User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

Do you speak Russian ?

Do you speak Russian, Jimbo ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Сергей Мамаджанов (talk • contribs) 06:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

No, I do not. I speak only English with any fluency. I have studied German off and on for years, so that with some effort I can make myself understood to a taxi driver in a German-speaking place (though they almost all speak English better than I speak German!) and I can read quite slowly, having to consult a dictionary often. I have also studied Spanish briefly, though not enough to have any serious impact on my ignorance. I studied Japanese at the University level for one year, and for a while many years ago I think my conversational Japanese was about the same as my conversational German is today, i.e. quite bad. But I know nothing of Russian, I'm afraid. It's my desire to continue with my hobby of language studies, but as you might imagine, I don't seem to be especially good at it, nor do I tend to devote enough time to it.

There's an old saying that most people who say they want to write a book actually don't want to write a book, they want to have written a book. I think that probably applies to me and languages. I want to know how to speak several languages, but I don't particularly seem to enjoy the process of learning them.  :-) Still, I will keep slowly plugging away. As I intend to continue working on Wikipedia for the rest of my life, I hope that when I am 85 years old, I'll be here on this talk page giving a much more satisfactory answer. We shall see. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., at 92, was found by FDR reading Plato in Greek. FDR asked why he was doing so - and Holmes replied "Why, to improve my mind." [1] [2] etc. I trust that you , at 85, will indeed seek to keep improving your mind. (OWH was alays called "Wendell" by his family per my mom knowing them living down the street) Collect (talk) 12:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

We should talk to each other in German sometime Jimbo? I happen to be 100% German being fluent in both English and German.—cyberpower (Happy 2012) 13:06, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

In some respects, Englsih is the more ancient language as it retains the "th" sound lost in modern German <g> (Jakob Grimm IIRC). Collect (talk) 13:50, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Hallo Jimmy Wales. Es freut mich das sie auch Deutsch sprechen koennen.—cyberpower (Happy 2012) 14:04, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Danke sehr, aber mein Deutsch ist sehr schlecht. Ich verstehe nur ein bisschen.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Macht nichts. I habe ihnen einen e-Mail geschickt, es waere nett wenn sie es lesen koennen und mir einen Antwort gibst. Da habe ich nehmlich einen Idee wie man Wikipedia verbessern kann. Hier habe ich es nicht gepostet weil ich dachte ich werde Anschiss bekommen von andere Wikipedia Editierer. —CYBERPOWER (Happy 2024) 21:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Jimmy, I can relate. :-) (I studied German years ago in school, and the teacher had us learn German drinking songs and sing in class. That's the vocabulary that still sticks. I'm sure there's a message there.) However, I later became interested in opera. Reading the librettos and going back and forth between the two columns (original language and English) was actually enjoyable and helped me understand, if not learn in the usual sense, the foreign language. I got much more of the sense of what the author was trying to convey, without having to memorize a lot of vocabulary and grammar first. Try it (especially languages you've never studied, such as Italian and French) and let us know what you think. 99.50.188.111 (talk) 19:40, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

• Post to WP:Village_pump_(idea_lab): That part of WP:PUMP is for discussing better methods or just an idea ("einen Idee") that might improve Wikipedia. The editors there are asked to refrain from negative comments (so less chance of "werde Anschiss bekommen" from other editors). -Wikid77 12:43, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Activism at Wikipedia?

Is there too much activism in some areas at Wikipedia? In the article The Wonderful World of Wikipedia article at Watts Up With That?, there seems to be pointing out some strange twisting of the reality to suit some political goals. Is the project under siege from some coordinated activists? Just look at the Climategate article that stil has a name that no one else uses and has been actively been buried down by deleting it from navigation templates under possible suspicious reasons (Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2010_March_3#Template:Global_warming_controversy). What can be done to change what looks like unhappy circumstances? Nsaa (talk) 11:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The question makes no sense. Wikipedia IS full of activism, and I (and surely many others) have stopped contributing when the most obvious changes have been met with a barrage of activism by people with much more time in their hands. So the 'pedia has become the realm of the unhinged and a collection of POVs no matter what fantasy world the Big Editors reside. All controversial topics on this site contain zero information as far as I am concerned.mmorabito67 (talk) 10:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Not much there. The author points out a sentence in an article in December, which no longer reads that way. --SPhilbrick(Talk) 12:03, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The problems there (including the gist of the disputed claim) and in other articles remain - as any neutral observer may verify, and this is true in a large number of areas on Wikipedia. Collect (talk) 13:08, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Sphilbrick, I'm not so quick to dismiss this one. How long was the sentence wrong? Is the description of people defending inclusion of a blatant falsehood accurate? This looks to me like a great example of what is wrong with "verifiability, not truth" - to say that an academic journal published an article despite all 4 reviewers recommending rejection is obviously an error, that isn't how the academic review process works at all. That's true even if a newspaper article says otherwise. And it seems in this case there were other sources that were ignored, all for the purpose of POV pushing. I should be clear on something, although I shouldn't have to be clear on it: I have little sympathy for climate-change skeptics in the political press who seem to be not up to speed on the scientific research at all, sometimes exhibiting what I can only call willful blindness. At the same time, nothing can justify inserting falsehoods into Wikipedia under flimsy policy rationales.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo, there's no evidence that Pearce's statement in two newspaper articles and his book is a falsehood. The academic journal published the article on the say-so of one politically motivated editor, as shown in Soon and Baliunas controversy#Subsequent resignations five out of 10 editors resigned over the flawed editorial process, and the publisher told the New York Times that "I have not stood behind the paper by Soon and Baliunas. Indeed: the reviewers failed to detect methodological flaws." Not the usual academic process. All we have here is hearsay on a "skeptic" blog alleging that Pearce gave a verbal retraction of his statements. . . dave souza, talk 18:14, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo, A quick glance at the S&B article's talk page from today will show that Dave Souza has been deliberately editing the page to retain false information, and using Wikipedia's verifiability rule as a cover. He continued to do this even after his source (Pearce) issued a retraction this morning, saying that since Pearce's retraction has not been published in any reliable source, the article must continue to reflect the previous incorrect sources. I don't think that WUWT article was fair, and I don't think that we need some sort of policy change (existing Wikipedia policies are sufficient to argue for the removal of the questionable material). But the basic accusation of POV editing against this particular editor (who just called me a meat puppet on your talk page) is accurate. Jsolinsky (talk) 20:46, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think you would be correct to have concerns about how Wikipedia portrays climate science, but this issue doesn't seem to be the best way to make the case. The S&B article did have a statement from Pearce, but on 22 December, long before the WUWT piece was published, a caveat was added 'this view is disputed by an editor of the journal who states that the paper had "apparently gone to four reviewers none of whom had recommended rejection'. Not exactly a FAC, but a cited claim and a cited counterbalance. Surely there are bigger issues than this. I'd have more sympathy if the issue were still in existence at the time the WUWT article were published, but it reads like someone had a beef, and wasn't interested in the facts. Maybe I'm biased by the view that a writer who doesn't know the difference between "complement" and "compliment" (since corrected) isn't starting off on the right foot.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 21:13, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, SPhilbrick, well put. Would just note that the accusation by Jsolinsky is inaccurate and unfair, as can be readily seen from a look at the article edit history and this edit in particular. . . . dave souza, talk 21:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

@SPhilbrick, I think that the article's talk page speaks for itself as to whether or not POV injection is occurring there. Also, the issue WAS still present in the article as of my edit this morning (which did not occur until the WUWT article had propagated to websites that I actually read). Jsolinsky (talk) 23:13, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Souza, mentioned in the article, has it wrong. His "multiple sources" are really one source, a journalist who printed the error in multiple spots, and who retracted the error to two people on two separate blogs. One of the editors he mentions that resigned, clearly said on her university website that none of the reviewers recommended rejection.

This is one of the sources that Souza rejects.

Even if one believes that the review process was incorrect it does not justify forcing a known error into the article in order to libel someone. Souza himself knows this statement is in error since he states above that "the reviewers failed to detect methodological flaws."

If the reviewers failed to detect those flaws then why did all of them recommend against publication like he claims?

I recommend that Souza not be allowed to author any articles related to climate change in light of his dedication to publishing known and libelous lies. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.125.28.149 (talk) 19:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi 97.125.28.149, you're correct only in stating that the allegations about Pearce have now appeared in two blogs, both "climate skeptic" blogs with a poor reputation for fact checking and accuracy. We have a significant problem if properly published sources are to be overridden on the whim of activist fringe blogs. Also note that I'm quoting the publisher Kinne who said that "the reviewers failed to detect methodological flaws", that's not my own statement. If Pearce has indeed agreed with these blogs that his publications are incorrect, then he should get amendments published to The Guardian's online articles which continue to make the statements you allege are "libelous lies". That publisher is good at showing amendments to articles, and would be quick to do so if libel were involved.. dave souza, talk 20:39, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You admit that the publisher says the "reviewers failed to detect methodological flaws." So if they didn't detect the supposed flaws then why did they recommend against publication as you claim? Your insistence on keeping this in the article and that other people must jump through your constant hoops clearly has nothing to do with the factual accuracy of the article. Your claim that the blogs are "fringe" is simply an excuse when many other blogs used in the climate change articles. WUWT is one of the top science blogs on the net. Shouldn't denigrating the WUWT as an "activist fringe" blog automatically disqualify Souza from being considered impartial? WUWT was awarded the 2011 Best Science Blog on the web and is QUITE mainstream. If Souza genuinely thinks WUWT is fringe then either Souza has never read WUWT (and is thus unqualified to edit climate change articles) or Souza has read it (and is too biased to edit climate change articles). Either way, he certainly is stubborn when he doesn't want to admit he's wrong. Your assertion that two separate people would put their name on articles, opening themselves up to legal action, in order to lie about what someone else said is beyond ridiculous. FYI, I do indeed consider it to be libel against the editor to claim that he pushed for publication despite the wishes of every single reviewer of the paper. I reiterate that you are not impartial enough, by any measure, to be editing these articles. Anyone having to deal with such stubbornness would surely be driven away. Or is that the point? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.125.28.149 (talk) 20:56, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Woah. Hold on a minute here. Jimbo, isn't there a rule about personal attacks? Souza makes a bald-faced slander: "...the allegations about Pearce have now appeared in two blogs, both 'climate skeptic' blogs with a poor reputation for fact checking and accuracy." I'd challenge him top back that up about any posts at WUWT or CA. Anthony Watts didn't get BEST SCIENCE BLOG OF 2011 being a loosey-goosey poster. And Steve McIntyre at CA is even more fastidious. What they're commenters post is neither her nor there. C'mon, Dave, put up or shut up. And how about a retraction of that lie? Or show your evidence for "poor reputation for fact checking and accuracy." --SteveGinIL (talk) 21:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

WUWT? won 'Best Science Blog' the same way his readers freeped this Scientific American poll [3] "...the big problem was that the poll was skewed by visitors who clicked over from the well-known climate denier site, Watts Up With That?". — ThePowerofX 21:58, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, first of all, Souza ducks the question, and ThePowerofX insults the bloggers, also without pointing out where the fact-checking and accuracy of posters on those web sites has fallen short. Anybody can make empty allegations. It takes a real gentleman to insult people with impunity here, in violation of the rules.

Jimbo, I am asking that you at least chastise these people - Souza and ThePowerofX, for their behavioral violations here. Having rules that you don't apply - what's with that? "Denier site" (of course calling up images of Holocaust deniers) - are we supposed to just sit here and take it? And "blogs with a poor reputation for fact checking and accuracy" - we request that you demand this name-calling stop. Just because the people - including a good number of scientists (climatologists, meteorologists, physicists, statisticians, etc.) don't agree with the preferred science hypothesis Souza and The PowerofX side with, does that mean they get top take free shots at us, any time they want to? A big reason that this discussion is civil is because we who don't accept that the global warming science is convincing don't get as personal as those two. So what, if we don't agree with them. Show me a science where everyone agrees on the science being researched. Why does that make it okay to insult us personally because we aren't on their side in this disagreement?SteveGinIL (talk) 06:22, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Sadly, the active editor pool and wiki policies are not strong enough to create and defend neutral articles in disputed areas. All experienced wiki editors know that. Climate change, all nationalistic articles, all political biographies, religious articles, fringe theories and medicine and biographies of anyone involved in such, sexuality articles, and a few others topic fields that I have not listed, all of these battlefield type articles should come with an edit template disclaimer that says, Wikipedia apologizes for any inaccuracies and biases contained within this article and as there is a strong likelihood of opinionated editing in this sector Wikipedia does not recommend that readers use the article for neutral research. - The recent focus on demeaning the handful of people that create articles for a small charge is dwarfed by the bias of unpaid partisan editors in these sectors and the weakness of current wikipedia polices and the difficulty experienced by NPOV contributors in attempting to implement them. Youreallycan (talk) 12:24, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

<ec> How entertaining, a fringe blog seems to be trying to recruit meatpuppets to change articles to support their own version of reality. The blog article refers to a version of Soon and Baliunas controversy at the start of December 2011, and complains that we didn't just accept their November blog commentary about a hacked email. It fails to notice that we looked at the various sources and issues, and after discussion 2meters made this revision on 22 December to meet the concerns. That's the current version, hope improvements can be made.
The blog wrongly claims that the disputed text is only sourced to this article by Fred Pearce, and says that he has told them privately he was "almost certainly wrong". Odd that he repeated a revised version of the statement in this article which was open to comment and revision (there were no objections to the statement) and then rewrote it more strongly in his book, which we now cite. Among the extensive discussion on this issue, on 10 December an editor said they'd written to Pearce asking for clarification, this was welcomed with the provision that Pearce will have to publish any retraction in a reliable source such as his own blog: we can't use verbal comments reported in an extremely dubious third party blog which includes in its article BLP violating assertions about a reputable scientist.
Perhaps Nsaa would like to use the article talk page to propose improvements based on reliable sources? . . dave souza, talk 12:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we should create a firewall and split the project. with a calm tranquil editing environment with stable undisputed articles and sectors, and all the battlefield articles on the other side of the firewall, with that sector clearly marked as the accuracy and neutrality of the articles included in this sector is disputed. - Youreallycan (talk) 12:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

You seem to be proposing a pov fork where alternate realities based on fringe blogs are given equal weight? Doesn't Conservapedia already meet that need? Or perhaps you're proposing that Wikipedia should only deal with undisputed issues. That'll make a very small 'pedia. . . dave souza, talk 12:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Not a pov fork, a firewall. Many contributors will benefit from the new tranquil editing environment that would be created. Wikipedia can and should deal with all topics, but all experienced editors know of the biases in these sectors. Some users support it because they support the biases. Are you a contributor to any of these battlefield sectors Dave, do you have strong real world opinions about any such topics? Youreallycan (talk) 12:45, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

@ Youreallycan. don't know what you mean by a firewall. My edits have covered a number of topics over the years, and my strong view is that WP:V and WP:WEIGHT are essential. You seem to have contributed to some battlefield areas since you began editing on 26 November 2011, sorry you feel the way you do, but in the longer run our policies don't seem to require the firewall you're suggesting. . dave souza, talk 12:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC) (though as formerly User:Off2riorob you've had plenty of experience, didn't notice that link at first) . . dave souza, talk 13:04, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

A firewall - a separator - two rooms in the same house, one room with stable articles not attracting battlefield disputes. That room in the house would have "stable status" - awarded on request to articles and if given the article is moved to that room. So creating a room in the house without rudeness or edit warring. Users if they wanted could log in only to that room. The other sector, the disputed, the biased, the opinionated articles would all sit in the other room. The objective would be to get the article out of that room to the stable non battlefield room. The only way to do this in some sectors would be to create a truly balanced article that had fair coverage of all positions so as all partisans could be satisfied with it, rather than what some sectors do now which is have to constantly defend the bias in an article through constant blocking of objectors, article protection and tag team edit warring and sometimes just pure weight of numbers. Youreallycan (talk) 13:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I remain of the opinion that certain areas remain magnets for advocacy, and that such articles are intrinsically unamenabe to NPOV due to such magnetism. The WP articles mentioned did, and do, fall into this category as any neutral observer may verify. WP:Advocacy articles speculates on how Wikipedia may eventually have to deal with them. Collect (talk) 13:08, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Collect, your essay promotes a false equivalence between showing mainstream science and advocacy of fringe views. Policies already deal with these issues, your idea of "neutral" doesn't seem to comply with WP:NPOV. . . dave souza, talk 13:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I fear you did not comprehend the nature of the essay. It most certainly does not promote "fringe views." As for NPOV, it states as one of the possible cources for Wikipedia that pairs of articles (one for each side) might co-exist, thus furnishing the project with NPOV overall while admitting that individual articles representing both sides of an issue might individually (as one of the possible courses for Wikipedia to take) present individual advocacy POVs, which is where Wikipedia is now without making that decision! Cheers - and please note that what you "know" about the essay is quite sincerely wrong. Collect (talk) 14:18, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

See WP:POVFORK. . . dave souza, talk 14:34, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

See WP:POVFUNNEL. -Wikid77 22:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

See the essay which states specifically:

The articles which are the subject here are those for which placement of a temporary NPOV tag is substantially insufficient to alert users of Wikipedia that there are major issues concerning the content of an article.

IOW, the essay explicitly sets forth the category of articles covered, and then lists some of the possibile ways for Wikipedia to deal with the problem. No case for an accusation that I back "fringe views" or the like whatsoever. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:53, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

It's a little difficult not to read the essay in that way, Collect. Under Proposed or possible courses of action, you list four options. The first choice is the status quo, which you implicitly dismiss as unsatisfactory (else, why write the essay at all?). The second and third choices are to add essentially-permanent warning signs to articles with advocacy or neutrality issues and then wash our hands of the matter—we might as well give up, because writing these articles from a NPOV is just too hard, and our time is better spent elsewhere. The fourth choice you offer is to allow the creation of explicit POV forks. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:22, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

It is an essay. Feel free to add additional possible courses - I thought the four choices pretty much covered the field, but clearly you have other possible courses of action on what appear to be quite intractable areas - so please add the other possible courses. As for treating the status quo as "unsatisfactory" - I think that has been pretty well established, don't you? Collect (talk) 15:27, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

It is your essay. If you didn't want to suggest those courses of action, you didn't have to. Your statement of the problem and the emphasis of the proposed solutions focuses on reducing the load on Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes—which I think rather misses the point. The status quo is better than any of the options which you offered, from the standpoint of producing an encyclopedia. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:50, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope - it is in projectspace, and has others who have edited it. Feel free to add other possible courses. Collect (talk) 16:04, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't change the fact that for two years (and until half an hour ago, with the addition of Off2riorob/Youreallycan's poorly-explained 'firewall' proposal) virtually all of the essay content and all of the solutions suggested were written by you. It is 'your' essay in the sense that you wrote pretty much the entire thing. Should I take your demurral here to mean that you don't actually endorse the statement of the problem or any of the proposed solutions that you drafted? If not, which parts of what you wrote don't you agree with? Which solutions do you think are a good idea? If you're not interested in advocating for the essay that you wrote, I'm not sure why anyone else should be. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:16, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

And again - I never asserted any "ownership" of it at all -- and virtually all essays actually do start off by being "written" by one person, but the fact is that several editors were involved in the initial concept and discussions leading to the essay, just as was true on other essays like WP:PIECE etc. And since the essay does not say one solution is ideal, I fail to see how you can view it as anything but what it is - noting a real and generally acknowledged problem on Wikipedia, and mentioning several possible courses of action. "It is what it is" seems a popular term now - and applies here. Collect (talk) 16:29, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

@TenOfAllTrades - you call my thoughts and suggestions, "Off2riorob/Youreallycan's poorly-explained 'firewall' proposal" - You are more than welcome/invited to input, and bounce ideas to resolve this "generally acknowledged problem" by joining a discussion on the talkpage of Collect's essay about it. My suggestion was a starting point, a primary idea in need of development, not a fully defined proposal. Or just ask me any questions you have about it here. Youreallycan (talk) 18:36, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• Articles as alternative explanations: In many cases, some topics are so complicated that they require whole articles to properly explain the concepts, even without elaborating all of the opposing views, which would further complicate the explanation. Not all articles need to be based on rare fringe theories, but could simply explain issues from alternate viewpoints. Some examples:

• "Climate change explained by Global Warming" - focused on long-term warming.
• "Climate change explained by sunspot cycles" - focused on long cycles of sunspot activity.
• "Subatomic reactions in quantum theory" - focused on "Quantum theory" notions.
• "Subatomic reactions in string theory" - focused on "String theory" notions.
• "City flooding predicted by differential equations" - rate of flow calculated by Differential equations
• "City flooding predicted by numerical integration" - rate of flow calculated by numerical integration
• "Education levels in capitalist cultures" - focused on schools in modified capitalism
• "Education levels in socialist cultures" - focused on schools under socialism.

By the very nature of their complex topics, the articles are separated to keep each from being a massive dissertation on the whole subject. In a sense, the articles could be considered as small chapters in a book which tried to give a thorough introduction to each major aspect. Each article represents a WP:Content fork of a whole subject, and each could link to related articles at many places. -Wikid77 22:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• This reminds me of an almost identical situation I was involved in with more or less the same editors before I finally burnt out while trying to correct the bias in a related page "some contrarians". Alex Harvey (talk) 03:41, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Where in the dispute resolution mechanisms and ways to propose policy changes does it say "if someone disagrees with you, the first thing you should do is go running to Mommy Jimbo"? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Right here (see #6). MastCell ^Talk 19:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

[Guess regarding identity of a Wikipedia user redacted]

William M. Connolly involvement? In the comments section of the WUWT article WMC has becoem quite involved defending the actions of souza. As we know WMC is topic banned from AGW related topics. However, in the comments section he has been asked repeatedly if he has been coordinating with Souza, Shulz etc. etc. off-sight which he has a record of doing even before his topic ban. So far William has refused to give a straight answer to the question instead trying to argue that such coordination would not be a violation of Wikis rules. I take Connelly's refusal to answer the question as well as his instance that such offsite coordination would not be a violation of wikis rules as strong evidence that Connelly still exerts a great amount of direct control over AGW threads with Souza and others acting as his proxy.74.124.124.66 (talk) 21:34, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia SOPA blackout, redux

I haven't been following the on-wiki discussion in the wake of your proposal; where does it sit? Reddit recently announced that they will be blacking out the site from 0800-2000, Jan 18th. Were Wikipedia to consider a similar measure, it might make sense to do so at the same time, to increase impact.

Thoughts?

Throwaway85 (talk) 23:33, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

This is being discussed at WP:SOPA, if you'd like to get involved. There is also a request for comment on the Village Pump. Buddy431 (talk) 00:55, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

BTW these two links are too hard to find considering how important this discussion is. this discution needs more prominance Inkwina (talk · contribs) 07:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm interested in hearing Jimbo's thoughts on this. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:04, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Quickly because I'm about to log out for a couple of hours. I'm all in favor of it, and I think it would be great if we could act quickly to coordinate with Reddit. I'd like to talk to our government affairs advisor to see if they agree on this as useful timing, but assuming that's a greenlight, I think that matching what Reddit does (but in our own way of course) per the emerging consensus on how to do it, is a good idea. But that means we need to move forward quickly on a concrete proposal and vote - we don't have the luxury of time that we usually have, in terms of negotiating with each other for weeks about what's exactly the best possible thing to do. As I understand it, the Foundation is talking to people about how we can geolocate and guide people to their Congressperson, etc. Geoff will know about that. Our task is to decide to do it with a thumbs up / thumbs down vote.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:09, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Where can we discuss it? In my opinion, if Wikipedia threw it's weight behind this, you'd have the entire United States (and world) talking about it. Even if most people didn't see it, you can bet that a wikipedia blackout would be all over the news. --216.131.118.51 (talk) 07:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Also wanting to know where to discuss. I am all for it, and hope that it would inspire even more sites to join in making casual users aware of how much the internet (and their life) would be affected by SOPA. wanderingstan (talk) 06:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I just want t say, if youre going to be doing this wiki blackout, it should be worldwide. Because the reality is the effects of SOPA are worldwide too, technically and politically. Just look at the recent Spanish SOPA equivalent Sinde law fiasco, which Spain was "encouraged" to pass into law by the states against the apparent will of the people and even the courts which has twice ruled "rogue" torrent sites to be legal in Spain. Regards 213.107.5.93 (talk) 12:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

http://sopablackout.org/ – Here's a blackout website some activists made in case you need some inspiration. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 15:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Another amazing website is http://fightcensorship.info/ If WP goes through the blackout (which I strongly, strongly urge you to do, may I suggest either linking to this website, or having a similar feature hosted on the WP servers? Basically, this website allows users to find their representatives and then contact them through phone, fax, email, and snail mail, all the with the click of a single button. --216.131.118.83 (talk) 16:50, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, I think we should look at what Reddit is doing. I would definitely be in favor of a blackout. But doing it for a full day would seem a little overkill. If we follow in Reddit's footsteps and do a 12 hour blackout, that would be more than enough time to get the message out there. --Radiokid1010 (talk) 15:25, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Blatant plagiarism

At Erich von Däniken the section "Early Life" is entirely sourced to a single Playboy interview (actually to an article setting the scene for the interview) - and (until last night) was lifted pretty much verbatim therefrom (that is, exact and extended sentences and claims were lifted thereform). After I complained that this was copyvio and plagiarism, another editor "fixed" the wording, but all of it is still from the single source. Does "fixing wording" "fix" the copyvio? [4] And I had thought that Wikipedia did not generally accept that "fixing" the wording "fixed" plagiarism -- has this been changed? Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:46, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I think this very much depends on the precise details, which I have not reviewed. What I mean is that "having a single source" for some fact does not imply plagiarism automatically.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:51, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Playboy article is at [5], and the offending edit (insisted upon by one editor) is at [6] with the edit summary of: no copyright violation if no direct quotes. Thanks. Collect (talk) 12:56, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• First remember that only a court determines actual "plagiarism" and so the worry starts as a suspected wp:COPYVIO. The goal is to paraphrase the text (and summarize), not in the same word order, and have fewer than 10 words in a row match the original text (unless noted as direct quotes), but only a court can determine actual copyright infringement, and some judges have rejected massive rewrites as still being improper. Because the source document is stored in a blog as photocopy images (~320 kb) of pages (which might have been photoshopped), and Google matches no online text for that wording, then the actual August 1974 issue of Playboy magazine should be found to compare. Meanwhile, any further rewording of the article's related text in "Early life" of "Erich von Däniken" will help to reduce risk of copyvio even if the blog images do match the actual magazine as printed in 1974. Note that all those blog images are likely to be a worse infringement than WP. -Wikid77 15:24, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Um -- then exact sequences on the order of 20 words or so would indicate a problem? <g>. My suggestion was to find WP:RS sources in order to prevent the exact use of sequence of the "facts" presented - but the editor at question seems to think that the single source is sufficient for everything found in that source, presented in the same order as in that source. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:31, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not plagiarism to use chronological order. Hipocrite (talk) 15:54, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

But using the same order as the article, and where the article is not "chronologically complete" about a person sure is a copyvio. Cheers - why are you so interested in such a clear copyright violation case?

Compare: Von Däniken was raised a strict Catholic, he attended the international Catholic school Saint-Michel in Fribourg, Switzerland. He became apprenticed to a Swiss hotelier following the completion of his formal education and a communication breakdown between his father and the Catholic church.

with: By his own account. he grew up under the twin shadows of a stern father and the Catholic Church. ... At Saint-Michel, an international Catholic school in Fribourg. he soon ran into trouble ... withdrew him from school and apprenticed him to a Swiss hotelier

or: When becoming a hotel manager for 12 years he took frequent vacations to travel around the world, something he could only manage by falsifying his books - and getting into debt to the sum of $130,000 - and he became convicted for the second time of "repeated and sustained acts of embezzlement...fraud...forgery." This resulted in 12 months in prison

with: By the time prosecutors caught up with him—in Vienna, returning from another junket—he was in debt to the tune of $1 30,000, money a Swiss court ruled he obtained by falsifying hotel books. Von Drtniken was convicted of "repeated and sustained acts of embezzlement . . . fraud . . . forgery"—and served a year in prison

And this was after some revisions to the BLP <g>. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2012 (UTC) Collect (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

• Please have 2 indepth WP:RS sources for convictions: I think the text about "convictions" can be removed as unsourced "negative BLP" and try to find 2 WP:RS broad sources to substantiate convictions (with details). It could be argued that a 1-source basis for convictions does not meet WP:NOTABLE to be included, if no other source mentions those, especially for juvenile or perhaps expunged records, or even probation violation leading to convictions which do not prove "guilt" but rather tie convictions to having not met the probation tasks, even though the person might not have actually committed the alleged crime (the term "convicted" is often meaningless and merely negative, unless full sources can state convictions were by jury with solid corroborating evidence and upheld on appeal). Hence, there are reasons to simply remove the questionable, unsourced text, regardless of wp:copyvio concerns. -Wikid77 18:34, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned that this seems to be "goal-directed reasoning", in that two completely unrelated approaches are tried to get the same bit of information removed. Von Däniken's conviction was the subject of extensive discussion and criticism in the press. Just going over to de: Erich von Däniken for souces shows an article in Der Spiegel (online here). There is a long essay by Däniken himself, printed in a biography and available (as an arguably unreliable courtesy copy) here. The topic is also discussed in Jürgen Mai, Mr. Däniken, wie haben Sie das vollbracht? Die Erkundung des ganz irdischen Erich von Däniken, a 2003 biography in-print and currently available at Amazon.de. Regardless of the copyright claims this is an important and notable part of Däniken's biography that has been widely reported and commented. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:34, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

An interesting, but entirely erroneous, position. I was not trying to whitewash any BLP - I was trying to eliminate a copyright violation of the first water. IIRC, admins and editors have been banned from Wikipedia for making such violations, and even more so for insisting on using them after the violation has been pointed out. Are you sufggesting that since the information is "true" that therefore copyright does not exist? Or that copyright of "facts" does not exist even where the exact same wording is used? That would indeed be a novel claim on Wikipedia, but one which, wee it made in public, would absolutely ensure the passage of SOPA. Is that the goal? Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:03, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I have made no such claim at all. I pointed out that the argument "the text may be a copyright violation, therefore the claim should be removed" is dubious. The best way to handle a copyright violation is to rewrite the text so as to remove the copyright violation. Removing content is only a poor second-best solution. The number of sources has no impact on our principal ability to write a text that does not violate copyright, although following a single source may make it harder in practice for inexperienced writers to avoid too-close paraphrase. I strongly disagree with Wikid77 when he writes "Hence, there are reasons to simply remove the questionable, unsourced text, regardless of wp:copyvio concerns" (emphasis mine), which I read to refer to the concrete case of von Däniken's conviction. In fact, I disagree doubly (or maybe half?). Of course, unsourced negative text needs to be removed. But in this concrete case, von Däniken's conviction is not unsourced. It is sourced, and, since it was, in fact, a fairly major media event, it's trivially easy to find additional sources. And no, there is no copyright for facts. Indeed, if there is only one or a very small number of obvious ways of expressing certain facts, then there is not even copyright in the expression. Only the result of a non-trivial creative act is protected by copyright. Note that there is a significant difference between fiction and non-fiction - for fiction, there is creative input even in characters, events, and narrative structure. For non-fiction, copyright only covers the creative aspects of expressing the facts. Of course, in the concrete case, the original author for Playboy has made a number of creative choices ("grew up under the twin shadows of a stern father and the Catholic Church"...), and the text is protected by copyright. But that does not affect the underlying facts.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:49, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Um -- IOW you assert that the fact that a major copyright violation occurred is dissolved by rewording? I would note that the number of lengthy precise quotes goes beyong "simple statement of fact" here. An interesting concept not findable in any law books, I fear. Jimbo -- is blatant copyright violation solved by simple rewording while still using the same single source for the entire section? I think this is a proper question to pose. Collect (talk) 15:55, 12 January 2012 (UTC) BTW, I wonder if Playboy would consider their copyrights to be useless as they are not valid as they are trivial, non-creative articles? Do you think this would be a good argument to make under SOPA? Collect (talk) 15:59, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I don't use bold face enough, but where in "Of course, in the concrete case, the original author for Playboy has made a number of creative choices ("grew up under the twin shadows of a stern father and the Catholic Church"...), and the text is protected by copyright" do you find the claim that the source is a "trivial, non-creative article" with "useless copyrights" (whatever that may be)? English is not my native language, but I tried to express the opposite, and I don't think I misused any double negations there... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Trying to get a handle on this. Is it your position that since a copyvio has occurred, the article now is permanently disqualified from being used as a source on Wikipedia? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 16:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I have and reread what I have written, and it is not what you aver I wrote. I have iterated that using a second reliable source should be done when an entire section is a copyvio of a single source, and that claims that "facts can not be copyrighted" or the like is insufficient when such a wholesale violation occurs. I asked the editors to add proper sourcing for claims. And if the only source is the one whose copyright some seem to think is worthless then yes - that material can not be used en masse. And I suspect the legal folks at WMF would tend to say that flouting copyright law is a sure way to get SOPA passed, indeed. I would note the prior statements by WMF and Jimbo that Wikipedia can not be seen to ignore copyright law. Can we ignore the law? Sure. Is it wise? I think not. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:27, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

SBHB asked you a simple question. You failed to respond. I ask it again "Is it your position that since a copyvio has occurred, the article now is permanently disqualified from being used as a source on Wikipedia?" If that is not your position, what exactly is wrong with using the previously copyvioed source as a source if the copyvio is removed? Hipocrite (talk) 16:37, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I answered the question posed. In fact Inoted that additional sources would be great. In fact I noted I so asked the other editors there. Is that clear once and for all? I surely hope so -- answering claims that I said what I did not say is tiresome indeed.

I have iterated that using a second reliable source should be done when an entire section is a copyvio of a single source, and that claims that "facts can not be copyrighted" or the like is insufficient when such a wholesale violation occurs. Collect (talk) 22:39, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Er, well, no, you haven't answered the question posed. The question had nothing to do with the need for a second source or other issues that you have mentioned in your responses. It's a simple question that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no": Do you think the copyvio means that this source now is permanently disqualified for use? Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:12, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

You still haven't answered the question. And you are unclear. What do you mean by "should"? Is this your own opinion on best practices? Do you think it's Wikipedia policy? Do you think it should be Wikipedia policy? Do you think it's required by copyright law? The last option is certainly wrong. Wether person X does or does not violate someones copyright has absolutely no bearing on the ability of person Y to write a perfectly legal text using exactly the same source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Let's wait for Legal, shall we? I had thought that I was absolutely crystal clear, but apparently you do not understand what I thought was crystal clear. So let's just wait for the result of WMF discussions, shall we? Collect (talk) 22:53, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Why are you asking Jimbo this stuff Collect, and why do you think the WMF legal team needs to get involved? As I explained 23 hours ago at the AN/I thread you opened, tag the article for copyright concerns and list it at the copyright problems noticeboard. That is where the community handles copyvio concerns, and the people there are quite good at it (including the single best editor on this wiki). Franamax (talk) 00:54, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

You do not see any relevance to SOPA in regard to copyright violations? Strange - I thought a great deal of the discussion on the page was directly or indirectly related thereto. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:48, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

"Single best editor on this wiki". Not me, then <g> Kudos, though, to User:Moonriddengirl, whom I suspect is the recipient of your accolade - top lady! - Sitush (talk) 01:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes. :) Although by day she is mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent at the Daily Planet, and Jimbo should see that she gets a raise in pay. :) Franamax (talk) 01:24, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Where is $50m a year to come from?

Jimmmy, the end of the year's fundraiser has prompted me to send a belated response to your email asking for $50 to help keep advertising out of Wikipedia. We certainly need to do that - the day Wikipedia accepts ads is the day I leave - but I did not donate. Partly this is because I already give a good deal of time, but more seriously it is because although your appeal asks for money "to protect and sustain Wikipedia" and the fundraising appeals generally stress "keeping Wikipedia on the web", I think they are deceptive. They do not mention the reason why so much more money is needed each year: the ballooning growth of the Wikimedia Foundation's paid staff.

	2007/8	2008/9	2009/10	2010/11	2011/12	2012/13	2013/14	2014/15
WMF staff	15	34	?	80	136	154	178	188

Numbers are from the annual reports and the Strategic Plan. They may not be exactly comparable, year to year, but the trend is clear. Over the same period, annual expenditure is planned to rise from $3.5m, through $18m for 2010/11, to $51m. These numbers astonished me when I found them, and I think they would surprise most Wikipedians. They would even surprise Professor Parkinson.

The growth of the paid staff is conservative and in line with the growth of capacity to get things done. Review the strategic plan (developed publicly with significant input from hundreds of people) and the staffing plans - I think that they are (a) reasonable and (b) can be criticized by reasonable people. That is, we will not all agree on all priorities. Some people, for example, may think we don't need to update the interface to attract a more diverse contributor community. Some people, for example, may think that programs in the developing world to fuel growth there are impossible and not worth even experimenting with. Some people, for example, may think that supporting the growth of chapters and the growth of GLAM partnerships is unnecessary. My own view is that all of those are incredibly valuable and if we can get the money to do them, we should do them. But I also think that each of these things has to be analyzed from the perspective of metrics: is it working, what is it accomplishing, and is it cost effective?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Leaving aside the question of whether all this paid activity actually helps to build the encyclopedia, have you, have the WMF, thought how they are going to raise $50m a year? I fear that either we shall be living with more or less permanent fundraising banners (and they are already causing some critical comment) or, worse, by 2015 we may find we have ads after all, because the Foundation's growth plans have outrun the willingness of readers to pay for them. JohnCD (talk) 12:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

The length of the fundraiser has decreased over time, not increased. I remain firmly opposed to ads, as does the entire board unanimously, so there's no chance of ads in 2015 that's for sure.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:04, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I think we also need to keep something in perspective here. Wikipedia is one of the top 5 websites in the world but is maintained by currently less than 150 people. Far less than the armies of employees at Google, Yahoo, Facebook and the like. I don't personally have a problem with the growth of the employees as long as we re getting a return of investment. Personally, I would like to see someone planted at several Government locations like the Smithsonian, Library of Congress and National archives to help facilitate working with them (getting info from them, cleaning up and expanding articles about them, establishing WikiProjects and additional editor/readership, setup QRpedia, etc.). The US government has a massive amount of info available but it does us much less good if we can't get to it. There are a pile of other nice to haves too. Some we can get done through the customary volunteer support and others need to be full time jobs; and we can't do a lot of them if we don't have people advocating on our behalf. --Kumioko (talk) 17:22, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

RfC: What to do with respect to the copyright of countries with which the US does not have copyright relations?

A few weeks back I'd mentioned there had been some discussing involving the use of images from countries with which the US does not have copyright relations and that this 2005 mailing list post of yours was part of the discussion. I have now started a RfC on the issue here at which you e-mail is again mentioned. Dpmuk (talk) 16:55, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

This may sound like a bad opinion but, if the US doesn't have copyright relations with that country, then that shouldn't be a problem. But I'm not a lawyer and thats just my opinion. --Kumioko (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

The legal side of it, I believe, pretty much agreed on - the images are PD in the US. The issue is whether wikipedia should respect the other country's copyright even though, legally, we don't have to. Jimbo's e-mail suggests we should, and is linked at WP:C, but it seems out of keeping with now current practice hence the RfC. Dpmuk (talk) 17:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I do think that if there is a corresponding Wikipedia for that country then the appropriate Copyright laws for that country would apply to that pedia. I think from a legal standpoint that could be argued based on the location of the servers and the foundations Hq's but I still think it should be avoided. I do think that it would be "reasonable" to apply US equivalent laws in lieu but I don't think its required. --Kumioko (talk) 19:14, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure your view would be welcome at the RfC. Dpmuk (talk) 01:09, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Abusive sysops

Extended content

I think i have brought this to you before. The last time, the problem was not as severe as this time. I always have respect for you for the idea of making the sum of human knowledge available to everyone for free. That was what attracted me to here 4 years ago. I believe you are the one who can call make a call on justice. If not then there is nothing else for i can do to continue my ambition. I don't contribute much here in English Wikipedia due to my crappy English writing skills but i can do whatever i can. Usually small edits. As the head of Wikipedia, i believe you must have respect other cultures and the way of other people around the world thinking. Every cultures on the world can have be different ranching from small to every aspects of life. It just depends where you live, the environment and the people you have met in your life determined the way of each individual thinking and actions. I think English Wikipedia should tolerance the diversity of many other cultures around the world if it wants the cooperation of the entire world to help to build this great Encyclopedia. I have been abused and provoked by many sysops who tried to impose their culture and thinking on me. With their power and advantage of many people with the same thinking and culture as them, they can "easily" trick me into a ban hole, which is what they did. I'm pretty sure they are either friends or know each other. Some of them have showed obvious hatred toward me because they hate my thinking. There are many evidences that some of them have been watchlist me and waiting for a chance to attack me. At least that's what i believe. I'm sure some of them enjoy watching me dig myself into the hole that they have created. You can see all the activities over the past few months if you want to. I don't wish to come here to vandal, in fact i have never vandal once since i came here. I hate vandalism. Part of the reason why i involved in some of the discussions because i want equally, justice for all with neutral point of view articles. I'm trying to help but well due to the big different between culture from culture. I fell into many endless arguments which caused me many banned. I'm sure that i have spent more time than the sum of all of them. My style of life doesn't allow to let me give up. I never wish to insult someone, it's not the reason why i started any conversation. I wanted to help that's basically to sum up every reasons why i am here on Wikipedia. Eventually, they tried to force me admit i was wrong but i don't think i was wrong because i was growing up with it. I respect their culture and their way of thinking but they didn't respect mines at all. I have tried to explain countless time to them. They simply just don't get it and i don't get their point either so yea. It goes both ways. Why do they so sure that they are the on who is correct? This is imposing American or perhaps a group of Wikipedians culture (Wikipedia rules don't represent all Americans culture) on minorities groups who English Wikipedia is not their main Wikipedia. They pissed me off many times and always ask for my respect but to me perspective they didn't respect me at all. Now they have banned me permanently due to the reason stated above. Which i think is not fair. They probably high five each others right now. Just because i don't agree with them on something doesn't mean they can ban me. This is absolutely bad. I believe they are same as dictators, try to shut the people that they don't like. User talk:Trongphu (you can find almost everything in here). I also speak for many other victims of abusive sysops too, who couldn't fight for themselves due to they don't know much about Wikipedia. If you think i'm a moron then it's fine. I always live with my conscience and won't regret whatever i have done. My motto is "freedom of speech and equally for all". If you think what they did is fair and square then i guess i have nothing else to say. Regard! 174.20.82.185 (talk) 23:09, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Appeals to Jimbo. JFYI. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 01:05, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I heartily recommend a visit to User talk:Trongphu and see just how abusive we admins have been </sarcasm>. However, let me highlight a few items:

1. when you signed up, you agreed to certain community-expected types of itneractions
2. when anybody fails to follow them, they all get the same treatment
3. not all admins on en.Wikipedia are white American, and many of us therefore take the "racism" card pretty seriously

When one gets blocked for failing to follow the basic level of decorum, don't blame others for inflicting a different view on you: you agreed to them, and they're the same across the board (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 14:24, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo plans to black out wikipedia over sopa

• Just a couple minutes ago I saw a talking head on CNN say that Jimbo plans to black out wikipedia (similar to what reddit did) in protest of SOPA. Dunno if the talking head got that quote right. –OneLeafKnowsAutumn (talk) 04:48, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• Well, the community is the one that voted for it, but yes. And Reddit hasn't done it yet, they're doing it on the 18th and we're hoping to have everything ready to do so at the same time. See WP:SOPA for more info. Silverseren^C 05:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

A message should be posted to the entire community, alerting them to the proposal, for something as important as this. As matters stand the debate is limited to editors who feel most passionately about the bill. — ThePowerofX 10:21, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

We voted for what? Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 10:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

To black out the site for a period of a day (though we might lessen it to 12 hours to match Reddit). The site will, presumably from what I can make out from the discussions, be replaced with a message about SOPA. There are also strong rumors that Google, Facebook, and Twitter will be doing the same. Silverseren^C 11:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• In similar news, have you guys and gals seen Wikipedia Blackout? Looks like there's quite a bit of internet support outside of our community as well. Not that that's all that surprising. Silverseren^C 05:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm getting quite a pile of email and twitter messages. Interestingly some of the email is angry in tone with me, as if I need to be hollered at to stop SOPA. :) But yes, I am seeing quite a bit of internet support outside of our community. I think people expect us to stand up for freedom on the Internet. I hope we always do!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I imagine someone is preparing a plan B in case this legislation is implemented? http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57329001-281/how-sopa-would-affect-you-faq/ - Right now wikipedia doesn't support online piracy, and actions take down on any copyright violations at first opportunity, and has a stronger position on non free use that is required in the US. As I have read any of the severe possible affects are not directed as such responsible organizations as wikipedia. As a charity with a focus on an educational mission we should consider also taking a reactionary self protection position rather than an forefront activist one. Youreallycan 16:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

"There are also strong rumors that Google, Facebook, and Twitter will be doing the same. - Silverseren" - I am not finding that in my searches, has anyone got any reliable links where these companies are discussing this? Youreallycan 19:10, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's an older source, before Reddit's announcement. More recent things include stuff like this and this. Silverseren^C 20:36, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the links - Those look more promotional than actual real comments from the companies, you might be right but only time will tell. Youreallycan 20:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

CULTURE OF THE BEATLES UNDER THREAT

Issue already discussed at length. I think I do not have anything helpful to contribute to this.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Hello, Jimbo! This is boss of the community: http://my.mail.ru/community/linksruspower . Actions of your people again is sabotage and great damage for our creative ideas. Name of these ideas, the POWER OF OPEN. Under large threat, one of the most important projects from my community. You need renew list of your "helpers", they are the dangerous for all system. Human suggested website, related to The Beatles, but these vandals do not want to take this gift of the fate. Several months ago OTRS took this gift, but suddenly waived of magical permission, because of lobby. Derivative work, which exists on legal grounds, became the public domain in scope interactivity. Again was suggested in new status: THE BEATLES DATABASE. Yesterday Beatleman got message from OTRS. They asked: which articles can use materials. He gave reply here, but vandals again in action. You need ban such actions, this is a shame for all of us. This is here: Official notice: materials, related to The Beatles, can be used via interactivity. Greatest chance in the world. Show them what is good and what is bad. My people - your people (volunteers) They want to be respected people (7000). Some of your people here want to destroy all positive things, which we build together. To implement positive purposes in the scope of culture, education and so on. We must take action only. - 78.106.253.71 (talk) 10:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC).

Drafting an RfC proposal for a Jan 18th SOPA protest

cross posted at WP:SOPA

I'd like to try and very quickly put together a clear, concise RfC proposal, that could run in the next few days. There is little time for ideas to be refined, so the proposal has to be simple, minimally disagreeable, easy to implement quickly, and effective. U.S. tech experts are testifying to congress next week and numerous large websites including Reddit are going to be totally blacked out. Instituting a full blackout on Jan 18th would cause too much uproar, but I think we should do something, and it should be noticeable. Here's the sketch of what I think that should look like.

Proposal outline:

• Jan 18th
• 9am - 9pm Eastern Standard Time (New York)
• Full page click-through information page (no editing lock-out or blackout)
• Geotargeted for U.S. readers
• Providing general info about the bill and congressional contact info

What we need for this to happen:

• Minimal consensus on the above points
• Detailed language for the RfC
• Listing at WP:CENT and a site-wide central notice banner

Is this a viable outline? Who's interested in helping put an RfC together in the next 24-48 hours? Ocaasi ^{t | c} 10:51, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Seems very viable and workable to me. Could someone please make the timezones for other countries available? I am happy to support the anti-SOPA drive from here in the UK anyway I can doktorb _words^deeds 10:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Looks good. But I wouldn't geotarget it. This is an international community, and the law would create international problems. It's simpler, more consitent, and has higher impact to simply do it world-wide. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

My main hesitation about making it worldwide is that people in other countries really can't do anything about it. While we may (or may not!) wish that everyone in the world had the right to vote for US politicians, they don't. Only US Citizens can vote, and therefore it is generally the case that getting people to phone their representatives from the US is the most effective thing that we can do. Raising global awareness of the issue is also important but it is unclear to me that there would be significantly more press coverage if this is global. It's going to be in just about every newspaper in the world already. If it goes more or less unnoticed in, say, Bulgaria, then - again - that doesn't seem to have any practical impact on the US Congress.

The goal here is not just to make a big noise, but to make a big noise that makes a difference.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:39, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

The international audience may not have too much indirect influence on US lawmakers, but I think a global event would create more buzz, and it would highlight the importance of Wikipedia for all mankind (well, yes, that's a bit bombastic, but maybe it suits the occasion). Many well-connected decision makers essentially already live on the planet, not in any one country. I'm neither well-connected nor a decision maker (to any significant degree), but even I have lived in the US, on Jamaica, and in four European countries. I have worked on projects or visited conferences in 20 more countries between Latvia and Australia. I read the NYT, the IHT and the Guardian more often than the FAZ or the Spiegel. I'm a member of the EFF, not of the Chaos Computer Club. Restricting the protest just to the US seems parochial to me, and, in my perception, it makes the protest appear to be less based on universal principles like free exchange of knowledge, and more based on internal US politics. That said, I support either option, but I prefer a worldwide blackout. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I iterate my position that making noise is fun - but rarely accomplishes much with governments. Identify the issues, talk with the committee staffers and Congressmen, and work from there (if we have not wasted too much time on generating heat and noise instead of action), Collect (talk) 14:56, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I always fondly remember those meetings with staffers by Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King that brought the US the civil rights legislation. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:32, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Civil rights legislation was written by working within Congress, just like all other major legislation. Those backing SOPA have done the same - it is up to those seeing problems to also recognize that this is how legislation is actually formed. Parks and King brought issues to the public forefront, but it is those little staffers in the offices who write the laws. Collect (talk) 15:58, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

The question is not how laws are written, but why. In the end, the document probably comes out of a laser printer. Does that mean we should talk to Hewlett Packard? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:16, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope - though I appreciate that you think a joke manages to derail a valid issue. Laws are not written by the laserjet - they are written by human beings who generally, actually, try to do the right thing when someone makes a reasoned appoach to them. Playing Becket, though, does not generally work. If you do not know this, I suggest you ask your nearest state legislator in your tyown, and I rather think they will substantiate my point. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:36, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that is a hopelessly naive view. Laws are usually compromises between different interest groups. Legislators may even honestly try to do "the right thing". But they need to know what is important to their constituency. Few congresspeople will support or oppose a law just because it's a good idea. There are too many good ideas in life to follow them all. Legislators will press issues that they feel matter to their voters and other supporters - whether out of a feeling of duty or because they want to optimize their chances of re-election may come down to the difference between an optimistic or cynical world view, but is ultimately irrelevant to the argument. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:13, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Not "hopelessly naive" bu "realistic from direct knowledge". Cheers. And I again urge you to talk with an actual legislator. Collect (talk) 20:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Worldwide action would be great, but this proposal is not the stuff of SOPA-opponents' dreams; it is what can realistically pass a 2-day RfC starting sometime before Monday. I don't think a global protest is nearly as likely to gain consensus, although I would personally prefer it. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:01, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Unaware that you were working on this, Ocaasi, the Wikimedia Foundation's Philippe Beaudette already kind of launched one! It's at Wikipedia:SOPA initiative/Action, as announced at the bottom of the page. Since the WMF might need to get some systems together to help support any action the community may choose to take. --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

My morning at Bell Pottinger

(I will cross-post this to Wikipedia:Bell Pottinger COI Investigations as well. I request that specific discussion of Bell Pottinger go mainly there, and more broadly philosophical discussion should go mainly here.)

I had a pleasant morning this morning. Well, as pleasant as one might hope, considering the task that I had set for myself: to go to Bell Pottinger and give a lecture to staff about why their past editing of Wikipedia was not good, and to give them advice on how to do better. For their part of the program, they made a presentation to me explaining what happened from their end, and tried to give at least an explanation (but note well: not an excuse) for their actions. To my surprise, they wanted to have press there, so you'll read about it tomorrow most likely. (Press included PR Week (their invitee) and the FT (my invitee)).

To be clear, outside of one remark from Lord Bell himself (who said that even now he thinks they did nothing wrong, a position I find fairly astonishing, but whatever, life goes on), the apologies from staff were detailed, aware of why what they did was wrong, and I judged them to be sincere. I don't foresee a relapse.

In their presentation of what went wrong, the main thing that leapt out at me is that they did not know how to appropriately escalate. There were other problems to be sure, starting from their default assumption that Wikipedia would be hostile to PR people to such an extreme degree that if they were to self-identify they would be treated as liars. But more importantly, they did not seem to have a good grasp on the ways that one might escalate a problem issue in order to resolve a problem.

One case that they presented in depth, Common Purpose is one that I think Wikipedians in general would be wise to review. Again, to stress, Bell Pottinger's staff did not present their side of the story in order to justify their actions. They were contrite and apologetic. But I asked to understand what happened, and their explanation (not excuse) was useful to me.

The story here goes back a long way, and can be seen in the edit history and the talk page. In essence, a video which wouldn't by any stretch of the imagination survive a moment's scrutiny from experienced Wikipedians as a reliable source was used as as source for some pretty wild claims, including that "Common Purpose is a part of a grouping that wants ultimately 'to kill you'". The organization themselves tried to remove this nonsense but did so in a clumsy way and did not follow community advice on other matters, and ended up getting themselves blocked and their website blacklisted for spamming. Bell Pottinger was ultimately retained to assist.

I believe, based on long experience working with BLP's myself, that had this been posted to WP:BLPN it would have been straightened out immediately. But at the time they were working on this, Bell Pottinger didn't know to do that. So they used sockpuppets and so on. In their defense, they also started their efforts by removing advertising puffery that the client had (again clumsily) put into the article in the first place.

Finally, during the Q&A time, the staff raised some concerns that due to their actions, Wikipedia might be biased against their clients. Some articles were summarily deleted that they suggested should probably be restored. (Including one that existed already pre-Bell Pottinger.) They will send me a list, which I will review personally but also post here for others to consider. In other cases, client articles may now have excessive weight given to the Bell Pottinger situation. Given that Bell Pottinger has taken full responsibility for things, and says that the clients did not know the extent of what they were up to, I absolutely think we need to carefully revisit this issue and make sure that no one is violating NPOV by saddling mere customers of Bell Pottinger with this scandal. It is worth checking to make sure there is no overreaction. (I ask a lot from us in terms of NPOV - no matter how annoying someone has behaved towards us, they always deserve NPOV, it is our highest commitment and moral responsibility, we must never use Wikipedia to slam people we don't like.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

This is all well and good, but so long as Lord Bell himself continues to be unapologetic, the apologies from staff members mean absolutely diddly squat. The buck stops with him, and all that has been done is he has allowed subordinates to offer likely half-arsed apologies, which mean nothing as they have not come from the top. As to your reviewing of articles, I would remind you that WP operates on the basis of consensus, and it would be amiss for you to be intervening and doing anything with articles outside of process, so I do hope that your reviewing will not involve re-instating anything outside of community determined consensus. Y u no be Russavia ^{ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)} 14:40, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree. Lord Bell was also apologetic and it seems that whatever his mysterious views on ethics might be, he's a practical man who realizes they will lose business if they have more scandals around this.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like the meeting was quite productive. And last I checked you have the same right as any editor to "intervene" in articles. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:53, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, and thank you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:57, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for getting so involved and taking on this important outreach task. We should all aim to move on from being adversarial to Wikimedia (esp. the Foundation and Chapters) being seen as a resource to provide help for organizations that will always have difficulty in helping the encyclopaedia with content, due to their conflict of interest highly likely to be fundamentally engrained. I would like to see such presentations and simple print quality self-help material, pitched for such tricky organizations, being captured and perhaps published on the :outreach wiki. Perhaps you would be interested in helping to make a good quality video that organizations can use for their own internal training? I'm thinking of our "classic" problematic organizations such as corporate marketing, religious evangelizing and political lobbying. As for not everyone providing an apology; well they are a PR company, you have to expect a jolly good spin. Cheers --Fæ (talk) 14:56, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think one thing we should produce is a clear and simple set of best practices. The reason I am focussed on that is that there are many highly questionable practices that are still unfortunately murky in policy - I think because the paid advocates put forward specious arguments and form a bloc against change, but that's a different story for a different day. But best practices will go beyond just "the minimal that is required of you as an editor with a conflict of interest" but rather how you can do the best things, both for Wikipedia and for your client.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:59, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll just chime in to agree with Fæ—having assisted with similar outreach work on a smaller scale, I think it's very important that after we say "you screwed up there", we show them how to do things properly. Whatever we may think of them in theory, pragmatically speaking, the PR firms aren't going anywhere and we would be better off engaging with them for mutual benefit than attempting to shut them out (and thus drive them underground). To that end, I think a set of published best practices for editors with a conflict of interest would be a good thing, and something more useful to point them to than the rather complicated COI guideline. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:08, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

This is what several of us have been using in the en-wp irc help channel to guide paid editors: WP:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 15:28, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

There is already Wikipedia:Best practices for editors with conflicts of interest. The "Learn how to ask for help" section at the end could usefully be expanded, but I suggest doing that rather than write another "Best practices" guide. JohnCD (talk) 18:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It's a complicated issue, not just the Bell Pottinger case but the deeper issue. In a way it brings into play the whole question of "does Wikipeda work?". The Common Purpose video case that you cite is an example of Wikipedia not working.

The theory is that Wikipedia works and articles eventually evolve into an acceptable form. But "eventually" is a long time when a company on which people's livelihoods depend is being unfairly characterized. An important question is, is the intervention of paid agents an appropriate solution? Not in my opinion it isn't. So what else can be done?

You mentioned a possible alternative approach when you invoked WP:BLPN. One thing that has been suggested is a WP:BLP for organizations -- "Articles on Extant Organizations" I guess it could be called. This was suggested while ago by some editor and was more or less shouted down. Is this something that should be re-considered, I wonder. I don't know yet if I'd support this and I can see certain problems with it, but it'd be preferable to accepting the intervention of paid agents, maybe. Herostratus (talk) 19:06, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo, I'm not really familiar with this case but am curious to know how this relates to paid editing, which (by my understanding) you have consistently opposed. To this outside observer it looks like any other paid editing, except at the corporate level rather than an individual contracting his services. Paid editing has happened, is happening now, and will happen in the future, so I'm interested in the nuances of how the project approaches the issue. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 19:02, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

This whole thing sounds to me exactly like the reaction of a user to a bad BLP, except it's not a BLP. Users who are upset by bad BLPs find themselves forced to deal with Wikipedia without knowing all the rules and end up getting reverted and blocked when they're basically just trying to prevent Wikipedia from spreading lies about them. It's a bad idea to treat BLP victims this way, and it's a bad idea to treat the equivalent of BLP victims this way.

If an individual tried to remove material which said his goal is to kill you, and ended up using sockpuppets, violating COI, or otherwise breaking rules to do so, just making sure the individual is contrite would be the wrong way to handle the situation. Yes, he broke the rules, but ultimately, it's Wikipedia's job to be accurate and not to harm living subjects and it is our responsibility to consider their interests. Just because we are talking about an organization doesn't make things any different; the organization is still made up of people, who can still suffer when Wikipedia spreads falsehoods about them. Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

My impression is that what Bell Pottinger did was not just "correcting falsehoods" (which is a good thing) but also went well into the territory of corporate spin. But again, I haven't followed the story in minute detail. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Mensch

		The Mensch's Barnstar
		I love you, and you obviously deserve this barnstar. Von Restorff (talk) 15:20, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Community consultation on SOPA act

In order to allow time for the WMF to technologically support any action taken regarding WP:SOPA, we need to be able to begin preparing in advance. For that reason, we are launching a discussion to try to determine what consensus may have developed for community response. Please weigh in on the consultation page, at Wikipedia:SOPA initiative/Action. Thank you. Philippe Beaudette, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 17:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Brilliant Idea Barnstar
	This is for making Wikipedia. Scientific Alan (talk) 18:30, 13 January 2012 (UTC)