Jump to content

User talk:Jimbo Wales

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lucabrak (talk | contribs) at 10:28, 8 September 2012 (→‎Avoiding unpleasant messages). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.


(Manual archive list)

The New Wikipedia?

Very interesting but this sort of thing just hurts my head. I cannot for the life of me imagine why on earth anyone cares enough to spend this many hours fighting about it. I advise the world to relax a notch or two.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ahem! Let It Be... Formerip (talk) 21:49, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hammersoft: I thought the Golgafrinchams were unable to invent fire because their marketing consultants couldn't agree on why people needed fire... or was it that they couldn't agree on what parliamentary procedure to use in their meetings to discuss inventing fire? My commanding officer swore that the entire planet was about to be eaten by a mutant star goat... sorry about that. Back to your regularly scheduled grammatical dispute. I try to Imagine (get it?) what John Lennon would think about all this were he here to see it. I think he would find it very funny, after all, here's a guy who, whenever asked where the name "Beatles" came from, came up with a different fake story every time, just because he got tired of giving the same answer, and now this project has expended gigabytes of storage (and counting) debating, with great earnestness, the crucial issue of whether to put a "The" or a "the" in front of it. There's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend... Neutron (talk) 22:30, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe Jimbo could just flip a coin. And someone could make a template On 4 September 2012, Jimbo flipped a coin. From that day forth this article consistently uses..... Just think how many pointless arguments could be solved this way - French pancakes, Cultured milk products, hyphens vs n-dashes.... --Elen of the Roads (talk) 21:52, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This idea amuses me greatly. I am thinking of the natural objections and next steps. Why is Jimbo's coin so special? Even Jimbo himself acknowledges that he'd like to have systems in place so that his authority continues to be diminished over time. Is it really right for any one man's coin to have so much power? What we need is a consensus of coin flips. Decisions can only be made when at least 80% of coins agree.
The point I'm driving at is that I think there— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimbo Wales (talk • contribs) 13:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There was a coin-toss template, but it got deleted by the overly tidy minded. Rich Farmbrough, 15:15, 7 September 2012 (UTC).[reply]
I take issue with the dispute being trivialized. Somehow, I don't think everyone's reaction would be the same if we had a contingent of editors going around insisting that every occurence of the indefinite article "a" be capitalized, or that we be banned from using it in the middle of a sentence. It's precisely because the community at large has refused to address this issue in the past that I and other editors have gotten so fed up with the constant bickering that we've quit Beatles-related articles entirely. Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 21:57, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You may say Jimbo's a dreamer, but he's not the only one . . . Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:03, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Get back, Jimbo. (This is terrible, it reminds me of the time I got involved in a fish-pun match, just for the halibut, for cod's sake.) Neutron (talk) 22:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Evan, my comments do not in an sense mean that I trivialize the dispute. Quite the contrary. The fact that such a debate can occur and cause such massive upheaval is a testament to how at least some aspects of this editing model have failed. --Hammersoft (talk) 22:17, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I do want to trivialize the issue. There is no reason you can't handle this the same way I handle American/British spelling changes in the articles I watch, namely, ignore it. Just ignore it. Really. Looie496 (talk) 22:40, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Um... No. I can't ignore it. Not when it's being brought up on a continual basis by trolls and sockpuppets engaged in a campaign to drive away everyone who disagrees with them. Not when I've dedicated a good portion of my time online to making sure no one ever has to deal with it again, only to be rewarded by constant personal attacks and threats against my life. If you don't want to care about it, that's fine, but don't presume to tell me what to do unless you know the full details of the situation. It's easy to look at it from afar and say, "Dur-hur-hur; ass-hats fighting over a tee! Funny!" But unless you've spent month after month being degraded and attacked because you tried to help resolve this like I have, you haven't a clue what you're talking about. Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 22:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC)\[reply]
Can't one of you code-bot-wizard guys (or gals) invent a thing where you put in your preferences whether you want to see "The" or "the" in front of Beatles, Yardbirds, Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (really dating myself here I guess) and whatever, and it automatically capitalizes the "T" if you want. I've seen more amazing things done on here, that shouldn't be any problem at all. I guess it would be tough for names that are also words, like t/The Who, and let's not even talk about t/The t/The. (A little punctuation humor, or is it humour, there.) Neutron (talk) 22:58, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Or, as an alternative, siteban everybody involved. There you go – problem solved. That would at least get rid of the first over-obsessive batch until, inevitably, another batch comes around. --MuZemike 04:51, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Um....No I can't ignore it? Sure you can. You're not willing to ignore it and there's a huge difference.You can ignore it, but you aren't willing to. Silling f'n worthless argument, but you can't ignore it... --Onorem♠Dil 21:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So you're suggesting... what, exactly? That I bury my head in the sand like you and everyone else have? Everyone has been ignoring it since it started, and have you seen it go away yet? Do you honestly think looking the other way and saying "lalala, I can't hear you" is going to accomplish any more than it already has? You're confusing your own interest in this dispute with its validity; they are not the same thing. If you have nothing to contribute on the subject, then do not comment, and do not demean and insult those who are actually trying to bring it to an end. Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 22:34, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's the kind of silly disagreement that has led to a complex mediation request and fights across the project, that could easily make one accidentally say "grow the fuck up" in frustration, whether you've been involved in the case or not. dangerouspanda 09:06, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious, why are disagreements over typography inherently silly and childish? This is an encyclopedia is it not? I suppose you recommend all parties stop debating voluntarily and agree to allow whoever edits the page last to have the final word? What if I went to the United States article and demanded that all instances of "the" before US be capped, e.g. "The United States"? Or how about if I went to the Toronto Maple Leafs' article and demanded all mid-sentence instances of the team name be formatted: "The Toronto Maple Leafs". I suppose anyone who opposed me at those articles would also be silly immature time wasters. Is it possible that not every party to every dispute is equally wrong to support their position? The only reason this has now gone to MedCom is because others have passed the buck with a "shut-up and find something more important to do" reply. Is it so wrong to want this to end, but not want to voluntarily follow an arbitrary demand not supported by any external manuals of style and without any due process? ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 22:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My point was about the setting up of a court with a panel of judges, who would accept a 7-to-3 decision to enforce a rule.--andreasegde (talk) 07:51, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I thought it might have been about the cultural implications of adopting a judicial model to decide details of our Manual of Style. Like, isn't there some easier way of doing this (eg WP:CONSISTENCY)? —MistyMorn (talk) 10:31, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see no reason to believe that would be any more effective than any of the other non-solutions that have been tried over the reasons. It's taken outside (MedCom) intervention to put a stop to this because some people can't let it go. Consensus isn't enough anymore. Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 10:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Saying "Consensus isn't enough anymore" is what is most worrying. Creating a precedent in this way will give credence to people saying "consensus isn't enough anymore" at any time in the future. It's a long and slippery slope.--andreasegde (talk) 12:26, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I am only asking for clarification about consensus, and if it is to be abandoned in favour of a defined percentage of voters in a poll.--andreasegde (talk) 19:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
People obsessing over minutia in articles devising overly elaborate decision procedures to resolve such issues? Who'd have guessed that was going to happen? Tijfo098 (talk) 20:39, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think the consensus over this issue is almost certainly that it is a monumentally stupid thing to waste so much time over. Jimbo should toss a coin, and everyone involved should find something more useful to do. If they can't, they should be shown the door. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:46, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure the coin will care who gives it a toss.
You're right about what the consensus here is, but we haven't really answered the question asked. It looks like some odd means of deciding have been suggested but rejected. There's going to be a poll (not clear what form this will take if not an RfC), a perfectly reliable editor will close it and the disputants agree to be bound. That seems to me like a good way of doing it. Maybe they care too much. But we're all capable of being nerds from time to time. Formerip (talk) 21:40, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Which proves the point about wasting time? Hot Stop (Edits) 06:33, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Time will tell. If the coming poll yields a clear consensus then it will be at once obvious which side was correct all along and which side was wasting other people's time. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 06:52, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong. There isn't a 'correct' answer. It is a matter of opinion, nothing more. And since there is no more likely to be a clear consensus now than there has been in the past, it will be obvious that all those involved in this facile bit of nit-picking have been wasting everyone's time yet again. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:41, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly! No correct answer; sort of like the opinion as to whether the word "Wikipedia" should be spelled "Wikipedia" or "gfdxklmkldfmdkl". Evanh2008 (talk|contribs) 22:49, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Whoa! Slow down there, Socrates. Seriously, you think there is no right or wrong answer to that?! Formerip (talk) 22:52, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why is there not a correct answer to "the" v. "The"? Every known style guide agrees with our Wikipedia MoS, which says very clearly to lower-case the definite article mid-sentence when mentioning the Beatles. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 23:41, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Scientology articles and our policy on biographies of living people

Recently, a couple changes to List of Scientologists that were in violation of our policy on biographies of living people (WP:BLPCAT in particular) popped up on my watchlist. A few days later, when no one had fixed them, I took a closer look and started some threads on our BLP noticeboard ([1], [2], [3], & [4]). These were all dealt with quickly. The next set of BLP issues I posted there, however, got no response and were archived without being addressed ([5], [6], & [7]). After all the attention that this topic area got some time ago, I am surprised to see that edits like this can be made by anon IPs on the main list article and remain uncorrected when there are over 100 people watching the list. I have no special interest in Scientology except that it serves as a conveniently polarized arena. If Wikipedia cannot enforce its own policies on Scientology where the opposing sides are easy to tell apart, what hope is there for the more nuanced religious subject areas? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 21:51, 4 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If the article continually gets IP vandals adding BLP issues to it, I would think it should be a candidate for indefinite semi-protection. SilverserenC 01:10, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indefinite semi-protection for all lists that have BLP implications would be a sensible and obvious idea, but it is met with resistance from those who feel that "anyone can edit" is absolute. That doesn't deal with the individual cases, though. One would think that pointing out BLP violations on the BLP noticeboard and Jimbo's talk page would be enough to get them fixed, but apparently not. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As for me, after the fiasco of a majority in favor of flagged revisions and it still not being implemented, I'm willing to indef semi anything with BLP implications, and I hope all admins do the same. It's a shame to have to semi-protect things, but without other tools at our disposal, there is often no other choice.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:41, 5 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Many of the additions to religious- or sexuality-related lists and categories (the two areas covered by WP:BLPCAT) are made by signed-in editors, but semi-protection would at least limit the BLP violations introduced by anon IP editors unfamiliar with our policies. I suggest that edit notices be created for all lists by religious affiliation or sexuality reminding editors of the BLP policy regarding lists. If someone feels like semi-protecting these lists, Category:Lists of people by belief is a good place to start, but it is incomplete. List of Unification Church members is one example of a list not included in that category. Similarly, Category:Lists of LGBT-related people would be the place to start for sexuality. Incidentally, since I started this thread, the edit that I pointed out to List of Scientologists has been corrected, but another anon IP has added Will Smith to the list without a source. This is a known problem area, 102 people have the page on their watchlist, page views have more than doubled since I brought it up here on one of the most watched pages on Wikipedia, yet the Will Smith edit has gone unchallenged. Something isn't working. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 02:24, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I created a bunch of editnotices for most religious and sexuality-related lists in 2010/2011 with some help from Noleander (and the editnotice is implemented on List of Scientologists), but they are clearly not 100% effective. There's a subpage in my user space listing all the ones that were done: User:Jayen466/BLP_Edit_notices. The religious ones look like this: Template:Editnotices/Page/List_of_Scientologists. (If there are any religious or sexuality-related lists that lack an editnotice, let me know and I'll create them.)
I used to do a lot of work on List of Scientologists (and have certainly removed Will Smith in the past) but I am fed up. My time is of some value, and the system is so ridiculously vulnerable that it's just an insult to expect someone to fix the thing over and over again for free.
I share your disappointment with the non-implementation of flagged revisions, Jimbo. The system is a resounding success in the German, Polish and other Wikipedias. It has practically eliminated vandalism there, because there is no point vandalising an article if your edit is only seen by one Wikipedian who reverts it, and is never seen by the public. This past week, Wikipedia was in the news over the Mia Love vandalism (racist and misogynist). Do we actually want to have headlines like that, just to be in the news? I sometimes wonder. I simply do not understand why this project has this addiction to vandal fighting, when there is an obvious, demonstrably working and effective way to prevent vandalism altogether. Do we like the drama so much? JN466 07:00, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
@Jimmy. For some time I've been indefinitely semiprotecting articles I come across where there has been a history of IP BLP violations, and no-one has yet challenged me on any of those actions. But that's only a small proportion of the BLPs I come across. Are you really suggesting locking down any article which has BLP implications? Taken literally that would mean that a newbie who submits a new article on a person would find that their new article had become locked so that they couldn't edit it. If at the same time it had been template bombed with a bunch of tags requesting references or other changes that they were now unable to do then we'd have become much more bitey, and somewhat more perverse. As an alternative, how about filing an RFC on moving BLP semi-protection from "heavy and persistent" to more of a hair trigger - giving admins discretion to semi-protect any article where an IP has committed a serious BLP violation. ϢereSpielChequers 08:19, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Avoiding unpleasant messages

Is there a list of articles that one should not edit if one wants to avoid unpleaseant messages such as this one [8]?

My previous contributions,

  • 11:11, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+267)‎ . . Gjørv Report ‎ (→‎Reactions)
  • 10:49, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+36)‎ . . Ullersmo Prison ‎ (Øystein Mæland) (top)
  • 10:47, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+37)‎ . . Øystein Mæland ‎ (Category:Conscientious objectors) (top)
  • 10:44, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+357)‎ . . Øystein Mæland ‎ (As a conscientous objector who refused to work as a conscripted military physician, he worked as a prison physician for Siviltjenesten at Ullersmo Prison from 1989 to 1990.)
  • 10:05, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+22)‎ . . m Gjørv Report ‎ (→‎Reactions)
  • 10:01, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+6)‎ . . Eurocopter EC135 ‎ (Norwegian Police Service)
  • 09:58, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+678)‎ . . Eurocopter EC135 ‎ (Unsuitable for police snipers)
  • 09:38, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+225)‎ . . Gjørv Report ‎ (Oslo's chief of police wrote in an e-mail)
  • 09:29, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (-78)‎ . . Gjørv Report ‎
  • 08:58, 5 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+109)‎ . . 2011 Mazar-i-Sharif attack ‎ (→‎Riot) (top)
  • 10:26, 4 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+342)‎ . . Øystein Mæland ‎ (The pacifism of the later police director is relevant. Undid revision 510734237 by Saddhiyama (talk))
  • 09:57, 4 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (-83)‎ . . Øystein Mæland ‎
  • 09:53, 4 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+342)‎ . . Øystein Mæland ‎ (He refused to perform military service as a conscript, citing his pacifist views.)
  • 09:45, 4 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+8)‎ . . Gjørv Report ‎ (→‎Reactions and Post report publication developments)
  • 09:33, 4 September 2012 (diff | hist) . . (+296)‎ . . USS Farragut (DDG-99) ‎ (A fact-finding commission has been constituted by Forsvarets operative hovedkvarter) --Lucabrak (talk) 08:17, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why does a confirmed sockpuppet get unblocked [9] after only one day?

"Maybe that's why there are so few Norwegian editors in here; every time a new user come along and do stuff that one of the admins in this projects dislike, the user gets blocked as a "sockpuppet of Sju hav"? Mentoz86 (talk) 18:07, 31 August 2012 (UTC)". --Lucabrak (talk) 08:59, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

First, I do not believe that Meco is an admin. Second, yes, there are probably much better ways to say "based on your editing pattern so far, you appear to possibly be a WP:SOCK of a previously-banned user - if you're not, sorry for the inconvenience" dangerouspanda 09:37, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that you are hinting that there are acceptable ways of saying "I do not have good faith in your edits, so therefore I am hereby taking a dump on you on your user page".
Maybe User:Roghue can enlighten us if he thinks "sorry for the inconvenience", is good enough for experiencing a "confirmed" [10] shafting for a day. --Lucabrak (talk) 10:05, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The admin made a mistake, removed the block etc and apologised. Mistakes happen, it is human nature. I also don't think Panda is hinting at anything. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:06, 6 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a system in place, so that there will not be cases in the future of rogue administrators/vigilantes doing similar stuff, on a whim? If wikipedia does not formally sanction the administrator that made the mistake, then it does not seem to be an issue taken to seriously. (The administrator handed down the most serious punishment we have. Maybe society can learn from us, by putting people on death row on a whim, and later say "we made a mistake, and we will make no attempt at preventing a future system failure".) --Lucabrak (talk) 09:28, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just as the admin is supposed to WP:AGF towards you, you are also required to show the same level of WP:AGF towards them. Admins are given certain powers and responsibilities by the community, and are expected to use their own judgement. For example, one of the most common reasons for blocking is the WP:DUCK test - at it's most basic form, it's simply a "hunch" based on a pattern. Indeed, this appears to be why you were blocked. DUCK-blocks happen many many times a day - some of them are indeed in error. Most admins have used it at least once, and most admins have probably blocked 1 person in error at least once.
Blocking is not punishment - it's protecting the project. Comparing a minor block to death row is more than just a little bit extreme, and is probably detracting from your concern.
The least common thing on Wikipedia is a sincere apology - and you got one. Errors happen, and a minor block from a website for what appeared to someone's judgement to be a right reason is not physically harmful to you, not should it affect you in the future.
If you believe that this is a regular occurrence by the specific administrator, then you can open an WP:RFC/ADMIN about them.
However, if I were you, I would focus on avoiding a future block by reversing the way you're thinking: I would say to myself "more than one person thinks I'm someone else who is a bad, bad person ... how to I avoid this in the future so that it doesn't happen again" dangerouspanda 09:59, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Lucabrak has actually never been blocked. Looie496 (talk) 17:07, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I asked a question pertaining avoiding unpleasant messages. And so far I have seen no criticism of the poster of the mentioned message. No criticism and no sanctions can be interpreted as, anyone who wants to send the same message to anyone, can do so without any fallout.
"Comparing a minor block to death row". One of the harshest protective measures of societies, is the death penalty. One of our project's harshest protective measures, is an indefinite block. If one of our harshest protective measures is not punishment, then a case might be made for "death row not being punishment". (Both protective measures might pass a duck test regarding "punishment". Death row can be considered extreme—nothing else in this discussion I would call "extreme".) --Lucabrak (talk) 10:28, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your opinion

I'd be interested to learn your opinion about this article http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/09/an-open-letter-to-wikipedia.html --67.169.11.252 (talk) 18:53, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded. The article begins as follows: Dear Wikipedia, I am Philip Roth. I had reason recently to read for the first time the Wikipedia entry discussing my novel “The Human Stain.” The entry contains a serious misstatement that I would like to ask to have removed. This item entered Wikipedia not from the world of truthfulness but from the babble of literary gossip—there is no truth in it at all. Yet when, through an official interlocutor, I recently petitioned Wikipedia to delete this misstatement, along with two others, my interlocutor was told by the “English Wikipedia Administrator”—in a letter dated August 25th and addressed to my interlocutor—that I, Roth, was not a credible source: “I understand your point that the author is the greatest authority on their own work,” writes the Wikipedia Administrator—“but we require secondary sources.” Thus was created the occasion for this open letter. After failing to get a change made through the usual channels, I don’t know how else to proceed. A case of Wikipedia hubris? JN466 21:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I initially thought that, but once the timeline was explained, it only brought further confusion. His interlocutor appears to have been his biographer, who suddenly began changing the article section in question. Of course, he was reverted for unsourced changes. Then the biographer reverted back, saying that he was the biographer, but without a source for the change, there's no way we could accept it or even really trust him at his word. Thus, the article was reverted back again and other users added in more reliable sources that further confirmed the way the Inspiration section was written. I don't have a problem with things so far.
But, after that, it doesn't appear that the biographer contacted OTRS or any other Wikipedia related noticeboard or service. I'm not sure who this administrator in question is he is referring to or what he means when the administrator "wrote" to him, since there's certainly nothing on the article talk page about this.
So, it's all very confusing. It seems like Roth just strode straight into our COI guideline and didn't even back himself up with any sources or even proof that he was who he said he was (or who his biographer said he was at least). SilverserenC 01:08, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Is his biographer Special:Contributions/Nabokov9 who is also apparently the biographer of John Cheever ‎and perhaps others? Dream Focus 01:29, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • If the guy doesn't want an article to mention his nervous breakdown, we shouldn't be listing that. I see that was one thing his biographer removed from another article. And if there was a mistake where his book was inspired by, then that should be removed, and list that the writer says it was inspired by, sourcing the information to him. Dream Focus 01:22, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is on the BBC website today.[11] The problem is that a person who is directly involved in an article should not have a free hand to alter it, as there is a potential for conflict of interest. Also, a quote from WP:PRIMARY: "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge. For example, an article about a novel may cite passages to describe the plot, but any interpretation needs a secondary source", all of which is relevant here.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:00, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Theoretically, his biographer could have made a helpful edit. His edit was not helpful because it was removing content that was reliably sourced and was NPOV. I stand by the reversions of his edit, although I cannot address the apparent e-mail issue since no one has released the full account. --Jprg1966 (talk) 06:57, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The same thing happened at Paul Dirac recently. An IP editor claimed to be Dirac's granddaughter [12] and altered the reason why he turned down a knighthood. The edit was reverted because a) it is unclear whether the IP was Dirac's granddaughter and b), even if she was, it is WP:PRIMARY and contradicts the sourcing from Graham Farmelo's biography.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:27, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Do you realise how this looks to the uninitiated? Something that can only, by definition, be known to the author himself - the inspiration for a character - is not changed because they don't represent a reliable source? It's not beyond the wit of man to check such claims. Now I'm a fan of Wikipedia, especially the little foibles. But this is a case of an admirable project disappearing up a bureaucratic backside.86.5.254.174 (talk) 07:54, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was aware of this possible interpretation at the time of reverting the Dirac edit, and put an explanation on the talk page. It is hard for random IPs to prove who they say they are, and there is a need to ensure verifiability. In 1972, Richard Nixon could have edited his BLP to say that he had nothing to do with the Watergate break-in, but this would not have been a reliable secondary source. The explanation of WP:PRIMARY seems to have been lost in translation in the case of Philip Roth, and the media is having a field day. All the edit history of The Human Stain shows is that an unsourced IP edit was reverted. Roth or one of his representatives could have started a thread on the talk page explaining what they considered to be wrong.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:12, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
One thing that strikes me reading this is that some regular hands seem to expect the 'uninitiated' already to have familiarity with Wikipedia policies and processes. Although it could be argued that a professional might try to gain some familiarity with the rule tome before WP commencement, isn't this the encyclopedia anyone can edit, you really can? —MistyMorn (talk) 08:48, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Whether they can intuit or not, surely they must be speedily made aware that other anonymous people cannot possibly know, they are who they say they are, and that they have a vested conflict of interest in writing about themselves and their own work, partly because these should be obvious to them. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is not the first time I have wondered about the best way to communicate with a new editor who is using only a (possibly dynamic) IP address and cannot be expected to know much about history and talk pages. If you notice something wrong early enough, a message to the talk page might work, but if the edit is a few hours old you can't really expect the editor to ever see the message. This is also a problem I've encountered when handling the new feedback feature. --Boson (talk) 09:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Draft Communications Data Bill

Your comments have been reported in the press and so I have just put an entry at WP:PRESS 12. Your position on this looks good - kudos. Andrew Davidson (talk) 20:08, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also at arstechnica [13]. I agree with one of the comments there, we should just enable default https regardless of the outcome on that measure. Monty845 20:36, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed action to the UK government would likely be ineffective

Nearly all of our requests originate from search engines. Search engine links to Wikipedia are HTTP links. When users search for things, then click on those links, they will request pages, then we'll redirect them to HTTPS. The UK government would be able to see the HTTP requests and therefore would be able to see the page being requested. If a user then browsed the site, once in HTTPS mode, their further requests would be protected, but initial requests (which are the vast majority of our requests) would be snoopable.

There's a couple ways this could be worked around:

  1. Search engines could also set our links to be HTTPS if the user originates from the UK. This is out of our control, though. If we switched to HTTPS-only for all regions, then search engines indexes would likely change to reflect this. Initial HTTP requests would always be snoopable, though.
  2. We could set STS headers for users in the UK, so that they will only ever make a single HTTP request to the sites. This action is fairly irreversible, though. Also, not all browsers support STS, so a reasonably large percentage of users wouldn't be protected by this.

There's some problems with the proposed solution from a technical POV, as well:

  1. We don't have a simple way to make this only affect the UK.
  2. We don't currently have capacity to enable HTTPS for anonymous users by default, even for just the UK. Adding capacity would be costly and isn't currently in our budget.
  3. It would greatly increase latency, especially for mobile users.
  4. We currently have no support for STS. Realistically we'd want to add this support at the MediaWiki layer, rather than the SSL termination layer. This isn't a simple change, and it has really heavy implications.

Will Wikia also be implementing this? If so, what's their plan for handling these issues? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryan lane (talk • contribs) 21:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to chime in from another Wikimedia tech :) -- I'd really like to see us move to HTTPS-by-default for everyone. It's an important security improvement for logged-in users, but the deep packet inspection issue reminds us that it can be a privacy issue for our logged-out readers too. We've started using HTTPS more aggressively in our mobile applications where it's a transparent internal change (though our mobile web site isn't quite HTTPS-friendly for all yet) and I hope we can move towards fuller implementation of HTTPS-by-default for the web sites. Gmail and Facebook's experience switching to https by default have been pretty positive, we just need to make sure we can actually handle the traffic. (As for latency, there is some additional time spent in initial connection setup. Better design can make sure we reuse connections and minimize the impact of that; for instance if we can replace the mobile redirect with serving mobile pages directly, we might actually end up faster in the end.) --brion (talk) 21:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would also like to see this, but there's more than just the concerns about capacity. HTTPS is much, much more vulnerable to DoS attacks. That said, our current plan is to switch all logged-in users to HTTPS, see how that affects the cluster's load, then expand the capabilities from there. I'd like the end-goal for us to be HTTPS-only.--Ryan lane (talk) 21:49, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&oldid=511357100"