User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Expert review project again

Hi. Reading this recent opinion piece in the Boston Globe reminded me that I had left a question here a couple of weeks ago, and so I checked the archives and find that you didn't respond. You are welcome to ignore this again, of course, but in case you just overlooked it, I'll post the question again: what do you think, in principle, of us getting experts to review our medical content, and putting a link to the peer-reviewed version at the top of each article that has been subjected to scholarly review? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:56, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, i don't know how I missed that. I remember back in 1999 going to see The Matrix with a physician friend who was complaining about the phenomenon of people printing out medical information on the Internet as amateur hypochondriac experts on their own conditions long before the existence of Wikipedia, so I'm quite sure that the story is true.

I think that, in principle, what you suggest is a decent idea. I think it would be hard to organize and would have some flaws... the same flaws that traditional encyclopedias would have in terms of being slow to update.

A similar idea, likely though to be even more controversial, would be to have a form of flagged revisions enabled for medical articles (might be hard to define what falls under that conceptual categorization) with a group of identified-to-the-Foundation with medical degrees approving revisions. At the top of the page could appear a link to the latest version saying "There is a newer version of this article which may contain more up-to-date information, but it has not yet been reviewed by any of our medical advisory board so treat it with some caution."

I don't have the time to push for this kind of software change nor to be personally involved in helping to organize this, but in principle, I could support it.

You might want to run the idea past Wikipedia:Wikiproject Medicine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm active at WP:MED and on the board of m:WikiprojectMed Foundation, and I'm discussing it with some medical editors. The 28,000 articles of interest to WP:MED have a template, {{WPMED}}, on their talk page, and the presence of that template is the current best working definition of a "Wikipedia medical article."

I do like your flagged revisions idea. A lot. It makes much more sense to have the reliable version facing out and the well-meaning-amateur-updated version behind an optional link. And, yes, scholarly review of an article has to be an ongoing process, not a one-off thing, but most topics in medicine have charitable, scholarly and specialist bodies whose missions include education, so I'm hoping these will shoulder most of that burden. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Flagged revisions will not work and will not solve the problems. First, we do not have resources to indicate which versions should be flagged. The few experienced medical editors we have are already overburdened dealing with not only the normal agenda- and POV-pushers, but more recently with the mess created by student editing (see WP:ENB). Second, even our best medical FAs have issues. If we were to flag them, implying some kind of review or reliability, what would the consequences/implications be? Consider the legal implications of us implying that anything in here is reliable medically. Third, if we could have flagged revisions, we would have a handful of articles that we could highlight as having ... anything to flag. As a longtime medical editor-- and one who has a medical FA-- I believe we need a visible, noticeable, not small print at the bottom of our articles-- disclaimer on our content, and we need a policy akin to BLP allowing us to shoot on site. We have real problems in our medical content, and they affect real people. (See the long discussion and ample examples provided at the WP:ENB, where the WMF/WEF has exacerbated this problem by encouraging student editing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:42, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

If we only apply flagged revisions to featured articles that have also passed rigorous expert scholarly review, I don't envision that being overly burdensome to medical editors. We do need a small but prominent disclaimer in or immediately above the lede of every medical article whose current version hasn't passed such expert review. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:05, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

(e-c) Disclaimers are really a good idea as well. I don't know how many people come to wikipedia to basically seek free medical advice, but I can imagine there might be more than a few, and we don't somewhere down the line want to face news stories or maybe even lawsuits resulting from a fringe theory or pseudoscience editor soapboxing some quack theories in our articles in such a way as to result in medical complications or even death for someone following it. I wouldn't mind seeing something like flagged revisions, for not just medicine but for other topics, including a lot of controversial or potentially problematic topics which relate to a lot of controversy and which are subject to fringe or regular POV pushing. In terms of competent review of the type Anthony suggests, maybe some sort of template on pages, similar to the article feedback tool, which could indicate that "this article has been checked against (fill in the blank reference type source) and found (or not found) to contain obvious divergences or flaws" might be useful as well. And if there are serious flaws or divergences found in an article, certainly having some sort of template with disclaimer at the top saying "this article has failed comparison with (reference source x)" would certainly be reasonable as well. John Carter (talk) 17:08, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I hope to avert the medical equivalent of the Wikipedia biography controversy. I'm trying to keep Wikipedia medical controversy a red link. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:27, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but I still have to oppose this whole idea. We simply do not have access to the experts who can make any claims about our content (with the possible exception of Ketogenic diet, where Colin went out and got an external review, but that was not from a Wikipedian). No offense to the beloved User:Casliber (psychiatrist), but flagging any revision of Tourette syndrome (authored by me) would only mean anything if we had access to someone like James F. Leckman, Harvey Singer, Roger Freeman, Walkup, a few others. It's just not something the average physician or psychiatrist is that knowledgeable about. I don't believe we have the resources, and I believe it opens us up to legal issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

It is scholars of Leckman's calibre that I have in mind for this project. Legal: I don't know. Resources: If we start small - say, just the suite of tic disorder articles - that shouldn't be too much of a drain on community resources. If it turns out to be impossible, we abandon the aspiration. I would hope for significant support from the WMF - both financial and in terms of public diplomacy. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

(multiple e-c) I guess I see a question here about at least in my mind about whether we are talking about only the main articles on certain specific medical topics, or inclusion anywhere in wikipedia. Certainly, I think already several articles which are biographies of "doctor x" saying "his theories about whatever have helped millions of people," cited to Oprah or similar, when the theory is often at least seriously questioned, if not discounted, by the relevant community already do, to some degree, exist here. I don't know the medical MOS around here, but I could certainly see having something in it to the effect of main articles on medical topics in wikipedia should contain nothing which is not included in similar main articles on the topic in expert overviews, like online or print academic reference sources, leading journals, and the like. Other material should be included, if anywhere, in spinout articles, such as, maybe, theories or alternative theories of cure of diabetes or similar titles. Overemphasis on fringe theories in main articles is I think a problem in a lot of articles, but probably most damaging in those articles relating to medical and I guess psychological subjects. Or maybe some sort of policy similar to BLP for topics of this broadly medical type which would apply particularly to those articles which have scope similar to those to be found in such publications? John Carter (talk) 17:35, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Ideally, every Wikipedia medical article will be rigorously reviewed by three subject-matter experts, regularly enough to keep up with scholarly consensus. But to begin, it would necessarily be just our existing FAs, I suppose. WP:MEDRS governs the standard of sources we use for health-related content. It is currently a guideline but I agree with SandyGeorgia, it should be policy. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I definitely could see it, and maybe similar pages on law and money, being made policy, provided that there are additional pages on how, if at all, to cover fringe and alternative theories and other material in child articles. John Carter (talk) 18:33, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

(e-c)If anyone wanted to pursue the idea, I see a couple problems- we'd have to be more careful than to just say "someone with a medical degree", I don't want a psychiatrist doing a cardiac-related article or someone with a DDS doing an article about bipolar disorder. We'd have to create subdivisions and how many people with appropriate degrees are available around Wikipedia so that there isn't a backlog as seen in Nupedia's peer review system? Would this lead to people in legal-related articles beginning to demand that only those with law degrees approve changes? We quickly could devolve into a place where "everyone can edit" becomes "everyone can suggest, and when an expert gets around to it, it may end up in the article".Camelbinky (talk) 15:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree, Camelblinky, reviewers must be genuine, identified scholars - experts in the topic they're reviewing. I wouldn't expect them to come from the existing Wikipedia community, but to be sponsored by the relevant scholarly society, charity, institution, etc., and selected by an editorial board comprising Wikipedians and topic experts. Medicine is a special case. Insidious vandalism or well-meaning mistakes could cost lives. I don't see a need for these measures in other topic areas.

Whether the latest (unreviewed) version is facing out (with a link to the reviewed version) or vice versa, the editorial process will still be collaborative and down to the volunteers that currently write our medical content. The way scholarly review works is independent experts give the article a forensic exam for veracity, comprehensiveness and pertinence, just like reviewers at FA and GA do for their different criteria. If the reviewed version ends up facing out, there will be vigorous discussion on the talk page about how the article should look for its next review, and ongoing editing to the pending version. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:36, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

While I sympathize with the concept, Camelbinky, I'm not sure that I 100% agree and in any event I don't think this should be a blocker or something we should think is necessary a priori. After all, Wikipedia articles on medical topics are already good enough that (per the article that kicked off this discussion) the majority of medical students turn to it for at least preliminary explanations. And anecdotally, I have heard from many doctors (including those who looked after me when I was recently in the hospital) that they use it all the time. And that's with our totally wiki system. I would say that a psychiatrist (a medical doctor) reviewing a cardiac related article for a general audience could do a fine job - at least as good as random people like you and me who do it now. Indeed, one thing that I think has been valuable in Wikipedia is highlighted in the article that kicked off this discussion is that our explanations are quite clear and straightforward in no small part because we aren't specialists writing for specialists. If the cardiac related entries are only edited by cardiac doctors, would they preserve that? Anyway my real point is this: we should not make the perfect the enemy of the good. If there is a kernel of a really good idea here (and I think there is) we should try it in the simplest possible way first. And if it turns out that psychiatrists are screwing up the cardiac articles, then we have a rethink.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

We already have medical specialist Wikipedians occasionally reviewing articles out of their topic area, and they can usually be counted on to do a first class job, for someone who isn't an expert in the topic. The more of those we can recruit, the better. But this proposal is for a different order of result: a class of Wikipedia article that is recognised by the public, academe and the professions as the gold standard in reliability, comprehensiveness and pertinence. I think the world has the right to expect that of the top search result for health-related queries.

It was the chance to translate difficult medical and biological concepts into clear, readable lay English that got me into Wikipedia and keeps me here, and recruiting expert reviewers won't affect our readability - they will be reviewing, not writing the content.

We'll have a far greater chance of recruiting world class expert reviewers if they know their relatives and peers will find their reviewed version on Wikipedia, and not just a link to it on Randy's latest thought bubble. So I think your flagged revisions suggestion may turn out to be pivotal in the success or failure of such an enterprise.

While the technical aspects of the process are important, they're secondary really to an acceptance by this project that expert review of health-related content and prominent display of expert-reviewed content is a good thing. But on the technical side, I didn't follow the RfC for a new "Draft" namespace. If that's going forward, perhaps that could be the home for article versions that are between scholarly reviews. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:22, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Anything that hives off portions of content could be catastrophic. The whole reason this place has worked has been the commonality, with all sorts of different edditors both familiar and unfamiliar work feeling like they can access other areas of content. Lay reviewers are important to technical articles to optimise accessibility to as wide a range of readers as possible. Also most experts have little free time. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:02, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

"Hives off" I don't really understand, but I completely agree we should tread carefully here, due to the possible consequences you allude to (and others we can't even envision yet). I don't know where this is going but I'm motivated by the fact that the top search result for most medical topics is unreliable. The world deserves better. Here, I'm proposing a way forward, rather than just carrying on with our fingers crossed. FAs and GAs are not reliable. They're probably safer than most other articles but they're not Wikipedia:Reliable sources reliable. The world deserves better.

Experts have no free time, when it comes to their day jobs. If real subject-matter experts are to review our content, they'll need to be paid. Somewhere in this wall of text I've proposed that scholarly, specialist and charitable bodies with a mission to educate about specific health domains may/should fund the process.

For instance, in Australia, beyondblue's mission seems to be to provide information about depression and anxiety to consumers, carers and health professionals. I'd like to see them fund three highly-respected experts to review our mood disorders articles (possibly a different three reviewers for each article, depending on the topic), and when they're all satisfied with an article, have that version locked into place until the next review. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:14, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Interesting idea - certainly some experts have been interested. Not sure I'd agree about external folks locking an article. Also, as this is my field, I have a fair idea who they might ask and what they'd focus on, and expert wouldn't necessarily be able to provide a neat, clean appraisal that we'd be looking for - it is quite a bit more complicated. They would, however, have much to contribute. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:24, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Good. No, it won't be easy. But I think we have a moral responsibility to ensure the top search result for each medical term is as reliable as a Cochrane Review, NEJ, or a graduate-level textbook. If you really think it's interesting, talk to me. If this is going to happen, it's you, me, James, Sandy, Colin, MastCell, etc. etc. who have to do it. Any locking of articles will be down to en.Wikipedia, it won't be outsourced; and we would drive the review process - the frequency of reviews, the structure of the editorial board, the selection criteria for reviewers, etc. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:07, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

This is an absolutely terrible idea - the kind of idea which epitomizes why we must resist any and all efforts by corporations like Wiki Med Inc. to take over our site. The whole point of Wikipedia is that open editing by anyone who shows up ends up giving better results than restricted editing by experts! We need merely read the beyondblue article to see an example of a controversy (involving gay parenting) for which we can only develop NPOV by allowing everyone a chance to add their sources to an article. No surprise, really - it is a group run by Australian politicians, so why shouldn't it have a political dimension?

But even if we had a hypothetical group of purely neutral doctors, we still must not allow them to start ordering us around, locking us out, and taking over for themselves. Because if we did, we would have a Wikipedia that would have told people that Oxycontin was a safer, less addictive opiate right up until the day the company was fined. We'd have a Wikipedia that (had it been around) would have pushed hysterectomies, hormone replacement, tonsillectomies, circumcision, wisdom tooth extraction, now statins, whatever they're selling at the time, with no room for a dissenting word from the people who aren't with the program.

This M. O. is unfortunately characteristic of the medical profession. They come promising sage advice - next thing you know, they're giving orders. And then it turns out that the orders are all about their own bottom line. Wnt (talk) 16:35, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

You won't get an argument from me about the ethics of drug companies and the stupidity of the medical profession regarding evidence. (The latter are getting better, but the former just seem to be getting sneakier.) But volunteer editors are sovereign here. There is no chance the community will surrender that to any profession, even if that was what I wanted - which I don't. This proposal entails articles written by the people who presently write our medical content being checked by people with expertise. The final version is always down to consensus and policy. As Cas Liber suggests above, experts are going to be proposing stuff that the community will not accept. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:37, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I am cynical reading Peer-reviewed journals with some sourcing guffs that experienced editors would be red-faced if they'd done them here. The rate of this is not insignificant. I've been reading a bit about bipolar and looking at some of the sourcing after some discussion with colleagues at work. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:38, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree. That's why I'm proposing this model, where the Wikipedia community sets the highest possible standard of review. One important element of my proposal is that the reviewers be publicly identified ("This version of Cancer pain was reviewed on 2 December 2013 by Prof. X, Dr Y and Prof. Z") in order to avoid the moral hazard that undermines the current dominant journal model of anonymous review. I.e.: reversing the journal review model so our articles will have identified reviewers and (mostly) anonymous authors. If we start out with the highest, most rigorous standards - and never stuff up - scholars, their peers and our readers will quickly come to see an invitation to review a Wikipedia medical article as a significant complement - recognition, at the top of Google, of the esteem in which their peers hold them. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:57, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

we would have a Wikipedia that would have told people that Oxycontin was a safer, less addictive opiate right up until the day the company was fined. We'd have a Wikipedia that (had it been around) would have pushed hysterectomies, hormone replacement, tonsillectomies...

And had we been around then, we would have had that with or without bringing doctors to Wikipedia, because we still have to use reliable sources, and the reliable sources of the day would have said the same thing that the doctors would have said. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:00, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Oppose. Wikpedia's featured articles "are considered to be the best articles Wikipedia has to offer, as determined by Wikipedia's editors." This proposal implies a level of authority/reliability beyond that of featured articles. Yet a regular editor cannot achieve the "scholarly review" goal, even with the community's assistance. It would require endorsement by a member of a select group.

The FAC process is particularly robust, especially for medical articles. Our medical featured articles are as reliable as any textbook, perhaps more so. Yet implementation of this proposal would imply that featured articles are inferior to "scholarly reviewed" articles. It also implies that the consensus of FA reviewers is less reliable than that of a single named scholar. Axl ¤ [Talk] 15:59, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Axl, I'm saying a medical article that has been subjected to Wikipedia's FA process and can be changed by any moron at any time is less reliable than one that has been subjected to our FA process and scrutiny from three subject-matter experts and is locked there until the next FAR + expert review. Surely you concede that.

As for your assertion that our medical featured articles are as reliable as any textbook - I seriously doubt it, given that any fool or psychopath can change featured articles any time they feel like it and their wisdom can sit there for hours, days, or longer. But neither of us knows. I've added it to our research wish list.[1] --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:43, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay, that is probably true. I doubt that moronic/foolish/psychopathic changes to featured articles last for hours to days, but that is speculation on my part. I don't think that you previously mentioned that articles should be locked. (Perhaps you implied this by the discussion of flagged revisions?) Locking an article is contrary to one one of Wikipedia's pillars: Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit.

In any case, if locking an article is your way of preventing morons/fools/psychopaths from screwing up a scholar-reviewed article, the same approach could be taken with any featured article. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:53, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that pillar necessarily entails instantaneous publication, especially when delaying publication will serve our readers best. Anyone can collaborate in the editing process. Whether or not they get to click "save" on the published article is immaterial. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

How frequently do you anticipate that the accredited scholar will review the article? Once a day? Once a week? Once a year? Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:27, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know. I was thinking that an en.Wikipedia-based editorial board would select reviewers and schedule reviews but now I'm wondering if that shouldn't be in the hands of the topic's scholarly societies. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:06, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Curations

I've been mulling over the idea of a versatile new feature for WP: curations, which are essentially named collections of Wikipedia URLs owned by individual user accounts and either kept private or made public. They have many potential uses, but the relevance to this particular discussion is that they could be a good way to provide expert review: a credentialed expert creates a WP account and starts a publicly readable curation of reviewed medical articles. Being Wikipedia URLs, the elements of the curation could reference specific versions of articles, so that subsequent revisions to the article don't automatically get the imprimatur of reliability. The curation could then be featured on the main page, or cloned and expanded/refined by other experts (or ordinary editors, for that matter), etc. This would require significant changes to the software but I think it would be a really useful feature. alanyst 17:07, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I like this. One thing to think about: it might be nice if the curation software is designed thoughtfully to allow group curation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we can do something like this within the existing structure. I see FAs (and to some extent GAs) as de facto Stable Versions. I think there will come a time when it will be prudent to semiprotect all FAs. We heighten the threshold for change to require specific discussion on the talk page (a link to which can appear if the article is opened for editing maybe) - which we sort of do anyway if there are enough editors watching the articles. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:06, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I support semi protection for GA/FAs being handed out more liberally. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:56, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Me too. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:14, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Prominent reliability disclaimers

Following on the (long and well-documented at WP:ENB) mess caused by student editing in the medical realm, Alanyst and I began working on ideas at User:Alanyst/sandbox/reliability disclaimer. Joe Q. Public believes that Wikipedia articles are vetted, and isn't aware that RandyFromBoise wrote that medical content that came up first on Google. People are getting health advice from Wikipedia, and our disclaimer is buried in teeny tiny print at the bottom of the article. The general public does not understand the nature of the Wikipedia, or the enormity of the medical misinformation in here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:22, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Where to begin... Let's see- John Q. Public does not in the least believe that Wikipedia is "vetted" in fact Wikipedia unfortunately has the opposite problem with Mr and Mrs Public, the fact that Wikipedia is not taken seriously BECAUSE there is a perception that there is no oversight. Second- if you take medical advice solely from Wikipedia you're a moron and there's a concept called "survival of the fittest" that I'd like those people to meet, along with this building called a "hospital" where experts in the medical field will answer all your questions with expert answers. Third- there is not an "enormity of medical misinformation in here"... We don't need more disclaimers and policy has always been against adding more over what we currently do. WP:NOT spells out quite clearly we aren't a "how to" guide and that applies to diagnosing or treating illnesses or injuries nor do we need disclaimers telling people "moron, don't try this at home". No to further disclaimers.Camelbinky (talk) 17:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the expertise, Dr Binky; I'm sure we shall be hiring you to vet our medical content. Over and out, this discussion was trashed soundly before it even got started. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:43, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, at least I got you out of here. But you could have done it without violating policies on being a DICK and about discussing the topic NOT the editor, and you came soooo close to a personal attack. Frankly this is nothing more than we've all come to expect from you.Camelbinky (talk) 17:57, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

FWIW, all the complaints raised in the last comment above could be raised about that comment itself and its author as well, couldn't they? John Carter (talk) 18:19, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

There are wide variations in understanding regarding Wikipedia's reliability among the people I know - and that's not just a function of IQ. People with limited experience of the internet - regardless of their intelligence - often think we're as reliable as a textbook.

As for the safety of our medical content, I'm an expert on that... as is SandyGeorgia. I spend a fair bit of time patrolling Recent changes/Medicine and so have a better feel than most about what's happening there. Generally, our medical content appears to be pretty good. But occasionally you get people adding dose information, sometimes wrong dose information. A lot of nonsense is added about the effectiveness of some treatments and their side-effects. Our drug articles are very poor when it comes to explaining the clinical significance of putative benefits, so readers may be agreeing to treatments that have a detectable benefit that has no meaningful effect on their quality of life, etc., etc.. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:56, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Although a prominent disclaimer may be helpful to readers in some cases, I think its a bad idea from the point-of-view that it would inevitably lead to some editors feeling that it lessens their responsibility to readers and allows them to relax with regards to accuracy and NPOV. That's much too much of a negative IMO. If there are problems with the way medical articles are written such that they could be even a slight risk to the public, then we should be aggressively addressing those problems, rather than seeking to mitigate them. Formerip (talk) 18:58, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

It won't have any such effect on me, and I don't know any regular medical editors or patrollers that I would expect to react in that way. I agree that we should be aggressively addressing those problems, I think I've outlined a fairly aggressive program for doing that in this thread. I would welcome alternative/additional such plans too. But in the meantime we have dangerous plausible misinformation in our medical articles, and it's the responsible, caring thing to advise our readership. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:09, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

(ec) I think it's unlikely that an editor would be less careful because of the presence of a disclaimer. At least, the risk that it would happen seems a lot less than the risk that a reader somewhere would rely on disinformation in an article if not for the disclaimer. I admit these are just educated guesses. But I think the potential benefit of the disclaimer to our readers outweighs any potential misuse of the disclaimer by an editor as an excuse for carelessness. alanyst 19:15, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong. I'm aware that there are good editors of medical articles, and it may be that there are many editors who are always scrupulous and meticulous in their editing and would carry on the same way notwithstanding any disclaimer. However, it cannot be that this applies to all editors, or there would not be problems with medical articles in the first place. Even editors who are not bad editors per se may feel that they a disclaimer gives them the ethical protection of caveat lector. Formerip (talk) 19:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

There may be such an effect. But, as someone who watches the crap being poured daily into our medical articles (and usually picked up within 12 hours by patrollers - but 12 hours is too long) I believe that having no prominent disclaimer at the top of such articles is morally indefensible. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 19:49, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

What I'd be concerned about is how the calculus for how material gets dealt with during those 12 hours is affected once editors start taking into account that there's a disclaimer, which some of them will. Formerip (talk) 21:02, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

And I think that's a valid concern, but given the status quo, I still support the disclaimer, but would support us doing a review of the history of med articles 3 or 6 months into their use, comparing the "correction time" and success rate for picking up bad edits then with that before implementation. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:16, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

You're compounding two errors here. We do not need any special standards for medical articles. People can give just as much unsafe advice (and more) about cocaine, pet jungle cats, CRT electronics, and neighborhood life in Philadelphia as they can about anything in medicine. Medicine is mostly remarkable for the number of greedy people who insert themselves between patient and cure in the name of ethics - patent ethics, market exclusivity ethics, the ethics of prescriptions, and now the ethics of internet information. When the poor patient runs out of high blood pressure medication and can't afford a physician visit to be allowed to buy any more and has to quit cold turkey, that's not a failure of medical ethics - that's its success at doing exactly what it is meant for, namely, "sending a message" that you pay up, or else.

The problem with the education program is that it is confounded with paid editing. The courses that unleash kids on us do so only for those who have a token to prove they've paid for a certain class, and no small amount of money. I've been solicited two or three times now, but I'm not going to spend one minute extra taking care of an editor on the basis that he's paid for the privilege, unless someone is paying me. I see there's an exception to this (Wikipedia:School_of_Open_course/February_2014) but until the rule is that everyone has the same rights as student editors to the same kind of help, that pool of help is going to be justifiably small. Meanwhile, people understandably expect the professors who are being paid good money to teach the students to be doing basic work like looking for plagiarism and copyright violation, right?

So neither of these things has anything to do with the other; both need to be dealt with independently via the original community virtues of openness, freedom to explore, and volunteerism. Wnt (talk) 22:53, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

You are a serial "medical-advice-giver" at the reference desk aren't you? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:14, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense. I have merely opposed various proposals there to expand policies to ban any question about anything potentially related to medicine, which some will talk about like it was a criminal offense. Also, a proponent of those once asked me what I had against doctors, and I detailed a number of incidents including, for example, the time a hospital insisted my grandmother be switched to its own brand of insulin while she stayed there, causing her death by insulin shock (which I now realize is likely the result of losing the buffering of her previous porcine insulin by the immune response against it, and also likely to be a result of purely commercial motives - in any case it was a problem she had suffered several times before the last and they refused to budge about); he now makes a point to dismiss me as someone on a crusade against doctors every time I disagree with him. Let's be clear: I'm perfectly OK with doctors giving expert advice, but when they demand to be masters over me, my health, and even what I am allowed to read or talk about on Wikipedia, that is not acceptable. Wnt (talk) 15:08, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

There are a lot of sites worse than Wikipedia on the internet when it comes to medical information. The Lancet published Andrew Wakefield's paper which likely resulted in the death of many. They were never sued. Uptodate did not update their use of activated protein C in sepsis until nearly 6 months after the pivotal paper that showed it worsened outcomes, even though I brought it to their attention. It took the FDA pulling it globally from what it looked like for them to update. Wikipedia contained this info 2 days following publication of the Cochrane systematic review and meta analysis :-)

With respect to a peer reviewed version on Wikipedia. I was thinking of this in collaboration with a journal. After a Wikipedia article had gone through formal peer review a little "journal tag" would be added to the top right hand corner of the article (similar to the gold star) that would link out to the pubmed indexed copy of the published article. If User:Biosthmors and I ever get our act together and finish getting dengue fever published in Open Medicine I will try to do this. The JMIR Wiki Medical Reviews is currently open for submissions. Please note that I am getting ZERO monies from this latter publication even though I am on the editorial board. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:06, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

You know how awesome I think your work there is. (Jimbo, a knighthood, please.) I'm proposing another, additional route to scholarly review. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:14, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

This is a version of peer review I can (pending details) support. Linking from our articles to reliable sources is standard, and featuring especially relevant sources with substantial support (without making any agreements or exclusivity) makes sense. That said, the journal version should always be something smaller than the Wikipedia version, because there will should always be a penumbra of politics, indirect reports, predictions, and popular references that is worth covering from Wikipedia's perspective but which is not in a position to be evaluated as expert medical opinion. Wnt (talk) 18:25, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

• WP:NDA, while not a policy, has been widely supported every time discussions like this come up. I'm not seeing any overriding reason why this is any different. Resolute 15:16, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

• If even one single reader is prevented from an action, based on incorrect information in an article, that would have caused harm, then disclaimers on medical articles will absolutely be worth having. Our articles can also convey the impression of authoritativeness, which is poisonous when combined with the propensity of medical topics to accumulate quack treatment "information". We should learn from our previous experience of this happening and preemptively inform the casual reader that what they are about to see may not be safe or even true, so that when junk information is added to an article without being immediately noticed, it's not presented as "truth" to our more credulous/less cynical readers. (Personally speaking, I'm in favor of the semi-protection of all medical topics as well, but I know that will never fly here.) — Scott • talk 14:24, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Magazine contradicts subject, but magazine is a "reliable source"

Talk:Bernhard_Goetz#The_Time_Magazine_paragraph

It appears the subject is present on the talk page (or, at least, claims to be the subject and nobody is seriously disputing it), although he's posting as an anonymous IP.

In the latest dispute, Time Magazine claims that certain things were said by Goetz when Goetz denies having said them. However, since Time Magazine is a "reliable source", it takes precedence over the actual person involved. Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:11, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a potentially tricky one. At least at first glance, it is nice that the anonymous ip number appears to be behaving in a reasonable and polite fashion with a reasonable understanding that challenging this will be difficult. What I'd be looking for is some verifiable public place where he's challenged the Time Magazine story in the past - that would almost certainly be valid grounds to explain his side of the story in the interest of neutrality. But I'm just at the beginning of looking at this - and the WMF board meeting is starting now so I'll not be able to comment further tonight!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:06, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

The notion of so-called "reliable sources" is one of the misguided original sins of Wikipedia that we are saddled with through inertia. The important thing is accuracy. Writers should make a considered, intelligent judgment call on what is correct rather than worshiping the publication of a factoid in Newspeople Time magazine or any other similar source. Journalists get shit wrong all the time. Our mission is to get shit right. Carrite (talk) 01:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree! Die Antwoorde (talk) 03:16, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

While I'm somewhat sympathetic, let me channel those who would disagree to point out the core problem. If we abandoned the notion of reliable sources, then we've got a hell of a mess on our hands with advocates and activists and POV pushers of all kinds coming to tell us "how it really is". Right now we can say quite sensibly, "Oh that's quite interesting and thank you for coming forward with it, but you'll need to get that novel theory published somewhere because in the meantime the best available sources don't agree". That's a really valid point.

Where we have thank goodness made some considerable progress is around what to do when considered, intelligent judgment (roughly, the consensus of thoughtful Wikipedians) tells us that a claim in an otherwise generally trustworthy publication needs to be treated with caution because it's probably false. We've moved past the "worshipping" stage of "verifiability, not truth" into an understanding that we can and must exercise editorial judgment.

In the current case, I've just woken up and so I haven't studied it fully, but if an anonymous ip number shows up and says "I deny having ever said what Time magazine says I said" then we really should do what we are doing: dig deeper. But I think we'd be pretty foolish to simply believe an anonymous ip, no matter how friendly and reasonable sounding. What we can acknowledge is that there are times (highly politicized crimes or allegations of crimes) when it is not unheard of for initial news reports to be nearly worthless. So the anonymous ip has raised a reasonable warning flag - now we need to see what to do about it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:17, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Issues such as this are rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of "Reliable Source". Wikipedia does not declare: "XXXXX Magazine is hereby declared to be a Reliable Source - every word in it is "The Truth" for ever and ever Amen."

Any given source is only "Reliable" insofar it has not been shown to be wrong. Every individual article (or even separate statement) must be judged on it's own merits - the fact that it is in the New York Time means that it is probably more likely to be reliable than Joe Blow's Facebook page. The converse "it is reliable because the NYT published it" is a wrong-headed interpretation of WP:RS. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:32, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

You'd think that with something that detailed they would be multiple sources. As we say in the UK one swallow does not make a summer. John lilburne (talk) 10:56, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Burson-Marsteller and the Bright Line Rule

Jimbo, back in April 2008, an account called User:BMAccount directly edited an article about Burson-Marsteller's parent company. We might assume that BMAccount is affiliated with Burson-Marsteller, given its edit history is 100% focused on Burson-Marsteller concerns, right down to the 5-dollar bill. Now, if you ask me, BMAccount was merely removing hurtful BLP content that tried to pin something ugly on the former head of Burson-Marsteller, just because his nephew committed a gruesome crime. However, this technically wasn't following your Bright Line Rule. Could you remind us, do hurtful violations of the WP:BLP policy trump the Bright Line Rule, or is the Bright Line Rule to be followed even in those cases, and BMAccount should have discussed this problem on the Talk page? - 2001:558:1400:10:60EE:705B:FBC3:C65 (talk) 18:18, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm closing the discussion because many readers who are not familiar with the issues here may find aspects of it misleading in the extreme. Plus, our anonymous friend was asking me. The Bright Line Rule is a best practice requiring full disclosure of a financial conflict of interest and avoidance of editing article space directly, in favor of engaging with uninvolved editors through the talk page of the article, user talk pages of interested editors, various noticeboards, OTRS, my user talk page, etc. There is a general understanding that emergency editing is a permitted gray area such that if someone does it (with full disclosure) there's no reason to be very upset about it. The case you cite does not appear to me to fit either your hilariously wrong description of it, nor did most of their editing constitute an emergency. So I would have advised them not to make some of the edits that they made.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:27, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm pretty sure that BLP overrides most other policies, and certainly COI, in this case. in fact, i'm surprised it wasn't revdel'd or oversighted. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 18:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC) Why would that be revdel'd or oversighted, when Wikipedia features a lengthy, gory, blow-by-blow detail of the crime? Would that be to protect the privacy of Chris Komisarjevsky, all while the private dignities of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, Hayley Petit, and Michaela Petit are ghoulishly disregarded? In Wikipedia's attempt to be "the sum of human knowledge", there are a vast number of privacy concerns routinely trampled, depending on the perspective of the reader. Chris Komisarjevsky should hardly be first in line for relief. At least the edit featuring him was removed. Not so much his nephew's victims. - 2001:558:1400:10:60EE:705B:FBC3:C65 (talk) 18:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC) Right. I mean, your seven words; everything else is off subject (cogent -- that's some article! -- but off subject). It was proper to delete the material, but not at all necessary to oversight it. There was no attempt to "pin something ugly" on anyone, no implication that Burson-Marsteller head Chris Komisarjevsky, or Burson-Marsteller itself, was in any way involved in any wrongdoing, just some gratuitous and trivial hey-waddaya-know gossip regarding a relative of Komisarjevsky's. We're not robots here. WP:BLP is important. It was poor contribution. It's gone. That's good. End of story? I looked into it some more, and maybe not. I think most people would be of the mind that if there's an edit that can meet the test "It'd be inconceivable for a sane and reasonable and disinterested person to contend that the edit might be problematic, unless they were trolling or being deliberately contrary for contrariness's sake", then it doesn't matter who makes it. Of course,the problem is, we're talking about business. If it's business, you have special pleading. If you have special pleading, you can't come together on the basis of common-sense seeking toward a common goal, because there isn't one. So you have "I was just correcting a misspelling, and that meets the 'no sane, reasonable, and disinterested person could object' test", and then next you have "I was just pointing out and referencing the verified fact that Modern Grommet called our new grommets 'a must-have', and that meets the 'no sane, reasonable, and disinterested person could object' test", and this becomes a contentious and difficult issue where efforts are made to stretch the definition of "insane" and "unreasonable" and "interested" to cover "persons who disapprove my edit", and so forth. And that's why we can't have nice things. So while its true that we would like to have the nice thing called the "no sane, reasonable, and disinterested person could object" rule, nothing's easy here. So we have to choose which sub-optimal situation we want to tolerate. Obviously in a true emergency WP:BLP trumps everything, and then you oversight as required. Here, we have a situation where 1) nobody is being deprecated, really, and 2) the assertion is true, and a reliable source is cited to prove this. It's not an emergency. The person who put it in (User:68.14.84.60) did so in (misguided) good faith, I infer after going over her edit history. Theodore Komisarjevsky does contain the passage "Komisarjevsky's grandson by adoption, Joshua Komisarjevsky, was one of the perpetrators convicted for the Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders in 2007." [ref] It's arguably trivia, and if Theodore Komisarjevsky was alive I'd surely remove it on the grounds that that it's neither kind nor necessary, but it's not a horror that cries to skies for panic action. Could User:BMAccount not have asked for relief on the talk page? The material in question was there for about a year. Could User:BMAccount have not waited a few hours or a couple days for relief? It's complicated. But one thing's incontrovertible: if User:BMAccount had taken all her edits to the talk page, we'd be a LOT better off. Because, you see, her edits included this edit, where the article Burson-Marsteller was attacked. I say "attacked" advisedly, since right off we have the replacement of B-M worked for both the Nigerian Government and Royal Dutch/Shell during and after the Biafran war. Reports of instability and genocide at the time had hurt Nigeria’s international image, they hired B-M to discredit these reports. The relationship continued long after the Biafran war. From 1991-2 the Nigerian military junta paid B-M’s lobbying subsidiary, Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly (acquired in 1991) over $1m in fees. with The Ministry of Information of Nigeria employed Burson-Marsteller in the late 60s to assist in counteracting allegations by secessionists that the Nigerian government was committing genocide in the breakaway province of Biafra. Although the civil war brought about enormous suffering on both sides, an international commission reported finding no evidence of systemic genocide or serious human rights violations. Except it wasn't an international commmission. It was a Nigerian commission (there were some people from other countries on it, which makes it "international" if you squint hard I guess), which said 1) there was no mass starvation, and anyway 2) war is hell and besides 3) the Biafrans starved themselves on purpose. It's a contested subject to this day. Some people say there was deliberate genocide, some not; The BBC says that the Red Cross was shut out (even the Nazis didn't do that) and all food was interdicted. If there was mass starvation, was that deliberate genocidede? Maxwell Cohen thinks so [2], but who really knows. The Biafrans could have just surrendered their army (and then prayed for no more mass rapes and massacres), and similarly the Jews could have solved their Recent Unpleasant Situation by a mass migration to Madagascar and so forth. But if Maxwell Cohen (and Chinua Achebe ([3]) and et al) are right, then as a byproduct of Burson-Marsteller's advancement of their and their clients interests, and incidental to any interest that the Wikipedia might have, we have: On the one hand, removal one sentence of inappropriate gossipy trivia (but true and ref'd) with BLP implications. On the other hand, insertion of, you know, genocide denial as part of a complete restructuring of an article for the benefit of Burson-Marsteller and their clients and only for that reason. Hmmmm. Tough call! So this is why, in the totality of things, we would like (and do require!) editors like User:BMAccount to take it to discussion first please. We're not looking for what's Right and what's Wrong. We're looking for the least-bad option to get our job done. Of course Bright Line delays some useful edits. So does editors getting the flu. Mature and subtle people accept these things. And we're not denying the right of governments to buff up their image or Burson-Marsteller to help them. Heck, they can even do it here as long as it's just on talk pages. Is that so onerous? It's a line. It's bright. It's on the Wikipedia, where people will argue about anything. It's on Earth, where money will flow into any crack. So let's keep it simple: bright line. Sorry, you were asking Jimbo. Go ahead, Jimbo. Herostratus (talk) 01:26, 27 November 2013 (UTC) actually, there is no bright-line rule yet. they are all either closed as oppose, or still in the proposal status, as far as I know, and the specified edit also predates the proposals. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 05:46, 27 November 2013 (UTC) Sure there's a bright line rule. There's a bright line rule because we say so. Let me explain that. It's essentially impossible to get significant broad written rules (as opposed to minor tweaks) adopted here anymore. It's essentially impossible because (to elide and simplify a lot) you need a supermajority, and that's hard, quickly approaching impossibility as the number of participants and proliferation of side-issues multiplies. I think that the last big written rule adopted here was WP:BLP, which passed in 2007 I think (and could probably never pass now). The days of making sweeping changes by adopting formal rules on the Wikipedia are over, I think. But that's OK. That doesn't mean we can't change and grow. We just do it differently. The purpose of rules has always been only to codify accepted practice anyway. And the accepted practice here is that if you're working as a paid advocate for a client, and we know this (either because you declare it or by some other way), and you directly edit an article for this reason, your edit is subject to being rolled back on that basis alone, and any petition for relief on your part on the basis of your right to make the edit will probably be met with a mixed reaction at best. (In some cases there might be skirmishing and discussion around the matter, and if the consensus is that your changes are good for the Wikipedia (as opposed to being good for your client) then your changes will be accepted, but since your goal was to make the changes directly without engendering a discussion or having to show value to the Wikipedia, that essentially serves the purpose of bright line anyway, just with more drama.) So yes there's bright line rule and yes it's in effect. That's it's not written down is an interesting artifact of how our governance structures have shaken out, but it's not important. Don't let it distract from how we actually operate. Herostratus (talk) 16:31, 27 November 2013 (UTC) It's always seemed to me that the way for commercial writers around the Bright Line Rule is to simply write as a paid editor, not a paid advocacy editor. Everything is fine that way, since nobody else is required to disclose their affiliations and biases. If you write paid content that's indistinguishable from volunteer content, then you're not doing anything wrong. - 2001:558:1400:10:80E7:3E83:FD75:DC66 (talk) 17:19, 27 November 2013 (UTC) anyways, to say that there's a "bright-line rule", when there has not yet been consensus for such, so your argument is simply invalid, Herostratus. if it was accepted practice, there would be consensus. also, WP:IAR. Aunva7 (talk) 18:14, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Is increased heat tolerance found in ant colonies in urban heat islands a textbook example of evolution?

Before I ask my question, thank you for your part in creating the foundation for the world brain H.G. Wells talked about. I think it's reciprocal given that the wikipedia foundation annually asks for money, that I ask you for money as well; it being a very economically Dickens holiday season. I would donate money if I had any, though I'd prefer the concept of money to no longer exist. Now onto my actual question; I've noticed that you created the page for urban heat island. I added a reference that ant colonies often show an increased heat tolerance in urban heat islands. Would this be a good example of more quickly observable evolution for the evolution article? CensoredScribe (talk) 20:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

A policy-based answer is that it is not a good reference. In order for it to be a good reference the source would have to discuss the question of evolution explicitly, but even then, as an empirical study, it would be a primary source per WP:RS, and a secondary source would be preferable. In fact there is an even better reason why it is not a good reference: the article explicitly says, "Currently, we do not know whether the difference between the heat tolerances of urban and rural ants has a genetic basis or simply results from plastic responses to environmental conditions." Therefore any attempt to interpret this as evidence for evolution would be original synthesis. Looie496 (talk) 16:13, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I have no knowledge and no opinion about this. :-) I believe I created the article back in 2001 with some very basic information because I wanted to learn more. I certainly have no particular qualifications in this area.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:31, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Not just original synthesis, but pure speculation. Axl ¤ [Talk] 12:43, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, Jimbo, it turns out that you didn't actually create the article in the first place. I've imported the relevant edit into the current Wikipedia database. Graham87 03:41, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia's obvious biases and prejudices

 Partly Resolved: The map image has been deleted from wikipedia commons however, the issues with some editors remain with feelings still hot over this sensitive issue. Additional discussion along with a potential wrong unblock can be found here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#Nyttend's improper unblock.

No, many are disturbed that the filing editor was blocked and then unblocked by an involved administrator. The issue over the map was resolved very quickly through a consensus discussion on the talk page of the article that was then unprotected with that specific issue taken care of. This isn't about feelings. Wikipedia should be a safe place for people to edit without harassment or hatred actually supported by admin.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:08, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I clarified the header as to centralize the discussion, feel free to change or edit it yourself if you wish as I am not putting a signature on what has happened so far. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:06, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

File:Status of gay persons.jpg I noticed this image and it is the most flagrantly and flamboyantly biased, point of view, assumptive and political agenda pushing thing I have seen here yet. "Evolving"? "Worse"? Excuse me? This is wikipedia's official political stance on the policies of other governments now? I think there needs to be a major discussion and people need to see if this can be allowed here. 71.127.137.154 (talk) 22:22, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

It does seem to be OR. The description of the photo says: "Status of gay persons = (Human Development Index 2013 + Democracy Index 2012) + Legal recognition + (Gay Pride index 2011 + Gay visibility up to 10 + Political visibility up to 10) /3" Perhaps you need to approach Commons about taking it down. I don't know if the rules there are the same as here. Bielle (talk) 22:27, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have an official political stance on anything. Besides that, that file is not used on any Wikipedia page other this one, since you just posted it here. You're making a fuss out of nothing.--Atlan (talk) 22:31, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I've removed it from Societal attitudes toward homosexuality. It would be one thing if this was quoting someone else's assessment of the situation and we made it clear we were just saying what their opinion was, but I can't see how it's possibly appropriate for Wikipedia to be grading governments against an arbitrary set of criteria. Mogism (talk) 22:32, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

And someone else has put it back in, claiming that it "appears to shows data collected from sources". Not going to edit war over this but I can't see how this isn't WP:OR and WP:SYNTH in their purest form. Mogism (talk) 22:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I am not satisfied that this is what is being claimed and don't think a deletion from a discussion on Jimbos talkpage is exactly the right move. I will defer to the projects on this.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:52, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I also take exception to the what appears to b a rather insensitive header here. Really? "flamingly". Was that appropriate?--Mark Miller (talk) 22:53, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I think this is getting into potentially ugly territory. Gays and lesbians and the like have a right to be treated with the same respect, equality, and basic human dignity that everyone else enjoys. I fail to see how it is original research or synthesis to show...in an article titled "Societal attitudes toward homosexuality"... which nations of the world have state (e.g. Russia) or religious (e.g. pretty much all of the Islamic world) -backed institutional discrimination towards LGBT people. If the IP editor is demanding that the Wikipedia give equal airtime to bigots and prejudiced attitudes regarding homosexuality, then I hope this person is given a very cold and unwelcome shoulder. (Note the snide "flamingly" and "flamboyant" digs there, too). Tarc (talk) 22:56, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not arguing with that (I can't speak for the IP), but that's not what this map shows. It would be one thing to have a map showing the legal status of homosexuality, UN (say) figures on the rate of persecution etc as that would be citeable. "(Human Development Index 2013 + Democracy Index 2012) + Legal recognition + (Gay Pride index 2011 + Gay visibility up to 10 + Political visibility up to 10) /3", OTOH, is pure OR and SYNTH, since it's the OP assigning their own arbitrary importance to the various measures. What, for instance, is the difference between a "gay friendly city" and an "other friendly city", and why, for instance, is London "gay-friendly", Amsterdam "other-friendly", and Manchester, generally considered the most gay-friendly city in Europe, omitted altogether? (It can't be a matter of size, as relatively insignificant places like Reykjavik and Montevideo are singled out.) Mogism (talk) 23:01, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

This graphic is a simple editorial matter. Can't we just steer the IP to the correct venue? As an aside, I noticed than the author of the graphic has proposed adding it to homophobia, which is problematic as it relies too heavily on original research and the legend is not very neutral. - MrX 23:15, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

(ecx2)It is indeed "flamingly obvious" that the map is complete and utter bollocks. South Africa should be rated at the top of the scale, not the middle. It is one of only a handfull of countries where gay marriage is completely legal, gay people can adopt children, serve openly in the military, etc. It is also afaik the only country where all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is expressly forbidden by the constitution, not merely legislation. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 23:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

So, no comment on the unusually biased manner in which it is presented here? I am not at all clear that this is original research to such a degree that it is against a policy or guideline as original research is allowed to a point in images. However this is relying on information to create it. They didn't pull the content out of thin air.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:21, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Of course it was presented rather emotionally, but it was definitely the author's interpretation and manipulation of the data the resulted in the map. I think it represents a bold and good faith effort, but it violates at least a couple of our policies. - MrX 23:39, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Geez, guys, way to assume bad faith here. The user has now provided the source of the maps and the data therein; OneEurope. So perhaps now we could leave behind all of the "just a newbie making stuff up" and now discuss whether this OneEurope's analysis of gay rights in various countries is a useful metric for the article. Tarc (talk) 00:11, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Note that the byline on that OneEurope article is " Alessandro Vitiello | 26 Nov 2013". This looks rather similar to User:Aless2899, and in any case the article provides no source for the fomula used to construct the map. Who chose those indices in those proportions? DES ^(talk) 00:29, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

OMG! The Gays are at it! Seriously though, it took less than a day from file creation to it being a "flamingly" bad problem? As far as I can see this is a hopeless ambiguous representation of very complex attitudes. I would think the same about a similar image showing tolerance for different races and ethnicities. Sportfan5000 (talk) 00:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

But this isn't a map showing tolerance for different races and ethnicities, its a map purporting to show views on sexual immorality / morality. Therefore, logically, a map of countries' attitudes toward bestaility, incest, pedophilia, and then judging them as "better" "improving" and "worst" countries using that as the be-all and end-all sacred cow criteria, would be a much closer analogy. 71.127.137.154 (talk) 00:19, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

That was really disgusting and way off. "The map shows the status of gays and lesbians worldwide, analysing democracy, development, visibility, legal aspects, political presence.". Period. I see nothing to support the IP's claims about "Therefore, logically, a map of countries' attitudes toward bestaility, incest, pedophilia, and then judging them as "better" "improving" and "worst" countries using that as the be-all and end-all sacred cow criteria". That sounds very much like a homophobic rant and nothing more.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, can't hear you, the right-wing doesn't play very well where science and rational thinking are needed. Sportfan5000 (talk) 00:30, 27 November 2013 (UTC) Not helping anything. Sportfan5000 (talk) 14:30, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I do not like the way homosexual behaviour is now being actively and vehemently promoted in every country and in my country by a few foreign individuals. I deeply resent anyone suggesting that wikipedia is obliged support this sickness and adopt the same bias in the name of "tolerance" and directly label my country in opposition to my country's government. This will become a political issue with wikipedia and will then have to be pursued that way. So, yes, you could say I have bad faith with this poster. 71.127.137.154 (talk) 00:32, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Someone should block the IP now that they have shown their true colors and we should all move on.--Atlan (talk) 00:35, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Really? Because you are attacking my government? Homosexuals have always judged the entire world through their sore tortured prisms, that's nothing new but they need to get their own wiki or their own pedia, this isn't the homopedia, this is everybody's wikipedia like it or not! 71.127.137.154 (talk) 00:40, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

That's quite a leap. Explain to me how identifying you as a homophobe is attacking your government, whichever that is.--Atlan (talk) 00:43, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Atlan, every culture is different even though you may disagree you still should respect their POV and they should respect yours. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

It's no wonder you have a "consensus" for such pro-homosexual biases and prejudices when you muzzle and banish everyone who does not share them! That's a false consensus though. 71.127.137.154 (talk) 00:46, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I understand that you are upset and feel that your country is being mislabeled here, right now the image is being questioned so please do not go on the offensive here. Also understand that every country is different when It comes to dealing with the issue. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:45, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I feel the image should be deleted, it hurts more than it helps. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:37, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It is a Commons image so that would have to be done there. DES ^(talk) 00:40, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I have requested administrative attention here.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:39, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay thanks, at the very least it should be listed to establish a firm consensus as this is a hot topic. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:40, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Came here from Mark Miller's WP:AN posting. Atlan's comment is a textbook example of how we are nowhere near being neutral on the issue of homosexuality. In favor of pretending that homosexuality is normal/okay/etc.: you're normal and can participate here. Opposed: you're hateful and don't deserve to participate here. Let me remind such commentators that aggressive advancement of such a position is harassment. Nyttend (talk) 00:43, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Atlan's comments are a textbook example of how we are nowhere near being neutral on the issue of homosexuality? How so? He requested a block for homophobic bias and soapboxing from what it looks like to me.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:48, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes thanks Mark that's what I meant. The IP is being openly homophobic here in this thread, calling it a disease. It is not an inference on my part as Nyttend apparently makes it out to be.--Atlan (talk) 00:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Homosexuality is not accepted worldwide remember. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:53, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

No, but neither is Judaism or being a Moslem, or having a different skin color or ethnic origin. It is longstanding policy that admins will indefinitely block active, position-promoting Antisemites, Islamophobes, or Racists. The classification of activist homophobia as acceptable somehow is jarringly at odds with those other standards. The IP is blocked. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 00:59, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I for one generally favor "gay rights", but oppose this particular image, not because of any PoV it expresses, but as a violation of WP:SYNTH. DES ^(talk) 00:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• It does not appear to be so, as there is clearly a good deal of sources used. Can you demonstrate that these sources have been manipulated or used against policy or guidelines please.

http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR2013_EN_Summary.pdf http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/ http://www.economist.com/node/8908438 http://www.gayprideindex.org/ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/753687/same-sex-marriage/299742/The-future-of-same-sex-marriage#toc297960 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_first_LGBT_holders_of_political_offices_in_the_United_Kingdom http://pewglobal.org/files/pdf/258.pdf http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2013/06/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Homosexuality-Report-FINAL-JUNE-4-2013.pdf --Mark Miller (talk) 01:02, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Do the precise classification of countries on the map match what is in those sources, or are the classifications pulled out of the author's ass? (Honest question, I have not had time to go through them.) Someguy1221 (talk) 01:27, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

It appears that the user has selected indices provided by these sources, (selecting them from among various others that could have been used) added them up according to his own formula (weighting some as 1 and some as 1/3 for no given reason) and then rated the sums from best to worst on a scale again apparently of his own devising. I call that WP:SYNTH no matter how accurately the user has transcribed the various indices from the sources. DES ^(talk) 01:33, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

If you are not clear on the exact formula used, can you claim it is made from their own devices? Is this utterly unfixable or is this something that can be corrected?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:59, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I am clear on the formula used, or at least the formula that the image caption states was used. But if there is a source for the formula beyond the user's own choice, that source has not yet been cited. DES ^(talk) 02:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I would suggest replacing "evolving" with "transitional" and "worse" with "nonintegrated". Bus stop (talk) 01:51, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

It still wont change the status of the countries and how they are labeled. I agree this is WP:SYNTH. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:53, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I, for one, do hope Jimbo jumps in, for usually in cases like this he has some nugget of wisdom that (for me at least) makes me say "Of course!" But for anyone who cares here's my two cents- Surely some professor some where has actually made a map or table of the world's nations attitudes towards the LGBT community... Has anyone researched if something actually exists that can replace this map?Camelbinky (talk) 01:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Setting aside the question of whether the image should exist at all, "evolving" and "transitional" both imply a direction, thus violating WP:CRYSTAL. Better would be something like "partial" or "mixed". --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The original map provided on the article, File:World homosexuality laws.svg is the closest thing we have, although it identifies countries specifically by their laws alone. Perhaps, at it's core, the entire idea presented by the other map is flawed by attempting to show a "status". Not completely sure. Is "Status" intangible?--Mark Miller (talk) 02:11, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The map in question here was designed to define "status" as the weighted sum of various indices. It is not even clear that all of those indices had a Level of measurement permitting valid sums (i.e. are based on an interval or better a ratio scale). In the absence of that such a "sum" is mathematically meaningless. DES ^(talk) 02:22, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

It is possible that the entire idea of the map was to define "status" per the above but it has not exactly be demonstrated. Can an individual index be picked out at random to show this?--Mark Miller (talk) 03:03, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Not from the map as provided, it gives only a bracketed value of the sum "Status of gay persons = (Human Development Index 2013 + Democracy Index 2012) + Legal recognition + (Gay Pride index 2011 + Gay visibility up to 10 + Political visibility up to 10) /3" which surely looks to me like an attempt to define "Status of gay persons" as the value of the stated formula. Any user could of course find published data on any one of these indices, and create a table or (with more work) a color coded map from that data. Whether that would represent "Status of gay persons" is a different question. DES ^(talk) 03:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure they are two different issues. If it is assumed that "status" cannot be represented from any particular index used and is simply "assumed" I would think that enough to disqualify use alone. Accurate representation of what the sources claim is needed to create such an image. If, on the other hand, the indices are claiming a particular status, that may be enough.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

True, if an RS says "X index (or formula) measures the status of gay persons" or anything similar, then we can report that with proper attribution. If any source has said that about this or any other formula, I have yet to see the cite. DES ^(talk) 04:21, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Good point to raise here. Let me take a quick look and see if there is anything close to this available.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:00, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

From whose point of view though? Im sure there are maps out there but some may have people's opinions as a factor added to it. How can we find a neutral map? - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:02, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

If a map is fully sourced to an RS, and any opinions it embodies can be attributed, then it is no different than a quote from a possibly biased source, properly attributed. DES ^(talk) 02:07, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Okay fair enough. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:08, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi I have requested the image to be deleted but not bing practical with Wikipedia at all I just sent a deletion request. I don't want the image to appear on wikipedia anymore. The image is clearly not mold wikipedian. I just posted it at the beginning as I thought it wouldn't have appear immediately. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aless2899 (talk • contribs) 21:26, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Unblocked

The user who made the homophobic rant has been unblocked by Nyttend who is involved enough to not have clean hands. The original admin who made the block has requested that the block be reinstated and I do as well [4]. Clearly the editor deserved the block and the unblock request was unacceptable when it makes accusations against others. What the hell is going on here?--Mark Miller (talk) 02:36, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

It's getting really old seeing discussion after discussion at the noticeboards where homophobia is okay and ignored or promoted by admin, while in the same position racism would not be tolerated from the first instance. If Wikipedia can't sort this out with a consistent policy then it doesn't deserve to retain LGBT users. We're not a punching bag for the homophobes who want to edit here instead of Conservapedia and AGF should be applied equally.

Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 09:32, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Jenova20, can you please link to a diff where an admin is promoting homophobia? I would be happy to bring that to the ANI board if you like. Thank you, --Malerooster (talk) 14:22, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

@Jenova20: I agree. We have a few admins who really go out of their way not only to allow this type of behaviour, but to encourage it with twisted interpretations of our policies. I'm waiting to see how this issue and the WP:Fag RfD issue is resolved to decide if I'm going to continue to contribute to a project that allows thinly-veiled homophobia from users with few, if any, contributions toward actually building an encyclopedia. I'm also really tired of the constant devil-advocating and strained incredulity of some of our users, but at least most of them are not admins. - MrX 15:33, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

@Malerooster: How about the last time i was at ANI over a certain user who harassed and disrupted Talk:Homophobia for over a year, violating multiple policies, and has been able to get away scott-free despite using the same tactics on two articles since, at least one of which led to another ANI discussion? This user not only got to carry this out, but was ignored by Admins, unchallenged by them, and at the first ANI i took part in also got away with accusing the entire LGBT Wikiproject of being "activists" with only me challenging him over it.

There's no point having policies if they're not enforced and an entire section of the Wikipedia population is editing at a disadvantage. I'm not linking to any diffs as i have no idea where ANI cases from ~1 year ago would be stored. Nor do i want to link to the user. MrX will certainly know who it is though and confirm this as i believe he took part in the first ANI case and witnessed the year long trolling that led to it.

Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 16:18, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Jenova20, without diffs and not knowing what specifically happened I can't comment further except to say I am sorry if you feel you are being bullied or ignored, not to put words in your mouth. No group should feel harassed, ect. --Malerooster (talk) 01:39, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Bullying isn't the only issue, the issue is that racism = uncontroversial ban. Homophobia and transphobia = nothing in most cases or a controversial ban (Just like the Chelsea Manning issue again and this issue too). If this is the way the community operates fairly then AGF is useless and every LGBT editor is a sitting duck.

There's a reason so many people say the noticeboards and ANI don't work, it's because they don't. Personal opinion is able to trump the established rules unchallenged and LGBT editors deserve better.

Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 09:44, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

The ANI consensus - not unanimous, but 80% or so - is that the unblock was improper, the block was ... perhaps excessive, but justified, and I have stated on ANI I will reblock if they offend again in a like manner. If they think they "got away with" something they are wrong. Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 10:06, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

That's something good from this but the fact that the discussion became a free-for-all to further attack LGBT editors is deplorable and aboslutely disgraceful. If Automatic Strikeout really has quit Wikipedia then we just lost one more editor to the homophobes. These incidents are becoming more frequent and worse. Thanks editors who have morals ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 13:16, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

It's a bad idea to label another group of editors. By calling people "homophobes" you are joining a battle. Wikipedia is not for battles of any sort. If somebody makes a bigoted remark the usual first step is to call them out and ask them to fix their remark. If their reply is more extreme, they might be blocked at that point. A sudden block without warning is only used in egregious cases where it's already clear that the user isn't attempting to work properly. Jehochman ^Talk 13:52, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

That appears to be what happened here. The IP made a remark, he/she were called out on it, and then the IP escalated. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:01, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't intend to sugar coat it at all. If an editor feels fine to attack LGBT editors on the basis of sexuality then WP:AGF and Comment on the contribution, not the contributor have already been ignored. To put it bluntly, if certain editors can make homophobic remarks unpunished then logic follows that calling said editor a twat, or worse should also go unpunished. To punish the people being attacked further serves only to cause more people to leave in protest and encourage the behaviour to get worse. I'm currently mulling over leaving myself but am not quite at the point Automatic Strikeout is, although i was quite disgusted by the point the discussion was ended.

I was under the impression we were here to edit, not see how much offense we could cause and how many people joined in. I appear to have been wrong. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 14:01, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

The remedy for speech you dont agree with is counter-speech, not "punishment." The reason for that is that the notion of "punishment" for "offending speech" is all-too-easily abused.Thelmadatter (talk) 14:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I meant blocking or community sanctions by "punishment". Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 14:51, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Potentially extremely serious BLP violations and issues of neutrality and accuracy on a range of articles to do with living members of deposed royal families

Hello - just a few days ago I happened to come across an article, I don't remember which one, about a great-grandson or something of the last Emperor of Germany which states that this living person is "His Imperial and Royal Highness Prince Somebody of Prussia" which seemed ridiculous to me as all German royal titles were abolished in 1919 and there has not even been such a place as Prussia since 1947. Looking around a little, I quickly found hundreds of such articles about living people on WP that state that so and so is the "claimant" to various abolished thrones. These articles do not give any evidence that the person himself makes such claims, the truth is that royalty buffs work out who would be "King of Hanover" now had that position not been abolished in 1866 and "style" them as such. This may seem eccentric but harmless in the case of German ex-royal families, although if the articles are not carefully phrased, they could be very misleading. However heraldry experts and genealogists etc. work out who would be King or Emperor of every ex-monarchy and label living persons as such, which is published here in articles on them. This could potentially be dangerous to some individuals of countries where there were revolutions to get rid of monarchs and a lot of people don't want them back. There are numerous issues with these articles, I have opened an RfC at Manual of Style talk on the specific issue of applying such "styles and titles" as "Her Royal Highness the Princess of Prussia" to living persons for whom such claims to abolished royal titles are made by others, please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#Use of royal "Titles and styles" and honorific prefixes in articles and templates referring to pretenders to abolished royal titles and their families. Regards,Smeat75 (talk) 20:12, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Sigh. In short, Smeat75 has apparently recently learned that the use of titles by German nobility is regulated by custom and has not official standing in German law. As usual, we base our articles in part on custom (what are these people actually called by reliable sources?) and not solely on law. (This is consistent with general practice: e.g., courtesy titles in the United Kingdom are used in official documents, which at the same time acknowledge that those titles hare bestowed only by custom and do not have legal standing.) Unfortunately, this is now progressing to the usual signs of mania: RfCs posted at many noticeboards, notices at many talk pages, forum-shopping to this page, increasingly grandiose claims of policy violation, etc. Additional opinions are, of course, welcome, although a certain terseness would be appreciated. Choess (talk) 20:52, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

...and he spammed 60 user talk pages with a message that violates WP:CANVASSING. :( -Guy Macon (talk) 21:02, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Only in that he gave his opinion in the notification making it a less than neutral notice, but there is no indication he picked editors only for support. I had made a BLP thread recently about an article on a subject claiming to be the King of Hawaii. My question was whether or not Wikipedia articles should be used to make claims on a throne. I also thought that the article's tone was less than encyclopedic. I am sure I was chosen based on that or my recent GA review of Charles I of England. But we have both already discussed the canvassing issue and I don't think it is enough to overshadow the issue Smeat75 raises.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:17, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I have been quite patient with him and tried to give him explanations from the real world and background history of royalty and nobility in Europe (I have some knowledge on this as I am a direct descendant of Warinus de la Strode); and some knowledge on Wikipedia policy regarding NPOV and RS and NOR. Im at the end of my tolerance for this. Unfortunately he was given some advice on his talk page to continue to try and find similar voices to his own and I think he may have misinterpreted it in a way that has caused him to violate our canvassing rules. This is quickly moving towards something that is going to need a topic ban.Camelbinky (talk) 21:16, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the original poster does raise a valid concern, and one which I think should be taken seriously. I think it would be a mistake to fail to take the concern seriously simply because it has been pressed in excessively dramatic and numerous places. It is undeniable that people sometimes use the word "pretender" and "claimant" when in fact the person in question is neither pretending nor claiming anything. And even when they are claiming something we need to be careful about what exactly they are claiming.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:44, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo, the place in which I have seen him be the most persistent is at an article in which the person's noble title has been attested to in sources which show the British crown, the govt of France, and the prince of Monaco have all called him by that title. And also his wife who is a princess of Monaco and the heir apparent goes officially by HIS title, which is a title Smeat says has been abolished in Germany. One country abolishing titles in their borders does not affect the title itself as other countries can continue to acknowledge those titles. In this particular case, which concerns Hanover, the king was deposed when Prussia conquered it, any "contender" or "pretender" does not have to be affected by a law in Germany abolishing titles, because he was kicked out of his country illegally 50 years prior to the law. Hanover royalty and nobility, through its once personal union with the United Kingdom, is affected more by British law than German, descendants of Hanoverian royalty are still princes according to British law and to this day require the Queen's written approval on marrying another royal/noble for instance. If third party refers to a person as a noble or royal title in a reliable third party published source, I see no alternative but to call the person by that title or else doing otherwise is a clear violation of BLP. Have I missed something that you see otherwise?Camelbinky (talk) 18:33, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe you but it's problematic that I just have to merely believe you. Can you link to the example?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:47, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

You see, this is why I feel we need to address this concern. Being called "Your highness" or "Prince" by royalty of other nations does not mean the person has that title or style. We are being told here that, currently, all the source has to do is refer to the subject in any manner and they are encyclopedically endowed with that "official" title. Each monarchy is different, but usually there is a particular manner in which persons are granted these titles and styles and, like any position, public office etc., you would want to know that even that reliable source's term is accurate and not just repeat or parrot the inaccuracies.--Mark Miller (talk) 18:53, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

The difficulty with that approach is by what benchmark do you identify inaccuracies? Why is COMMONNAME not adequate as a guide for these cases? If we can have Screaming Lord Sutch, surely we can have Prince Ernst August of Hanover (born in 1954) (or whatever article it is we are talking about), provided that is reflected in a preponderance of sources. Formerip (talk) 19:18, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

It isn't a name it's a title and style granted in some fashion and with some standard. The implication is more than some fancy word before a name. Through history we can clearly see the religious implications. Many in Japan still believe the emperor is their god. Even in the UK it is believed that the Queen rules through divine right as do many monarchies. If someone was granted such there will be a reliable source with that information. Its different depending on the one location to the next, but I believe the father has to acknowledge the heir and formally grant the right to a title and style, unless granted by a higher sovereign. And that last part is probably the biggest issue, in that these titles imply sovereignty. That isn't common or implied just because many believe it to be true.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:42, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

It is clear that COMMONNAME is not really particularly helpful or applicable to people with royal or noble titles. There are clear reasons involving disambiguation, scholarly clarity, etc. that make it sensible and useful for us to title articles by more formal names in some cases. Reality is not one-size-fits-all in terms of naming conventions. (That is not to say that COMMONNAME should be completely disregarded, but that it is one of several competing concerns.) Additionally, it is also clear that titles can be legally recognized or not and still be valid in some narrower sense. We should, of course, make clear that some people with titles no longer hold them legally - it would confuse readers otherwise. But to ignore them, particularly if the subject and most media still use them, strikes me as equally mistaken. Things like recognition by other monarchs are factors to consider. Weighing up all the factors - editorial judgment - will not always be easy and will not always follow a simple formula, but can be undertaken in good faith and successfully. The specific concern that the original poster was raising is one that I share: there are sometimes enthusiasts/hobbyists who overuse the terms "pretender" and "claimant" to refer to people who are making no claim whatsoever. If someone actually is claiming a particular title, but there is some doubt about it, or there is some question about the legal status, then those terms can be fine to use. But in the past (we are sadly short on actual current examples in this discussion, I'm afraid) we have had some problems in this area.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:58, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Since the area we're talking about is essentially titles whose legitimacy is disputed, I can't see how it makes much sense to suppose we can sort things out by deciding whether a particular title is legitimate or not. The only thing we can really look to is whether it generally recognized or not. Formerip (talk) 20:35, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Mark, you made the misconception that is causing this problem- you say the titles imply sovereignty. They do not! The British monarchy claimed the title of King of France all the way up to 1801 when France became a republic. The prince of Monaco still has titles to French territory that it owns, but owns in the same way that I own my property in the USA, there is no sovereignty with the title and land. The prince happens to own property that was once associated with a FRENCH noble title, and now the nation of Monaco has taken the title for its prince even though FRANCE has abolished the same title.Camelbinky (talk) 03:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

The requesting of permission doesn't really have anything to do with royal status or lack thereof. It is because of the Royal Marriages Act 1772, providing that no descendent of George II (except princesses marrying into foreign families) could marry without the monarch's consent. This was really George III annoyed at his brother marrying against his will. I don't think it's been an issue since there were rumors the Queen might refuse her sister Margaret permission to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend in the Fifties. But that doesn't mean that the ex-Hanoverian royal family is recognized as royal by the UK.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:28, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Wehwalt in the official statement by the Queen, she does refer to the Hanoverian "pretender" by those very titles that those on Wikipedia claim the person does not legally have. If she recognizes him as such, then he is as such. And the govts of France and Monaco have also acknowledged his titles, in fact his wife is referred to by HIS title. How much more do you need?Camelbinky (talk) 23:17, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

(In response to Mark Miller above, the formatting is getting a bit confusing) Click through to the divine right article, and you'll find that it hasn't been applicable to the UK since 1688... MChesterMC (talk) 17:01, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Europeana infested with Bright Line Rule breakers?

Happy Black Friday, Jimbo! I am wondering if you saw the Wikimedia Foundation blog post from two days ago, about Wiki Loves Monuments and its sponsorship by Europeana? That got me to wanting to learn more about Europeana, so I turned to the most neutral reference I could find -- Wikipedia!

Did you know that in helping to create Wikipedia's wonderful article about Europeana, we received content assistance from the following users?

• User:N.thirlby - a single-purpose account (SPA). No way to know for sure, but could be Natasha Thirlby, a marketing and advertising professional who is a member of the LinkedIn group "Europeana".
• User:82.59.69.6 - another SPA.
• User:Raffaellasantucci - a user with a very limited range of interest on Wikipedia: Sapienza University of Rome and Europeana. Who knows, maybe this is Raffaella Santucci, who works at Sapienza University of Rome, which is a project partner with Europeana.
• User:Lhmhopwood - another SPA. Surely just a coincidence that Michael Hopwood was a contractor with "Linked Heritage". (Get it? Linked Heritage = "Lh". Michael = "m". Hopwood = "hopwood".)
• User:Aisulu Aldasheva - another SPA. We cannot be sure, but wouldn't it be weird if this user turned out to be Aisulu Aldasheva, who was working for Europeana for two years, "doing PR and editorial stuff"? I thought PR editors were not supposed to directly edit articles where they have a conflict of interest?
• User:Marcorendina - not exactly a single-purpose account, but very nearly so. Any chance that this is Marco Rendina, who headed up a Europeana Fashion project?
• User:Breandank - another SPA. Could it possibly be that this user is Breandán Knowlton, the Chief Product Officer at Europeana? Either way, welcome aboard, Breandank!
• User:Jpekel - a highly focused account, with more content contributed to the Europeana article than any other. Surely this isn't Joris Pekel, the Community Coordinator Cultural Heritage at Europeana!
• User:FernieK - in April 2013, did nothing but edit about Europeana, especially to add a citation about "CARARE". We'll never know if that's maybe Kate Fernie, the technical coordinator for the CARARE project, which was funded by Europeana.
• User:Kerstarno - an SPA who added into the Europeana article a link to the Archives Portal Europe. Strange, isn't it, how Kerstin Arnold is the Technical Coordinator of Archives Portal Europe, which acts as a domain aggregrator for Europeana?

Jimmy, is your Bright Line Rule message getting through to anyone, if even Wikimedia Foundation project sponsors can't seem to abide by your decree? Do you think maybe we should just give up on the Bright Line Rule and simply welcome users who contribute good content, regardless of their affiliation? That would seem to be the less embarrassing way forward. - 2001:558:1400:10:AC79:7A9:FAF6:9668 (talk) 17:36, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Are you finally getting around to making a substantive point? I recommend that you either complain directly to the people involved or - as you seem to think they are doing nothing wrong - adopt a different strategy. All you are doing here is convincing people of the seriousness of the problem and the importance of the Bright Line rule as a best practice. If you don't realize that, I don't know what else I can do to help you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:46, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Complaining directly to the people involved would certainly relieve you of evaluating the evidence that Bright Line Rule isn't working, wouldn't it? My point was to suggest that we simply welcome users who contribute good content, regardless of their affiliation, as I said so above. WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOTE already provide us with the necessary rule set to make Wikipedia as good as it can be at this time. If one follows those four policies and guidelines, it doesn't matter if money is changing hands, or if employees are providing content about their employer. (My point would also be coupled with abandoning your Bright Line Rule that doesn't really work, because it is too slow, doesn't provide a fair playing field against "non-paid" antagonists like disgruntled ex-employees, and isn't obeyed -- even by "insiders" who should be well-versed in Wikipedia editing norms.) However, it seems like you'll just dig in even deeper, though, stubbornly standing by your BLR that Wikipedians have failed to codify into guideline form, much less policy. Just this month we've exposed COI editing by Wikimedia Foundation sponsors, partners, and vendors by way of Europeana, Telenor, and Cooley LLP. Who knows what December will bring? Stay tuned! - 2001:558:1400:10:AC79:7A9:FAF6:9668 (talk) 20:09, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:NPOV, WP:V, are ideals; no page is perfectly neutral or perfectly verified. There are imperfections with every page, even featured articles. However, when an article is written with a serious conflict of interest, any such imperfection can reasonably be suspected as having been caused by the conflict of interest. This undermines trust. This is why the academic publishers have rejected the reasoning that serious conflicts of interest do not matter, even if content passes the normal reviewing and editing processes. Jimbo's rule keeps us within the academic mainstream, rather than holding onto a fringe position which has been completely rejected by our reliable sources for this topic. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:17, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe Jimmy himself and many of the Wikimedia Free Culture movement have repeatedly announced why traditional academia and traditional publishing will be going the way of the dinosaur. Yet, here you are saying that we should adopt the rationale of "academic publishers" to define how Wikipedia operates? How quaint! - 2001:558:1400:10:AC79:7A9:FAF6:9668 (talk) 20:23, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not referring to just traditional academia. All academia, including the non-traditional outfits such as the reputable open-access journals maintain high standards in this regard. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 20:30, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Now you're just cracking us up. That was a good one, though! - 2001:558:1400:10:AC79:7A9:FAF6:9668 (talk) 20:32, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you should leave it to Mr. Wales if he wants to hat this conversation. I just wanted to add that if there are any issues with the Bright Line Rule, they are complicated by the absence of a specific policy prohibiting such conduct, as well as widespread acceptance of such editing by many experienced Wikipedia editors and by administrators. Coretheapple (talk) 21:01, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I suspect a lot of the "acceptance" has to do with knowing how it would be impossible to enforce, particularly given the entrenched policies that would make it nearly impossible to do so. Frankly I'm surprised that the original post above hasn't been revdeleted or oversighted because it more or less violates the OUTING policy. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 23:00, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Sue Gardner weighed in on that very point on the Conflict of Interest Limit talk page. I thought her post was quite good, albeit a bit in the "too little, too late" department. Coretheapple (talk) 23:47, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

LilyPond also infested

Also looking back two days ago to another Wikimedia Foundation blog post, there is mention of a Wikimedia extension that "utilizes the free music-engraving program LilyPond". What better place to learn about LilyPond than Wikipedia, where the #1 contributor to that article (with over 19x more edits than the next-closest editor) is User:Pnorcks? His user page proudly proclaims, :"Hi! I'm here to improve the LilyPond page and to update release versions when appropriate.

Some other ways I am involved with LilyPond:

Maintaining PKGBUILD scripts (Arch Linux) for the development and git versions: [1], [2].

Reporting bugs.

Fixing bugs.

Tracking regressions.

General source code maintenance.

Improving the SVG backend [3].

Reporting bugs for the installer builder, GUB [4].

Check out LilyPond if you're interested in music typesetting.

It would be too snarky to ask if Wikimedia Foundation ever aligns itself with an organization that hasn't been exercising conflict-of-interest editing, so I won't ask that. - 2001:558:1400:10:AC79:7A9:FAF6:9668 (talk) 20:49, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Uh oh... it would appear that "Pnorcks" in other areas of the Internet is one Patrick McCarty. Isn't it strange how Wikipedia's article about LilyPond prominently features a musical score by Patrick McCarty, uploaded by Pnorcks? - 2001:558:1400:10:AC79:7A9:FAF6:9668 (talk) 20:54, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

It's strange that a person volunteered his time to develop an open-source program and helped integrate it into MediaWiki software and also helped write the Wikipedia page? I think you are confused about what a conflict of interest is. This is no more a conflict of interest then someone who runs a Jane Austen reading group writing the article Jane Austen. There are no two interests which conflict. He's not given any tangle benefits by anyone to write on or promote LilyPond. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 21:05, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if you know how foolish you sound, Atethnekos; but let me quote you the very first lines of the WP:COI guideline:

A Wikipedia conflict of interest (COI) is an incompatibility between the aim of Wikipedia, which is to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia, and the aims of an individual editor. COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia to promote your own interests...

So, have you looked at the LilyPond article? I have. I see it failing the above "aim of Wikipedia" on several counts. Is the article neutral? I suppose it's close to being neutral, but it is apparent that the authors of this article painstakingly point out several beneficial features of the software, but there is not a single criticism or limitation of the software expressed. For example, one of the sources used as a reference in the article says of LilyPond, "The user doesn’t get the instant visual feedback that they would see with a graphical interface", but there is no mention of this in the Wikipedia article. Likewise the reviewer's comment, "the disadvantage that it is much harder to read, but what really bothered me was how long it took me to type all the notes", is not assessed in the Wikipedia article. So, the net result is that we really don't have a neutral article right now, and we can probably blame the COI editor for that.

Next, is the article reliably sourced? There are 21 sources referenced. Sixteen of them (76%) point to the LilyPond website, or to the related GNU project pages. Neither of these sites are the independent, third-party, objective publications that we would typically look for. The remaining 5 sources are to GitHub and a couple of rather obscure-looking document-sharing sites dedicated to code development, it appears. Which leads me to ask, has LilyPond ever been covered in any level of detail in any mainstream publication, and if so, why hasn't it been included in the article here? (FYI, there are several sources that could be used, but they haven't.) So, on this count of "reliable sources", I would say that the current article mostly fails, and we can probably blame the COI editor for that.

Finally, has the primary editor of the article "promote <his> own interests"? Without question! There were plentiful musical scores that he could have used as an example of LilyPond scripting, but he selected a composition of his own. That puts his own promotion before the goals of the Wikipedia project to produce a neutral encyclopedia. If you're not able to see that, then you're probably blinded by the "free culture" movement's objectives, which itself is a form of bias. - I'm not that crazy (talk) 21:55, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry that I look so foolish. I can definitely say that I've not been blinded by the objectives of a movement of which I've never been a part, however. I agree, the article is not neutral. I don't see how it is a matter of COI, however. This user receives no tangible benefits in relation to LilyPond or an example composition to demonstrate LilyPond output. The "interest" in "conflict of interest" does not refer to just any interest that a person has in a topic. A user is a fan of Jane Austen and submits corrigenda to editions of Jane Austen. That doesn't mean that such a user has a conflict of interest for the topic of Jane Austen. A user who is a fan of LilyPond and submits fixes to versions of LilyPond, is a perfectly analogous case. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 22:12, 29 November 2013 (UTC)