868). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 23:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

You know that I love you, AndyTheGrump, but you seem not to know very much about the linguistic history of what is now the United States of America. Dutch was the dominant language in what is now known as New York City long before English was. I grew up in Detroit, where French was the dominant language long before English was. There were cities in the Detroit area such as Hamtramck, Michigan where Polish was the dominant language for decades, and still remains significant. The French language tradition in Louisiana was dominant for a long time and remains a significant cultural influence to this day. Spanish was the dominant language in what is now California (where I now live), Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and parts of Florida and Colorado long before English became common. Tens of millions of people still speak Spanish as their first language in those states. Russian was once the dominant language in parts of California near where I now live, as well as in Alaska. Many tribes of Native Americans assert autonomy over areas of the United States, and try, with greater or lesser success, to maintain their indigenous languages. The Navajo language, for example, is important in large swathes of Arizona and New Mexico. Alaskan nationalism exists and her husband's adherence to that movement was a factor in Sarah Palin's rise to fame. Asian languages such as Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Thai are widely spoken in neighborhoods in many cities throughout the United States. San Francisco has had a famous Chinatown for at least 150 years, but the fact is that Chinese language and culture has spread throughout that city, and it is a much more Chinese city now than it has ever been. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:48, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

US-Centrism is a serious problem, and it is most immediately apparent in article titles. Recently I initiated an RM for French Quarter. Before I continue with that story folks, what does that title suggest to you?

There is a generalisation of US-centrism to any sort of centrism, of course. Two electorates located in Canada have their articles titled Little Bow and Surrey North, which are both utterly opaque to the vast majority of the readership outside their immediate neighbourhood. Electoral districts in Australian states are named in this style: Electoral district of Newcastle. That one is in the state of New South Wales; but people around the world might guess that it refers to another Newcastle. Even Australians will wonder which Newcastle is meant (given that this is a worldwide encyclopedia); and if they do assume it is Australian, they are likely to confuse it with Division of Newcastle, an Australian federal electorate. Note that one of those titles is qualified by "electoral", but the other is not. (In some states "electoral district" is not in official use; but titles on Wikipedia bear that qualifier nonetheless: Electoral district of Albert Park, in the state of Victoria, is normally not called by that name in Victoria.) Certainly the problem is rampant and general. There is great resistance to adding qualifiers that immediately simplify things for everyone, everywhere: Newcastle (NSW electoral district); Newcastle (Australian electoral division); Albert Park District (Victoria, Australia).

The French quarter that wins the privileged title mentioned earlier is – you guessed it – a US one. In New Orleans. It was argued at the RM, which was closed in favour of keeping the title unqualified, that it was the primary topic. WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is a difficult and complex guideline to interpret, yet it is often appealed to as if there is always a primary topic for any title under consideration; and then it is just taken for granted that the best candidate topic for primary status does in fact acquire that status; and as a third error, that acquisition is too often taken as decisive – regardless of the interests of our worldwide readership, and the safeguards in policy at WP:TITLE to ensure that titles are sufficiently precise, natural, and helpful.

I see US bias squarely in that context, as the major part of a very pervasive failing in the mechanisms for regulating titles, and for dealing with perfectly well-motivated challenges to existing titles. There is more beyond titles, of course. But remember what Confucius said about names:

Zi-lu said, "... What will you consider the first thing to be done?"
The Master replied, "What is necessary is to rectify names."

Noetica^Tea? 03:08, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

It gets even worse, not by leaving stuff out of the title, but by putting stuff into the title: Kayenta, Arizona — anglocentrism. But I guess since this is the English wikipedia, being anglocentric is OK. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 07:35, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Given that an article can have only one title, we are forced to choose only one possible name for a place (although redirects mitigate this as best we can). The standard criteria we use are a combination of WP:COMMONNAME and naming conventions. This being the English Wikipedia the English name will, in most cases, be the most common. While this does unfortunately introduce a bit of bias, it is unavoidable, and the common name does avoid conflicts about places with more than one official name - see for example City of Brussels which has two official names in French and one each in Flemmish and German; all of which have equal status according to Belgian law.

If you're talking about Kayenta vs Kayenta, Arizona; that is not Anglocentrism but the consensus decision by all editors (but presumably with a high degree of participation by US editors) to use the "comma convention" that reflects common usage in that country (presumably per WP:COMMON). In Britain we don't use that convention so we use a different one. Thryduulf (talk) 12:22, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

See, you don't even know what I mean. I mean "Kayenta, Navajo Nation". It is anglocentric to claim that Kayenta is in Arizona; it isn't. Arizona police don't have jurisdiction, Arizona laws are only partially applicable; the governing body answers to the Federal Government in Washington, D.C., not to Arizona. The only reason why it says AZ is because the place has a US ZIP code invented by Anglos, and Anglos will be deported to AZ if they commit crimes there. So yeah, Anglos will say that Kayenta is in Arizona. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 12:35, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

In response to the original post: this is why we have internal wikilinks in the article. So what if the Philadelphia Phillies article does not explicitly state that they are in the US. You can very easily click on Philadelphia, or Pennsylvania ... this is the nature of HTML markup! How absolutely boring it would be if every article explicitly mentioned the country in it (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:54, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

While I don't see why it would hurt to add the country to articles about the United States, let's look at all the ways in which Wikipedia isn't U.S.-centric as well. There's a problem with places, but word "American" is used in the lead of almost every article about people. Also, let's not forget that the MoS outright banned American-style punctuation, requiring British in all articles, even the ones on American subjects. Now that's just got to go.

As for Kayenta, if it's within Arizona's borders, then it's not unreasonable to say that it's in Arizona. What that article should do is, perhaps instead of "Kayenta, Arizona," say "Kayenta, part of the Navajo Nation located within the U.S. State of Arizona..." That way, it doesn't imply that Kayenta is a regular town in Arizona the same way Albuquerque is.Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:00, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

That's too long for a title, and not even correct either. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 13:04, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, but you can see where I'm going with this, right? If the town's situation is more complex than "Kayenta, Arizona" would imply, then explain it, and do so somewhere where there is room, like in the first paragraph if not in the article title. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:11, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

True, but you'll still have to give preference to one of the options in the title. And (as I said understandably so) that choice will be anglocentric. I'm just pointing all this out 'cause I think it's funny that this thread was started by one Anglo (British) who complains about the -centrism of other Anglos (US). Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 17:16, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems as though style guides somewhere are actively making it harder for people to find out the location of places they don't know. See for example [3] unlinking Poland and United States in the lead and infobox. While very few English speakers wont know the location of the United States, and most Europeans should be at least roughly familiar with where Poland is (I've no idea about people from other areas), but how many people can locate Honduras (see Central American Airways Flight 731)? Thryduulf (talk) 16:53, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

That's an unrelated problem. We once had a culture of extreme overlinking, which was very hard to fix. It appears that in the process a number of fanatical underlinkers got the impression that they have a majority behind them. I really don't understand why we always have to fall from one extreme into the other. Hans Adler 18:46, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

• Comment This isn't some United States vs the World problem. And there is no US centric lean, just because some article doesn't explicitly say "United States". As one simple example that there is not a United States Centric lean, I offer History of Manchester United F.C. (1878–1945). There are many others as well. Many of these article do not need to be as thorough as to add the nation. That goes for all nations, especially in these forked articles. Wikilinks are fine for this information.--JOJ ^Hutton 19:58, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

• Comment I don't think this issue was brought up by the British IP[4] in good faith. For example, the first message included the comment "this arrogant assumption that the US is so important and well-known". I've seen this anti-american attitude elsewhere on Wikipedia and that may be the real problem, but I don't think it can be solved here, any more than I believe any form of racism or nationalism in the hearts of some editors can be changed. I also believe that such anti-american sentiment is not representative of the British people in general, but is the feeling of a disgruntled minority.

Nowhere in this discussion is there any indication that adding what the IP wants to any article that doesn't already include it, would be reverted. --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Verifiability and truth - humor

Relevant to 'verifiable, and true'--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately that is way too close to the truth to be funny.. --Conti|✉ 14:37, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

More unfortunately, removing "not truth" from WP:V will not solve this. The good news is that WP:V already covers this in WP:CIRCULAR, so no change to the policy is needed for this situation! Fram (talk) 14:40, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Which makes it clear that "verifiability, not truth" is actually a lie. That isn't how we operate and never has been, because it's just silly and wrong. We want verifiability. And we want truth.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:37, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

You want truth. I believe that in many cases, one man's truth is another man's falsehood, superstition, prejudice, error, ... Verifiability, not truth is not a lie, we just don't consider info taken from Wikipedia as being sufficient to meet our "verifiability" standards, even if it is true. Fram (talk) 15:52, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

No, the example shows that we don't want information that is "verified" in reliable sources if we also know it to be false. Surely you aren't going to argue that we should have falsehoods that we know to be false in Wikipedia just because they appear in a reliable source. And if you concede that, then you concede that truth really does matter.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:58, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm arguing that even if you (you personally, or the general "you") believe that something is true, you still don't get to include it in Wikipedia without solid sourcing; similarly, even if you believe that something is false, you still don't get to exclude it without solid sources to support your point of view. To show that something is a falsehood, you need stronger sources than the one supporting it, not just the say-so of someone or the opinion of unreliable or non-neutral sources. Many people "know" that evolution is "a falsehood that we know to be false", but still we don't exclude it from Wikipedia but present it as the most widely accepted theory. So no, I don't concede your first point, which makes the conclusion baseless. The example you (well, the comic) gives is one where you can show that source is in this case not reliable, since it got its information from us; that doesn't mean that the information is true or false, just that it is not reliably verifiable from that source. Fram (talk) 08:05, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I want true facts which are verified. In addition, I want false facts (aka popular misconceptions) to be stated as such. 75.59.204.87 (talk) 05:10, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

• Now that we have a reliable comic-strip source, finally we can write the article "Citogenesis" to clarify the verifiability-not-truth concept in Wikipedia; I always thought the concept sounded "funny"! ;-] –Wikid77 (talk) 15:17, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

This comic is certainly amusing, and an interesting idea, but I wonder if anyone can point to a real life example of this happening? NickCT (talk) 16:16, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

The full name of Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg in the German Wikipedia is such an example. It was picked up by Der Spiegel[5], which was then used to source "Wilhelm" in Wikipedia. It's also listed in our article circular reporting. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:02, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Hmmmm... Interesting example. Good discussion on this topic here. So, there's at least one good example of citogenesis; I gotta wonder how common this type of thing is though. I'd imagine most professional journalists realize that Wikipedia is not a reliable source. NickCT (talk) 17:58, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

See also Talk:Ronnie Hazlehurst#The SClub 7 Hoax for another example. Thryduulf (talk) 18:57, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Nice example Thryduulf. NickCT (talk) 21:00, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh yeah I've seen it. (N.B. NSFW topic.) In this paper, it turned out that much of the material ("Theory has it that in ancient Japan..." etc.) was taken, not just from Wikipedia, but from material posted in bad faith by a troll. Huge, long arguments about that spanning a couple of archive pages at Talk:Bukkake (sex act) even after this fact was established. Very long and tedious task removing that material. Took months. I'm sure there are still people muttering to themselves about how unfair it was to remove material that was in a scholarly paper. Herostratus (talk) 19:40, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

" I'd imagine most professional journalists realize that Wikipedia is not a reliable source". Sadly, the evidence suugests that far too many don't, or don't care. There has been more than a suspicion of this regarding our Energy Catalyzer article, though at least one article on the subject had the decency to cite Wikipedia as a source. Sadly, this is all part of a wider trend amongst the media to merely paraphrase each other's articles, rather than actually engaging in journalism. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:59, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding ways that journalists use Wikipedia, I think some of them cruise some talk pages looking for ideas to use in their columns. On Jan 3, 2010 at Talk:Avatar (2009 film), I characterized the way the film was perceived by a reviewer as being akin to him taking a Rorschach Test.[6] A somewhat similar Rorschach Test idea popped up in a critic's review of the film four days later on Jan 7, 2010. (See last paragraph of this source.) Then the critic's remark in the reliable source was used in the film article three days after that.[7] If the talk page remark (original research) was actually the inspiration for the journalist's remark, that journalist's remark would be OK to use in Wikipedia, even though its basis may have originated on a Wikipedia talk page. --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:08, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Just an aside. If you're looking for a source for some info in Wikipedia, try to find a source that predates the edit that first put the info into Wikipedia, when possible. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:42, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

• Remember reverse WP:COPYVIO of your own articles: Perhaps more surprising to editors was being accused of WP:COPYVIO, when creating a new article, because a mirror-website quickly posted a copy of their new writing, giving the appearance that the mirror-site was the source of "plagiarized" text, which editors had actually written earlier. I think it happened to me only once (but it would take me a while to find which article). I am not sure how they fixed the bot(s) which check for copy-vio text so that mirror-sites are not considered WP:RS reliable sources of original text. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:48, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Verifiability sometimes gets in the way of presenting the facts

I was interested to see the discussion about the wording of WP:V because it chimes with something I've been thinking about for a while, namely that there is a lot of verifiable but false information out there that gets in the way of writing good articles - especially when someone has an interest in publicising said false information. I've been working on and off for a while on an article about the Cyrus Cylinder, an important ancient artifact in the British Museum. There is a pretty clear mainstream perspective on it from historians which is reflected in the article. However, the artifact was also adopted as as symbol of Iranian national pride by the regime of the late Shah, which made all kinds of claims about it that historians have explicitly rejected. The current Iranian government has also latched on to it as a symbol of its own legitimacy. The cylinder has thus become something of a nationalist totem for Iranians, backed up by a fake translation of its text. The problem is that the claims and the fake translation have taken on a life of their own and are routinely trotted out in news reports and publicised by non-historians such as politicians, lawyers, and so on. The claims are eminently verifiable but, according to the historians, completely fake and false, anachronistic and tendentious. Note that this is not a "two schools of thought" issue with dissenting historians - it is a straight split between historians and non-historians. This has presented a real problem in writing and maintaining the article because it has repeatedly been disrupted by people (usually Iranian nationalists) demanding rewrites to present the claims as "the facts". After all, they're verifiable, so that's all we need, right? And so it goes. Prioryman (talk) 13:21, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Just happened by, saw this catchy title. Question: how do you know that something is a "fact", let alone "true" (or "truth")? Well, you could do your Own Research – but (I love that word) that is one of the "Great NOTs" here. So you have to find where someone else said so; that is the essence of verification. But don't forget that verification does not stop at where someone else has said or claimed something; it must also be a published source (so that others have some chance of examining it), and a reliable source. Mere verification that someone has made a claim does not establish "truth", and definitely is not "all we need". Verification is only the basis from which truth-determination starts. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 18:50, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Another way of putting it is that verifiability is necessary (because we are a reference work, so people need to be able to refer to the sources), but that it is not sufficient (because, when you put your mind to it, you can find sources to back any assertion and its opposite if it's contentious enough).

In other words, truth is not enough, it must be verifiable – and verifiable is not enough, it must also be true (or, at the very least not known to be false). — Coren ^(talk) 20:54, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe we should consider rewording the first footnote in WP:NOR [8] to limit or eliminate blah blah without any demonstrated sourcing on WP. That footnote seems to negate the effectiveness of WP:V. Thoughts?-MW ^ℳ 13:54, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

As long as the refutations appear in reliable sources, it's really not a problem; we just write it as e.g. FOO claims THIS<ref...>, but this has been disputed by BAA.<ref...>

Prioryman, please read WP:TIGER.  Chzz  ►  14:12, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

List of scientists opposing the mainstream scientific assessment of global warming

Not only is this article an appalling mess of POV pushing, but it has stayed in almost this exact form for about 6 years, and through 4 AfDs. The Global warming deniers simply come out en masse, shout down all policy-driven arguments, then revert all changes.

Its structure is simple. Present the mainstream view while avoiding any mention of the evidence for the belief. Reduce it to a few bold assertions. Then have page after page of denialists arguing against it, without bothering to mention that these arguments have been dealt with by the mainstream.

Any attempts to fix it are shouted down, attempts to deal with it through Wikipedia processes attract so many POV-pushers that they just end up closed no consensus, allowing the problem to continue forever.

A clearer example of the utter failure of Wikipedia is hard to think of. Is there anything that can actually be done? 86.** IP (talk) 06:15, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

What a load of garbage. The article survives AfDs because it is propped up by all the regular climate change editors like Kim D. Petersen and William M. Connolley - and plenty of others in their camp. Do you think they're climate change deniers? That's pretty funny. Skeptics in Wikipedia are vastly outnumbered and most have been arbitrarily banned by ArbCom. Sure, it's true, as I keep pointing out, that skeptics love the page because they rightly see that it's effectively a Wikipedia-hosted version of the Leipzig Declaration; but the only reason it continues to exist is that all the regular climate change editors continue to vote "keep". Alex Harvey (talk) 07:28, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I glanced it, and you can look at this from a different perspective: "List of delusional idiots"... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 08:06, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec)Alex, User.86.**IP is a relatively new user. He (I think it's a he) came along first to raise concerns about poorly sourced claims in herbal medicine articles. He's brought issues up at FTN, and has been very quick to learn and implement policy. I, for one, have been glad to see his alerts and help out as far as I can, although he has much more biomedical knowledge than I do. So, if his impression of this list article is that it has problems, that's worth taking that seriously. He hasn't picked out correctly which editor is a global warming denier and who is a sceptic - so? Is the list article really good? No, it has issues: the quotes, the categorisation. I doubt if it is particularly useful for global warming deniers, for sceptics, for schoolkids, for anyone. I expect Jimbo will send the discussion back to the talk page, then let us engage there properly. How many higher degrees do we have between us? Is it not possible to drop the obsessions and momentarily engage brain? Itsmejudith (talk) 08:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, If you'll forgive my saying so, list of articles of this sort are generally 'sour grapes' articles, where editors on both sides can engage in a somewhat higher level of self-punditry and coat-racking than is generally tolerated in mainspace. IMO they are never good articles - can never be good articles, because they lack a credible theme aside from dissatisfaction with different articles - but they do act as pressure valves for contentious topics. That's something…

I've took a brief look at climate change articles a while ago and quickly gave up on them (which - if you know anything about me - tells you a whole lot about those pages; I'm not easily scared off). Too many people playing politics on both sides of the issue; too much hostility all around. It's one place on wikipedia where real-world conflicts have taken over everything, and I accept that the bulk of the climate change articles are as good as can be expected under the circumstances. I second Judith's call for a little reasoned reflection, but I expect that the earth will warm up by a considerable factor before this issue cools off. --Ludwigs2 08:24, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

86's position on this article, that it is propped up by deniers, is quite bizarre. Meanwhile, AH thinks it is propped up by whatever-the-opposite-of-a-denier-is. Being hated by both signs is reasonable evidence that the article itself is actually quite reasonable, which it is. It could be better, if folks could just settle down to try to improve it. What it mostly needs is the inclusion criteria tightened up - our definition of "scientist" is far too broad. But that is for the article talk page, and we could be having that discussion, if people like 86 weren't wasting all the bandwidth with deletion campaigns and appeals to higher authority William M. Connolley (talk) 08:49, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm always happy to host philosophical discussions of this type, and since I'm not actually going to do anything, obviously, I think it's not fair to characterize it as an "appeal to higher authority". I agree that the article is reasonable, but I'd like to raise the additional idea that "being hated by both sides" might sometimes be evidence that something really is complete crap.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:01, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. In this case, my view is that all the "middle of the road" editors are at least OK with the article and would get on with improving it if they could William M. Connolley (talk) 09:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

An article "being hated by both sides" could indicate one side keeps deleting crucial information, and the other side(s) cannot get important NPOV information added into the text. A better sign is when several editors post compliments on the talk-page about how fair, balanced and comprehensive the article appears to them, rather than they "all" hate the article. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Sounds lie you're insinuating something. Do you indeed think that any crucial info is being deleted, and if so, what? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:57, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

What would a reader expect from an article called List-of-fringe-X-deniers? Of course, a list of people denying X, together with their fringe views. That's not POV but exactly what should be in that list. --Pgallert (talk) 08:59, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I think we should be very careful though about a BLP problem here. If I'm a scientist, completely sensible and sane, and I disagree with some aspect of some contemporary scientific theory, I run the risk of being latched onto as a champion by some fringe nutcases. And then I run the risk of be tarred by a brush of "fringe X denier" by others. I remember reading, some years back, about Stephen Jay Gould in some pro-creationist screed. He was quoted approvingly because he had written something against Darwin. But of course his beef with Darwinism wasn't a beef with evolution per se, but concerned a much more narrow question of gradualism versus punctuated equilibrium. I don't know the current state of scientific consensus on Gould's views, but I do know that it would radically unfair to call him a "Darwin denialist". I hope that we aren't subject serious scientists to that same kind of unfairness.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:05, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

There is a problem that recurrs on that article, with the skeptic side being keen to "claim" people for the list. But the entry criteria get enforced, every proposed addition gets a lively debate if controversial, and there is, as far as I can see, no-one on the list who doesn't belong William M. Connolley (talk) 09:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo, FYI: "It is infuriating to be quoted again and again by creationists — whether through design or stupidity, I do not know — as admitting that the fossil record includes no transitional forms. Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level but are abundant between larger groups. The evolution from reptiles to mammals . . . is well documented. Yet a pamphlet entitled "Harvard Scientists Agree Evolution Is a Hoax" states: "The facts of punctuated equilibrium, which Gould and Eldredge . . . are forcing Darwinists to swallow fit the picture that [William Jennings] Bryan insisted on and which God has revealed to us in the Bible." " -- Stephen Jay Gould, "Evolution as Fact and Theory, " Discover, May 1981. Prioryman (talk) 09:30, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

While I understand 86.**'s frustration, he does seem to have developed something of an obsession with eliminating this article (which has survived the AfD process five times). He has raised it (for the fifth time) as an AfD; he's raised it at Deletion Review (admittedly with some justification, the Keep was overturned to No consensus); he's raised it several times on the Fringe Theories Noticeboard; he's now raising it with the "ultimate authority". I have been trying to persuade him for some time to engage rather more on the article Talk page. This statement: "Any attempts to fix it are shouted down", is a gross distortion of the truth. If you compare the article now to how it was before the AfD nomination, I think there have been signficant, substantive edits. Most recently I have cut down the quotes which 86.** thought were excessive. Now, those cuts were somewhat controversial, and are now being discussed on the Talk page, as might be expected. But I think that argument is winnable, and the cuts will probably largely stand. To "appeal" here when that discussion has barely even started, strikes me as wasting everyone's time. The one way in which it might help is wth getting some fresh pairs of eyes to contribute to the discussion; but to be honest I don't think a better discussion is what 86.** wants. His actions don't seem particularly constructive. It seems clear to me that despite the failure to gain consensus to delete at the AfD, he's not interested in improving the article but rather wants it gone, and will keep appealing to authority until that happens. --Merlinme (talk) 10:05, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree, Jimbo. The list is also named much nicer than "fringe X deniers"---If no scientist had ever taken an opposite stand towards established theories, we would never have reached the Internet age. The problem, if any, might be a too low threshold to claim the title "scientist" and "scientific publication". But that is another matter. --Pgallert (talk) 10:10, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Peer reviewed or not? Another serious problem, IMO, is that the article makes no effort to inform readers if the contrarian views expressed have been published merely in public media (greatly increasing their fringe quotient) or are part of the scientific peer reviewed literature (which doesnt necessarily make 'em right, but does mean they merit at least a moment's thought). Right now, it appears there are a bunch of scientists with serious claims. But only a small portion of the statements actually appear in the sci lit. Readers should be aware of this. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:15, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

That is a good point (and probably the first actually useful thing said here). Are 8any* of the statements sourced to PR literature? Certainly, because of the "sci" context, we should note in the lede that most statements are not from the sci literature. Would you do the honours of boldly doing so, and/or starting a discussion on the talk page? William M. Connolley (talk) 12:12, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest that fails into the same problematic territories of researching stuff ourselves. The better approach would be to find a source which comments on statements/work contrary to the mainstream viewpoint and where it tends to be published. Given the field, I doubt that will be hard to find. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:33, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

The subject perhaps holds merit. The content there at the moment is a disaster. For example; the most critical problem is that the list has been defined as "people who disagree with one of these three views" - and quotes from scientists have been originally researched through primary source material (from the individuals) to build the list. Obviously this is problematical. Ideally we would need each entry to be sourced either to a third party whose view is that this scientist opposes that view or an explicit quote that mentions the IPCC and their opposition. And we can then back it up with a direct quote if appropriate. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:06, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

All done to death in the AFD's. Do you really want to turn this into yet another pointless re-hash of the same old arguments? William M. Connolley (talk) 12:12, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I read through several of the AFD's and found no clear explanation of why it is accepted to decide on inclusion by interpreting as to whether quotations from the scientists disagree with the IPCC viewpoint. Humour me with a quick explanation. --Errant ^(chat!) 12:28, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Ask on the article talk page if you really want to wade through it all, all over again. Not here William M. Connolley (talk) 12:58, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

William; I'm not trying to be awkward and I did ask on the talk page. But this is classic evasion; it appears you are a proponent of this approach from your comments: please explain it - either here or on the talk page - to set my mind at rest. If you can't or won't, just say so, but don't muck me around, it's not helpful. --Errant ^(chat!) 15:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Fine, with all the noise there I hadn't noticed. I'll answer there. If you could drop the bad-faith "muck me around" stuff, that would be helpful to a pleasand editing environment William M. Connolley (talk) 17:04, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, if you wanted to see the accuracy level (or not!) in presentation of the scientists' views, open up two browser tabs and scroll down side by side: one on a July 2011 version using the prev link in revision history, another showing the current version. There was a trick of spreading out the changes over many edits, but that way shows the net result.

It could teach volumes about what sometimes goes on in Wikipedia these days.

Or glance within reference link #2 to learn what the Wikipedia article implies to be 97.4% consensus on "mainstream" (catastrophic) global warming is actually based on 75 of 77 respondents in a 2-question web poll agreeing that temperatures now are warmer than in the Little Ice Age (the "pre-1800s") and that human activity has a non-zero effect (which, to a scientist, means not 0.00000). Most didn't respond at all to the transparently dishonest slanted web poll.

Continued ensuring of dishonesty is unfortunately what can happen when those most likely to make enough edits to gain admin powers are deletionists, far easier for someone to make thousands of deletions than that many constructive additions, resulting sometimes in the very opposite of the best people rising high in power. Wikipedia is an excellent source of info on some topics where nobody has tendency for bias, but breaks down utterly on those which get a core of activists of the worst kind.

If there was a system where Wikipedia polled a sample of a couple dozen people randomly chosen from the whole moderate-edit-number user base of ordinary people, on some controversial matters, it wouldn't be so just a matter of who has one or more hardcore political-activist admins on their side on articles like this. This is an article in one of the worst spots: major enough to attract the activist team but minor enough that Wikipedia's mainstream on it is just enforced by several editors and one or more admins. 12.74.177.6 (talk) 13:11, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

If nothing else, the previous contribution surely disproves 86.**'s assertion that "Any attempts to fix it are shouted down". The page has changed a lot in the last few months, especially since the AfD. --Merlinme (talk) 14:23, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

• Beware a potential hit-list of stereotyped entries: As with other lists (or categories), there is the danger that a concocted list could be viewed as a "hit list" of dissidents to be ridiculed or otherwise targeted. I am not convinced that keeping a list is needed, as perhaps instead, mention a few related notable people in other articles, with various alternative ideas about the subject. Consider rethinking the concerns about the list for WP:Notability. I always remember the joke, "There are 2 categories of people: those who put people in 2 categories, and those who don't". -Wikid77 20:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

12.74: As I'm sure Jimbo Wales knows, you can view diffs even over a period of months. It's particularly trivial if you want to compare two revisions that show in a single edit history page e.g. [9]. But of course even if they don't show in a single edit history page, is still doable [10]. One issue is the nature of our diff engine, it's not really capable of properly showing how things have changed very well when stuff has been moved around etc a lot. But of course there is ultimately a limit to whether any diff engine will produce meaningful or understandable results if the content has changed very extensively, so sometimes simply reading stuff side by side or one after the other comparison is the best way to get an idea of how things have changed. In other words, the problem is not the number of edits. It would make no difference if all those edits between July and now happened in one go. (Well they would likely be reverted because having such a large number of edits in one go makes working out why some change was made almost impossible.) Nil Einne (talk) 21:07, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

86** may be new, and inexperienced, even lacking in basic awareness of WP practices, but that does not excuse plain bad argumentation and disruptive behavior. E.g., his characterisation of "an appalling mess of POV pushing" is hardly useful to any temperate discussion, and seems more applicable to his own continued efforts. And: most recently it was he that reverted some moderate attempts to improve the article. As to being shouted down: having repeatedly claimed that there is an OR problem, having added, and then restored, an OR tag, he was expressly asked (here) to provide an example, yet has failed to do. He may indeed be frustrated, but that is not because of some "denier" conspiracy, but his own failure to convince. Indeed, he seems to entirely misaprehend the situation, as many (all?) of the editors opposing him are not "deniers", and the opposition is not on grounds of POV but on failure of process. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) 19:45, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

86 is unlikely to be new [11] William M. Connolley (talk) 19:50, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't want to get in to the long arguments, but I concur what a few others have said about there being a diversity of reasons for people wanting the article being kept. Greatly simplifying, in both AFDs and general discussion we get

1) Those who think the article is a smear on good scientists by those supporting the consensus view (and so the article probably should be deleted or at least massively cut down).

2) Those convinced we are trying to hide the truth about how poorly accepted the consensus view is and that's why we want to delete the article, when what we need to do is be a lot less strict and massively expand the article, perhaps even including people who (allegedly) signed various petition.

3) Those convinced the the article is an attempt by those supporting the 'fringe' view to make the 'fringe' view seem like it's not a fringe view and/or to give unnecessary and unmerited space to the 'fringe' view and/or an attempt to mislead people in to thinking that there is widespread opposition to the consensus view; i.e. the article should be deleted.

4) Those convinced that attempts to delete the article are to try and protect 'fringe scientists' or denialists against people knowing that they have fringe views or to try and make the consensus view seem less like a consensus.

This doesn't of course prove the article is good, balanced or that there is any merit in it, but I think it does demonstrate the are reasons on 'both sides' on why we should keep or delete and expand or restrict the article so trying to say the problem is on one side sort of falls flat.

Nil Einne (talk) 20:46, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

The tactic being successfully enforced now by the activist team (cunning I admit) is to delete any quotes expressing the real basis of the scientists' views, to show only repetitive content-free out-of-context remarks, to effectively strawman them all. Presumably they figure such is more effective than deleting the article entirely, as its mere existence provides a pseudo-convincing impression of balance to the naive, although really a trashed version making it look like the scientists have no basis for their views. Again, a comparison of the July 2011 versus current versions provides an example; the former also had nice quote box formatting since deleted.

Incidentally, for one of many examples of doubleplusungood info nobody is ever supposed to see from the perspective of the activist team here, read Dr. Shaviv:

http://www.sciencebits.com/NothingNewUnderTheSun-I

The preceding is a convenient link to a general discussion including for laymen, but the topics within it are covered by papers such as:

http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/institutter/space/forskning/05_afdelinger/sun-climate/full_text_publications/svensmark_2007cosmoclimatology.pdf Svensmark, Henrik (2007). "Cosmoclimatology: a new theory emerges". Astronomy & Geophysics 48 (1): 1.18-1.24. doi:10.1111/j.1468-4004.2007.48118.x.

http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/articles/sensitivity.pdf Shaviv, Nir J (2005). "On climate response to changes in the cosmic ray flux and radiative budget" (PDF). Journal of Geophysical Research 110 (A08105). doi:10.1029/2004JA010866.

And much, much more, the above just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, non-PC temperature history, for 100 years (not the politically correct 30-40 year cutoff) of the top of the Northern Hemisphere where temperature changes most:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/ArcticIce/Images/arctic_temp_trends_rt.gif (compare recent history versus 1930s)

The actual history of the warm Minoan Warm Period, Minoiske Warm Period, Holocene Climate Optimum, etc.: http://climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif which is a graph of U.S. government NOAA data: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt

http://www.meteor.iastate.edu/gccourse/history/paleoclimate/climates.html (vastly contrary to what is enforced on Wikipedia climate articles by one or more admins and several supporting political-activist editors, the same handful of names over and over again)

I casually discussed such a bit more at http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?t=193102&page=6#post6202383 That includes many links to peer-reviewed, university, and government sources with non-PC info.

Et cetera. Et cetera.

I don't bother wasting my time adding non-politically-correct content to Wikipedia articles, however, when it just would as usual be eliminated soon afterwards by the dishonest activist team. But, Jimbo Wales, if you read this, your site -- which could be far better -- is crippled on topics like all the climate articles by the dominance of the bias-enforcing deletionists discussed in my last remark. You alone, if you have honor and willingness to spend a little time investigating, are the about only one left who could have much chance of improving the situation here; ordinary users soon realize there is no point in fighting an admin personally. 12.74.176.214 (talk) 00:30, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Um..... You do realise we link to Dr. Shaviv blog right in the article you're complaing about right? We do know and did on 00:04, 14 November 2011. Not that specific post but it seems odd to say we're trying to stop people from reading Dr. Shaviv when we link to the same blog you're so fond of in the article you're complaining about Nil Einne (talk) 10:36, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

BTW about the point about the basis for the views, first the article has gone thru a lot of changes over time over how we cover things. I'm not simply referring since July, I've been minorly involved for several years. The fact of the matter is the title simply suggests a list of people who oppose the mainstream consensus. It's resonable to suggest we need sufficient evidence in the article to establish their view is against the mainstream consensus but whether we need to spend a lot of space actually explaining their stated reasons for their views is another matter. It's resonable to suggest that's undue weight considering the topic of the article and instead we should simply mention the views and all the readers to check the refs to get a proper understanding of the views if they're interested. And the fact of the matter even when we try to explain their view, if all we have is a 1-3 shortish paragraphs which is realisticly all we can dedicate to each personm people are still going to be saying we don't properly explain their view, and I would say they have a point. The fact of the matter is whether someone reads the July version or the current version I don't think they're going to going to be particularly convinced. The only possibility is they may be more likely to read the refs. Nil Einne (talk) 11:05, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Trouble brewing in the Big Brother house

Pinoy Big Brother: Double Up (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (as example only) (This version, at the time I left this first note; later blanked due to copyvio problems)

Hi Jimbo Wales,

I know you feel strongly about care regarding unreferenced/poorly-referenced BLP content, and I wanted to bring to your attention an example of what is quite a large-scale problem with reality-TV articles. On Pinoy Big Brother: Double Up, a user recently removed a whole chunk [12] but was summarily reverted [13] and even dismissed from the talk page [14]. And these are in no way 'new users'; one has 8000+ edits, the other 20k+.

I advised said user to raise it on BLPN, and I only mention it to you because I've seeen this problem on a great many similar articles. We have a tremendous amount of problems with various versions of The X Factor, and many more. Note the edit-summary from the example removal - "you want to try that on all BB articles too?"

Articles of this type attract a great deal of BLP information gleaned by people just watching the programmes. Most of the actual broadcasts are not available for any later verification, which leads to a problem for editors trying to make sure it is all neutral and appropriate. The articles attract fans, who naturally think along the lines of, "well of course Sally hates Brian, it's obvious" – and it is often hard, and certainly an unrewarding task, trying to battle for verifiability and neutrality.  Chzz  ►  11:54, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Update re the example: it looks like there are significant copyright-violations too; see [15].  Chzz  ►  15:37, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Don't have much to say on the copyvio issues but your comment

Most of the actual broadcasts are not available for any later verification

is not strictly true - all production companies keep archives these days and while access to those archives may not be easy or free it will be possible. Per [[[WP:PAYWALL]] this is no barrier to verifying the information presented. Our job is helped by the increasing number of these shows being uploaded to YouTube, helping editors to verify the details without access to the archive - That said these are primary sources and should be treated as such with due caution. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 09:01, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Notability of U.S. Presidential Children

Although you are probably used to your name being invoked as the source of Wikipedia policies and guidelines, I wanted to let you know about a pending discussion regarding notability of U.S. presidential children at Talk:Rosalynn Carter in which User:Redmondome has cited you as a source for his views while trying to impose what I believe to be an overly-broad interpretation of Wikipedia notability guidelines including redirecting Talk:Amy Carter to Talk:Rosalynn Carter without redirecting either of the associated Article pages, which I subsequently reverted. Please feel free to share any thoughts you may have on this matter at Talk:Rosalynn Carter. --TommyBoy (talk) 13:15, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Turn off the donation ads Jimbo!

Turn off the infernal damned donation ads Jimbo! I only need to see them once, not constantly. PumpkinSky talk 03:43, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Can't we just have paid advertising like virtually every other web site in the world? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:08, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Consensus is that paid advertising is anathema to m:Neutral point of view. —Jeremy v^_^v ^{Components:V S M} 04:09, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

With animations, commercial ads tend to become 95% (or more?) of a webpage transmission. If Wikipedia response were slowed 20x by more ads, how many people would continue to update articles, despite even slower results? -Wikid77 11:30, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

This is not "every other website". And that's a good thing. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 04:23, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

The goal of wiki is noble, but the reality is a disaster. PumpkinSky talk 04:28, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Can you cite a reliable source for your 'reality'? :P AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:29, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Instead of asking Jimbo to turn off the ads, just go to Special:Preferences -> Gadgets and tick the "Suppress display of the fundraiser banner" box in the browsing section to turn them off yourself. --Mrmatiko (talk) 08:09, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I wish sites with paid advertising had a gadget like that! Contains Mild Peril (talk) 10:17, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Try to sex-up the banners. Change the models. If you absolutely need to be there yourself, shave. --92.106.228.219 (talk) 12:45, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

@A Quest For Knowledge, please see Wikipedia:PEREN#Advertising.  Chzz  ►  14:06, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Look after yourself

I've known that this campaign in India was brewing for a few hours but now have English language confirmation. The man behind it has tried and tried here, and is now going the direct route. Be careful out there, Jimbo: yet another riot or even bomb is not out of the question. I wish the conference well, obviously. - Sitush (talk) 04:38, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Seems the friendly law enforcement people have matters well under control - first ever arrests over a Wikipedia content dispute? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 11:14, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Some people really need to get over themselves. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 14:21, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Please keep your conspiracy theories in check. What evidence do you have to suggest that Yogesh Khandke has anything to do with it? [16] And what is the basis for this sensationalist "bomb" talk? People are already thinking that some Wikipedians' content dispute has some relation with this.-MW ^ℳ 12:11, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Simply because you have content disputes with Yogesh Khandke does not mean you can stoop to this level of insinuations.MW ^ℳ 13:33, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure whom Sitush is referring to by saying "the man behind it has tried and tried here, and is now going the direct route" but if it is Amit Satam, the politician mentioned in the artilce, I am unaware that he is an editor here. Also I'm hoping this does not set a precedent for settling India related content disputes in the real world with the aid of political parties. If it does, then there are Template:External link who can take up one of the many India related disputes (there's one for each article except for the one that I have not yet created), to represent someone from the 4300 communities, the rich, the poor, the urban, the rural, etc. Enjoy your stay in Mumbai, Jimmy! Zuggernaut (talk) 13:48, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've created that article at Wikipedia-BJP India map dispute. Zuggernaut (talk) 13:57, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

No, not Atam (as far as I am aware), although he acted as mouthpiece outside & was using the "we've tried" phrase about attempts here. It doesn't matter, if it doesn't escalate. 50 arrests, I've been told, so it looks like they hyped it up quite a lot to the press. - Sitush (talk) 15:43, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, good to know you didn't mean Satam (assuming you made a typo). Are you then implying, as MangoWong pointed out, that Yogesh Khandke is behind this? Zuggernaut (talk) 16:50, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

A beer for you!

For Wikipedia! Arsaces (talk) 08:22, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

bounding

jimmy a bounding am a simple user in a place in this beautiful world and use your regular page, page of which I am grateful ...... case is so like me or if there are many rather most of the usurious not have a credit card but would like to donate .... happens to them? Also your site is the first to appear in gogle if looking for something .... even nonprofit donations because you ask not to the same institutions that appear on this website as without them you want your advertising also are benefited with the information they deliver to the Board Index. I hope I have made ​​my contribution as I can not cash. and if you need something from Chile and I can help just ask. Leticia ~ ~ ~ ~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.90.242.172 (talk) 12:08, 18 November 2011 (UTC)