User talk:Jimbo Wales

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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 [1] "...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 there is in fact such off-site coordination going on between Connelly and other editors and 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)

Omnibus.

As we all know, WMC is not topic banned from AGW related topic. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus and so on... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:04, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Someone above was asking for evidence that WUWT is unreliable: the latest comment by 74.124.124.66 shows that rather splendidly. As a matter of interest, Fred Pearce and the Guardian have yet to respond to my suggestion to them that if the published statement is now withdrawn by Pearce, the newspaper should amend its online articles and indicate that they've done that, in their usual manner. So far no action, it will be interesting to see if Pearce responds. These allegations of "libel" look very overblown. . dave souza, talk 22:41, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

But Stephan, you've just proved that we *are* colluding. Meanwhile, the WUWT comment thread [2] is well worth reading. I've been having fun tweaking them trying to explain wikipedia to them. But it is hard; they don't much like WP:V and feel that wiki not allowing their fringe science in is censorship William M. Connolley (talk) 22:50, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Blatant violation of Rule 5. For every sin you must be punished. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 23:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Check your sekrit cabal rule book. You should know full well that it is for every good deed that you will be punished William M. Connolley (talk) 09:56, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

• Coda: an August 2003 email from Tom Wigley to a colleague suggests that Pearce was wrong to think that all reviewers had rejected the paper, and confirms that there was something very wrong with the review process: "I have had papers that I refereed (and soundly rejected), under De Freitas’s editorship, appear later in the journal -- without me seeing any response from the authors. As I have said before to others, his strategy is first to use mainly referees that are in the anti-greenhouse community, and second, if a paper is rejected, to ignore that review and seek another more ‘sympathic’ reviewer. In the second case he can then (with enough reviews) claim that the honest review was an outlier."p. 75 . . dave souza, talk 12:52, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Which seems to show that one person feels that the editor had a strong bias and managed to find only reviewers with the same bias? Sounds like pure opinion from here. Did the reviewers reject the paper? And can any RS source show those reviewers all had a bias? Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:06, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Hi Collect, your disrespect for a reputable published scientist is noted. Your original research is refuted by the EPA who state that "Clearly, scientists, including Wigley, were justified in challenging the scientific merit of the Soon and Baliunas (2003) paper and to question the process that enabled such a paper to be published. It is clear from the e-mail that Wigley believed that Chris de Freitas acted in a way that was contrary to the practice of good science. Like anyone else, Wigley is entitled to speak his mind in personal communications to colleagues." Same pdf source, same page. . dave souza, talk 13:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
      • Um -- you seem to absolutely misapprehend what I wrote, and arguning with that sort of misapprehension leads nowhere at all. I showed no "disrespect" for anyone, and addressed only a single issue - that in Wikipedia opinions are opinions are opinions. I trust this will end your substantial misapprehension of what I wrte. Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:53, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
        • What substantial misapprehension? You dismiss the published view of a scientist whose work dealt with the case in question as merely what "one person feels" – at Wikipedia we base articles on published views, and not on the unsupported "opinions" of editors such as yourself, or indeed myself. . . dave souza, talk 15:01, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
          • There you go again .... You confuse my belief that an opinion is an opinion with somehow dissing the person who expressed the opinion. Such was not in my words nor in my intent, nor would I suggest it reasonable to claim that such was in my words or in my intent. Let me elucidate - any opinion, even one held by the most wonderful person on earth, remains an opinion as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:15, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
            • How do you distinguish fact and opinion? Any example of non-mathematical facts? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
            • Such postmodernism, Collect, to quote your own edit summary about the scientist's published views, you "believe such opinions are of the same weight as Aesop's fox eating the grapes".[3] Without evidence, your beliefs and your own opinions clearly fail WP:V, no matter how splendidly egalitarian you may think them. . dave souza, talk 16:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

(od) A statement of the order of "the reviewers were chosen for a specific result" is clearly "opinion" unless and until RS sources establish that as a fact. The opinion is an opinion and remains an opinion. That is what Wikipedia policies and guidelines agree on. I submit that this fact as to what Wikipedia policies and guidelines state is not just "my opinion" here, by the way. Meanwhile, the claim that this fact is not a fact is simply Monty Pythonesque utterly once more. Example of non-mathematical facts: The AtNo of Oxygen is 8. Jimbo Wales is the name of the user in whose userspace this page lays. WP:BLP is a Wikipedia policy. Is this quite sufficient? Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:27, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

So in this instance it's clearly a fact that Wigley as a scientist has stated that papers he had refereed and rejected were subsequently published by de Freitas as editor, without Wigley seeing any response from the authors. It is a fact that his informed expert view was that this indicated improper editing by de Freitas. It is also a fact that this expert opinion was evaluated by the EPA, as reported above. It is also a fact that you wrote that you you "believe such opinions are of the same weight as Aesop's fox eating the grapes" It is my opinion that your comment is derogatory about a living person, and is at best a borderline BLP vio. . dave souza, talk 20:40, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Wigley's comments, attributed to Wigley, and from a RS can be cited. The "fact" that this means "improper editing" however, is also an opinion - you seem to think that leaping into calling "improper editing" a "fact" is proper, which is one of the big problems in a number of areas on Wikipedia. And your absurd suggestion that I have made any charge against a living person is outrageous. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Collect, how do you get to The "fact" that this means "improper editing" from my statement that "It is a fact that his informed expert view was that this indicated improper editing by de Freitas"? Your comment looks like sour grapes. . . dave souza, talk 10:49, 16 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)

The above few lines are already in the news (Washington Post, CNET). You made the right decision to pullout wikimedia foundation domains from GoDaddy. Furthermore, it would be wise to organize a global blackout. I am not in USA. Nevertheless, I fully understand the consequences of such an act. Even if you do not perform a full blackout, you may consider a banner on top of website to express the concern of foundation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ali Mirjamali (talk • contribs) 16:20, 14 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)

I just want to echo my support for a blackout of Wikipedia on January 18th in protest of the internet-destroying SOPA. Designer1993 (talk) 17:18, 14 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)

The prelim consideration vote was strongly supported by a long shot. I'm sure another final vote would be a landslide of support. Time for Wikipedia to go dark on the 18th Cowicide (talk) 10:20, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Now see, this is the problem. We're thinking too much about "the majority of people" that voted, Not every single persons vote. It's not fair unless everyone's votes/comments are taken into consideration with the final decision. --Radiokid1010 (talk) 21:42, 15 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)

You're claiming "consensus"??? What chutzpah, considering your own edit history! I am totally gobsmacked, both by that and Jimmy's surprise that "how to appropriately escalate" is unknown. Totally gobsmacked. 99.50.188.111 (talk) 22:19, 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)

Seconding Collect; regarding the articles with outstanding issues, I'm sure you and the rest of the community will be able to take a bit of time to inquire. The potential mis-weighting problem, by emphasis on the client's involvement with the media company and this incident needs to be addressed like all recentism—more and better encyclopaedic research. Thanks for doing the outreach work on this. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:42, 16 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)

I'm encouraging people to reduce the use of the term 'paid editing' because I think it is overly broad and confuses people, in favor of the term 'paid advocacy'. Imagine if a serious research University encourages professors to contribute to entries in their field, giving them credit towards tenure or community service obligations. Then that's paid editing in a sense, but it isn't the issue that we are concerned about. We are concerned about paid advocacy, that is, someone who comes to Wikipedia at the behest of a client who wants to have a better entry. That's problematic, and most of the hypothetical arguments that we hear about how it might be ok are no different from hypothetical arguments that would suggest that it's ok for regulators or judges to take lucrative side jobs with the people they are regulating or judging. And we have sufficient empirical evidence that paid advocacy results in bad edits often enough that it is a net negative to the project. We also know that it is deterrable (no, not perfectly) and replaceable with better ideas about how advocates ought to approach Wikipedia (namely: don't edit articles directly, instead discuss things with the community). I see no material difference between a PR firm doing this or individual consultants doing this.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:34, 16 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)

Yes, indeed, and they knew quite well what they were doing. From The Independent's story:

Discussing techniques for managing reputations online, Mr Wilson mentioned a team that could "sort" Wikipedia. "We've got all sorts of dark arts," added Mr Collins. "I told him [David Wilson] he couldn't put them in the written presentation because it's embarrassing if it gets out."

How right he was. JohnCD (talk) 11:08, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

That article is an interesting example. And what is most interesting about it is not that Bell Pottinger made some edits to it... a compelling criticism of our process. We need some serious self-reflection on these issues. I suspect that if any more examples such as that one existed the media story could have been extremely different. --Errant ^(chat!) 16:47, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

The FT's report has Tim Bell saying: “I hope this is the beginning of a process of us getting to know you better and how to use you better.” (Emphasis added.) The irony of the double meaning in this statement of intent, coming as it does from a skilled professional in the bamboozling business PR pro, is acute. Let us not be bamboozled. Writegeist (talk) 01:09, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Seems like your prejudgement is final once made. Strangely enough, most PR professionals are humans who are not out to "bamboozle" at all. I suggest that such an attitude is counter-productive in the extreme. Jimbo has done well here - and I applaud him. ("How to use you better" clearly refers to using Wikipedia, and not referring to "using" Jimbo. I think it is incumbent on all to learn how to "use Wikipedia better" without including misleading "emphasis") Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:02, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but maybe we don't want to be "used", at least not as a tool in a media image-improvement campaign by some corporation, which is pretty clearly the meaning of the statement. I don't think that that's what we're here for. Herostratus (talk) 15:58, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I fear you read more into the sentence than is there in black and white. This is, alas, a common problem on Wikipedia where people seek out "problems" and avoid "solutions." In this case, I rather think BP and JW are seeking "solutions." Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

"[M]ost PR professionals are humans who are not out to "bamboozle" at all." Sadly the operatives at Bell Pottinger are not in Collect's supposed majority. See 'Bell Pottinger's executives claimed they had mastered the internet, could manipulate Google searches and whitewash Wikipedia entries on behalf of clients who paid handsomely for the services', [4] 'Jimmy Wales has criticised Bell Pottinger's "ethical blindness" as the lobbying company admitted altering details of its clients' reputations online', and 'Mr Wales told the Independent: "I am astonished at the ethical blindness of Bell Pottinger's reaction. That their strongest true response is they didn't break the law tells a lot about their view of the world, I'm afraid."' Writegeist (talk) 18:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Let's look more closely -- one of the edits appears to have been "Removal of the reference to the university drugs conviction of a businessman who was a client of Bell Pottinger." I hate to point this out, bu we have a policy called WP:BLP. I suggest that it is entirely possible that the edit stressing a "university drugs conviction" might have been contrary to WP:BLP, and removal of the minor crime is likely not have been made to "bamboozle" anyone at all. The the Independent says In other cases, damaging allegations against clients of Bell Pottinger, which The Independent cannot publish for legal reasons, were removed from Wikipedia. Has it occured to anyone that if the Independent finds that it would be illegal for them to publish allegations, that WP:BLP might also bar the allegations from being promulgated in Wikipedia? Bamboozle? Or proper action? I daresay that the claim that BP is Satan incarnate would find some editors supporting it, but alas I try to stickk to what the record shows. And if the Independent says it can not publish what was removed from Wikipedia, I rather think we couls assume there is a reason why they can not do so. Ascribing evil motives and "bamboozling" is not how to move on in this world. Hinestly. Collect (talk) 04:29, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah yes of course that explains it -- the hundreds of socking edits were just the conscientious souls at BP ensuring compliance with Wikipedia policy. Poor things, getting dragged over the coals for their troubles. I can't be arsed to continue this. Hinestly. Writegeist (talk) 07:15, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

The Independent is published in London under English libel law, which is notoriously biased towards the alleged victim. In particular, the defendant has to positively prove the factual truth of his statement - it's not sufficient that a fact has been widely reported. Wikipedia is under no such constraint ("Verifiability, not truth"), which I think is a good thing. Also, of course, your logic is questionable. "Here is one edit of Bell Pottinger that I deem good, therefore they are all benevolent" - no, the job of a PR firm is to create a positive impression for its clients, which is in direct conflict with our WP:NPOV, which requires us to paint a neutral picture. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Two things. First, I believe that Collect may have been misunderstood here. If he's making the point that WP:BLP trumps other policies, he's right about that. If there is defamation in Wikipedia, I want people to remove it, even paid advocates who I generally caution against editing articles directly at all. Any libel in a Wikipedia entry is an emergency situation and should be treated as such. Bell Pottinger's wrongdoing had very very little to do with those kinds of examples. What a paid advocate should and could do about libel would include removing it from the article and posting on the talk page, citing WP:BLP, after which there should be a thorough discussion to determine what to do. And Stephan Schulz, you are absolutely wrong that "verifiability, not truth" is any sort of justification for including libelous claims in Wikipedia. It's one of the things that is deeply perverse about that phrase - that it leads people to abdicate moral responsibility for Wikipedia being the best it possibly can be. We have many many instances of people wanting to insert all manner of nonsense on the grounds that it is "verifiable" in the technical sense, even in cases where it is clearly and plainly false. But this is an argument for another day. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:40, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for precisely and accurately noting my position on this. I believe you may recall my position against "Paypedia" some time back when "paid editing" was the subject of lengthy discussions. I also now state that "obscure BLP violations" are, were, and shall be, first and foremost "BLP violations." Collect (talk) 13:00, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

You misread me. I'm not defending keeping known false information under VNT - indeed, I've spoken out against that before. But we do not require proof positive of a fact to include it - we trust reliable sources unless there is significant doubt about their correctness. Everything stricter would make for very tough going indeed. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:00, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I apologize for that. Yes, of course, I see what you are saying now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:12, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

This case does stress the importance of Wikipedia editors evaluating sources for fact checking and reliability. It also vividly demonstrates the problems we have with dealing with obscure BLP violations, leading to living people (in this case an organisation rather than an individual) feeling pushed to pay "professionals" to resolve the issues, instead of getting assistance from Wikipedia. Both the organisation and the PR people would have done well to follow the COI guidance, the onus is on us to make sure that policies are fully and properly followed so that smears don't remain on Wikipedia. . . dave souza, talk 11:11, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment Jimmy said, "...at the behest of a client who wants to have a better entry". A clearer phrase would be, "at the behest of a client who wants to have a more positive or less negative entry". For most people, "better" is what we're trying to achieve. It often means such things as more balanced, more comprehensive, more fully cited - any number of things. We do want better entries. We do not want PR-spun entries, edited for the benefit of the person rather than the reader. We really do need to be clear on this, as people are generally paid to do the former rather than the latter. However, the payment is not the problem. Who benefits is the problem. 75.59.229.79 (talk) 19:33, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

SOPA Blackout

If wikipedia is going to go dark, could the still be a access wikipedia for international users? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.145.244.204 (talk) 19:40, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It seems likely that the blackout will be geotargetted to the US, on the premise that in general, it is US voters who we want to motivate to take the specific action of contacting their congressional representatives.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:10, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Update: reviewing the votes, it seems much more likely now that it will be global, not US-only.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

This is a horrid idea --Shimonnyman (talk) 02:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Very negitive idea! Seems Jimmy forgot WP:VOTE? Bidgee (talk) 02:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I happen to disagree with you both. I think it's important to observe the potential impacts of this bill on the internet as a whole. None of its powers are limited to the U.S. It can devastate the entire English Wikipedia if implemented. Kinaro^{(say hello) (what's been done)} 02:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

APPEAL TO THE PROFESSIONAL (COPY)

This issue has been explained to the user repeatedly. We respect copyrights, so we aren't going to link to his collection of copyrighted Beatles materials.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:57, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This is here (talk page of Mike Linksvayer): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mike_Linksvayer#APPEAL_TO_THE_PROFESSIONAL . Hello, Mike. Please, explain for people, which understand nothing in Rel markup, open sources and so on, that website beatles1.ru is legal, at the CC is here: THE BEATLES DATABASE. They can not understand this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OTRS_noticeboard#Official_notice:_materials.2C_related_to_The_Beatles.2C_can_be_used_via_interactivity . It should be note: If keep silent, it means to be afraid of responsibility. Very bad thing. If something wrong, tell me, what I need to do. OTRS team nothing knows. Fear before EMI. I suggested interactivity - zero of emotions. This is new work with new titles, and with new date of creation. New work consists of large number of materials of other sources (open and free). Note: such cases everywhere are legally. Nobody will implement promotion of cultural diversity and education from only air. This reason lets to do not look for of other reasons, to be in accordance with law. Millions of different legal grounds in my case. P.S. If I am offender absolutely, you must destroy my location at the CC. Copy of this message for Jimbo (talk page): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales . - 2.92.61.138 (talk) 00:16, 15 January 2012 (UTC). Because you do not own the copyright on any of those Beatles videos and materials, you do not have the legal right to release any of it under any Creative Commons license. The only thing you can legally license CC0/public domain from your website is any content you create yourself. This is why OTRS is refusing your argument: that website appears to be a collector of someone else's copyrighted works. We can't use its material unless we have permission from that copyright owner, and Apple Corps. is not likely to grant that. Resolute 00:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

SOPA, geo-location and non-voting residents

Jimbo, I suspet you may not have seen my reply to you a few days ago at WP:SOPA before it was reorganised. You've talked about not wishing to "punish" those living outside the US since they cannot vote or influence anything here. Well as a permanent US resident, neither can I, or millions of other foreigners who live in America either legally or illegally. While I'm in support of any action, should we be punished too? What about American voters living outside the country, like yourself? Matthewedwards :  Chat  19:37, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

No targeting can be perfect. A lack of perfect targeting doesn't mean we must do nothing, nor does it mean we shouldn't try targeting. We should do our best.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:17, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I understand that. Will you be editing from the UK on the day? Matthewedwards :  Chat  21:33, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that depends on the exact technical measures in place and what other people are doing. If non-US editors need help stopping/reverting vandalism, then of course I'll pitch in if I can. However, at the same time, it's worth noting that I'm likely going to be pretty swamped on the day of doing press.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:52, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Mr. Wales, although I can see the logic in making the blackout US specific, the reality is that, should SOPA pass, it will affect all internet users, not just Americans. I love Wikipedia, but I'm more than willing to live without it for 12 hours to get the point across. The web is not simply national, it isn't just a shopping mall; a huge amount of cultural creative work resides on it, as does an enormous wealth of academic content. My thought is that the larger and more widespread the blackout the better. Perhaps it will encourage the governments of other countries to also encourage the US to re-think the SOPA bill. ---- remittancegirl :  Chat  1:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

While that's all true to some extent, it ignores, I'm afraid, that citizens of other countries have very very little influence over the US Congress. Other governments have very very little influence over the US Congress. It is extremely unlikely that an outcry by even close and powerful allies like the UK would give rise to any serious diplomatic pressure on the US to drop this, and such diplomatic pressure would not be felt by Congress directly in any case. No, the only thing that is going to have a material and powerful impact here is voters in the US raising hell.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

What about timing? I mean, 12 hours would seem like enough time to get the word out there. --Radiokid1010 (talk) 16:34, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Getting the word out is only part of the process - and I am getting a level of press interest today that's unlike what I've ever seen before. The real key is motivating people to contact Congress, and so 24 hours is better. (Some people only log in during the day, or during the evenings, etc.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:50, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Nice sig :) Matthewedwards :  Chat  18:59, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Salem (MO) Public Library's block of English-language wikipedia Wicca article, among others

Several stories relating to the incident described above, including the library in question blocking access to the English wicca article from its terminals, have recently been printed. Several can be found here. I was wondering if you might have any comments regarding the matter. I am proposing an opinion piece on the topic for an upcoming issue of the Signpost, and think any comments you might make would be more than welcome. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 20:15, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

I am tempted to just poke gentle fun at them and say I'm just glad they didn't just hear the name and think they should block all of 'Wiccapedia'. But a more serious statement from me is: This is ridiculous and the librarian who did this should be ashamed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:08, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Here's the library's mission statement: "The Salem Public Library will be a reliable resource center and an advocate of intellectual freedom for the community by providing free and equal access to information, materials, services, and programs. It will acquire, organize, and circulate books, non-print materials and services that help educate, enrich, entertain, and inform individuals of all ages. It will promote and encourage the maximum use of its services and materials by the greatest number of people in its service area." They clearly just need to start practicing what they preach. Carrite (talk) 07:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Quite interesting that you can get white people to go on rampage over blocking Wicca while the information that the library also filters all Native American practices as occult and criminal only gets a short mention... Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 11:06, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 11:06, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I was going to comment on the fact that some of the reports appear to be suggesting it was all down to Netsweeper's categorisation. But then I discovered a little snippet on the Church and School of Wicca (originally founded in Salem, Mo) and the allegations levelled at the Frosts and I wonder if a specific keyword ban on Wicca has been enacted in relation to their specific denomination and the implications of it. Of course today many Wiccans distance themselves from the Frosts for the same reason - perhaps the Native american practises are being caught by the same key wording. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 12:20, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

SOPA shelved

While there are some rumors that SOPA is 'shelved', the actual situation is murky. And PIPA is alive and well. If both are definitively dead by Wednesday, I'm sure the Foundation will make a sensible judgment call. But I also doubt if that Congress will come to their senses that quickly!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:48, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
So now we have a problem; SOPA is shelved and (politically) is dead. So is the protext still going to go ahead? No one seems to be discussing this new development. Protesting a bill that has been dead for several might be a bit of a media faux pas :) --Errant (chat!) 10:41, 16 January 2012 (UTC) It is not shelved. There have been contradictory media reports, but the latest that I've heard from Washington is that it is still very much on. There have been some noises about some welcome but inadequate modifications, to be sure. One of the issues we have with our current decision-making process is that it's much too slow. I wish that the RfC had specifically empowered someone (preferably an elected smaller group from within the community, but perhaps the Foundation general counsel or ArbCom or me (though I would prefer not me)) to cancel the protest under some clearly defined circumstances, such as a genuine shelving of the legislation in both Houses. I trust that we'll find a way to do that on the day-of if it seems wisest, but we have to be very careful. One way to think about this is that professional spin doctors working on behalf of the lobbyists and their politicians are surely looking for ways to weave and dodge and confuse the public reporting around this. If they say just the minimum to get us to think that we won so we call off the protest for a few days, and then pop up and pass it quickly before we can hold another RfC, that'd be a bad thing. Going forward in the future, it'd be nice if we had a process that would yield a small representative set of decision makers to make the last-minute play-by-play go well.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:01, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Well Issa has declared vitctory, and Smith has removed it from the floor for the time being. With the Whitehouse basically promising to veto it as it stands that's about as dead in the water as you can get with Congress :) Of course it will pop up again - but not till after the election. A protest *then* will have more impact I suspect (i.e. kill it dead). A protest now isn't likely to have media impact - because the media will just shrug and say "well it's cancelled". They've been clever, for sure, in this move - by continuing with the protest you play into their hands. Just my 2p. --Errant (chat!) 11:30, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Don't worry, we're monitoring carefully. Washington is still asleep right now, 5AM there, but as I said above, the last I've heard from Washington, SOPA is still very much ON. Smith is expected to press forward with hearings this week. I think you are reading too much into contradictory media reports. I do agree that protesting against something that's already dead would not be sensible, but there will be time to determine that between now and January 18th. I recommend that we listen to our advisors, who are very much on the ground in Washington compared to us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:11, 16 January 2012 (UTC) From what I have read, the Republicans in the House are opposed, while Reid in the Senate wants to go full-steam ahead. Obama seems to be on both sides at the same time <g>. The way Congress works, the SOPA as planned seems quite sincerely dead, and it is time for Wikipedia to do talking with those committee staffers to exert influence on any future bills as I noted, I believe, several times before. Collect (talk) 13:06, 16 January 2012 (UTC) My understanding is much the same as Collect. The Whitehouse response to SOPA the other day basically made it untenable in current form, and Smith has explicitly removed it from his agenda (at least according to his last statement on the matter). The risk of protesting now is that the media coverage will be somewhat useless. It's a very clever move by the proponents; right now we simply play into their hands by pursuing a protest. After the election SOPA can come back and our big splash will not be effective (going on previous examples). Politicians are very adept at playing the media in cases such as this (they did it with DMCA) so that the issue remains on the back bench for the wider public. --Errant (chat!) 13:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC) [5], [6], [7] – I believe that Shii and NearlyFreeSpeech.net are right on this one. SOPA isn't going to pass. Wikipedia is falling victim to hype and alarmism. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:48, 16 January 2012 (UTC) I wouldn't be too sure about that. It's not far-fetched to imagine that public opposition to the bill (including Wikipedia's plans to boycott) likely had a role in the reversal of the bill's fortunes. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 13:58, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Perhaps, but it's unlikely that they're just "pretending" to shelve it because they've taken careful note about how long it takes for Wikipedians to form or dissolve a "consensus". --SB_Johnny | talk 14:02, 16 January 2012 (UTC) It's a classic bait and switch; the protest movement will fall for it because we're amateurs at politics, and the politicians aren't. In politics, particularly Congress, how this works is that both sides try to push each other to the brink and hold there as long as possible. The first to go forward usually loses. It happens all the time (even if it is not high profile like this). By pushing the protest we pave the way for legislation to quietly be implemented at a later stage when the protest has bored the media. I am somewhat surprised the WMF's consultants have not explained this :S --Errant (chat!) 15:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC) While I have deep respect for you as you know, I think you might want to reconsider whether perhaps professionals who do this in Washington all the time might not know better. It's a complex matter and not as simple as you might imagine. If we can get voters to engage (and I think we can) and tell their representatives they don't want this, then the vast majority of Congress who aren't in Hollywood's pocket aren't going to forget it. And if we have to protest again, we protest again.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:27, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Well, it strikes me that the professionals you should be watching are the politicians opposing SOPA - who are basically doing exactly as I am suggesting: pulling back ready for next time. :) As nice as getting voters to complain you a) won't sway many (SOPA simply will not bother the majority) and b) you're really fighting a media war (cynic!), if the mass media get it in their heads to kill SOPA then it is done. Politics is, sadly, a game and we are skirting close to lose. I don't think we have the raw power to disrupt the game at this stage. As I mentioned on the SOPA talk page I am very concerned now that the politico's have played this very well; my view is that if the protest plays out on Wednesday then we will see SOPA-like legislation in front of the president by the end of the year. --Errant (chat!) 16:44, 16 January 2012 (UTC) We are the mass media. My view is that if the protest doesn't play out, we will certainly see SOPA-like legislation in front of the president by the end of the year. Our best chance to fight it is to fight it, not to give up and cower in fear.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:12, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Our allies in this (e.g. Reddit, Mozilla, Google) aren't the mass media? Surely, they can have a large impact without Wikipedia's participation. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 18:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC) I'm sure they could have an impact. Google won't go dark for a day. Mozilla's public voice via their website (versus their browser software) is tiny compared to ours. Reddit is great - but it's the tech geek crowd preaching to the choir.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:47, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Our first blackout will be the most powerful, due to its novelty, so we have to be careful not to waste it. If we protest when the news says SOPA has already been defeated - whether that's actually true or not - the media would either (1) point out the seeming mistake, or (2) not cover the event since the bill is already "dead"; either way, the force of our message would be greatly diminished. That being said, I'm no political expert, and am glad to defer to our advisors in Washington, though I hope they'll address these concerns. --JaGatalk 16:52, 16 January 2012 (UTC) Go ahead with the protest! Stop SOPA forever! Now it has been weakened, don't miss the opportunity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angros47 (talk • contribs) 14:11, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Can I get an honest input on my suggestion?

Hi Jimbo,

This is the first wiki-correspondence I've ever written you, so hopefully you don't mind talking with a long-time but somewhat generally incommunicative character that edits Wikipedia. Less than 24 hours before the official closing of the SOPA discussion (that banner, by the way, really needs to go for now), I made a proposal at 3.6: Policy dialectic forum. Traditionally Wikipedia is not intended for advocacy, but I'm sure the community has addressed all those details. Essentially, the idea consists of a discussion forum or page that would be embedded within the blackout screen or banner, allowing Wikipedians, members of the public and especially congressional staffers to collaborate on a compromise. Some editors suggested the blocking of all Congress(wo)men, but we've already done that before for vandalism and that seems like an ill-fitting alternative. My suggestion would benefit Wikipedia by allowing editors, who may or may not be prevented from editing (however the final community discussion resulted), to take a break and work together on discussing the future of Wikipedia. Two-fold, this may also allow policymakers to receive useful input from Wikipedia's perspective, as one earlier user suggested we do, whom I've quoted. It's likely that the community has never done anything of this sort before and it would be important to ensure the website is still running with the blackout/protest screen, and doesn't simply crash, which would unnecessarily increase obscurity. By the way, my position on this issue is similar to the WMF's, in accepting whatever the community has decided to do, although if we are to present a petition and/or an information page, it would be a good idea to make it usefully presentable, incorporate dialectic and work towards actual solutions on top of legitimate protest – which I think may be more effective than flooding Congress with calls, though I have little background on the American policy system. I look forward to reading your input.

Thanks. ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 21:12, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I love your idea of spending the day (while we aren't editing) discussing the future of Wikipedia. It'll be nice to drop all our usual internal arguments for a day and think about how we might simplify and improve processes, grow the community in a positive direction, etc.  :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Just to note. I came here to suggest that this "blackout" be optional. But, from what I've read, a few vocal idiots have the ear of Mr. Wales and he doesn't care about editors who have put their time and effort into this project. So, if nearly eight years of my life doesn't mean anything to Wikipedia, I don't see a reason to continue working on and promoting Wikipedia. It now appears to be a little toy that Mr. Wales has decided he can turn on and turn off whenever he likes. -- kainaw™ 23:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way but the overwhelming consensus of the community, not just a few people, was to do the blackout. Your contributions are much appreciated, and I view this action as a way to stand up for your rights.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Looking at the discussion on your talk page and the vote at the SOPA Initiative page I think it is charitable to say there was community consensus. At least 10% of the votes for a full blackout came from apparent single-purpose accounts. I believe at least as many were just on the edge of being single-purpose accounts. On your talk page it appears even worse. Almost all of the first thirty or so votes at least were random IP votes with comments on this being either their only or almost their only edits on Wikipedia. Quite a large portion on top of that came from stale accounts or newbies. Certainly there are major established editors who favor a blackout, but there are also a substantial number of major established editors who vigorously oppose a blackout. How can anyone take Wikipedia policy seriously any more if the Foundation can just count heads in a vote and decide they can suspend policy to have the entire site used as a platform for pushing some political agenda? What happens when a flood of editors get angry about the next cause célèbre of the Internet?--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:46, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The Foundation didn't count heads. The RfC was closed by volunteer admins, same as usual. I think the community is pretty clear that we should never take action on general political issues, only those that are directly relevant to our mission.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:53, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Please Consider?

What if: Wikipedia was able to be at the forefront of offering up the solutions to what is wrong with the legislation as it is written. What if: The greatest minds from Wikipedia could spell out to the legislators the unwanted repercussions of their intentions to stop piracy? What if: Wikipedia answered the call for input that was asked for at the "We The People" White House Petition Page We the People? What if: The clout that Wikipedia has, was used to contact the White House and offer collaboration instead of protesting? Whitehouse: "Washington needs to hear your best ideas about how to clamp down on rogue websites and other criminals who make money off the creative efforts of American artists and rights holders. We should all be committed to working with all interested constituencies to develop new legal tools to protect global intellectual property rights without jeopardizing the openness of the Internet. Our hope is that you will bring enthusiasm and know-how to this important challenge." What if: Wikipedia answered that challenge? Before you tell me to get my rose colored glasses off and pull my head out of my behind, just please consider this. I know it sounds pollyanna, but isn't there the slightest chance of being part of the solution? I was always taught that you can only complain/disagree for so long... then it becomes time to offer up alternatives to what you believe is wrong. Petersontinam (talk) 01:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. Offering positive policy options is certainly a good idea, though it may take a long time to hit upon ideas that are both popular and helpful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Start here: Wikipedia:SOPA initiative/Ideas. Jehochman ^Talk 01:46, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Thank You for the SOPA and PIPA protest blackout!

I just saw the announcement on facebook and wanted you to know that you have my support and thanks. This is a crucial stand to take on behalf of internet freedom, and I believe you will draw significant attention to the issue. Again, my thanks and best wishes, sir! Jusdafax 01:25, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I just hope you don't blackout other countries such as Australia. Sorry but you would lose my support if you do so. Bidgee (talk) 01:30, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I concur with Bidgee; I am sympathetic to the cause but will boycott Wikipedia if the UK is hit by the blackout. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 01:33, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The SOPA has a potentially global effect on internet censorship, so I wholeheartedly support the global blackout to notify everyone on the world that such act is intolerable. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 01:35, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but the blackout is just as bad as SOPA and PIPA. What a few hundard editors over rule thousands of others? Fine blackout the US since they can have their say but those in other countries don't have a say in the US political arena! Bidgee (talk) 01:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely right. The rest of the world has no say in SOPA or PIPA and a simple notice or banner would suffice for us. Don't punish international editors who can't do anything about it. That is going down absolutely the wrong route. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 01:45, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Dear fellow Wikipedians, a 24-hour blackout isn't that terrible except for Wikiholics. If the bill was passed, the other countries would likely proposed the similar or even more restrictive act. A banner is definitely not enough because it always gets ignored. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 01:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Please quit the BS. Again what can those in other countries do about the bills? Nothing! What will the blackout do? Bidgee (talk) 02:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm very disappointed that although I am a prolific editor (in the top 1000), I have only just heard about this, after it already fait accompli. In what meaningful sense did "the Wikipedia community" decide to do this? StAnselm (talk) 02:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

There was a banner on the top of the site for several days. Other RfC's have been centrally advertised before that. As the RfC closure points out, this discussion received more attention than any previous discussion in WP history. It is a shame that not everyone heard and was able to comment, but the timing made anything longer impossibleQwyrxian (talk) 02:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Really, I never got the banner and I know of a few other editors whom also never seen the so called RfC banner. The whole thing is bullshite. Bidgee (talk) 02:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I, like Bidgee, never got a banner. It's your law, you protest it, you deal with it. Just don't black out the rest of the world please. The rest of the world has no say in your laws. You're a free country, do what you should be doing. Lobby your lawmakers, don't drag the rest of us into your fights.  BarkingFish  02:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Relax—have a cup of tea—it will be over before you know it. People are angry and need to protest. Hopefully they can then turn that energy into something constructive afterwards. Jehochman ^Talk 02:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I never saw the banner, either. And like many people commenting here, I live in Australia. I suspect most of the people who decided this are American. StAnselm (talk) 02:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm Australian, in the most isolated city, aware of the SOPA debates and have been aware of the blackout idea for over a month. I also happen to support it(though I didnt vote!) as US law is what we primarily work under here so it affects all of us. Gnangarra 02:47, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

And it seems a large number of them were SPAs too. It is an utterly revolting RfC closure. It seems to only way to make our displeasure clear will be to protest the protest with a boycott. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 02:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

• http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/English_Wikipedia_to_go_dark gives details. To be utterly clear, I support the decision to blackout all of Wikipedia-en. I realize this comes as a shock to some but please, let us keep this high-profile conversation civil. Jusdafax 02:33, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Which part of we don't have a say on this outside the US can't get through to you? Why should we be affected by what a majority of American editors and SPAs decide? A shock? No, but an utter disgrace, yes most definitely. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 02:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
    • Because if this bill passes, it may affect Wikipedia as a whole just as severely as this protest does. That is why it must be done on a global scale. I really don't understand why 24 hours away from this site is a bother to you. Go outside and toss a ball around. Kinaro^{(say hello) (what's been done)} 02:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
      • The bill is politically a dead duck. What I do with my time isn't your concern; indeed from my contribution history its plentifully clear that I have no problem taking 24 hours off, having only just returned from 4 months away. It's a matter of principle. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 02:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
        • @Kinaro: If, maybe, possibly, could be.... Americans are the only ones with the say on the bill. I had plans on doing some content improvments but really fuck it, why bother when Wikipedia is over run with Americans. Bidgee (talk) 02:48, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
          • "Why bother when Wikipedia is over run with Americans"? What exactly is that supposed to mean, hmm? Kinaro^{(say hello) (what's been done)} 02:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
            • You know what I mean. Americans will do anything to make Wikipedia on how they want it and not allow those whom live in other countries a say. Bidgee (talk) 03:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Protest the protest! Make a statement but by stopping editing and viewing is WRONG.PumpkinSky talk 02:46, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia becomes a politicized entity the second this blackout goes into effect. Horrible. Townlake (talk) 02:52, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Yepper. PumpkinSky talk 02:53, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Nope. Protesting for 24 hours globally was chosen by the community. Jimbo got much support in favor of such a proposition. Not everyone's going to be satisfied, that's the way it is with every issue, but that doesn't mean you need to make overly dramatic statements like that. Kinaro^{(say hello) (what's been done)} 02:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Typical American statment... And it was hardly a consensus, far from it. Bidgee (talk) 03:02, 17 January 2012 (UTC)]

Are you being serious? What does my nationality have to do with my position on this issue? Kinaro^{(say hello) (what's been done)} 03:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

This is a Jimbo decision advancing a Jimbo agenda, pushed along by the same American busybodies who thought Occupy was a great idea. Shameful, this... and bad news for the everyday Wikipedia users who don't even know this site has an administrative backstage where decisions like this are made. Townlake (talk) 03:07, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I've noticed many editors here have used the "I live in Australia" excuse - which actually doesn't cut it. I've been following this SOPA blackout proposal, and the original RfC whn it started on Mr. Wales' talk page. Anyway, barring that, we are all a community here; we have our disputes, our arguments; our best moments; and our worst - but at the end of the day, we are a team. The Wikipedia community. I'm not going stand here and let fellow Wikipedian's hang dry on an issue that may at this time affect them - but in the near future could affect us all. As for Australia, the US is a major influence, and whatever they do, Australia loves to follow. Oh, and for the record, I myself live in Melbourne, Australia. -- MST☆R ^{(Chat Me!)} 03:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Then I'll make it clear that I haven't used said excuse, because I don't live in Australia. I knew about the RfC but saw it was clearly being overrun once it was opened to SPAs so didn't bother, my vote wouldn't have made a difference anyway. Where one lives outside the US is irrelevant to the argument against an international balckout. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be made clear to you that if this bill passes you will experience an international blackout indefinitely. We must demonstrate the impact this will have because it affects ALL of us no matter where we hail. What part of that don't you understand? Kinaro^{(say hello) (what's been done)} 03:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Utter tosh. The bill is dead, what part of that isn't clear? Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

But it isn't "tosh," and it isn't "dead." PIPA is still very much alive in the Senate and SOPA was simply "shelved," which means it could very possibly be brought back up in Congress at any time. We must send a message that we want both bills destroyed now and nothing like them ever introduced again. Kinaro^{(say hello) (what's been done)} 03:17, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

And this "we" is you. Americans, who elect your Senators and Congressmen. Not someone like me sitting in London. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Hey, don't pin this on me. I didn't vote in these corrupt congresspeople. Kinaro^{(say hello) (what's been done)} 03:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I, like many other people from other countries didn't vote for them, so don't blackout us on the grounds that "this is what will happen if the Bill passes" since it is a dead bill. Don't blackout those who have no power or control the US policital process. Bidgee (talk) 03:31, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The whole blackout thing is a bunch of buffoonery. And FYI it's not a Yank thing, I am one. Seems a Jimbo thing.

I'm disappointed that Sue's letter claims that the "Wikipedia Community" decided this, through a "consensus decision-making process". I was outvoted, that's fine, but you shouldn't try to make it seem as if everyone agrees to this. Her letter claims to speak for me and my beliefs, when it in fact does not. Please don't put words in my mouth to make it look like this has more support than it does. Buddy431 (talk) 03:18, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps next year's fundraising appeal will have the integrity to remind would-be donors that Wikipedia is a political organization. Townlake (talk) 03:23, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Politicizing what should be a neutral encyclopedia is a horrible idea. Now wiki is a political action committee. PumpkinSky talk 03:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't value people's opinions based on how pompous and bombastic they sound, I judge them by evidence. That you would call Wikipedia a PAC over this is way missing the point. We're not talking about protesting in favor of some political entity or general position, we're protesting over something that, if passed, could explicitly affect this website. Whether you like that or not is up to you, as reasonable people can certainly disagree, but lay off the hyperbole and the straw man arguments. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll say whatever I want. You're the one sounding pompous. PumpkinSky talk 10:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, and now the ad hominem part. In my experience with logic, responses like that are borne of not being able to properly defend a position; I fully appreciate those who come to different conclusions based on reasoning, but tossing around buzzwords like "PAC" don't draw me in. I've listened to my Congress and president speak too many times to fall for that. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 11:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Money! Power!

Someone came to accuse me of being after money and power. If the money goes to realize our dream of a free encyclopedia for everyone, and if the power is to keep the Internet open and free, then I suppose that's true. And I'm proud of it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Money! Power! Jimbo! Congratulations! Money for free meant for an encyclopedia, used in a power ride, for Mr. Jimbo. Congratulations! And goodbye! - Nabla (talk) 02:55, 17 January 2012 (UTC) Please don't vandalize Mr. Wales' talk page. Kinaro(say hello) (what's been done) 03:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC) You ought to read up on what actually constitutes vandalism, then. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC) (ec)@Kinaro: You call Nabla's comment vandalism? Right... Bidgee (talk) 03:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC) (many edit confilits) [@Kinaro] I am expressing my opinion, possibly harsh, but simply that. Interesting to see one (of possible quite a few) 'freedom' fighter that only allows opinions supporting their own. Jimbo Wales must be proud! - Nabla (talk) 03:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC) Jimbo, I think it would be prudent whenever you come online to rebuff statements like Kinaro's that accuse your critics of "vandalising" your talk page. It'd be highly ironic to be protesting internet censorship and then trying to censor one's own critics... Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:17, 17 January 2012 (UTC) I'm all for having your own opinion but to claim Jimbo is doing this for a power ride or money is just ridiculous and quite frankly nonsensical. At least add a little truth to your statements, otherwise it's nothing more than vandalism in my eyes. Kinaro(say hello) (what's been done) 03:22, 17 January 2012 (UTC) Nabla is free to think what he thinks, and to say what he thinks. If Jimbo doesn't like it, he'll ignore it like he has plenty of other such fanciful claims in the past. But it's not vandalism and you calling it vandalism does yourself no favours. Indeed, if you had reverted his comment as vandalism, it is likely someone would have put it back — because it blatantly isn't. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:24, 17 January 2012 (UTC) I wouldn't have reverted it. This is my opinion outside of policy. Kinaro(say hello) (what's been done) 03:28, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Stop! Please!

The nastiness is escalating! The protest is polarizing and splitting parts of this community. However, it seems to be a done deal; As in any family or body of voters, once a decision is made you won't always agree with it...but at least be civil to each other in your arguments. Damn. This is like watching your parents fight, times 1000. Back and forth with personal attacks...getting worse and worse...you are turning on each other! I personally don't agree at all with a blackout, but what is even harder to see is the venom coming out from this. Whatever Nationality, whatever side of the issue, whatever your feelings...just please stop being nasty. I don't think anything can be done to change what will happen with a blackout, but it shouldn't be ripping this place apart. Petersontinam (talk) 03:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree. I've learned to walk away from unpleasant people, which seems to be the best we can do at the moment. For understandable reasons, Jimmy's WP talkpage is often a lightning rod for those with a beef. Jusdafax 03:50, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Frankly I don't see any personal attack from the proponents of the blackout. If that vandalism claim is personal attack, so be it and let them all archived over time. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 03:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I frankly think it's better for everyone to vent now. Let the Brits and Australians do their usual whinging about Americans, and let the Americans make the usual comebacks; it fades away after people realize how retarded it all sounds. Soon enough it'll just be a memory and people will be going about their business as usual, for better or for worse. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Proves why Americans think they over rule other countries. Sorry but the Americans are whinging at a dead bill which isn't going to be passed. Bidgee (talk) 04:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Like I was saying about how it sounds... The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 04:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

More like political bullshite. Bidgee (talk) 04:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Mild venting occurs now. I believe the consequences of abandoning Wikipedia's core mission will be realized later, when Wikipedia attempts to organize its next fundraising drives. Hope Jimbo finds this all worthwhile. (And yes, Blade, this is politics and marketing; Jimbo's Blackout will have no impact on Wikipedia's survival.) Townlake (talk) 04:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

NO, it really isn't about money.--MONGO 04:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

"Abandoning Wikipedia's core mission"? That is a massively naive statement. This issue is about affirming Wikipedia's core mission. It has everything to do with Wikipedia's survival, and nothing to do with money. --Epipelagic (talk) 09:35, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Why aren't Google and Twitter concerned? Viriditas (talk) 09:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Google and twitter are both very concerned and have come out strongly against these bills. They are working hard on the ground in Washington to lobby Congress.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I meant was, why aren't they joining Wikipedia in the blackout? Viriditas (talk) 09:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I would be very surprised if they don't do something to protest. But each organization has to make its own analysis of what they think would be the most effective means of communicating the point. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} via alternate account 09:45, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Considering the number of users reached if all three went down on the same day with a brief informative message, I think that would be the most effective means of getting the point across. Viriditas (talk) 09:47, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Twitter seems to have backed off,[8] though pulling back from calling it "silly".[9] You'll have seen the Indy's interview. Also nice to see Rupert Murdoch helping out, . dave souza, talk 10:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Stop the blackout!

Mr. Wales,

I am contacting you because I cannot find any other open forum to discuss the proposed protest against SOPA and PIPA. I am here to try and persuade you to at least delay, if not stop, the impending blackout. I support the cause whole-heartedly, but such a rash action as has been proposed will undoubtedly have negative consequences. My biggest concern is that people will not see past their frustration of Wikipedia going down and recognize the cause. The Occupy Wall Street movement is my case in point. No one is listening to their calls for change because everyone agrees they are being a public nuisance and an irritant on the national level. In the same way, denying access to a service millions value and require would only place Wikipedia in a negative light. The point we want to make would be disregarded because of the tactics used to make it. In addition, the entire "blackout" idea is a massive violation of WP:POINT. Denial of access to the entire site most certainly constitutes disruption, and we are definitely attempting to make a point by doing it. Once again, I must state that I entirely support the cause, but oppose the extremism about to be carried out in its name. Changing the site's graphic design to primarily black, and sending Wikipedia users through a page explaining the cause before accessing the site would also convey the message, but without the cost of creating enmity with our users. I beg you to prevent the dangerous move Wikipedia is about to make.

Thank you,

Alphateam7911 (talk) 05:26, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

"Everything in moderation, moderation in everything." -Unknown

This is a very good point about WP:POINT. FWIW, I have posted a userbox at User:StAnselm/SOPA. StAnselm (talk) 05:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Yup. Wikipedia should obviously be pointless. Stands to reason... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:44, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, this clear violation of WP:POINT has been sanctioned by the necessary factions of the "Wikipedia community." There's no stopping Jimbo's Blackout. Townlake (talk) 06:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Either that, or a law that could easily take down Wikipedia itself is being effectively protested by an unprecedented majority/consensus of the "Wikipedia community." That's how neutral and reliable sources such as the New York Times are also reporting it.[10] Kudos and congratulations to the Wikipedia Community for taking a stand to defend its own existence with this widely reported and supported "Wikipedia Blackout." First Light (talk) 06:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

A majority? Are you kidding? 1,800 users participated in the discussion of the blackout; over 34,000 users edited Wikipedia at least 5 times in December, and many many more visited without editing. A simple sitewide "yes/no" vote could and should have been taken, but nope; Wikipedia's navel-gazing class had numerous unfollowable discussions of the issue in many places, which of course ultimately turned into a vote, and one that excluded the vast majority of the site's users. Terrible form, and the buck stops with Jimbo, who originally sparked this nonsense. Townlake (talk) 07:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The NYT article has a link to Wikipedia's debating and votes. Petersontinam (talk) 07:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Also, please read comments under the NYT's article. They are mixed and very interesting. Petersontinam (talk) 07:17, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Townlake - compare the number of commentators/etc. who participated in the decision with the numbers for any other Wikipedia discussion. I strongly disagree with this decision to blackout, but I wholeheartedly agree with the discussion closers' "consensus to blackout" close. I may wish there weren't consensus, but ... there is. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} via alternate account 09:33, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Feel free to join me in protesting the blackout by blacking out your userpage, btw. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} via alternate account 09:35, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Does this mean that policy is pointless? If it can be overridden by agreement between the right people, does it have any power at all? Policy was meant to be binding, so we can't just disregard it because of consensus. Especially in a situation with such far-reaching consequences. Alphateam7911 (talk) 13:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

With all respect, the Community voted on the blackout. There was a chance to discuss it there, and the blackout passed. I would much rather have Wikipedia blocked to show solidarity with the cause than have us carry on regardless. Sometimes, the worst possible action is the best possible choice. doktorb _words^deeds 09:48, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I was aware of the discussion, followed it, but did not !vote. I have no way of knowing how many others did likewise, or why. Changing the world has always been political, but has never been less politicized. Off for 24 hours, passive protest, impact (see WP:CRYSTAL). Still coming back to edit. Dru of Id (talk) 10:43, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

@Doktorbuk The whole community had no chance to discuss it, due to the fact there was no banner/site message pointing to the discussion/vote/poll. I have no issue on having a banner but not locking the whole site down. The blackout will not help Wikipedia's image at all and a lot of the media is just using the PR release by the WMF which in itself is a classic case of POV PR. Bidgee (talk) 11:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

There shouldn't have been a discussion at all. Now that the blackout has been decided on, Wikipedia has lost the right to call itself neutral. Its bordering on disgusting that we're taking sides like this. I won't be donating again and I can barely stand to even be on this website. Wiki is supposed to be a free encyclopaedia, open to all to read or edit. Now we're a campaign group. Does anyone know if Encyclopaedia Britannica is doing a blackout? Pascal (talk) 11:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Your melodrama is touching. Wiki has been at the forefront of making information and education available to all. When SOPA comes along to destroy that, why should Wiki sit by and do nothing? You should be proud of Wikipedia for making this stance. I think the whole Foundation stands strong today. If you "can barely stand" to be here, you can't be much of a supporter to begin with. doktorb _words^deeds 12:03, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Adding to the comment above, Pascal, do you think not "campaigning", as you say, will simply just make SOPA/PIPA - go away? -- MST☆R ^{(Chat Me!)} 12:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I love Wikipedia, I think its one of the greatest resources on the net. But that's only because the information here is free (or supposed to be free) from people's opinions and beliefs. I am opposed to SOPA, but Wikipedia is certainly not the place to be protesting. What comes next? English libel laws? Chinese political prisoners? Oh, but SOPA is threatening to wikipedia specifically... Well, leave that to WMF's lobbyists. How can we be free info for all if we're blacking out the site? How are any of the editors expected to be neutral in their work here if the site itself isn't neutral? Pascal (talk) 12:13, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

If you love Wikipedia so much, why do you want it to be crippled by SOPA/PIPA? Do you think the project will be resourceful if we just sit down, do nothing, and let SOPA/PIPA rule the internet? Finally, you won't need to worry about Wikipedia, because if these to disruptive bills (that's what they are) pass, there probably won't be a Wikipedia to worry about - that is why the community is taking these steps. Oh and last but not least, would you rather a policy broken - or the whole encyclopedia to be broken? -- MST☆R ^{(Chat Me!)} 12:27, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

1) They won't pass. 2) Wikipedia is supposed to be against copyvio anyway. 3) A global blackout for a US law does not represent a worldwide view on the subject. 4) The vote taken was crippled by problems, as mentioned by others above. 5) Its not just a policy that's at stake, it's our entire reputation. Wikipedia is already derided by all for its "inaccuracy", do we really need to be accused of a liberal bias too? Yes, SOPA is a threat, but so are sock puppet accounts and vandals and IP users and a lack of references. I honestly don't think the road we've embarked on as a community will lead anywhere other than a significant dilution of what Wikipedia was originally supposed to be. Wiki is not a campaign group. Wiki is not a protest organisation. Wiki is an encyclopedia, first and foremost, and so it should remain. Pascal (talk) 12:33, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Pascal is right. A blackout is inconsistent with what WP is. How about taking down the Statue of Liberty for a day, if consensus doesn't like a Supreme Court decision? WP should take the "Jesus" route – if nailed to the cross, forgive them they know not what they do, and rise again. Be consistent! (Sheesh.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 12:45, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. If you go to a library and check out a printed encyclopedia, it won't lock itself up because someone wants to put it on the "banned books" list. Wikipedia's primary purpose has always been to provide information, and we need to recognize that that should come above political campaigning of any kind. Alphateam7911 (talk) 13:05, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

So we will just let 11 years of the encyclopedia, swirl down the drain - all because some editors do not wish to go head to head with one of many policies, that aren't set in stone - or can't save something that some of us, including myself, spend most of our day on. I'd prefer a site that doesn't have restrictions - Than a site basically run by SOPA/PIPA -- any day of the week. My sympathy goes out to the editors who have spent the majority of those eleven years here, building this place of knowledge - that now have a terrible though in their head, about what SOPA/PIPA can potentially do!

This is a drastic time, and with drastic times, drastic measures are called into place. -- MST☆R ^{(Chat Me!)} 13:53, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

How should I contact you?

Dear Mr. Wales I am a reporter with Business & Economy (www.businessandeconomy.com), a business magazine in India. I'm writing a two page feature on the lessons that can be learned by Indian institutions and internet firms from Wikipedia's blackout. As the Indian government too has recently introduced a quite stifling online policy and has started acting unilaterally against leading internet firms in India, I wish to establish through my article why Indian firms also should engage the government more forcefully. In this regard, I wish to interview you. Alternatively, I could send questions through e-mail if you prefer. I'll be grateful for your time as this would really benefit not only the internet audience but also civil society in general in India.

Warm Regards Amir Moin Special Correspondent Business & Economy — Preceding unsigned comment added by AmirMoin (talk • contribs) 10:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)User:Jimbo_Wales#Contacting me. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 11:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

A sad day

I would urge you to reconsider this action. It is blatantly unfair against those of us outside the USA (as we have no say in American politics), as well as a violation of WP:POINT and WP:NPOV. At least one administrator has already resigned, and I have decided to withdraw from Wikipedia for at least a week in protest.  An optimist on the run! 12:47, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

The decision was made by the community, not Jimbo's own. He would never, ever perform any action to override such decision with his Founder right again. Just so you know. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 13:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

No - the community (or rather the few who were aware of the debate) made the request. It is the foundation's decision whether to apply it or not (in the same way the the foundation decided recently not to apply the request to prevent non-confirmed users from creating articles).  An optimist on the run! 13:53, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I used to be part of the community until this so-called idiocy took place. It is very clear that the community is a very small group of people who have no comprehension of American politics. If you don't like what Congress is doing, don't re-elect the same guys into Congress. If you haven't voted, get off your lazy ass and vote for someone who will represent you. Sitting a park or turning off Wikipedia is juvenile idiocy. I used to think I was part of a community. My monetary donations, time donations, and intellectual donations have gone to a group of people with kindergarten-level understanding of American politics. -- kainaw™ 13:57, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

So what's the point of protesting here. Go straight to Meta Wikimedia for RfC or email to the Foundation directly. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk) 14:00, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Refund

For all those who are here with arguments about the blackout idiocy, I suggest we form a class-action lawsuit against Wikimedia. We have donated time, content, and money to this project. The agreement was clear. This was a free and open encyclopedia. It is not longer free and open. A very small minority has stolen it and is using it for a political toy. I demand a full refund of all monetary donations I've made and a complete removal of all content I've donated. I suggest all others demand the same. -- kainaw™ 14:04, 17 January 2012 (UTC)