User talk:Jimbo Wales

Why would one want to be uncivil?

Just a simple question to any editors who feel it applies to them, why would you want to be uncivil? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 04:13, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Good editors are sometimes uncivil after sustained attack from clueless contributors who do nothing to build content but who have majestic opinions—everyone is equal on the internet! The problem is that Wikipedia has no way to handle civil POV pushers, whether they are ensuring [^{insert nationality}] is dominant, or pushing bling such as infoboxes. The pushers have won, but what they should have done was hold central discussions to make infoboxes compulsory. They chose another tactic. Johnuniq (talk) 06:14, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps, but why would someone want to be uncivil in such a situation? --Bob K31416 (talk) 06:19, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Frustration - if you feel someone is an ignorant jackass, the obvious thing is to say they are an ignorant jackass. -mattbuck (Talk) 06:37, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

They see it as the only way to protect the encyclopedia. As for ignorant jackass, some of us are capable of distinguishing between our personal opinion/perspective and fact. "You are an ignorant jackass" is quite different from "You are an ignorant jackass, in my view." ―Mandruss ☎ 06:45, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Many of the people who develop featured articles spend serious money buying references as well as serious time studying sources—that's before writing begins. They become very heavily involved in the topic and may be unable to avoid an emotional reaction when clueless passers-by open old wounds. Using expletives is seldom useful, but people are different, and not everyone can remain poker-faced when repeating the same argument for the twentieth time. One day articles may be written by AI bots, but until then the community should assume that writers are talented people with a wide range of backgrounds, and a wide range of emotional responses when under pointless attack. The community should step in and protect such writers—not give them a free-pass, but ensure that the drive-by editors move elsewhere because that would give the best result for the encyclopedia. Infoboxes are not mandatory, and the present tactic of driving off editors who prefer developing articles without them is highly unhelpful. Johnuniq (talk) 07:44, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

With respect, the protection of "such writers" is also quite at the heart of the problem. The ownership exhibited by article "stewards" is part of the problem. Categorizing people as "drive-by editors," assuming that such an editor's opinion is unworthy, is part of the problem. Mistaking long term and blatant incivility as "infobox problems" is part of the problem. Assuming that an FA contributor is more worthy of protection than an editor who "doesn't edit articles all that much" is part of the problem - especially when I'll stack up my personal library against the collection of an average FA editor. And your assuming that I think I won something.... is part of the problem. And I really do mean that when I say, "with respect," as for all my differences with what you've said to me / about me, I won't deny that I could have been a better person in my responses. While at the same time not accepting the excuses and nothing but insults I received from said editor who was "driven off." And my sincerest apologies if my response here seems improper. LaughingVulcan ^{Grok Page!} 04:36, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Incivility is the property of a community as much as the individual. People rarely escalate to extremes unless provoked by circumstance. But I think a big part of the escalation is badly written policy. For example, the case above made me complain at WP:POLEMIC that there are very different interpretations of that policy by different people. I've previously complained that WP:Civility has a lot of aspirational claptrap that greatly distracts from what the policy actually says. The problem is, when you have something like civility whose enforcement is so inherently vague and problematic, and then you pour on policies that read differently to different people, or which are too long and diffuse for anyone seriously to read through and learn at all, you have a situation where the moment that civility is called into question, people start feeling wronged because of inconsistent interpretations of what the policy is, and then they break other parts (at least in the eyes of some people) because they feel like it isn't being enforced anyway. I mean, picture how a baseball game would play out if they didn't have a foul line but let the umpire decide when a ball went too far to one side. Badly written policy weighed down with cruft and too-cute phrasing and diplomatic compromises where people with different intentions agree on intentionally vague text... it's a toxic legacy for everyone on the project. Wnt (talk) 10:30, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

• And as a handy example of "civil POV pushing" we have dismissing infoboxes out of hand as "bling". Andy Dingley (talk) 11:20, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

• No. I do not go around trying to add or remove infoboxes, and while I'm happy to offer opinions, I do not push my views. Also, I am not dismissing infoboxes—my only point is that there is no policy or guideline requiring their presence. Are infoboxes essential for machine-readable data? Or for time-challenged readers wanting a quick answer to a quiz question? Uniformity is desirable, but articles come in different shapes and sizes and complete uniformity is unachievable. That is particularly true given that articles are written by many people from very varied backgrounds. Johnuniq (talk) 12:06, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

There is absolutely no reason to be uncivil on Wikipedia. I can express everything that i need to while being civil. Anyone who makes excuses for being uncivil is simply making excuses for bad behavior. There is absolutely no need to be uncivil. Every editor can speak to the content itself, and not make accusations or insinuations about other editors. Every person can simply speak from their own self in the first person and leave out all snark and insults about others. But for this to work, it must be enforced to an extent that there is not the critical mass of hostility that currently pervades the project. In this atmosphere, someone speaking simply and directly is lost in a cacophony of yelling by others, and too often gets attacked and incited themselves. SageRad (talk) 12:15, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

The worse (and more pervasive) kind of uncivil behavior, though, is not simply "You're a jackass!" Simple statements like that are too obvious. The worse is continual low-level hostility and insinuations with low-level aggression and bullying. Manipulative bully behaviors are usually designed to be just under the radar, or under a threshold that is easily called out. That's the more harmful type of behavior, in my experience. To address this we need to improve enforcement through good group dynamics, and have people call out bad behavior like that. SageRad (talk) 12:31, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

The editor doth protesteth too much... SageRad, you yourself can be plenty combative towards other editors as exemplified by THIS easily found diff in which you more or less directly accused another editor of following a "propagandist agenda" in their editing. Don't be so smug about how you "can express everything that [you] need to while being civil." Incivility is in the eye of the beholder. I'm far more concerned about Civil POV pushing to affect content than I am about people who lose their stuff in the face of incessant provocation now and again. Carrite (talk) 14:54, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Look there you made your comment about me instead of about the actual topic. Your focus of your comment on me with insinuations toward my character is the very type of uncivil behavior about which i was speaking above. I'm not perfect and never claimedd to be. And... your diff is from less than a month after i began editing, while i was still struggling to remember to indent comments, to exemplify exactly what about me? Check out my next contribution in that thread and see whether i learned and remained civil. Anyway, i have developed greatly since that time, in regard to editing within Wikipedia. I'm not perfect, but it's really possible to discuss content and topics like this one without commenting on the other editor. It's possible to simply speak to the topic. If you must use examples, then make something up. SageRad (talk) 22:10, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

When a person says "me, me, me," the subject is them. What I am saying is: humility and humbleness are good things. Carrite (talk) 04:20, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Not sure i get your point here. Speaking from first person is a good rule of thumb to avoid being uncivil. Speaking as simply as possible is a good rule. I've learned somewhat to leave out snark and extra commentary. One can say "Only an idiot would think that source X says Y. It obviously says Z." or one can say "Source X doesn't say Y, it says Z." To my read, the first is uncivil and the second is fine. I'm not perfect. I'm working on it continuously. The more people who work on it, the better off we will be. It can be a cycle either way -- a cycle of incivility, or a cycle of respect. SageRad (talk) 14:37, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Is this is a genuine question? If so, is it intended to mean

"What are the real or perceived tactical advantages and psychological rewards of employing verbal and/or relational aggression in talk page discussions?"?

Is it true and relevant that intractable "incivility" problems tend to occur more where there is a "reward" system in the form of peer recognition of contributors (for instance in connection with FA, GA, DYK, etc.)? --Boson (talk) 16:15, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, the rude, vicious cyberbullies tend to win their way, by driving normal, neutral, educated users to leave their long-term skeleton crews of the specialist editors who had kept portions of Wikipedia up-to-date and improving, but are now fed up with other typical editors being driven away, as with Facebook bullies ruining social media. The proverbial "10,000 monkeys" at the keyboard cannot recreate the works of Shakespeare, but vicious apes can ruin the contents or format of 10 million pages. -Wikid77 (talk) 03:42, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

The bottom line is this: friction causes heat and sparks. Content writers tend to spend a lot of time, money, and effort doing what they do and when there are drive-bys who attempt to make everything pretty and uniform because the sacred Manual Of Style®™ says so, things can go south quickly. This doesn't even touch the scenario — at least as common — in which passionate person 1 comes into conflict with passionate person 2 about the content of an article. The OP phrases the matter wrongly when he asks why people would "want" to be uncivil. It is more like this: conflict is inevitable given the WP open editing model and "incivility" is in the eye of the beholder. Certainly the situation is inflamed by the fact that the vast majority of WP editing happens in isolation rather than in person, which leads to misunderstandings and an escalation of aggressiveness towards those with whom one disagrees. Moreover, Civility rules are, as Kelly Martin has noted, little more than a cudgel in the content and style wars. We don't need to obsess about these things, we don't need to throw money and effort at the impossible task of developing Artificial Intelligence aggression sensors. We need to all, humbly, try to do better in dealing with others while remembering our real purpose here — writing an encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 16:44, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

• Three main answers:

1) some people like being uncivil to other people. That can be for any number of reasons. It is not what we are up to here, but some people just like it - consider it part of their style, whatever. You can't explain what people like.

2) Some people have very frail egos and will "cry uncivil" over things that aren't uncivil to many observers. In those cases nobody was uncivil and the question of "wanting to be uncivil" is off point; the relevant question is "why do some people want to perceive others as uncivil?" The subjectivity of "uncivil" is one reason why it is very, very hard for the community to deal with.

3) in a lot of cases, incivility happens although nobody involved wants to be uncivil. People are human - they crack under stress or have bad days.

There you go. Jytdog (talk) 18:25, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

1. The usual limitations of communication via keyboard and computer screen. 2. Hypercynicism and black-and-white worldviews, widespread off-wiki as well as on. Conclusion: Largely intractable. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:31, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

One other factor in perceived incivility: culture. WP is fairly unusual in the way it brings together editors from different cultures, some of whom do not have English as a first language. What may to one culture be a term of endearment can appear to be rude and offensive to another. I'm not suggesting we go down the PC route of emasculating the language, but both writers and readers need to take cognisance of the cultural norms of their correspondents. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

George Carlin did say that "fuck you" is about the nicest thing you could say to anybody. His obvious point was that it's not the words but the feeling behind them. That feeling is usually fairly objectively apparent in my opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:39, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Martin from Sheffield is correct, however, the disparity is not limited to non-native English speakers. At one page, an editor "accused" another of showing McCarthyism. The accused editor reacted immediately and very strongly to this. I actually had to look the term up, and even now I do not understand the strength of reaction. Just a US/UK thing, but we are both native English speakers. DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:47, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Because one feels being Right is being more important than being honest in a still considerate and respectful manner. A genuinely congruent human being will, at times, feel the conflict between needing to be Right over the imperative of caring about others more than oneself. And sometimes fail that standard, or not recognize it at all. I have failed in that recently. I've seen others do that, too. Or, after Apocalypse Now, "...[I]t must be a temptation to be god, because there's a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil, and good does not always triumph. Sometimes, the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a breaking point. You and I have one." LaughingVulcan ^{Grok Page!} 02:31, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I think there are multiple definitions of incivility in play, and an amount of bait-and-switch in substituting freely between them.

Vulgarity is often characterised as incivility. Is it? The use of cuss words in informal speech varies dramatically between communities. Texans rarely cuss in business meetings, Brits do it all the time.

Bluntness is often characterised as incivility. Is it? If someone is knowingly repeating a false or refuted argument, are they guilty of terminological inexactitude, or ae they lying?

Irregular verbs: I am blunt, you are snarky, he is uncivil.

Are all complaints of incivility equal? Many of them appear to me to be of the form "X refuses to accept my counterfactual beliefs as having equal validity with empirically verified fact, UNCIVIL!!!!"

Is incivility the cause of a problem or its effect? Some cases appear to be the result of long-term polite (but uncivil in the sense of determinedly ignoring consensus) POV-pushing.

Looking at the cases most often mentioned, Giano is not, to my mind, uncivil, at least not ina problematic way: he just doesn't suffer fools gladly. His reaction to WP:RANDY types tends to be withering scorn. Routinely telling people to fuck off? That is a bad idea on numerous levels. Occasionally telling someone to STFU? Can't see the problem. Wikipedia is not kindergarten and we don't mandate parliamentary language. The test should be, are people actually trying to rub along and collaborate, are they at loggerheads but with the aim of arriving at neutral content, or are they just sniping at each other with no useful purpose?

Not that I have the slightest idea how to separate the various issues or indeed fix them, but it seems to me that lumping multiple different behavioural questions under a single term is probably not going to result in a resolution any time soon.

We could, if we chose, mandate pariamentary language. We could, if we chose, impose a restriction on a particular editor or interacting group of editors to use parliamentary language. It might be an interesting experiment. Guy (Help!) 10:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

That's all Brits, all of the time, is it? Not just when they are in business meetings with Texans? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:47, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

The Gentleman Administrator from the vicinity of Betelgeuse may indeed possess wisdom and has a unique perspective that the nominally smiling editor of the pointy-ears may try to remember using in more serious form for the future. The Admin of the two heads also brings forth a paradox that without naming specific users and examples the definition may indeed degenerate into whatever fits one's individual situation of (usually) feeling wronged and only rarely recognizing when one is wronging others. However, there is an inexact yet specific definition of what incivility on Wikipedia consists of, namely, "Incivility consists of personal attacks, rudeness and disrespectful comments." And it almost always goes hand in hand with a failure of etiquette. Etiquette is not just, "don't use four letter words. Don't point out others personal failings without love." It is, to quote the Emily Post Institute not only manners but, "[C]onsideration, respect, and honesty. These principles are the three qualities that stand behind all the manners we have."^{[1] link} This is a major part of my responses above and how I'm trying to both change and evaluate for the future. LaughingVulcan ^{Grok Page!} 12:03, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

I heartily endorse this product or service. I have one caveat: it is perfectly possible to respect a person while ridiculing their beliefs, if those beliefs are absurd. I can completely understand, for example, why some people believe in homeopathy. Their belief does not change the fact that it is complete bollocks, belief in homeopathy is not a respectable position, at least not once one has read our article. But a point well made above is: content matters, editors' beliefs don't. We can, should and often do quietly move people away from areas where their beliefs will not allow them to accept consensus. Bible-thumping creationists have a short half life on articles relating to evolutionary biology and that is right and proper. Guy (Help!) 09:43, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

• The community in general will burnout uncivil editors. Some forget Wikipedia:No editor is indispensable - most dont care if an editor has done some great work.....but most do care how they are treated by others.--Moxy (talk) 12:25, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

• From the above discussion, it seems that for editors who are not malicious and encounter a difficult editor, they might become uncivil because they don't know of any way to easily deal with the problem editor in a civil manner. In that regard, is there any single essay that focuses on this problem by describing various methods for easily dealing with problem editors, which can be used instead of incivility from frustration? --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:29, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

--Here's an example of advice in such an essay – When you have consensus on your side, and an editor goes on and on with repititious unconvincing arguments, keep in mind that it is the article that you are working on, not trying to change the editor's beliefs. So if the editor isn't a threat to the article, you don't need to respond to the editor's remarks nor be uncivil. If you feel you need to respond, keep it civil and short and refer to previous discussions as appropriate. The phrasing, "That's already been discussed" can be used too. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

• Somewhat along the lines of Guy's comment above, i would like to understand better what various people categorize as "uncivil". Is it always uncivil to comment on another user's behavior? If someone seems to be extremely stubborn to the point of completely denying something like "Source X says Y" or are seeming to gish gallop and distract with their dialog while remaining obstinate on blocking or inserting a specific content, then is it ok to say "You seem to be very stubborn and your dialog seems to lack integrity and completion"? Is it ok to insist on dialog with integrity? To me, participating in a dialog but leaving very specific questions unanswered while changing and shifting the dialog seems uncivil to me. It seems like intentional disregard for integrity of dialog is like a disguised filibuster, essentially a prime example of "civil POV pushing". What i've encountered so often is someone in a dialog who seems to not really be there with good will and good faith, and who does not treat the dialog with the requisite respect to work through often complex questions, to tease apart the sub-questions, etc. That really does take a commitment to good dialog. Every tiny bit of insult or snark in a dialog can also throw everything off. Every single tiny insinuation and allegation can throw the dialog off, as a conscientious person who is assuming good faith will feel compelled to answer accusations. Those are the sorts of situations that throw me beyond a breaking point on occasion. SageRad (talk) 14:45, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

You really need to stop using that word "integrity", because you have used it so often as a synonym for ideological consonance and by now every single time you use it I automatically discount your point as being self-serving. You may not like that, but I am pretty sure I am not the only one who sees it this way.

All we require of people on Wikipedia is that they are honest. A True Believer does not lack integrity when they trot out endless anti-vaccine or climate denialist tropes. They are wrong, and they are almost always POV-pushing, but it's not a lack of integrity unless they know and understand that they are wrong and continue anyway. That only happens in very rare cases. Guy (Help!) 14:39, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for raising the questions, Bob K31416. I feel this discussion is critical for the well being of the encyclopedia. It's quite a complex bunch of questions. SageRad (talk) 16:32, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

• Depends on context. As I've said in previous discussions 'play the ball not the man/woman/etc'. Personally, I've no problem with someone saying 'that article was a c*nt' to get to GA' but I don't think calling another editor a c*nt is acceptable. AnonNep (talk) 19:26, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

See here: "Personal attacks can paradoxically arise when we're actually trying to be nice. Suppose that someone has produced work that you think is well below the required standard. Then you can invoke personal issues instead of thrashing the work, our brains have evolved a tendency to do that to soften criticism and to steer people away from with collaborating with each other if that would lead to friction. This may have worked well in the Stone Age, but in today's society this yields bad results as usually you're not going to have your way with picking your collaborators. So, what one needs to do is to be as open as possible with discussing the content, if is seen to be thrash, then calling it thrash is justified (provided one can motivate why). If a person repeatedly is seen to be producing thrash, then going to AN/I to get a topic ban imposed should be the next step." Count Iblis (talk) 22:16, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

We must be forgiving. We are all human and we all crack under stress sometimes. We must also strive to be our best selves. If i am being uncivil at any time, i would appreciate someone else calling it out in a kind way. I try to do the same. Lord knows i am not always as civil as i could be, but i do work on it. If we are working toward being civil, this may be the best we can ask. We are human beings working collaboratively on a massive project to represent all of human knowledge. That is a huge and important undertaking. Currently only fools take Wikipedia to be the last word on any subject. It's a useful springboard to further reading, and it's generally a good sketch of most topics, but it does embody some NPOV issues. Nobody knows everything. We editors go further, declaring that we know nothing. We must use sources to determine what is verifiable. No one editor or group of editors has a right to control an article. Good dialog must occur to resolve different points of view. To hold good dialog, we must be civil. Otherwise it devolves into name-calling and tangled knots of accusations. SageRad (talk) 03:00, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

“ I fucking love motherfucking South Park ” — Jimbo Wales

(((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 07:22, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

The comment wasn't aggressive towards anyone, so it's not uncivil, if that was your point. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:48, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

No, that was not the point. Please see South Park S19 Ep5 – Safe Space. South Park did an episode on what would happen to the small group of moderators (represented by Butters Stotch) who are willing to deal with difficult disputes if we would all demand our own safe space; a place free of uncivil comments. I've seen quite a few cases in which it would've been helpful if people just chilled out and realized that not every discussion that contains a couple of swearwords requires Jimbo's, Jesus' and Obama's attention. Blocking tends to make people less civil, not more. We have productive editors who use swearwords once in a while onwiki. In some cases they edit in areas of the encyclopedia that are known to cause heated discussion. I think it is easy to judge someone harshly based on a list of diffs where productive user X who makes many good edits in areas of the encyclopedia that can cause heated discussion used swearwords if that list has been carefully compiled by cherrypicking through thousands and thousands of relatively boring edits and presented without context (e.g. user X was being trolled by Y when he told Y to fuck off, in a content dispute with Z when he told Z that he should stfu etc.) and user X is known to use swearwords once in a while (couple a times a year maybe more with increasing wikistress). This can sometimes be solved without any long blocks or bans, by simply talking to the user (or asking someone to do it for you), perhaps mentoring or helping reduce wikistress or something; making people leave is not the only nor the most desirable solution. I am not claiming that all incivility can be "cured", but I do think that there is a real possibility of judging too harshly and quickly. And of course there is a trap: our idea that we ourselves are never incivil... (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 22:50, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion, swear words aren't the main thing. General unfriendliness and condescension and plain meanness are more bothersome, and there are some editors who seem to exude a meanness in nearly every single comment. So while i understand your point above about how it's possible to make someone look bad on first glance given a dozen diff's with cursing, there are genuine problems with people who consistently exude a hostility or toxicity. And i'm not someone who demands a "safe space" but rather a general common decency, a tendency toward civility, would be enough. SageRad (talk) 00:11, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, but again this goes to wider societal-cultural issues. We are not going to make Wikipedia an island of common human respect relative to the rest of the world. Not when our doors are wide open to anybody. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:16, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Agreed, but in daily life i find most people to be much more civil than many people on Wikipedia. Even when talking about controversial topics. SageRad (talk) 00:29, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't interact with a representative cross section of society, do you? For the most part, I choose what crowds to mingle with and avoid people who are not somewhat like me. I don't go to biker bars, I don't engage in debates with strangers at the mall, and I certainly don't visit the relative slums of Detroit or Birmingham. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:41, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Quite so. One's intimate circle rarely challenges one's cherished beliefs, whereas Wikipedia does it all the time, pretty much by design. Guy (Help!) 23:01, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

In a sense, yes, i see this point about self-selection of dialogs, although i did specify that i can have civil dialogs with people across differences above. The friction in Wikipedia can be a good thing, a creative tension from which excellent content emerges, and may be an explanation of the commonality of incivility, though it is not a good reason to be uncivil; it means we must work hard to be civil and keep working on our ways of speaking with each other. SageRad (talk) 14:55, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Just a general comment. I hope we're not entering an age of diminished common decency, where being a badass on the Internet is considered cool. --Bob K31416 (talk) 16:04, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

The anonymity of the Internet has always liberated people from normal societal standards of behavior. Unless you commit a serious crime like credible threats against a world leader or child porn, you can pretty much say whatever you want without consequences. Behave like that in RL and you generally get your ass kicked, lose your job, or something equally unpleasant. There is a deterrent to antisocial behavior, and that is an essential function of any society. Many, many people think it's cool to be free of those constraints. They can use the Internet as their daily dumping ground for the frustrations and resentments of modern life. If they wish they were a tough guy, they can play one on the Internet. Some of them choose Wikipedia as the place to do that. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:14, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Just a general comment. I feel that calling someone "an ignorant jackass", should result in an automatic one- or two-day block, or maybe a few days more. It would be a slap on the wrist, like a speeding ticket (which is punishment for an offense that somewhat increases the likely hood of others' premature death). 176.11.201.117 (talk) 17:27, 2 October 2016 (UTC)/176.11.201.117 (talk) 17:33, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Anyone who needs to know how offensive various terms are can now find out thanks to OFCOM, the UK's communicaitons regulator. Happy to be of service. Guy (Help!) 21:52, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the report is now here. --Boson (talk) 12:35, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I think one is uncivil to call attention to oneself. When one ceases to have an agenda—any agenda—one avoids or at least minimizes conflict at Wikipedia. An agenda is having a plan. An agenda is having a widely sweeping idea of how things should be. That is taking ownership of not just an article but of the project. You have essentially deluded yourself when you have reached the conclusion that this is your project. Under that delusion you are justified in being uncivil. It is as if someone has damaged your personal property when your agenda encounters a mere road bump. Bus stop (talk) 22:14, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Everyone has an agenda, anyone who says they have no biases is delusional. Guy (Help!) 22:59, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

This is true, and I was not clear. Anyone who pursues an agenda is likely to run into trouble. Bus stop (talk) 23:24, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

It is ok to be passionate. It matters what one is passionate for. Wikipedia is a grand project. An alternate slogan could be Writing the Universe. Notice that this does not say Righting the Universe, per WP:RGW. Sometimes writing correctly according to NPOV does improve the content in a way that is good for the world. This is a good passion. If an editor's passion is completely within the policies of WP:V and they are WP:CIVIL and engage in good dialog about content, then passion is welcome, for it makes the best encyclopedia. If an agenda is counter to the policies, then it is a problem. There should be no ownership of articles or of the project in general, but only good application of the policies as a collective goal. SageRad (talk) 01:36, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

This is an interesting discussion, because the question is just vague enough to give answers that provide a wonderful insight into the varying nature of the human psyche. I especially like Jytdog's reply. In my own opinion, the question itself is a bit misguided. We will always encounter people who are uncivil, and ironically enough those are the same people who will usually cry "incivility" at the slightest provocation. In reality, this is a very human way of testing other humans, in order to root out weakness. That a person is uncivil to me, may call me names or issue personal attacks is no reflection of me whatsoever. Instead it's a reflection of themselves; the person they really are but want to hide from the world. The only reflection of me is how I respond to it, which is the reason for the test. The weak will give in to anger and respond in kind. The strong won't be affected by it. It's a tactic as old as combat/conflict itself. Zaereth (talk) 06:11, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

It is a good question because it asks squarely why anyone would be uncivil. I don't think it is "vague". I think the question asks those who are or have been uncivil why they are uncivil. It is a poll of those of us who have been uncivil as to why we at least sometimes choose incivility. The original question is "Just a simple question to any editors who feel it applies to them, why would you want to be uncivil?" (And the heading is clear enough: "Why would one want to be uncivil?") Bus stop (talk) 12:32, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

• Comment Being uncivil in a Wikipedia discussion is really just..."you're opinion is less valid than mine", or "I will bait you into crossing a line". It is a tactic as much as a reaction.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:05, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Civility is one of the pillars of Wikipedia

We appear to have lost sight that the 4th pillar of Wikipedia is Editors should treat each other with respect and civility. I would have thought that the pillars were non-negotiable. For instance, the second pillar is Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view; If this thread had been phrased "Why would one want to write with a POV?" I doubt there would have been a single voice in agreement that POV is (sometimes) permissible. Why is civility any different and why are there editors here arguing that this pillar should be ignored? DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:30, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

The purpose of Wikipedia is to build an encyclopedia. Building a safe space where anyone with an internet connection can join in is not Wikipedia's role. The problem is that the community has no procedure to block civil POV pushers and the generally clueless. That means unhelpful behavior can be repeated, and that may elicit incivility from those who have helped build the encyclopedia. Any solution needs to look at both sides of the equation—do not focus on the effect (expletives) without dealing with the cause (civil POV pushing or lack of competence). Johnuniq (talk) 23:33, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Nobody said a "safe space" in the sense of some fragile "you offended me!" over-the-top level of civil... and on the other hand, what one person judges to be a "civil POV pusher" is to another person working toward NPOV. There are differences of perspective, genuine differences, among people. Those who think they're absolutely, clearly, no-question, for certain, I know it when i see it Right are a problem. Sometimes those and the ones who are uncivil thinking they're "saving" Wikipedia from "wogao" are sometimes one and the same. That's a problem. DrChrissy is right that civility is a pillar of Wikipedia. That's more than a nicety -- it's a necessity. (By the way, expletives are the least harmful aspect of incivility -- it's a deeper thing.) The ends don't justify the means -- and often it's not even as you see it. Sometimes it's your specific ends which don't justify the means. Sometimes it's the rush to judge those of different opinions as being "civil POV pushing" or "lack of competence" -- sometimes that simply means that someone has a different perspective on a topic, and they ought to have space to discuss it without being treated badly. SageRad (talk) 23:58, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

It's put-up time. Please link to a couple of discussions where incivility was nofailt properly handled. Because the purpose of Wikipedia is to build an encylopedia, there can be no rule specifying what block should be imposed for an expletive—the underlying issue is always the key point. Johnuniq (talk) 00:19, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Gamergate controversy has 40+ pages of editors trying to document a big scandal in the video game industry while unblocked power users accuse them all of being trolls and misogynists. 50.196.177.155 (talk) 21:41, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

What, you mean it's all about ethics in videogame journalism? Who knew? Guy (Help!) 09:26, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I do not want to put specific dialogs here, to call attention to any specific user, but i see it all the time. I did not say anything about a "rule specifying what block should be imposed for an expletive" so maybe you were thinking of an above comment while responding to me. Civility is important, and it is the means to having good dialogs about the content. Without civility, good dialog is not possible. SageRad (talk) 00:27, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Having "good dialogs" is not the purpose of Wikipedia. It is not possible to have useful dialogs with POV pushers or those who lack competence. What is a worse problem—some bad words or repetition-to-death from POV pushers and those who lack competence? Why the focus on the former with no procedures to handle the latter? Johnuniq (talk) 00:41, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Maybe there's easier and more effective ways to handle repetition-to-death editors than incivility. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:11, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

maybe. big maybe and fairly useless maybe. (see my comments here in yet an earlier iteration of this endless discussion) bottom line is there is little we can do as POV-pushers are generally deaf to any feedback, however civil they are, and they are definitely deaf to nice requests to stop soapboxing, or to yield to consensus, etc, to which they generally respond with cries of "censorship" or "incivility". humans lose patience. Jytdog (talk) 02:37, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Here's a possibility from a previous message of mine in this discussion:[2]

When you have consensus on your side, and an editor goes on and on with repetitious unconvincing arguments, keep in mind that it is the article that you are working on, not trying to change the editor's beliefs. So if the editor isn't a threat to the article, you don't need to respond to the editor's remarks nor be uncivil. If you feel you need to respond, keep it civil and short and refer to previous discussions as appropriate. The phrasing, "That's already been discussed" can be used too.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 03:01, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Point of view pushing is advanced by incivility. An outburst is a violation of WP:CIVIL but an outburst serves to call attention to oneself and not coincidentally to one's point of view. Incivility is as much implicated in point of view pushing as so-called "civil POV pushing". The difference is one has the backing of standard English and normal behavior and the other veers off into self-expression at any cost. I favor limited speech under these circumstances. We know that the encyclopedia is read by a wide swath of the English-speaking world and comes up first in Google searches therefore everyone wants to get their "message" out. But in interpersonal dialogue there is no place for the boisterousness that we call incivility. I think that may be the reason this problem is the 4th pillar of Wikipedia. Bus stop (talk) 05:14, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks to DrChrissy for that quote: Editors should treat each other with respect and civility. Bus stop (talk) 05:23, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Having "good dialogs" is not the purpose of Wikipedia. ..... and i didn't say it was -- having good dialogs is key to creating good content. Although some people disagree. Some people think that they are correct and therefore those who disagree need to get yelled at until they leave. That's the other side of this coin. It's people who are so cocksure that they are Right with a capital "R" who are most willing to be mean and condescending to those who challenge their precious beliefs. That's the thing about this all, and this dialog right here has made it apparent in microcosm. This whole thing about "Civil POV Pushing" is really another way of saying "He won't admit i'm right and he keeps talking!" which is a position that generally is stated by someone who is sure they they themselves are right. I hope to show the absolute poverty of that argument. It's a completely relative argument. The other person probably would say the same damn thing about you! Yeah, i've been there, with 5 excellent reliable sources stating something very relevant to the article, with another editor telling me that it's not relevant to the article and therefore should not be in it -- and filibustering basically -- and the meanwhile accusing me of "civil POV pushing" when in fact from my point of view, it is them who is "civil POV pushing" and usually not even so very civil.... so this argument holds no water. It's a completely relative statement generally. It's generally a flim/flam bullying technique or else a delusion of the holder, and should carry no weight in this discussion about the need to be civil. We do sometimes need to break an endless cycle of "Yes!" "No!" "Yes!" "No!" and in those cases often go to an RfC which sometimes helps. But accusing others of "civil POV pushing" to justify your incivility is not a good enough reason. They may equally see you as a "civil POV pusher". SageRad (talk) 11:47, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the bottom line is that we all know the difference between being fair and being abrasive. And there is no difference between incivility and civil POV pushing. That is because incivility is also a way of calling attention to oneself and ones point of view. Bus stop (talk) 13:11, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

If we all know the difference between being fair and being abrasive, then we all need to choose to be fair, and those who are abrasive need to be sanctioned then. But... what i'm saying is that this assessment of "civil POV pushing" is often a way of saying "He just won't admit that i am right, and give up!" which is a position of too much cocksure arrogance about your own rightness. Incivility is being mean whatever the motivation. SageRad (talk) 13:28, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

"civil POV pushing" is Orwellian. Bus stop (talk) 13:36, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

If you mean that the term is Orwellian in the sense of being doublespeak, then i agree. SageRad (talk) 13:39, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

Without pov pushing on either side, there can be a long intransigent discussion where each side is motivated by what they think is best for Wikipedia.

SageRad, Suppose you were in a long discussion where the other side had consensus, and they began to not respond to your messages, what would you do? --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:42, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

The problem here is that violations of WP:CIVIL represent POV pushing in and of themselves. I don't accept that people "just snap". That lashing out represents a calling of attention to oneself. And the calling of attention to oneself advertises one's "cause". Furthermore incivility also takes place at a lower but nevertheless harmful level. This is abrasiveness that causes divergent opinions to go away. Thus this unfriendly behavior is POV pushing. Civility should be enforced. It is a "pillar" of Wikipedia. Bus stop (talk) 14:23, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

No, the problem is that POV-pushing, and especially WP:IDHT, are not identified as the fundamental incivility that they are. Refusal to accept consensus is an act of passive-aggression. Both SageRad and DrChrissy, zealous advocates here for civility, have taken on this crusade only after their refusal to accept consensus resulted in sanctions against them. Both clearely resent these sanctions and reject their validity. That is the context, and it is really hard to view either as having clean hands here as a result. Guy (Help!) 17:03, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

So Guy - are your hands clean? Have you ever lied about an editor? Have you ever changed another editor's edits to change their meaning? I think you are here simply to derail this thread. DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:45, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

You are right that I am here to derail the thread, since the purpose of the thread appears to me to be POV-pushers tryign to pretend that being sanctioned for POV-pushing is somehow worse than POV-pushing. I am sure you have stopped beating your wife by now, though. Guy (Help!) 16:15, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

You are an admin. You are admitting to disruptive editing in this thread. I'm not married. DrChrissy ^(talk) 17:57, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

No, I am admitting to being here to stop you rewriting history to suit your internal worldview rather than what actually happened. You and Sage are both sanctioned POV-pushers. Your claims of "incivility" very often come down to implicit demands to have your POV-pushing go unchallenged. POV-pushing is uncivil, at its root, but the self-selected "civility police" studiously ignore that fact. The complaint you keep reiterating was addressed at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive913 § Admin edits my post to deliberately change the meaning. I do not propose to go over that stale issue yet again, since anyone who cares can simply go and read the diffs. My personal view is that you would have a much happier time her eif you just steered clear of the drama boards. To reiterate a point I made earlier: faux politesse is not the same thing as civlity. I think you're a perfectly decent editor as long as you stick to writing about animals and stay away from the areas where your personal beliefs collide with policy. Maybe you should try that for a while, rather than trying to use claimed incivility as a smokescreen delegitimise the massive amount of pushback you have experienced during your failed attempts to advance a non-neutral POV. Guy (Help!) 08:29, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

And it is of course a slice of the choicest, richest irony cake that DrChrissy is fussing over a table in which he asserts the supposed misdemeanours of other editors (including me) such as "tag teaming". Yet WP:TAGTEAM tells us "Unsubstantiated accusations of tag teaming are ... " (wait for it) " ... uncivil". Alexbrn (talk) 12:04, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

The disconnect between that table and reality is a perfect example of the way Bringers of Truth™ see Wikipedia disputes in which they are involved. Anbsence of self-criticism, wrongteous indignation and conspiracist ideation all in one compact block. I suppose I should thank him. Guy (Help!) 16:39, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

First of all, there is an issue when some editors but not all declare that there is a consensus when there is not. Secondly, there is an issue when some editors but not all declare that someone is doing "civil POV pushing" when in fact they are simply speaking to the content. These are relative judgments. These are tricks used to force content sometimes. Sometimes, it really really really really is the case that someone really has a point, and they need it to be heard and responded to appropriately, either with agreement or disagreement, but to be heard before being dismissed.

I am not going to name names directly, but several people in this dialog here have been engaged in some of the worst "civil POV pushing" that i have seen, time and again, if you were to use their definition of the term. But they would claim otherwise because their perspective tells them otherwise.

We need to respect that different people have different perspectives and can see a matter of content differently. We need to not demonize this fact. We need to not define disagreement on content as "civil POV pushing" if someone won't just shut up when you want them to.

I'm saying it again, it's an arrogant, over-confident, bullying, cocksure way of being if you are ok declaring those who disagree with you as being wrong for speaking their thoughts.

We need to delve into the meaning of "consensus" and how it's determined. It's not determined by declaration by a couple of editors, you know, when there are reasonable arguments to the contrary. SageRad (talk) 21:07, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

A premise of my question was that the other side had consensus. --Bob K31416 (talk) 22:33, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Sage, we know you do not accept that there was ocnsensus and do not accept that you were POV-pushing. That is pretty much the point: that's why you ended up sanctioned. It is unfortunate that the penny still has not dropped. Have you read m:MPOV? And if so, did you read it as a commentary on your own behaviour rather than others', as all such essays are intended to be read? It's like the Bible: all parables are about the reader, not "them". Guy (Help!) 08:29, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I disagree with your assessment of the situation, Guy. Your characterization of what happened in the past is incorrect. Your comment here pretty much speaks to the things i've been speaking about here. I would prefer to not engage with you on this topic if you can't keep it about the topic and not about me. I suggest you think about your own words here. SageRad (talk) 09:21, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Ok, i hear you Bob. Let's work with this. First i wonder how you are defining "consensus" here and who determined it here. Obviously it's not a consensus of all active editors because your question implies that i am not in agreement, as your question was SageRad, Suppose you were in a long discussion where the other side had consensus, and they began to not respond to your messages, what would you do? The framing of the question as there being "sides" is another sort of red flag for me. I do not like when there seems to be "sides" in the sense of teams, like it's a group sport. That seems like polarization that is unhealthy. Unfortunately, i see that too much as well.

Here is relevant policy:

When agreement cannot be reached through editing alone, the consensus-forming process becomes more explicit: editors open a section on the talk page and try to work out the dispute through discussion. Here editors try to persuade others, using reasons based in policy, sources, and common sense; they can also suggest alternative solutions or compromises that may satisfy all concerns. The result might be an agreement that does not satisfy anyone completely, but that all recognize as a reasonable solution. Consensus is an ongoing process on Wikipedia; it is often better to accept a less-than-perfect compromise – with the understanding that the page is gradually improving – than to try to fight to implement a particular preferred version immediately. The quality of articles with combative editors is, as a rule, far lower than that of articles where editors take a longer view.

When editors have a particularly difficult time reaching a consensus, several processes are available for consensus-building (third opinions, requests for comment), and even more extreme processes that will take authoritative steps to end the dispute (administrator intervention, formal mediation, and arbitration). Keep in mind, however, that administrators are primarily concerned with policy and editor behavior and will not decide content issues authoritatively. They may block editors for behaviors that interfere with the consensus process (such as edit-warring, abuse of multiple accounts, or a lack of civility). They may also make decisions about whether edits are or are not allowable under policy, but will not usually go beyond such actions.

First, i would take some time and consider whether i'm perhaps truly wrong here. Or perhaps that it's not important enough to take my time even if i still think i am right. If that doesn't resolve it for me, then i would perhaps call for an RfC or take it to a relevant noticeboard for more eyes (and hopefully non-involved eyes, although that tends to happen more in theory than in practice, but it helps).

What i've done lately, and it sometimes works, is to try to get the relevant points clarified, and ping the key people who seem to have the conflict. In fact i did such a thing recently here in trying to (1) defuse a perceived civility problem where one user objected to another user's edit summary -- and (2) to get further clarification from three parties who had made edits.

But to your question specifically, if i were in discussions with others who then stopped responding, i would generally wait a good amount of time. If their objections seemed truly genuine, i would try pinging them as well. I would not want to rush forward without getting consensus. If all other users stopped communication for several days, that would frankly be really strange. It hasn't happened, in my experience. But i do not try to exasperate or to "outlast" other editors. I seek simple, clear, genuine dialog with the sole purpose of working out the complexities of sources and content for the articles. SageRad (talk) 23:50, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

It looks like your response to my question is found in your last paragraph, which essentially says that you would stop. --Bob K31416 (talk) 02:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

SageRad you have been WP:SHUNed when you would not Wikipedia:DROPTHESTICK; you have experienced it. Bob K, that is an option. Not an effective one, obviously, and not in a place like WP where people will continue to engage with a person who will not drop the stick. Jytdog (talk) 04:28, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog, If you were in a long discussion, would you continue to engage with a person who will not drop the stick? If so, why? --Bob K31416 (talk) 05:34, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I have been in many. This seems to be theoretical to you, but it is very real. To answer, I try to engage for a long time and when it becomes clear the person will not deal with what everyone else is saying, I enact SHUN. Sometimes stating so, sometimes not. With your garden variety advocates who are just passing by, not responding works great. See Talk:Vaxxed and its archives where we have done that several times with drive-by editors. For folks like SageRad who are committed to The Truth they bring to WP ... others often keep responding far longer than I do. Have a look at Talk:Paleolithic_diet/Archive_6 for examples - you can wordsearch "shun" but to find them all you need to uncollapse some sections.

SHUN is tricky to implement because we all have an obligation to try to reach local consensus on things and to respond to good faith questions, and where to draw the line on what is "enough" is not simple.. but at some point enough is enough.

And of course, if the Civil POV pusher takes silence as consent and starts to actually edit the article per their preferred view, the whole discussion starts again. Jytdog (talk) 06:11, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Digression to individual editor

Jytdog and Guy's opinions on anything about me is from his perspective and is highly biased as he's been in opposition to me in ways that i do not think were good at all. Jytdog and Guy are not neutral observers by any stretch of the imagination regarding me, and it would be good if they would not make this about me but rather speak to the content of the discussion as i am doing. Failure to do that is one major cause of problems in dialogs, and is one of the main causes of breakdown of civility. I'm going to simply contest to the highest degree possible their assessment of things of the past, and not engage in dialog with those two here, seeing how it's going so far. SageRad (talk) 09:21, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Of course my view is fomr my perspective, but we also have a lengthy arbitration case with evidence and findings of fact. You choose to reject that as invalid, just as you choose to reject the sanctions against you. And that is your problem. Not that you have an opinion - everyone has - but that you are unshakeably convinced that you are right, to the point that you clearly perceive Wikipedia's failure to deliver your agenda as a lack of "integrity", a tword you have used a very large number of times in a way that always seems to me to be be synonymous with giving SageRad what he wants. You'd attract a good deal less crap if you could distinguish the difference between "I still think I am right" and "I am still right, therefore Wikipedia is broken beause it does not accept this obvious fact". Guy (Help!) 09:34, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

In the latest round of complaints above we hear all about the terrible things happening on Wikipedia, but with zero evidence. I think Hitchens's razor can be safely employed here and this grumbling can simply be dismissed. The reason people make it "about" SageRad is because it is about SageRad. Nothing else is ever brought in evidence: we just have complainer & vague unsupported complaints. Alexbrn (talk) 10:51, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, yes, but it's frustrating. I actually think that if Sage could flip the bit mentally to accept that he might be wrong about things, he'd become a much more valuable member of the community. e digs up some good sources and engages in thoghtful debate, it's just that he always does so from a perspective that is essentially evangelistic. This is a thing I recognise in myself, and I would love to help him understand the intellectual liberation of accepting you're wrong. It's the old Carl Sagan quote again:

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.

— Carl Sagan

If ever there was a rule for life, then that's it. Admitting you're wrong is tough. But once you've done it? You haven't lost anything. People respect you for it. You don't lose face on Wikipedia by accepting that you're wrong, in fact you gain credibility. However, refusal to even countenance the possibility that you are wrong, to the point where you assert that disagreement amounts to a lack of integrity, that is a serious problem.

It's kind of ironic that in pleading for civility, Sage in particular implicitly characterises everyone who disagrees with him (which is pretty much most of those involved in these disputes), as lacking integrity. I wish he'd stop using that word. It really grates., Guy (Help!) 11:50, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

How come a discussion about the subject of or the concept of incivility has to decline into a discussion of individual "faults"—perceived or otherwise? Is there no incivility at Wikipedia? Do people ever treat each other with disregard, disdain, dismissively? You may think I'm being exceptionally optimistic but I'm absolutely certain that there exists a higher level of functioning. We should strive for it for any number of reasons. Bus stop (talk) 11:52, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Because it was never about civility, any more than GamerGate was really about ethics in videogame journalism. Guy (Help!) 11:57, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Jytdog, In the case where not responding results in the editor making the edit on the article page, it would be reverted. An edit summary could be, "no consensus for this, see talk". --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:26, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes and in that situation that could a) cause the person to give up finally (unlikely); b) drive the person to start raising further arguments about their specific edit; or c) lead to an edit war the outcome of which would be either i) a block on the Civil POV pusher or ii) the page being locked. In the case of (c)ii everyone ends up right back where they were. Again you are treating this like it is a) theoretical and b) cut and dry, and it is neither. Jytdog (talk) 20:35, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Regarding your list, (a) would be fine (b) the way to treat that would be to continue not responding (c)i would be fine (c)ii I don't think the page would probably be locked if a single editor has violated 3rr, but it may happen. I think the most likely outcome is that the editor would stop before 3rr, but maybe not. These kind of situations don't have 100% predictable outcomes and one tries to find the best strategy, knowing that it may not be a perfect strategy.

Regarding your last sentence about theoretical and cut and dry, I didn't understand it. Could you explain? --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:48, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, this discussion is about civility. Some other editors here are failing to assume good faith, and are attempting to turn this into attacks upon myself and another editor who have taken part in this discussion, thereby providing a case in point about exactly why civility needs to be enforced within Wikipedia.
I also believe, like Bob states, that there is a higher level of functioning possible. I've seen it. Unfortunately it's a minority of cases where there is any controversy, but i've seen it. It exists. People can discuss across differences, with respect. We can keep the discussion on the ideas, not on the people who are discussing. We can have good dialog. But it requires the discipline on everyone's part to do so, otherwise it quickly devolves as it has here. I'm not even going to respond to the accusations made against me by a couple of other editors with whom i've had very very bad experiences in the past, except to say take it with a huge grain of Himalayan salt. SageRad (talk) 19:21, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

It is of relevance that WP:POVPUSH (part of an essay) states Calling someone a "POV-pusher" is uncivil and pejorative,... DrChrissy ^(talk) 20:50, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Labeling someone a "POV pusher" (civil or not) attaches the behavior to the person, whereas a person may change, or may be seen to push a POV in one topic area, but otherwise be a good editor in other topic areas. There seems to be utility in classifying some editors in this way, when the behavior is ongoing and problematic to the project. On the other hand, it is quite important to distinguish between POV pushing and working toward a more NPOV article. Herein the relativity of perspectives is important. What one person may see as "POV pushing" may to other editors be decent editing toward NPOV. The judgment cannot be made by one or a few editors, but must be something approaching a consensus among other editors that the editor in question is being problematic. Lastly, the essay you quote above continues as follows:

It is generally not necessary to characterize edits as POV-pushing in order to challenge them. The term 'POV-pushing' is primarily used in regard to the presentation of a particular point of view in an article and generally does not apply to talk page discussions. Editing a POV in an article that corresponds with one's own personal beliefs is not necessarily POV-pushing.

This says several things. First, you can challenge edits without labeling the editor as a POV pusher. Only if it's persistent and problematic is some meta-level action useful. Secondly, the label does not apply to talk page discussions, but only edits and pushing for article content. Thirdly, it's not wrong to have a point of view but only to push that POV against the sourcing rules of Wikipedia. If you have a point of view and work within sourcing rules, and are civil, and you are not filibustering, then it ought to be allowed and even honored as one of the beauties of Wikipedia, a place where people of different perspectives work together to determine a consensus content. It's actually important to have people of different points of view editing articles where there are different ways of seeing the subject matter. SageRad (talk) 23:00, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

WP:SPADE. You are both POV-pushers. You are both topic banned because of your POV-pushing. Having a POV is normal, refusing to accept consensus and trying to hammer your POV into articles is not. It's fine to call this POV-pushing, because that is the canonical definition of the term. The difference between an editor with a POV and a POV-pusher is pretty much exemplified by your comments here. Guy (Help!) 23:15, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Could you please explain to me how you see my comments here as showing me to be a POV pusher? I fail to see how discussing civility and the relativity of points of view, and the Wikipedia policies can pigeon-hole one as a POV pusher. Secondly, not every person convicted of a crime has committed the crime in question. Sometimes the justice system fails and convicts innocent people. Thirdly, people do change through time. I have learned a great deal about the policies of Wikipedia regarding sourcing and neutral point of view. There is a normal learning curve for an editor, and so people must be given the potential to change. It continues a cycle when one cannot have a good dialog about civility as we would like to have here. And, to top it off, i will admit that i've made my share of uncivil comments. It's not something i'm proud of, and i have made an effort to change that behavior. Similarly, i admit that i have made my share of poor edits, as i learned about sourcing rules and the reasoning behind them. On the other hand, i think i've contributed in bringing some articles closer to NPOV with good edits. I am proud of that. SageRad (talk) 23:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Arbcom all but attached that label to you here. What is your point—that POV pushers can never be called out? What was all that stuff about bullying at civility? Anyone with an internet connection and a desire to right great wrongs can contribute to Wikipedia, so obviously there will be unsuitable editors, and arguing with them forever will not deflect them from their mission. Johnuniq (talk) 23:20, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

E/C JzG Perhaps you would like to present an example of where you believe I have been guilty of POV pushing. I have asked for this before, but none have been forthcoming. How can I learn if I don't know what I am doing wrong.DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:24, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

@JzG: I am still waiting for evidence as to why you believe that I am a POV pusher. Note to other readers: At this point, the usual tactic is for one of JzG's friends to either close the thread, citing some obscure reason for its closure, or to simply archive it. Let's see what happens this time. DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:53, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Uh, you do realize you only get topic banned for pushing a POV, correct? For instance [3]. You had your topic ban extended because you were putting nothing but negative material into the article, using fringe sources, and cherry picking particular parts of good sources to give an impression contrary to the actual conclusions of the sources. That's POV pushing by definition. Capeo (talk) 23:48, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Of course I can not comment on this in detail because of my topic ban. Contrary to what you have stated above, there are numerous reasons a topic ban might occur, not only POV pushing. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:56, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, no, you're not going to able to comment on areas where you were caught pushing a POV because you got topic banned from them. Note: arbs saying you weren't editing neutrally is the same thing as saying you're pushing a POV. You asked for evidence so I posted one example of it. Not for you to comment on, but to allow any other editors who may be buying your claim that you haven't blatantly pushed a POV to see the reality of the situation. Capeo (talk) 00:16, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

For those interested in following this, click on the link supplied by Capeo and see exactly how many editors claimed I was POV-pushing and look at the identity of that one editor. I'm beginning to think this might be harassment. DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:27, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Are you accusing me of harassment? I'd love for you to present some evidence of that. I don't think I've even had any interactions with you, since that link above, outside of these whinefests that keep popping up on Jimbo's page. Capeo (talk) 21:41, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

So why would those interactions on Jimbo's NOT count as harassment? DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:31, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Like many things on WP, you have no grasp of the harassment policy either. You come to Jimbo's page to pontificate you open yourself to everyone else's pontificating as well. I've even barely responded to you here and you bring up "harassment"? Why? Because some past evidence I provided in an ARCA got your topic ban broadened? Please, try to be more petty if that's possible. I'll say again, taking a page out of your book, if you think I've broken some policy then bring the evidence. Otherwise you're just making false claims and personal attacks. I'd love to see evidence that I'm somehow harassing someone that I have no interaction with. Capeo (talk) 00:32, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Please make up your mind. Either you have interacted with me or you have not. Which is it? DrChrissy ^(talk) 18:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

That wait will never end as long as every time it's exlained you stick your fingers in your ears and shoult "LAA LAA LAA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" then pretend the question was never answered. You have at least two topic bans. At some point you might like to start giving some consideration tot he possibility that not all your edits are exemplary. Guy (Help!) 22:17, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

"Everyone has an agenda, anyone who says they have no biases is delusional. Guy (Help!) 22:59, 2 October 2016 (UTC)" This thread is not about me, it is not about you: it is about incivility in general. So, I will leave it there, recognising that your time is needed in defending 2 further complaints about your behaviour in the threads below this one. DrChrissy ^(talk) 22:35, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

You did notice that both of those are baseless asseritons of rouge admin abuse, didn't you? Especially the editor who has spent years trying to get a heavily spammed site removed fomr the blacklist so that, by is own admission, he can use it to promote his fringe ideology? Guy (Help!) 08:13, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

As i said above, not all convicted of a crime have committed that crime. There can be bias in the justice system. Secondly, the "stuff about bullying" was highly related to this discussion about civility. It's about treating each other as well as possible so we can work together with different points of view. Bullying is part and parcel of lack of civility. SageRad (talk) 23:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

You're making the mistake of assuming that every point of view is inherently as valid as any other. They're not. WP follows mainstream sources. When someone is pushing a fringe viewpoint there doesn't need to be continuous consideration of a viewpoint that has already been dismissed. Capeo (talk) 00:31, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

No, i'm not making that mistake. You're making the mistake of thinking that i think all points of view are equally valid. SageRad (talk) 12:59, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I absolutely do not think that you believe all points of view to be equally valid. I have never seen you say or do anything on Wikipedia that gives the slightest hint of this. You have always made it absolutely clear that you consider any point of view that disagrees with yours to be inherently and unquestionably invalid. Guy (Help!) 00:26, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I accept that may be your assessment as a witness, while i also sense a hostility in it, but you would not be the best impartial witness about me, JzG, due to our being in conflict a number of times. But i do declare that here's how i think it really is, somewhere in between "Every point of view is equally valid!" and "I am right about everything, and that's obvious, how could anyone dare question me!"
On some things, i do hold a strong point of view, often from a lot of reading and/or experience, but that's still open to changing from exposure to other evidence. On other things, i don't have a strong point of view, and sometimes i can truly see what causes people to hold various different points of view, and sometimes multiple points of view are truly valid. Not all points of view, but more than one point of view. There really are many ways of looking at some things. Sometimes there are also different modes of looking that result in different points of view. Or different criteria or values.
An example might be the Paleo diet, which may be in some senses a "fad diet" and may be ridiculed and scorned by some sources, but in some other ways may be useful and promote good health for others, and there are sources (including scientific peer-reviewed ones) to that effect as well. In that case, i think the more harmful position is the one that sees it as simplistically only a "fad diet" with a scorn that is scathing, whereas being able to see that it really does have different meanings and effects to different people can help to improve the article.
I know you work in the global warming topic, JzG, and there of course i fully agree with your point of view (it's real and it's human-caused). That's a case where there are multiple points of view and of course they're not all equally valid. The denialism position must be described but encapsulated as not supported by science (as well as partially created by corporate denialism funding).
I have had my point of view modified or enriched by working within Wikipedia, through the rich dialog. I've changed my mind on some things as well, given more evidence or insight. I've admitted to being wrong sometimes, or seen a more nuanced way of seeing it. Points of view are often not changed easily (especially those based on much experience or evidence) but in my case they can change. Do these comments help to bridge our divide? SageRad (talk) 10:24, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

In fact, here's one specific and recent example where i learned something, and admit it. It's in the race and intelligence field and it has to do with sourcing and the current state of the literature on the topic. From my point of view, which agrees largely with Richard Nisbett, the correlations between racial groups and IQ test results is real, but is largely explainable by social factors -- both differences of resources and experiences, as well as the way that IQ and similar testing measures "intelligence" in a culturally specific way. I also assumed that the scientific literature had a fair consensus on this point. However, from my work at that article, based on exposure to more review articles on the topic, i realized that the scientific literature actually does not seem to have consensus about this. It's rather split. That's surprising to me, and it doesn't change my actual beliefs on this topic based on experience, evidence, and thinking, but it does change my reckoning of the scientific literature on this topic. Is that adequate to show you that my point of view is not set in stone, but does change from dialog and exposure to new evidence? BTW sorry for wall of text, there is really a lot to say on this. SageRad (talk) 10:31, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

For those in this discussion, please note that it is not a matter of an individual's personal views but rather that edits are made to an article so that the article has a neutral point of view. I think that the editing environment of Wikipedia would be better off if editors kept their personal views about an article topic to themselves, didn't accuse others of having improper personal views about the article topic, and focused on whether edits are consistent with Wikipedia policy and guidelines. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:23, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Definitely, WP:NPOV applies to articles but not to talk pages, although policy is also clear that talk pages are WP:NOTFORUM. But i think there are times when good discussion can include points of view in relation to NPOV, as i recently saw in this discussion from user Snow_Rise (pinging because mentioning here) in a way that i think helps the dialog to work toward an NPOV article. I definitely agree about being civil and not accusing other editors of having improper views, but instead speaking their own views as relevant without aspersions, and commenting on content in relation to sources and policies. SageRad (talk) 14:18, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I looked at Snow's first message there and it seemed to be OK. Simply put, views about an edit of an article are OK, but views about the topic of the article are not. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:58, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Lack of civility by User JzG (with honorable mention to User K.e.coffman)

Greetings, folks. As a brand new contributor here at Wikipedia, I must admit to being surprised and saddened by the hostility and lack of civility I encountered within hours of my good faith attempt to create an article on a notable Star Trek author/collector; who I might add is the subject of significant prior coverage at the Memory Alpha Star Trek dedicated wiki. Not only did User JzG immediately attack the notability of the subject and submit the article for deletion; but he continued by behaving in bad faith throughout the deletion discussions, assuming an insulting demeanor (referring to Star Trek as fancruft), ignoring meritorious comments of mine regarding the notability issue, and generally conducting himself in anything but the good faith manner that one should expect to find in a senior editor / administrator on this site. Then user K.e.coffman added the deletion article discussion to some debate on "fictional characters" and, since the Star Trek author is a living person, coffman's behavior can only be viewed another example of mean-spirited behavior/mockery of my attempt to produce an Wikipedia entry in good faith. By the way, when I googled the username JzG out of curiosity; I came across an interesting homage to him at the site encyclopediadramatica.se/JzG which is filled with angry and profane rantings about him. Apparently, I am far from the first person to encounter this Guy and have a negative reaction; though I condemn those that would be so excessive as to hurl profanity at anyone, especially in this extreme online example. I will of course follow the consensus opinion on the deletion question regarding my article; but I honestly would like to know what oversight mechanisms exist here at Wikipedia to keep rogue / bad faith administrators in check? Or prevent a potentially dishonorable individual like, in my opinion, Guy (usr JzG), from recruiting cohorts to say 'rig the results' of a deletion debate in his favor? As well, I did want to comment that when I read through the various sections on what establishes sufficient Notability of a person to qualify for an article on Wikipedia; I really didn't come away with a very firm understanding of the qualification threshold. The subject of my article has appeared in a Star Trek television documentary, has been quoted in major international press (The Telegraph & USA Today), has authored two books on Star Trek and been quoted as a Star Trek historian in a different book series ... so I sincerely thought that was sufficient or at least a minimal amount of coverage to be regarded as noteworthy. I understand that people don't need to be huge movie stars or household names to be embraced by Wikipedia, do they? As there are millions of pages in this free encyclopedia. I am sincerely hoping for a good faith discussion of my concerns - it would be sad to discover this notable online resource is easily dominated by less-than-good-faith characters such as JzG and K.e.coffman Perhaps there might be enough visitors to this well known page that someone who cares about civility or good faith conduct on the part of the senior staff at this site will take notice. Tosresearcher (talk) 03:53, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

"a notable Star Trek author/collector" - since your username is tosresearcher it's safe to assume you have some connection to this person? Looks like a good job is being done by all here in getting wildly promotional puffery out of Wikipedia. Alexbrn (talk) 05:52, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Are you so unaware of Star Trek's worldwide popularity (presently estimated at over 40 million fans) to think me related just because my username shows a love of TOS? You, sir, prove out the small minded nature I was just hoping to overcome on this site. Tosresearcher (talk) 06:33, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

No, I'm something of a Trek fan (though I'd like the time back I spent watching the latest film). Could you be clear about your relation to Gerald Gurian please? It would help to inform any discussion of WP:COI and WP:PROMO issues. Alexbrn (talk)

Again, sadly, more insinuations of impropriety. I assume fans of Star Trek should never edit Star Trek related Wikipedia articles for fear of the article appearing too favorably disposed? Tosresearcher (talk) 06:53, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

• It's a little hypocritical to complain about insinuations of impropriety when you're suggesting that Guy could be rigging the results of a deletion debate, isn't it? Yes, the policies on notability are somewhat arcane, but what you really need is this sentence from WP:BIO. "(Notability requires) significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable ... and independent of the subject." The problem is that most of the sources in your article fail this; they're either not significant (a brief mention of Gurian as someone who collects memorabilia, or a short quote from him), they're not reliable (blogs or user-generated content), or independent (Gurian's own website and content). My inkling is that his book may possibly be notable, but based on what is currently in the article, he probably isn't. Black Kite (talk) 07:18, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Black Kite, for taking the time to respond in a meaningful matter that does help to educate me on Notability. It is appreciated. Kind Regards. Tosresearcher (talk) 07:36, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

My goodness, have a look at the user's contributions here. A good many instances of putting a notice on other users' talk pages like this one... looks like WP:CANVASS just FYI. Tosresearcher, you should read that guideline. SageRad (talk) 12:13, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, he was already pointed to that guideline here, so he is aware. The constant attacks on JzG simply because his article is at Afd, are more concerning.--Atlan (talk) 12:47, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

And be careful that y'all ain't biting, ok? Especially to a newbie who might not have studied WP:DR yet and doesn't recognize Jimbo's talkpage might not be the best venue for a first time editor to learn Admin/Editor conflicts or any other policy or guideline, K? Forgot to sign... LaughingVulcan ^{Grok Page!} 13:26, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Seems like the responses here haven't addressed the OP's main point, "As a brand new contributor here at Wikipedia, I must admit to being surprised and saddened by the hostility and lack of civility I encountered within hours of my good faith attempt to create an article..." For reference, here's a link to the subject discussion [4]. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:46, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

(ec) The OP created an article, is offended that this was nominated for deletion and perceives every attempt at explaining why as hostility and incivility. The complaint is meritless and the attacks on JzG are baseless. If you feel this does not adequately address the issue, feel free to jump in.--Atlan (talk) 15:01, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it does address the issue of hostility that the OP brought up. I added a link to the subject discussion, which you may not have seen because you encountered an (ec). You might check it out and decide for yourself whether there was hostility towards the new editor. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:40, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

No hostility at all. A poorly sourced article that seems to me not to meet inclusion criteria, so I nominated it for deletion. That happens all the time, dozens of times a day. My personal view is that anyone with fewer than 500 edits should not be able to create an article in mainspace, for exactly this reason - it is kinder and gentler to let them make it in Draft and then it can be assessed and either promoted or not. We'd have a lot fewer deletions if this was done IMO, but that view is probably extremely controversial since a number of people want to go back to anonymous creation. Guy (Help!) 09:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Atlan I am not as worried about biting as I am about No personal attacks, by providing a link to an external website that is used for the purpose of attacking another editor, this is a clear violation of a personal attack. Tosresearcher has posted the web address on this page once already and told another editor how to google this attack page with the comment “... you will be shocked! Folks with integrity should really disapprove on this page” This editor has also made a comment on Alexbrn’s talk page showing further uncivil behavior with this edit. If this behavior doesn’t change I foresee a block in this editors near future. In response to Bob K31416 I too was not given the warmest reception and was immediately accused of a COI, however I do not remember lashing out and attacking the editor who made the accusation. I learned the policies better, moved on to articles of less drama until I learned the ropes and I have found some areas of Wikipedia I really enjoy working on. Going straight to personal attacks I have found is not the sign of someone here to contribute to an encyclopedia, but someone who is here to get "there article", or opinions put in. Hopefully this is not the case with Tosrearcher, and the editor will take a step back evaluate the actions taken so far and move on. VViking_TalkEdits 14:55, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Actually, it seems that you didn't respond to what my message said. P.S. I added a link after you posted your message. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:01, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

• Chicago Kelly's Rule No. 2. Battles over the appropriateness of a source for use in Wikipedia have always been settled through collateral attacks such as accusing one's opponent of incivility or other violations of the rules. This is largely because Wikipedia has no mechanism at all for authoritatively deciding disputes over content, but does have mechanisms for settling disputes over conduct, which causes disputes over content to be transformed into disputes over conduct. (March 2016 on Wikipediocracy) — Carrite (talk) 15:25, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

• I think the conflict culture of Wikipedia will eventually abate and become known as something like a cliche. I've seen it for years and I think editors are better than that, and they just got off on the wrong track somewhere when they came to the internet, and are unable to change ............... for now. --Bob K31416 (talk) 23:01, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

• All I can say is: I am not wearing a red shirt. Guy (Help!) 21:58, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

What do you think about red shirts for new editors per WP:Please do not bite the newcomers? --Bob K31416 (talk) 03:21, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I could do without sea lions. Guy (Help!) 08:21, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Sea lions? Maybe I misunderstood what you meant by red shirt, thinking it was about the red shirt that some american football quarterbacks wear during practice so that their team mates don't hit them and cause a possible injury. Would you care to clarify what you meant by red shirt? --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:44, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I looked some more and found this slang meaning [5]. If that was it, you could still clarify what you were trying to say. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:03, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

As a minor clarification of something that misled me when I first read this thread and seems to be distracting some others as well, I believe the letters "TOS" in Tosresearcher's username refer to "The Original Series" (of Star Trek) and not to the "terms of service" (of Wikipedia). Newyorkbrad (talk) 13:42, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

• The topic of this section regards the AFD discussion at [6]. An example of a good response there was that of Gråbergs Gråa Sång. I don't think the responses of Guy were very good and they resulted in this talk section. --Bob K31416 (talk) 07:13, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

• Are you aware that people often try to inject POV and fringe nonsense into Wikipedia? Have you ever helped combat that? The difficulty of that important work might not be appreciated until trying it. Everyone knows that being civil is better than being uncivil, but have you ever seen a purely civil conversation produce a useful result in the face of a POV pusher? Links please. I'm not suggesting an uncivil conversation produces useful results either—the point is that no form of discussion stops a POV pusher, and Wikipedia is edited by people from all over the world with some who see no point in hiding their irritation behind fake civility. Johnuniq (talk) 09:11, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Seems like you didn't dispute the points in my last message and instead digressed. --Bob K31416 (talk) 12:36, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Seems that you are tone trolling. Guy (Help!) 09:25, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the AFD discussion at [7], I think that the strongest argument for deletion was that of Gråbergs Gråa Sång. Why do you suppose the OP complained about you but not about Gråbergs Gråa Sång? --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Bob K re sea lioning and tone trolling, see sea lioning and I agree with Guy that this is what you appear to be doing; this is what my last comment had to do with, which you also didn't understand. this comment was especially... weird. Jytdog (talk) 17:24, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I can tell you exactly why the OP reacted better to Gråbergs Gråa Sång: the OP wants this article, and Gråbergs Gråa Sång left enough ambiguity to allow him to go on thinking that he can get what he wants, whereas I stated unwelcome truth. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch, and everyone prefers a statement they can render in their heads as support for what they want to do (in this case write an article on a subject that has no reliable independent sources and where the author pretty clearly has a close personal connection). The normal advice is take it to Memory Alpha, but that appears to be where it came from. Guy (Help!) 12:19, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

In the AFD discussion at [8], the difference was that you substituted aggression for explanation. For example, you wrote, "you don't get this Wikipedia thing, do you?" instead of providing the links WP:NOTABLE and WP:GNG, like Gråbergs Gråa Sång did. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:17, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• I clearly misjudged the notability threshold for articles on people here at Wikipedia, given the huge consensus favoring Deletion and assuming those opinions are based on a correct interpretation of the threshold. So I admit Guy acted appropriately in nominating my work for deletion, and I do apologize to him now for assuming he was behaving in bad faith. He certainly did little to aid my understanding of policy, by making very short comments/replies to me with a less than friendly demeanor, saying things like "you just don't get this Wikipedia thing" or other comments that fell short on meaningful explanation. This is not to say at all that I think the notability threshold here is correct, it seems absurdly too rigid / extremely discriminating to me (again assuming the Delete consensus is fair). And the GNG is really quite vaguely written in my opinion, not specifying clearly to me what constitutes "significant coverage" at all. I have since found some new sources on both the author and his books, and inquired about them in the AFD discussion, but there are no replies - likely, I suspect, because the Deletion vote is already clearly in. So it would be appreciated if someone could provide feedback to me, and also explain why my thoughts on the merits of a large corporate press release as being considered reliable in this particular situation are wrong. Thanks. By the way, Guy, very nice and humorous use of the term 'red shirt'. Best. Tosresearcher (talk) 16:32, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I made a comment over there regarding the links you provided. [9] --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:05, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Re your comment "This is not to say at all that I think the notability threshold here is correct, it seems absurdly too rigid / extremely discriminating to me (again assuming the Delete consensus is fair). And the GNG is really quite vaguely written in my opinion, not specifying clearly to me what constitutes "significant coverage" at all." – Note that you can go over to the talk page of any policy or guideline to discuss changes to those policy and guideline pages. If they are unclear, the input of a new editor may be valuable in that regard. Good luck. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:20, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

On history

The OP registered on Wikipedia in order to create this article. Edit number one was creating it. He found his way to Jimbotalk after fewer than 90 edits, every single one of which is in relation to the same subject. He refuses to answer the question about his connection to the subject and has never mentioned any previous editing, as far as I have seen. Am I alone in finding this suspicious? Guy (Help!) 13:25, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

No, JzG|Guy you're not alone on this one. It's obvious. However the article is of no threat to the group of ideology pushers here, ruling Wikipedia and Jimbo's baby, for their own biased agendas, while even Jimbo seemingly realizes he has lost control of such agenda pushers, and in effect undermines the entire set of principles Jimbo based his baby on, many moons ago. In other words JzG|Guy, the article this new editor created means nothing to anyone, whereas other controversial topics, that truly independent editors like me have attempted to bring some NPOV to, based on what the reliable sources really say, get jumped on by the long established gangs protecting them. Jimbo Wales, do you want evidence? Jimbo, if I explicitly show you what's going on here on your beloved Wikipedia, would you act to save your baby? Or do you no longer give a ....?Charlotte135 (talk) 14:21, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

That was a Rhetorical question Jimbo.Charlotte135 (talk) 14:29, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

FishEaters and JZG

How interesting that I came here to post what I'm about to post, only to find that the last person to post has a complaint about JZG. What I have to say involves him as well. After discovering what I found with regard to the subject of what I'm about to post, all I can say is that JZG is a problem.

Now, for my post. I posted the below to both the Blacklist and Whitelist pages, with a few variations. Here goes:

FishEaters.com and Chabad.org

Through a comment made on a blog, I came to learn about the (unwarranted, IMO) blacklisting of a traditional Catholic website called FishEaters, located at www.FishEaters.com That site's owner was accused of having been a "linkspammer" after having added links to that site back in 2004 or 2005, before there were any rules in place about adding links to one's own site. The site owner was also accused of adding "too many" links, but after asking for clarification of the rules and about what constitutes "too many links," received none. An editor named "Dominick," who seems to have had it in for traditional Catholics, edit warred against the site owner. Another editor, named JZG, who later became an admin, sided with Dominick and, immediately after becoming an admin, had the site blacklisted. The FishEaters site owner explains how she saw what happened on this page: fisheaters.com/wikipedia2.html.

It seems that any time she or anyone else attempted or attemps to have the site whitelisted, JZG immediately enters into the conversation, repeats his same arguments which are based on misunderstandings or falsehoods and, if you ask me, bigotry. He then down-votes the idea, and that's that since other Admins seem to automatically defer to his "take" on things. In other words, FishEaters is blacklisted for bogus reasons, and can't get whitelisted because the person who blacklisted maintains his bogus reasons.

I request a total re-evaluation of this site's blacklisting based on the site itself, without reference to JZG's input, as he apparently has an anti-Catholic attitude (see the wikipedia2.html page mentioned above, which links to pages here on which JZG refers to Catholics as "papists") and a personal animus against the site owner, whom he wrongly perceives as using Wikipedia to promote her site rather than simply adding links to relevant entries to give Wikipedia visitors more information on the entries in question. Note the links on wikipedia2.html, too, to material posted here that expresses the idea that, in essence, JZG never changes his mind, never revises opinions based on new information, and that he demonstrates a pretty nasty attitude toward people he sees, rightly or wrongly, as being on his "bad side."

The same wikipedia2.html page talks about how the FishEaters site -- which is the largest, second oldest, and very respected traditional Catholic website on the internet, one that is used in RCIA classes, in parish bulletins, is referenced in books and periodicals, which has a discussion forum with almost 6,000 members, and which is not a monograph, but a non-profit charity registered in the State of Indiana -- is disallowed a single link from the entry "Traditionalist Catholicism," which is all the site owner asked for when requesting white listing -- all while chabad.org is allowed over 700 links. The blog post in which I read about all this linked to Google returns for the search terms "site:en.wikipedia.org chabad.org" which now gives 4,870 links in return.

I find it extremely odd and a sign of possible anti-Catholic bigotry that FishEaters was blacklisted for having had "too many" links, and now can't even have one link from the entry "Traditionalist Catholicism" while chabad.org can have almost 5,000 links from often totally irrelevant entries (they at least used to even have a link from the entry "Waldorf Salad," according to that wikipedia2.html page).

I will post this as well on the Blacklist page, but post it here, too, because I think it only fair that if a Catholic site is blacklisted for having "too many links," and if that site isn't whitelisted given that the blacklisting was due to FishEaters having had "too many links," which stemmed directly from a lack of response to requests for clarification, made by the site owner, as to Wikipedia policy, and from what seems to be anti-Catholic bigotry coupled with a single Admin (JZG) -- one who calls Catholics "papists" -- being totally unwilling to honestly evaluate what actually happened with the blacklisting of the FishEaters website, then chabad.org should be blacklisted as well.

I will also try to get this information to Jim Wales and the Board of Trustees.

Desired action:

A) Whitelist FishEaters.com so that at least a link can be added from the Traditionalist Catholicism entry. Consideration of this should be carried out without the input of JZG who clearly has a serious animus against the site, is apparently bigoted against Catholics, and is, shall we say, inordinately stubborn, being extremely unwilling to reconsider his past decisions, even if they were made based on faulty premises and incomplete information. Given the reasons for the original blacklisting, the lack of clear linking policy at the time in question (over a decade ago!), and the lack of response to the blacklisted website owner's repeated requests for clarification and help, a general whitelisting would be more just.

OR

B) If FishEaters.com isn't whitelisted, then chabad should be blacklisted as well given that the reason given for blacklisting FishEaters.com was that there were "too many links" to it from Wikipedia, even though those links were on perfectly relevant entries and were nowhere near in number -- as in "in a completely different numerical universe" -- of the almost 5,000 links chabad.org has now.

Thank you for your time and consideration!

End comments made

Jimbo, what Wikipedia has done to the FishEaters site, how that can affect the site in terms of Google algorithms and how other Wiki media use Wikepedia's blacklists, the bigotry shown toward Catholicism by JZG, the incredible double standards in place for Catholic sites relative to Jewish ones, and the complete lack of real recourse given how the "Wiki system" works -- a system by which, the aggrieved makes a complaint, Admins turn to other Admins to find out what's going on, and then the Admin who caused all the problems in the first place shows up and calls the shots so that nothing changes --- well, it sucks. I'm going to take this as far as I can go. I'm really ticked off that some rogue, bigoted Admin can get so bent on screwing over a site that he shows up every single time someone asks that the site be whitelited and does nothing but repeat the same untruths he used to blacklist the site in the first place -- and he gets away with it. I want for the FishEaters site to be evaluated on its own merits, without the input of the nasty JZG who always seems to have the final word. It's pretty disgusting. Schoemann (talk) 08:07, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

• The Fisheaters site, on it's "about us" page, says this - "The purpose of this site is to bring souls to the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church -- the Church headed by Christ and built on the rock of St. Peter, the Church against which the gates of Hell will never prevail. Fish Eaters strives to do this by showing Protestants the errors of Protestantism....". On which planet is that website ever going to be a reliable, neutral source for an encyclopedia? It's not, is it? Meanwhile, chabad.org appears to be a far more professional information site, written - as far as I can see - pretty neutrally. The two aren't comparable. Black Kite (talk) 09:13, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

I was pretty surprised by JzG's inherent rudeness and meanspirited nature myself, and I encountered it just within hours of joining Wikipedia and writing my first article. And it was amazing to see a whole webpage filed with profane comments about him (and many examples & quotes of his own use of profanity within his discussions here at Wikipedia!) when I searched his JzG username on Google. Just my luck to encounter such a low example of humanity so soon after joining. Try googling JzG and see the Encyclopedia Dramatica webpage ... you will be shocked! Folks with integrity should really disapprove. As for your grievances, which are frankly much more noteworthy than mine, I would encourage you to use the contact info / recommendations / phone numbers that Jimbo Wales suggests on his User page to follow up your concerns. How disappointing that corrupt admins like JzG go unchallenged, apparently for years. Good luck! Tosresearcher (talk) 08:56, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Don't take what Encyclopedia Dramatica says as gospel, it is not meant to be taken that seriously. You are in no position to judge how "corrupt" an admin "has been for years" after only a few days of editing here anyway. Also, how do you think your attack-laden post reflects on you? Your advice is also terrible, I suggest you gain a little more experience before telling other editors what to do.--Atlan (talk) 09:49, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

It's been raised at MediaWiki talk:Spam-whitelist by Schoemann. Doug Weller talk 15:28, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

@Tosresearcher - I advise you to redact your personal attack on JzG, or you will be soon researching Wikipedia's TOS as a blocked user. Carrite (talk) 15:33, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

• Just as an FYI, the adding of Chabad.org to articles was the subject of many RFC and an RFQ/Arbcom case years ago. Many of the links were added just to spam Wikipedia by several Chabad editors who were working to promote Chabad. I would be OK with removal of some of the Chabad.org links that have no Jewish/Chabad value. In other words, a link to a recipe doesn't need to be on Chabad.org, etc. 🔯 Sir Joseph ^🍸(talk) 15:30, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

• • Thanks for that Sir Joseph. Yes, we have too many links to Chabab.org which have simply been spammed, I recall when that was going on. I don't think it should be blacklisted but some of those links should go. I'm also bothered by a strongly pro-Catholic editor asking that someone he perceives as anti-Catholic be barred from a discussion. Doug Weller talk 15:52, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

• • • It isn't JZG's anti-Catholicism that's the problem; it's how he allows that to affect how he edits and administrates Wikipedia. It's either his anti-Catholicism or the fact that he self-admittedly never changes his mind -- i.e., that he's stubborn as hell. If the FishEaters site was blacklisted for having "too many links" -- even after the site-owner repeatedly sought clarification as to how many links are "too many" -- then chabad.org should be likewise blacklisted. Or Fisheaters should be whitelisted. One of the two "has" to happen or it'll remain far too obvious that Wikipedia has a pro-Jewish, anti-Catholic slant.

• • • To Black Kite: obviously chabad.org has the goal of spreading Lubavitcher thought. Get real. They're not selling used cars there; they're promoting Hassidism and Noahidism. That's how it goes with religious sites. If people want to know what traditional Catholics think about this or that, they're not going to go to a Chabad, Muslim, or Lutheran site (all perfectly kosher to link to) or to cocacola.com Schoemann (talk) 00:52, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

If people want to find out what "traditionalist Catholics" think about something then they can go to a reliable independent source, such as one of the many books on the history of the Catholic church. The personal website of a True Believer, who, incidentally, added hundreds of links mostly on things that had nothing whatsoever to do with that fringe Catholic sect, is not needed. Guy (Help!) 22:07, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

What, really? Again? The site owner of fisheaters was engaged in absolutely unambiguous link spamming, and it was blacklisted at Meta as a result. Here's the original link: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist/Archives/2006-05#fisheaters.com.2C_kensmen.com

Yes, really, May 2006. Nor is this the first time that this editor has demanded the site be removed.

The benefit of Wikipedia to these sites is clear, the converse, not so much. Guy (Help!) 21:56, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

• • • • "Hundreds of links mostly on things that had nothing whatsoever to do with" topics relevant to what you're wrongfully considering a "fringe" website? Which topics would those be? Which links? I'm not seeing anything close to what you're talking about in the url you provided. I see links to pages about sacramentals, Easter, Lent, etc. -- all traditional Catholic subjects, and nowhere near "hundreds of them." You are incorrect, either lying or ignorant. You're saying that traditional Catholicism is a "fringe" thing? Do you know anything about traditional Catholicism? Anything about Benedict XVI's Motu Proprio? About the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter of the Institute of Christ the King, another priestly fraternity, both of which offer all of the traditional sacramental rites in everyday parishes across the globe? You simply don't know what you're talking about, Guy. You really don't. And you're letting your lack of knowledge and bigotry influence how you see traditional Catholicism and the website in question, which is why I request someone other than you will look at all of this anew, without being influenced by your invective. (Someone who refers to Catholics as "papists" is using slurs, which is a sign of bigotry.) Schoemann (talk) 21:03, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, hundreds of links. That evidence was discussed in the original blacklisting. Yes, mainly to subjects to which it was not relevant. You appear to be an insider in this bubble world, so you won't appreciate, as outsiders do, that having an opinion on something does make that opinion significant to an article about the subject. And yes, fringe, within the Catholic church, and your refusal to acknowledge that very much shows your agenda.

You mention Chabad.org, implying that I am part of some nefarious cabal that protects chabadists and attacks fisheaters. That's bullshit, plain and simple. In Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Chabad movement/Workshop I stated that the number of links to chabad.org is out of all proportion to its significance. The chabad editors are absolutely not a group I support or protect. Ever read WP:NOTTHEM? Or indeed WP:OTHERSTUFF?

You accuse me, repeatedly, of being anti-Catholic. You know less than nothing about this. Did your quote mining show you where I was when Habemus Papam was announced? I was in a catholic church surrounded by my catholic friends at my catholic god-daughter's first communion. I have attended many catholic services, and am on good terms with the local Benedictine (catholic) monastery, in whose abbey I sing regularly. Would you like me to recite the credo in Latin for you? I can do that from memory, and especially the important bit: et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam ecclesiam. Yes, I do find it annoying that militant catholic editors insist that the church of Rome is the only true catholic church - and any member of the orthodox churches especially will tell you in detail why they are wrong about that :-) Yesterday I was singing a Catholic mass by Ildebrando Pizzetti, a mass in Latin by Frank Martin and a work written by the catholic Thomas Tallis, presented for centuries as having been written for Elizabeth I but quite likely to have been composed for Mary Tudor - which is a great deal more plausible since it is a setting of spem in alium, in Latin, whereas after the re-establishment of protestantism the church was pretty suspicious of Latin settings. Incidentally there is a wonderful pair of pieces from this period comprising Phillipe de Monte's super flumina Babylonis, sent to Tallis' friend and co-religionist William Byrd, who replied with quomodo cantabimus; a paired edition by Sally Dunkley is well worth looking out, she was at the concert where one of my choirs sang this. Look up the nuances of that musical conversation, that puts Tallis' catholicism and use of the Latin into very clear perspective. For balance, I also sing music by noted 18th Century Lutherans (not just the man from Eisenach), French and Italian catholics, Anglicans, Buddhists and even the occasional atheist. It always amuses me that Reagan's inauguration featured a fanfare to the proletariat written by a homosexual Jewish Communist atheist.

It is really hard to be a singer at any level of seriousness and maintain animosity towards any religious tradition. So, as other have counselled, you should stop making those accusations, because they make you look bad, not me.

This website was blacklisted for spamming, an absolutely classic case of WP:REFSPAM. You have been trying for years to get that undone. Your contribuutions to Wikipedia amount to fewer than 150 edits in all namespaces, and over ten percent of those are directly requesting use of this site. Yu have insufficient experience of Wikipedia to properly understand the policy reasons for blacklisting, and you have a clear and obvious agenda which you are not checking at the door. Guy (Help!) 09:17, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

@Schoemann: so you don't believe that this link was spammed (with link hijacking, RfC's being posted, RfC's in response to RfC's)? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:55, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

There's no right way to administer a general-purpose blacklist

The theory behind the blacklist is that it was supposed to be limited to spam that was an ongoing challenge. It was supposed to make admin's lives easier by keeping them from having to clean up spam links continuously. It is clear that this theory, as in any "limited" exception to freedom of expression in any arena, is unreliable. It is particularly unreliable when Wikipedia works with some institutions to place "Wikipedians in residence" or accepts free subscriptions which are repaid in links made, while it targets others for complete eradication.

We can argue about what a certain admin is like, about a certain link and whether the objection is really spam or something else entirely, but it is a waste of time - the very time that having an automated blacklist was supposed to save! We should simply abolish the blacklist and go back to a primitive condition of editors policing spam directly. Or at the very least, the blacklist must be limited to a short fixed duration and only re-listed if spam continues each and every time. This involves an overhead of work, yes - but so does recrimination. The difference is, the work in spotting spammer reappearances is a community labor in which people work together, whereas the work in politicking over which links to ban is a divisive battle. Wnt (talk) 11:10, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Hell no. You are out of your mind. The blacklist is full of sites that have zero value for WP and those sites need to stay there. If some advocacy organization like chabad gets on there because advocates are spamming it into WP, then hey, let's deal with exceptions with their site when it might actually contribute some value to the mission. But (picking two current nominees) healthwhoop.com? hongkongescort.com? You are out of your mind Wnt. No value to WP, never will have value to WP, just spam. Dog shit on our sidewalk. Jytdog (talk) 19:48, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Alright, I looked at those sites. I looked at the first article I saw on Healthwhoop and it had a few pictures of ecchymosis of body parts other than the eye, which our article does not. Editing, yes, I'd prefer to pick a different reference. But, if someone edits the article to include a link to those images, they have improved the article until such time as someone with a more perfect idea actually gets off his ass and does it. Therefore, there is no reason to blacklist unless maybe you're under a sustained spam attack and you want a tactical breather. Now hongkongescorts.com, oh yeah, that's despicable, in someplace without the peculiar notions of personal freedom that the Chinese enjoy it would doubtless be seized and censored by the government like backpage.com or rentboy.com. But as a Wikipedia editor I should be neutral on that. What I do see is that it quotes a price for escorts in Hong Kong: "HK$ 2,000 for one hour • HK$ 3,800 for two hours • HK$ 5,600 for three hours • Special offers for overnight". So if you're writing an article on escorts in Hong Kong, or around the world, that's a legitimate piece of data we can use. Again, I say smash the machine and put the people in charge. Wnt (talk) 23:50, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Healthwhoop is a site that should never be used as a reference for Wikipedia, because it does not come close to meeting our guidelines. Whether it goers on the blacklist or on the reference bot revert list is of no real interest to me, as long as it's not used as a source. Guy (Help!) 08:19, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Sigh... I've never even heard of this reference bot revert thing. If you put too many machines in charge don't be surprised if the people start wondering why they're wasting their time in Skynet's kingdom. Yeah, it's an unsatisfactory reference, but it's better than unsourced, and it seems somewhat tolerable as an external link for viewing some extra images. Anyway, I'm not sure if by suggesting a reference revert as an alternative you're agreeing that it could be used as an EL and therefore should not be blacklisted. Wnt (talk) 16:06, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

No, a crap reference is worse than unsourced, because a bad statement with a crap source is less ikely to be challenged than a bad unsourced statement. Guy (Help!) 00:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

This editor has accused me of being anti-Catholic. Feel free to provide any credible evidence of that.

The site in question promotes "traditionalist Catholicism", which rejects Vatican II. Most Catholics do not support that doctrine. It's fringe even among Catholics, but that's not relevant because that's not why it was blacklisted. As the OP knows perfectly well, it was blacklisted because the site owner was bulk adding links, aka link spamming. Guy (Help!) 22:03, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

The site does not reject Vatican II. You're totally incorrect. You can read the "About this Site" page and get straight on that very quickly. And the attempt here is to get the site linked to from the single entry "Traditionalist Catholicism" which is about the sort of Catholicism you consider "fringe" but which isn't actually given that there are priestly fraternities such as the FSSP and ICK who practice traditional Catholicism while fully in communion with Rome. Schoemann (talk) 21:03, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

The site promotes "traditionalist catholicism", which rejects Vatican II. Whether the site rejects Vatican II is irrelevant to that. And yes, it is fringe aong catholics, just as the movement in the Anglican communion that rejects women priests is fringe. All of which philosophical debate is rendered irrelevant by the fact that this site was massively spammed by its owner. Guy (Help!) 00:20, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I didn't even bother to take a position on your particular case. You're in a fight on board a ship; I want that ship blown out of the water. Wnt (talk) 23:50, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

@Wnt: this is something that is on the list for a long, long time, and similarly long ignored - even when developers see that the current system is crude (see a comment by Brion in 2010: T16719). That it works in a bad way is not a reason to remove it altogether (currently, there is no friggin' other way to mitigate spammers in an effective way). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:45, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Wnt, feel free to propose a better alternative. If it includes removing the ability to blacklist links, then you'd better be prapred to spend every waking moment removing links to sites selling knockoff designer goods, white supremacists, sneaky redirects (you'll have to check every single link to sites like bit.ly to make sure they are legit, and keep checking them to make sure they don't change). I think the blacklist title should change, but that's all I would change. Guy (Help!) 08:16, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Just as an example, be prepared to cleanup and block 15 editors like this every day .. and these are easy to recognise as spammers, as JzG says, the malicious redirects, and editors who insist that they need to be linked without content merit, are a bigger problem. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:11, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

This is full on crazy. @Beetstra: will have the current numbers of links being added per day, but in the days before the spam blacklist was a thing, editors did spam patrol in the same way they do/did vandal patrols and it was a losing battle. I remember we used to liaise with Danny Wool, Jimmy's assistant in the earlier days of Wikipedia, and at that time, we were normally seeing upto 10,000 URLs being added on a daily basis (excluding URLs within reference tags). I don't know what that would be today, now we're creating less new pages and now that references are a bit less likely to be bare URLs, but it wasn't viable trying to monitor links being added on a diff by diff basis years ago and I cannot fathom out how you would even begin to monitor and police the process today. Nick (talk) 15:26, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

It seems like you have a trivially easy alternative: put each link in an edit filter that flags for users to check each suspect link addition instead of simply denying it. I even accepted above that you might still deny or blacklist the suspect edits that are being massively spammed at that time, provided you expire the filter on a frequent basis and have a heads-up to see if the spam is still happening. If you wanted a very modest reform to start, you could even disallow the suspect edits when made by very new users (there are even nastier options but I'd much rather not go there). Note I'm talking published, public edit filters, since the blacklist is public now. If links are checked, the spam potential is low and you shouldn't get the 10,000 URLs a day because there's not a motive for it.

But the 10,000 figure is a lot scarier sounding than it really is. Wikipedia:Statistics says Wikipedia gets 10 edits per second. In less than 20 minutes, editors have done that many edits. Now to be sure, wasting 20 minutes of each day's work on spam eradication would be very bad, but it's not exactly apocalyptic. Wikipedia can survive some missteps while getting rid of the blacklist mechanism.

There is a lot of daylight between the idea of taking short-term action to stop thousands of spam link additions a day versus blacklisting sites to keep someone from adding them to one page because you think they may have a sectarian philosophy, or blacklisting sites indefinitely without looking to see whether they are still trying to spam us. Wnt (talk) 15:59, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

put each link in an edit filter that flags for users to check each suspect link addition instead of simply denying it. which needs editors to look at material we already know to be problematic, just so you can get your own way of trashing the black list. I do hope you're particularly skilled in telling people how to remove trojans and malware they'll inevitably get from checking links individually. Nick (talk) 21:47, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

@Nick: we're talking hundreds of links a minute (I am running the only viable alternative we have at the moment: the linkwatchers, User:XLinkBot, and User:COIBot). If we are not even capable of removing the crap that is already there, and keeping up with the crap that is being added (many are fine, but there is still a lot of crap that needs attention in ). Like it or not, having your links on Wikipedia does pay your bills - you may not be indexed by Google or other major search engines (at least those that follow nofollow), knowing that Wikipedia is high on the result list, makes it a good chance that people will find your link on the Wikipedia page and result in incoming traffic for your site. Even if you are not-for-profit, it is always welcome to have your organisation/cause known on Wikipedia.

@Wnt and Nick: I have suggested something like that (can't find where, bugzilla/phabricator or meta, probably): take a copy of the AbuseFilter, strip it from the code that 'interprets' the restrictions, and replace it with a piece of code that does only one thing: check a regex against the added/removed external links (and add some restrictions akin page protection). It then becomes very lightweight and hence not overloading the servers even with thousands of rules, and you can have a whole set of control about what happens (just warn, block, etc. etc.). I think that is also quite close to the suggestion that Brion had in 2010. Using the current AbuseFilter for this does not work, we tried it to be an alternative for XLinkBot, but it died on a handful of regexes. Forget about using it as a replacement for the blacklist. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:26, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Had a look, the numbers (globally, can't split out per Wiki): LiWa3 is watching 631 edits per minute in 'content namespaces' (708 per minute all namespaces), 65 of those edits add external links - in those 65 edits per minute 224 external links (per minute) are added. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:33, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I really like the idea of an AbuseFilter approach, with different options for different URLs - outright blocking for those we know to be problematic, by virtue of malware, illegal content, copyright issues etc, to tagging for review those URLs we're less certain about - the one or two links needing to be checked because of sectarian issues, as Wnt referenced above. The good thing about an AbuseFilter approach is it also raises the possibility of autoconfirmed or extended confirmed users (or a new user permission entirely) having the ability to add URLs but not new accounts and/or IP editors. It removes the one size fits all approach of the current blacklist, but doesn't resort to every URL having to be checked edit by edit. It could be the current blacklist, but better. Nick (talk) 08:30, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

It would also remove the need of XLinkBot - often problematic links could have a filter set to 'warn and log', which is arguably less 'bitey' than outright revert (though, there also is already a Captcha to solve). Moreover, the reason for the block could be recorded on the specific 'LinkFilter', which makes it easier to understand the how and why for each link. Also, having a per-LinkFilter log would show whether 'the problem' has stopped and whether we could consider to re-allow the link again instead of whitelistings. There are many possible benefits to this ... --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:51, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm wary of a lot of these suggestions, though I don't want to be so reactionary as to dismiss them sight unseen. I certainly don't want machines enforcing more policy over good faith editors, especially since accusations like "illegal content" and "copyright issues" are frequently unjustified and in any case the harm of having an individual editor post an external link to them is greatly exaggerated. Routine mechanical checks of outgoing links for malware could be a useful adjunct, not only to defend people who review links, but all Wikipedia readers. It might recheck every link on a page every hundred times it is accessed (note that does not require recording individual reading preferences). Technically Wikipedia would not even strictly need to do its own anti-virus scan (though probably it ought to); it could simply search the links against lists of infected sites or on sites like Google that give a "this site may harm your computer" heads up. However, that too is potentially prone to error or abuse, and so we can't be too trusting even with this. Wnt (talk) 12:49, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, since you're the one who thinks the current system is broken, the onus is rathe ron you to demonstrate that you have a viable alternative. Spend some time at the spam blacklist talk page for a start. Guy (Help!) 13:29, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Is it Worldwide Bash Guy On Jimbotalk Day or something? But that aside, I don't see how this works in practice. I just don't. It's nice to think we could have an experienced human lovingly hand-review every edit, but well, there are an awful lot of edits and not so many experienced humans as that. And they're all volunteers, so they may or may not be around at any given time. Given that, we really need some automated help. And we can use that. If someone, for example, blanks an article and replaces it with profanity repeated fifty times, we can reasonably tell a bot that this is not a constructive edit and to revert it. The same is true of many of these spam links that wind up blacklisted. They are often either selling something, partisan, or trying to drive traffic to themselves without providing much if anything of value. This means both that people have an incentive to spam them, and that they serve us no value as educational material or references. In other cases (redirectors/link shorteners were mentioned earlier), the potential for abuse is so high and the potential benefit so low that it's not worth it. Volunteer time itself is a scarce and valuable resource, and I think it could be spent in much better ways than evaluating if this instance of a link spammed a couple hundred times might just be the one time it's really okay. If someone thinks that it's needed in that particular case, they can go ask for a whitelist entry for the particular resource they need to use. Generally reasonable requests of that nature are granted, especially to editors in good standing who can make a decent case. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. And an editor with fewer than 150 edits, a fair chunk of which are arguments dating back years over links to this one site, is unlikely to be the one to persuade. Guy (Help!) 23:49, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

In case anyone is interested...

• fisheaters.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I temporarily undeleted my original summary at User:JzG/Fisheaters. I've been an admin since January 2006, and this predates my RfA. It actually predates my change of username to JzG. I would suggest that the difference between this page and the inflated rhetoric above is pretty striking. Guy (Help!) 00:03, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

To avoid future discussions like this, and to counter the argument 'but it is # years ago, the spammers are long gone', it would be good to have a page in line with WP:LTA, documenting a couple of these 'long term spamming' cases. Also because you deleted this page, I had to dig for half an hour to find back this deleted page, the RfC on the original spammer, the response RfC posted by the original spammer, and the editors that requested this to be unlisted. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Feel free to move it to a subpage and refactor, Dirk. I deleted it because I honestly thought they had gone away, and because I think pages like that are an open sore when you're a rebuffed abuser, leading to further long term abuse. Guy (Help!) 12:14, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I'll consider some more extensive tagging .. as on top here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:18, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

By the way, despite common believe, spammers hardly ever go away .. it pays their bills. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:25, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Hurricane Matthew at east Florida: update

(continuation of archived thread...)

As of 11am EDT, 6 Oct 2016, the strong Hurricane Matthew is still headed NW, max winds 140 mph (230 km/h), onto the Florida Atlantic coastline (across the state from WMF offices near Tampa), with expected landfall late Thursday overnight ca. 2am, north of Palm Beach County, FL. That's near the Mar-a-Lago $multi-million, ocean-front estate of Donald Trump. See live NHC forecast map:

• http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/204348.shtml?5day#contents

The current winds exceed 2005 Hurricane Katrina landfall, but central pressure not yet as severe, 940 mb (28 inHg) compared to Katrina 902 mb. If typical, the region would lose electric power at nightfall tonight, 6~9pm EDT (>22:00 UTC), but might be restored to most areas within 1~3 days. Again, so far WMF offices would seem at safe distance west. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:44, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the weather forecast. This was just what I was looking for on Jimbo's talk page.--Atlan (talk) 17:03, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

What will happen after Tuesday? Will it enter the Gulf of Mexico? Count Iblis (talk) 21:27, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

The prior 5-day forecast (on initial map), as a supposed u-turn loop at South Carolina, back down to Florida, to remain in the Atlantic, was a typical excessive forecast which was completely wrong, and instead Hurricane Matthew stayed off-coast of Florida, 20–50 miles away (32–80 km) battering coastal towns, but later joining an easterly cold front, it made landfall into South Carolina and dumped rain into North Carolina, Virginia, and the Delmarva Peninsula, with flooding rains of 8–14 inches (200–360 mm) in 2 days. There 18 people died, after killing ~900 previously in Haiti.

As Albert Einstein had cleverly predicted over 60 years ago, the weather cannot be forecast reliably, for more than a few days ahead, due to the "butterfly effect" because smaller changes in steering currents can shift wind patterns hundreds of miles (500 km) a few days later, as happened with Hurricane Matthew flooding North Carolina to Delaware, rather than looping back to Florida as predicted. Beyond the death toll, dams broke in the flooding, boats washed inland, and high winds blew trees down onto power lines, with loss of electric power to more than 2 million people in U.S. regions. Pre-planned electric crews traveled from neighboring states to chainsaw the broken tree limbs (many water oaks) and reconnect electric service within a few days, rather than weeks. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:55/05:17, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

You somehow missed a post while restoring this thread from the archive. How odd. I have fixed it for you.--Atlan (talk) 05:54, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

• Today is a nice day in Alabama, not too hot. Pool season is probably over after this weekend. We had rosemary bread and scrambled eggs for breakfast; the chickens are doing well. Drmies (talk) 14:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

Glad to hear it. Hannah sends her best, and Grandpa... well, you know Grandpa! As usual he's damning us all to hell for one thing or another! Am forwarding a stack of Bella's honey pancakes by post. Not much news here. Pruddy's youngest got ate by the hogs last week, but you know that brood -- always something! Sorry to hear about Cousin Elly. Best, Herostratus (talk) 03:23, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, those hogs do sound dangerous. Do you think they could pose a threat to the electric power of any WMF offices across the United States? Perhaps ask Grandpa, when he's not in one of his moods. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:08, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikid77, you do know the WMF hasn't been based in Florida for nine years and the last vestiges of the Tampa server cluster were shut down in 2014? ‑ Iridescent 08:42, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Don't tell him where they currently are, there may be weather there too! pablo 09:18, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

OMG I'm tired of weather. I just want to LIVE. Drmies (talk) 16:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Strange mention in FT article

Hi! Here is a citation from "Technology eats the truth", Financial Times:

Ukrainian and Russian Wikipedians, who have written radically different interpretations of the conflict between their two nations, recently met in Kiev to understand their respective views. “It will take some time before they come to a consensus view but we are trying,” Jimmy Wales said.

No Ukrainian or Russian Wikipedian I asked so far knows anything about such a meeting. That's weird. I'd like to ask you: where did you get this info from of is there a possibility that FT misinterpreted something? Thanks. -- Ата ^(talk) 10:28, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

FT plays a silly game with their links; you have to come bearing the Mark of the Google thusly: [10] Wnt (talk) 10:43, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Just a thought and to open a discussion

Would it be appropriate for Wikipedia to run geotargeted (to the US) neutral "get out the vote" banners at the time of the US election? Just to focus on whether or not it would be appropriate for us as a community, note that it would be perfectly legal for us as a 501(c)(3) charity as long as it is not suggesting to people which candidate to vote for.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:57, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Stay out of anything that has to do with politics. It could be the thin end of the wedge. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.--Aspro (talk) 14:08, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't see how. We successfully campaign against SOPA/PIPA - and that involved taking sides. This would not be political in that same way.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:15, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't think this is a particularly good idea. It probably violates WP:NPOV; reality has a well-known liberal bias. Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 14:12, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't see how it could violate NPOV. It is true that regular Wikipedia readers are less likely to be supporters of Donald Trump. But telling everyone, neutrally, that they should vote - on the premise that we think that people who read the encyclopedia are generally more informed and should therefore help make the decision - is neutral.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:20, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot the sarcasm tags. :P Jc86035 (talk) Use {{re|Jc86035}}
to reply to me 14:22, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Heh. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• Support - Encouraging people to vote is a generally acceptable civic gesture, only economists (of certain stripes) would fault you for it.

Still, it would be an effort taken on faith that it is effective, unless someone intends to interview a suitable sample of voters and non-voters.

So the community question is whether the intention signaled by a "get out the vote" banner would reflect negatively on Wikipedia as an institution. I venture to estimate that that risk is vanishingly small.  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 14:40, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I do not support this proposal. I recognize that we were involved in SOPA/PIPA and that was political, but I'd prefer to have a soft rule "stay out of politics as much as possible". Absolute rules such as no tolerance owns almost always lead to idiotic situations so I try to avoid supporting absolute rules as much as possible. If our soft rule is to stay out as much as possible then when we do identify a situation such as SOPA/PIPA which is so central to the continued existence of this project that it deserved an exception to the soft rule. While I'm sure people will argue that the upcoming US presidential vote is important and it is, I don't see it as central to the mission of Wikimedia so I'd prefer that we remain as separated from politics as possible.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:29, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I think that's a respectable position. I hope others disagree, but I respect what you are saying. There is for sure a valid question here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:33, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

If WP (and in particular the English language part) aims to be truly international then this could set an unfortunate precedent. There are some countries in the world where voting/not voting is very much a political act. If there is only one candidate (or possibly only one for whom votes will be counted), then not voting is the only opposition. There have been elections in which violence has been meted out at polling stations - would WP encourage people there to vote? In countries with a functioning democracy "get out and vote" is a positive message, I just don't think it is a message WP needs or should promulgate. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree with JW that it may not violate any of our tenants – just think we should stay away from the whole idea. Anyway, I have now said my piece and won't comment further. Because for sure - why should this idea not it be discussed in order to archive a happy consensus. --Aspro (talk) 14:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

If someone violates their tenants, that means something very different than violating their tenets. Sorry for being pedantic, this just made me laugh. Gnome de plume (talk) 15:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

"Get out the vote" drives are very often biased in some way, even when they are not suggesting to people which candidate to vote for. Democrats try to get out the vote among a demographic that will favor their candidates (inner cities, college campuses, etc.), Republicans try to get out the vote among a demographic that will favor their candidates. If Wikipedia, whose readership is "less likely to be supporters of Donald Trump" as you say, tries to get out the vote, it will be for all practical purposes, campaigning for Hillary Clinton. Deli nk (talk) 14:37, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Why the heck would we stay clear of politics, when we are so terribly complicit and complacent with political agenda pushing of the most controversial and important societal topics? I say that's a great idea Jimbo!Charlotte135 (talk) 14:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I think that it is not the best of ideas, because it is making an exception for the USA. For example, Wikipedia did not urge people to get out and vote in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016 or the Colombian peace agreement referendum, 2016 although they were both very important.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:38, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

What Ianmacm said; if we do this for the US, why not the UK, Canada, Nigeria, India, Ireland, Australia or any other significant English-speaking country? I also fail to see the point; if there genuinely is anyone in the US who isn't already aware there's an election happening, they're hardly someone who I trust to make informed decisions about anything. ‑ Iridescent 15:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Just for information, Australia has Compulsory voting with a fine of $170 for not doing so. I'm not sure a logo/icon on Wikipedia would be any more of a motivating factor. DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:26, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Astonishingly enough, I'm aware of that; for someone who complains about civility as often as you do, you do have quite the tendency to talk down to everyone you encounter. As I'm also aware, Australians would nonetheless be rightly aggrieved if Wikipedia were to explicitly claim that US elections are more important than their own. ‑ Iridescent 19:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

WoW! Where did AGF suddenly go? My comment was to the general readership and not intended to be talking down to anyone. And I agree with the point you are making. DrChrissy ^(talk) 19:42, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to push back on the claim that we are so terribly complicit and complacent with political agenda pushing of the most controversial and important societal topics but my view may depend on semantics. An odd complication of the Wikipedia concept "anyone can edit", allowing almost anyone to edit and call themselves an editor, and the lack of paid editorial staff, means that the term "we" is problematic. If editor X is a paid political shill, pushes some partisan talking point, and other editors respond by removing the excesses and improving the wording of the subject matter, would it be accurate to say that we Wikipedia are complicit because we allow anyone to edit? I would say no. While we don't have a formal distinction (with the possible exception of labeling some editors as SPA or editors with a COI) I think most people understand that a statement about what we (Wikipedia) permit or support, we are talking about the responsible editors not those who are pushing the agenda.

To use a similar but maybe clearer example, How would you respond if someone asked if Wikipedia permits copyright violations? Technically, one might say yes, because I can point you to 100 instances of copyright violations probably in the last 24 hours. (Copypatrol if you really want the examples). Yet every single one of those copyright issues will be removed if it turns out to be a copyright violation and most in fairly short order, so I think it is fair to say that Wikipedia does not support copyright violations. Similarly, I don't think it's fair to say that Wikipedia is both complicit and complacent with political agenda pushing — I think it's fair it to say that such agenda pushing occurs continuously while responsible editors work to remove it is much as possible. I think on balance we do a decent job although we are far short of perfect.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:25, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• Unless we're also prepared to do this for elections other countries see as significant (or even restricted to other countries with significant proportions of English speakers), I can't see this. If we do decide to do this, we'd then have a hard time telling people "Well, the US is important enough to do this for, but sorry, your country is not." I think that would get spammy in a hurry (which would pretty much blow the effectiveness of the campaign anyway), so I can't support it, well-intentioned though the idea is. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:08, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Agree. It's ok if we take a stance when interests fundamental to the Wikipedia community are at stake, but for general political elections it would be overkill. Unless we take Trump serious enough to be a threat to life and liberty everywhere... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:13, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• What if we can make it appear only for readers in the US? Do we have that technology? It would remove one (valid) counterargument. Wikipedia is about the democratization of knowledge, so we could also be for the democratization of...well, democracy. But voter registration deadlines in a dozen or more US states are today, and registration is usually as big a thing as actually voting, as the US viewers know (and as frequently needs to be explained to folks of countries who just receive a card in the mail, no "registration" required). Drmies (talk) 16:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
• Hell yes. Everyone who has a vote, should use it. Even if they support Trump. The worst enemy of demoracy is not tyranny but apathy. Guy (Help!) 17:09, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Ben Shahn, Register to Vote, Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) poster, 1946

I had asked on this page if anybody objected to me putting the Ben Shahn poster on Jimbo's user page, and got no objections as far as I remember. This was in July I think. I then put it on Jimbo's user page and it was quickly reverted. No use getting upset about it so I left it that way. I've just put it back, and I do see Jimmy's comments above as being his personal support for having it there, since he seems to want to go further beyond that. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

At this point though, I don't see a real need to go beyond that, other than to say to those folks who agree that registration is important "feel free to add this to your own user page." The registration deadlines, and the current early voting are one part of my neutrality on Jimmy's proposal. I'll be very direct here on the rest. I suspect the Jimmy is outraged by recent political developments as many folks are. But I wouldn't worry about the outcome now. One candidate seems to be totally falling apart. In fact his whole party seems to be totally falling apart. Going beyond posting the Shahn poster might just be a meaningless gesture at this point. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I do not support the encyclopedia's taking a position one way or the other on whether or not our readers ought to vote in political contests. Many people, including Wikipedians, find voting objectionable as immoral, a waste of time, or even an irrational exercise (see e.g., Bryan Caplan's The Myth of the Rational Voter). Having the encyclopedia take an editorial position in favor of general participation in a particular government's operation is an implicit endorsement of that government and/or a particular form of government. I say this as a Wikipedian and as someone who will appear on the ballot as a candidate for elective office in my legislative district next month. DickClarkMises (talk) 18:02, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

MeatBall:VotingIsEvil. --ESP (talk) 18:41, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• Support in a broader context. Creating only a one-time US-specific "get out the vote" banner might seem questionable. A routine feature of the Main Page to have a small banner for each ongoing election should not. (some people rightly object to the Olympics, but we still run an ITN item about it) I should emphasize that this would be a part of the Main Page content, possibly WP:ITN, not a Foundation-placed banner, because among other things we would need a crowdsourced procedure to fairly catch every election in the world. (There might be a procedure for disqualifying/not listing show elections that are internationally disbelieved, or not, people's choice) But I like the idea of having something iconic and graphical rather than just a plain ITN item because by keeping it small you could run it longer, and with absentee voting already available in the U.S. you might want to run it longer, though then again, maybe not this long. There's also a question of whether close of voter registration should get a similar banner and how long. Something can be done, it can be neutral, it can fit in with ITN, but ... people have to agree on it. That's the sticky part. Wnt (talk) 18:46, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose. For two main reasons. First, this reflect the centrality the USA and USA related topics still mantain into the Wikipedia community, and this is something very bad and should be fought, not encouraged, as it reflects into the contents of the enciclopaedia. Wikipedia occasionally took political positions, but just when them directly involved Wikipedia itself and its right to keep existing. There are about 200 nations in the world that run very important elections about every week, why Wikipedia should not run geotargeted neutral banner for each of them, and should do for the USA presidential elections?

Second, exhort to vote is taking a side, it is a biased stand. All the countries that provide to their citizens the right to vote, also provide them the right to not vote, with no exceptions. This choice could be seen as questionable by many, but is perfectly legal, fair and moral in a democracy, and it has concequences that the citizens has the right to seek. I don't see any reason why Wikipedia should take part against the right of the people (but just the ones from USA) to not "get out the vote"; and I don't see any reason why Wikipedia should inform or remember the people (but just the ones from USA) that some elections are about to happen.

In the end, let's say that this banner would be something good for the USA as a country. Why Wikipedia should care about it? The banner would be also good for Wikipedia as an enciclopaedia? Why? And why Wikipedia in English language does not care about the elections that involve the English people? I'm sorry for being rough but this proposal (and the page where it's discussing) it seem totally absurd to me. --Phyrexian ɸ 21:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Fact check: See Compulsory voting --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:58, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Phyrexian said it perfectly above. It's US-centric, and avoiding this by doing so for every national election would be a mess. What about referendums? Local/municipal elections? And yes, asking people to vote is certainly not neutral, even if no side is explicitly mentioned. Greenman (talk) 21:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• support my involvement in WP is due to my wanting people to have good information about things that matter; a sense of civic responsibility. Voting matters, and it is a nonpartisan good thing to remind people in the US to fulfill their obligations to vote, and vote informed. Jytdog (talk) 00:24, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
• Support, because I find unpersuasive arguments along the lines "but we'd have to do it for every Anglophone country!" I am not aware of any infrastructure issues restricting Wikipedia from doing so. Mihirpmehta (talk • contribs) 00:40, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

• It appears very early on that consensus is split and vocally so. To my mind the SOPA/PIPA was focused on legalisation that would affect WP directly and so our involvement was justified back then. Whilst I personally don't like the JW's new proposal, I recognize that the way that WP has grown has been by debating difficult issues. Can an editor whom has studied philosophy, put together a truth table or some such, which lists all the pro's & con's. English WP is read around the world, so such a banner that only appears on US servers will (to my mind) separates and divides WP - and then what next? I am terribly unhappy about this but agree that it should be discussed. --Aspro (talk) 01:14, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

• Some mood music. [11] --Bob K31416 (talk) 01:31, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

snark worthy of greg kohs. hm. Jytdog (talk) 01:51, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

It's kind of a shame that this proposal arises on the day which, for something like 12 of the states, is the last day on which people can register to vote.  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 02:21, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose. Wikipedia is not a good venue for reminding people to vote, brush their teeth, look both ways before crossing the street, maintain a diversified portfolio, get enough sleep, be kind to small animals, or whatever anodyne good things one cares to list. Nor do we need the burden of adjudicating what is a nonpartisan "good thing" and what is partisan. We are not obliged to provide useful information about important things to people in every form (e.g., we are neither a how-to guide nor a calendar). Choess (talk) 05:28, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
• Hell no! for many reasons as already stated by others, the main one IMHO is: If we do it for one country we have to do it for all and in many countries the act of voting (or not) is in itself a partisan position. Some suggestions to limit it to "major English speaking countries" doesn't fly either because en.WP is not an encyclopedia about the English-speaking world, it's the English version of an encyclopedia about the entire world, this website is not (yet) the Yankopedia! Short version: it's a WP:NPOV violation. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:09, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
• Just an aside. Editors here might be interested in the Wikipedia article Voter_registration_in_the_United_States. --Bob K31416 (talk) 09:13, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
• I of course support any drive that encourages Trump supporters to get out and vote. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:16, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

This article might be of interest. --Bob K31416 (talk) 09:29, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Breitbart's infogalactic

Just a notice about a new giant fork, which was announced at Infogalactic Launches as Alternative to Biased Wikipedia, see also http://infogalactic.com/ .

It is a giant fork in that it claims to have 5,000,000 articles copied from Wikipedia, and I believe that's true. The articles all seem to be copied from different dates in 2016, e.g. Donald Trump was from January, but the much newer Donald Trump Access Hollywood controversy isn't available. The redirect List of RHPs in PA works, except for a complicated "click here map", Trump University was copied from about June, another article was copied from April. The terms of use seem to be copied almost verbatim. Some links that say "more photos at Commons" connect to Wikimedia Commons. But overall a pretty good copy, except the speed in getting articles is very, very slow.

I have no objection to such a giant fork, in fact I always wanted to know how one would work. I'm sure they will work out many of the kinks in a few months. I even signed up to be an editor over there (as User:Smallpikl). You have to request to be an editor and they have to approve. Though it said that one section was optional when it wasn't, the request account page only requests for user name and email (so they can let you know if you've been accepted - I still haven't been). The optional section that isn't optional required a 50 words or more "description of yourself."

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:55, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

not much on it yet, but one blog suggested someone could be the sole editor of their bio. I'm sure that will remove bias. Doug Weller talk 18:47, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Special:ActiveUsers. (((The Quixotic Potato))) (talk) 20:18, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

• Ah, this is fascinating... Conservapedia 2.0 — or, more properly, AltRightPedia... "The website has expanded upon Wikipedia’s “five pillars” concept with their own seven canons: 1. Infogalactic does not define reality. 2. Infogalactic is written from an objective point of view. 3. Infogalactic is free content. 4. No griefing. 5. Play nice and play fair. 6. Rules are guidelines for users, not chew toys for lawyers. 7. Facts are facts."

Creating the fork is easy, maintenance is the hard part. "The single biggest problem with Wikipedia isn’t Jimmy Wales or its outmoded 1995 technology, but the fact that it is patrolled by 532 left-wing thought police who aggressively force their biased perspective on the rest of the world," they say. Hmmmm, no bias there! Carrite (talk) 20:24, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

And, of course, the money article here is their take on Gamergate controvery, which might even be the point behind this entire exercise. Carrite (talk) 20:31, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

I'd say the money is "A number of corporations and services have indicated an interest in being able to monitor corporate pages of interest to them in order to prevent false, malicious, or misleading information being spread about their organizations and clients. A limited number of pro admin seats are available."[12] Doug Weller talk 20:34, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

While I am duty bound to point out that compared with Breitbart, Genghis Khan was a dangerous liberal, I still feel that {{user:ubx/LeftWingThoughtPolice}} beckons... Guy (Help!) 22:49, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Conservapedia 2.0. I wish them joy of it, if they want our wingnuts they are welcome to them. Guy (Help!) 22:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

....but the fact that it is patrolled by 532 left-wing thought police who aggressively force their biased perspective on the rest of the world This is the point so many of us are making here Jimbo! But we're on your side. And we're being bullied by the gangs. Problem is that the world is beginning to understand that many controversial Wikipedia articles on big societal issues are not based on reliable sources, but rather reliable enforcers, who monitor specific articles of societal importance, like the demons they are, pushing their own biased agendas. The gangs need to busted up Jimbo, before it's too late! We keep telling you, but you keep ignoring what you obviously know. Do you need evidence of who they are Jimbo? Will you act if I provide it here, to save your baby?Charlotte135 (talk) 03:11, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

And we care about this because? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:12, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Because it is an transiently interesting wp fork? LaughingVulcan ^{Grok Page!} 12:02, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

One interesting nugget from their main page, "The primary requirements are for the information contributed to be true, relevant, and verifiable, rather than cited from a so-called “published reliable source”, since experience has proven how reliance upon the latter can be easily gamed by editors and administators alike. There is no culture of notability, ideology, or deletionism at Infogalactic." It will be interesting to see how they think objective facts will be derived without standards that aim to confirm their factuality. And, being brand new, of course they shouldn't have a culture of anything yet - in time I predict they will develop cultures of groupthink and ideological purity, but I could be wrong. Or it will become about as useful as H2G2 or the 1911 Britannica except for the bits they copied that are untampered and timelessly relevant. LaughingVulcan ^{Grok Page!} 12:02, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

On the situation in the Azerbaijani part of Wikipedia

Jimmy Wales, we are waiting for you to do something while you are waiting for Lowercase sigmabot III to delet what we have written ([13], [14], [15],[16], [17], [18]). Are you really unable to solve such a minor problem despite the fact that you are a creator of Wikipedia? Do you really have no rights? Does Meta have all the authority? I want you to answer one question: are you gonna do anything about the AzWiki issue or are you not? If you are not going to do anything, please state it openly, so that we stop asking you to help. Idin Mammadof (talk), editor of DMOZ 07:55, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I am unable to act unilaterally here, nor am I convinced that the situation is as you have described it. I can tell you that simply reposting over and over doesn't move things forward. If you want to do something productive, I recommend that you get other editors - even those who disagree with you - to come and talk to me.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:57, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Lowercase sigmabot III does not delete discussions, it archives them based on its settings. (Yes, this is obvious for many Wikipedians. But the distinction may be lost to a newbie stumbling across this discussion for the first time.) Maybe now that Mr. Wales has responded this can be the last time I copy and paste those sentences? LaughingVulcan ^{Grok Page!} 11:51, 12 October 2016 (UTC)