User talk:Jimbo Wales

Administrators and higher roles need to meet more stringent qualifications for their positions

Jimbo, two enlightenments have emerged from recent discussions here, primarily the contributions from Jytdog and Coretheapple identified below:

The 2 enlightenments are: 1: From Jytdog's edits: The majority of Administrators are unable or unwilling to allow the aggressive usage of administrative tools to shut down paid and unpaid advocate editing and 2: From CoretheappleRe: Conflict-of-interest editing on Wikipedia, including paid editing, Jimbo and the Foundation have taken inadequate action and are not likely to take adequate action in the future

Jimbo, in order to address these and many other recurring issues on Wikipedia, I feel that a solution will not result from your suggestion that we "make more administrators". Our problem is not the quantity of admins, its the quality of admins. I suggest that with more admins with the mindset of Jytdog and Coretheapple, we will have no COI problem, so I think you or we should strike a committee of respected Wikipedians to draft up a test of 50 questions or less to present to all existing admins (1 question at a time, at the same moment to all admins, with 10 seconds to answer, thus avoiding cheating or collaboration on the answers) The questions would be designed to determine the intellect, education, common sense and wiki knowledge of the candidates.

Below are the comments referred to above: "......I want to emphasize that I am seeing a possible solution opportunity in the content ofUser:Jytdog's sentence: "It is pretty easy to tell by reading an article with WP's policies and guidelines in mind, if an advocate has had a big influence on it.". An opportunity to completely bypass the "paid,unpaid,privacy and self-declaration" contortions by simply encouraging our Admins. to use their own experience, observations and judgment to quickly, using their existing authority, bring advocates of all type to heel by way of warnings, blocks and reverting edits made by advocates of any kind. Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:20, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

NocturnalNow admins who go rogue (different from WP:Rogue admin) eventually get their bit yanked. Things have to follow processes established by the community. But sure any editor can bring an edit warring case, supported by diffs; anybody can be brought to ANI for showing a sustained pattern of POV/TENDENTIOUS editing or behavior. Sometimes that is difficult to show especially on issues involving complex content. I have brought a few long term POV-pushing cases at ANI and had them go nowhere, as it takes a lot of work and time sometimes for others to dig in and see the pattern in order to even start judging, and on top of that wiki-politics too often get in the way. Sometimes it is pretty easy to show. And mind you, such cases can be brought against somebody who is overzealous about COI/paid editing as well, and this is very likely going to happen to Inlinetext soon. Jytdog (talk) 19:45, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Nobody is talking about going rogue, just more aggressively using existing Admin authority to deal with advocates. If an innocent editor is mistakenly identified as an advocate, he/she has an appeal process or can go to ANI themselves. At the least, you can shut down the advocates who, as you say, are the most obvious about it. I am sure the community would much rather have aggressive anti-advocate administration rather than getting stuck in this unsolvable COI/paid editing/unpaid advocacy/privacy/ conundrum. I would also note that this may have become, intentionally or not, a victim of "constructive confusion"....a situation which has become much more complicated and confusing than need be which tends to favour the status quo or whomsoever has the most staying power in the debate. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:11, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

I am exactly talking about "aggressive use" of the tools when I talk about going rogue. The community worries about this, specifically on this issue. For an example, please carefully read Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Brianhe, which was hard to watch. Jytdog (talk) 21:58, 18 March 2017 (UTC)"

"Nocturnalnow Well certainly, Same here. But there are limits. Over a period of years I've become weary of the lack of interest in the subject from the so-called "community," the opposition from many, and inadequate action by Jimbo and the Foundation, who are the affected parties here. Yes there are occasional legal actions by the Foundation. There is that TOU. There is occasional jawboning by Jimbo. That's it. That's all it ever is. I "Joe Coretheapple," anonymous, brilliant Wikipedia editor, stand to lose nothing if Wikipedia goes to the dogs due to COI editing. That's not even my name. Even if it was, so what? I don't own this site. I have nothing at stake. They do. Coretheapple (talk) 22:22, 19 March 2017 (UTC)"

Above proposal by Nocturnalnow (talk) 19:41, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

• Hard cases make bad law. For the most part, we can deal with crap just fine. Every now and then we get an outbreak of paid editing that exposes a significant and vocal good-faith minority view which is permissive of this. I cannot think of anything more dangeorus to Wikipedia than a culture in which admins do not get challenged at all when they identify abuse. However much those challenges might frustrate the hell out of me sometimes. Guy (Help!) 19:47, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

• I certainly appreciate the compliment (everyone, not just adminsitrators, should be more like me). But I should point out that making the admin corps stronger, weeding out the many many bad apples and halfwits, and generally improving life for the commonweal is next to impossible at Wikipedia. Still, it's good to keep on thinking. Much appreciated, Coretheapple (talk) 19:50, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

• There is no proposal here, and things are not as simple as you make them out to be. I perhaps mislead you with my "it is pretty easy tell" thing but some is based on a misunderstanding of WP:ADMIN.

Probably most importantly, admins work on what interests them and they can't be compelled to work on any specific admin task or aspect of problematic behavior.

Admins do have the authority to block in certain circumstances (see WP:WHYBLOCK) and to protect pages under certain circumstances (see Wikipedia:Protection policy). As Guy says, somebody has to be really clearly disruptive or NOTHERE to get an admin block without some prior community action; most cases of COI and PAID editing fall below that threshold, which is why we have to do the painstaking work on the ground. Jytdog (talk) 19:57, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

ok, I finally get it. Jytdog,Guy, and Coretheapple , thank you for taking the time to explain everything. The issue is sort of like dealing with an increasing infestation of mosquitoes and the more effective weapons, like DDT have extreme negative effects which prohibit their usage. So, it looks like Jimbo, after all, has come up with the best way to cope with a problem which we can never really completely eliminate, which is to "make a lot more Administrators" i.e. mosquito swatters. So, I think we should all get behind Jimbo's idea of making many more Administrators, and, hopefully, if possible (maybe its not), tasking some of them with focusing on advocate/COI/paid editing abuses. I am very concerned about the possibility of the number of paid editors dramatically increasing because there are lots of locations where $2,000. per year is a lot of money, not to mention that there are lots of students...even pre-teens...who might be recruited by the COI profiteers. But I will say no more about it as, because of your help, I have finally come to understand the complexities of the problem. Also, I do already know that there really are some problems which have no solution and all that can be done is to mitigate the damage, so I'm putting this problem in that category. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Your concern and alarm are understandable, but keep in mind that it has been discussed forever and it is wearying. There is for example an entire class of options brokers that is riddled with COI and paid editing, creating and sustaining articles. Jimbo and the Foundation take limited steps, and Jimbo speaks out against the issue, but do little and ultimately want volunteers to sacrifice their time to aid their personal and corporate reputations by curbing such abuses. The rewards inherent in such activity are limited, and it is not entirely risk free. Coretheapple (talk) 14:21, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

"Making more administrators" will not help as they still have to follow blocking policy. If you somehow manage to change policy to prohibit paid editing then you'd see a difference in how the existing admin corps acts. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:27, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

It's not beyond the realm of possibility for a good, volunteer editor to respond to one of those ads and do paid work. That is the kind of thing that makes paid editing enforcement especially hazardous. They're not necessarily socks and SPIs. But again, it's been talked to death, especially here. Offhand I can't think of a single discussion on this page on this subject that has led to literally anything. Coretheapple (talk) 14:32, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Making more admins would probably help the issue or at least contribute to stabilising it. Obviously as volunteers they can't be assigned tasks, but if we can stabilise the numbers we might avoid admins being persuaded away to other urgent tasks. Otherwise as admin numbers fall so the site will become more vulnerable to spammers and other badfaith editors. Our biggest victories over vandalism came in part from ever improving anti vandalism tools. I'm not entirely sure what anti spam software would look like, but I suspect that a more aggressive policy on checkuser software and range blocking or institution blocking would be useful. Designing such tools to be more effective whilst still privacy compliant will not be easy, but I think that is the area we should be focusing on. ϢereSpielChequers 10:41, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

• Almost nothing gets fixed from here, unless you wp:SOFIXIT yourself: In many cases, the solution is to create a wp:RfC to get consensus to wp:SOFIXIT in some way, perhaps small improvements each time. It's not just advocacy-edit problems, but many other issues do not get fixed by just "800 viewers" of Jimbo's talk-page. Look back through talk-page archives and count the lost suggestions. Even count the suggested redlink articles that are still redlinks years later. You can ask Jimbo for advice, but few of the readers here will give extra priority to suggestions made. There are too many other issues underway. The Jimbo talk-page even has the top wp:edit-notice advising users to seek solutions elsewhere. Otherwise, try to solve 20 suggestions other users have posted first, before asking here for further help. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:24, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

• The zeal, however, is commendable. Over time it fades. Coretheapple (talk) 21:35, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

Why don't you add to the discussion over at m:Talk:Strategy/Wikimedia movement/2017/Cycle 1 and tell them that the single most important thing we can do together over the next 15 years is reduce advocacy editing? The Foundation won't want to hear it though, as increasing "community engagement" is more important to them. Putting serious dampers on advocates will seriously reduce "community engagement" because advocates are a significant portion of the "community". The admins you are looking for are outnumbered and overwhelmed with the flood of personal and corporate "biographical" content. If you make it too easy to become an administrator, you will get advocates becoming administrators and have regulatory capture. wbm1058 (talk) 00:11, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Like most of Wikipedia, there are underlying structural problems which the system won't allow fixing,and then there is a fuzzy system to sort of makes it work anyway. The idea of "once you have the tool belt you are automatically qualified to do even the most high powered and difficult tasks (close RFC's, disclipine even experience editors)" is ridiculous. Second, there is a wide disparity in the admin pool. For most of it the criteria to be an admin is "got in back when it was easy" and, for the few newer ones, in additoin to valid criteria, it's "never got involved in any difficult area". Solution:

• For current new admins, establish the criteria and have the responders discuss those particular criteria, not the vague political mess that we have now. .
• Set up additional special skills certifications required for more difficult / higher level admin areas such as: 1. Disclipining established editors. 2. Closing complex RFC's,AFD's etc.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:46, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

That seems like 2 great ideas, North8000 (talk). Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:04, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

North8000 (talk), what's the next step for implementing your 2 suggestions? Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:20, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Getting community consensus for them. Which is highly unlikely. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:23, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I fear Neil is right. I have been getting crap almost from the moment I was trusted with the Mop-and-Bucket for being too mean to COI editors (paid and otherwise). Unless the consensus finally concedes that they do far, far more harm than good, we will accomplish only the most microscopic of improvements. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:47, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Yep. Example A. "I care about new users", indeed. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:57, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

The heck?! We need more stringent rules for admins? I don't think that we actually want the community to basically require admins to have like a 10 year tenure (as opposed to the usual tenure that is generally required by some editors of say 2, 3, or 4), which I feel that we are on the path to. Also, I think that the admins that we do have are of excellent quality, but they can't do everything. Also, if we had more admins, then we should be able to have admins occasionally double check the others' work. This proposal would just be the nail in the coffin of new RfA's, which are stopping. Honestly, I think that this proposal isn't paying any attention whatsoever to one of Wikipedia's biggest problems—editor retention. Bad idea. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 16:53, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I also just wanted to add this, we are all volunteers. This goes hand-in-hand with my argument about editor retention, and I just wanted to point this out. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 16:54, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

No we don't need more stringent rules for admins, and the de facto criteria are high, but lower than many think; Hence the phenomenon of many fearing to run but most new admins having passed by high margins. The "never got involved in any difficult area" theory is interesting, but I'm not convinced, if anything the opposite is true. Recently mucking up in a difficult area is a disqualification for adminship, but those who never get involved in a difficult area will get turned down for "no need for the tools". Upbundling the blocking of regulars is something I've supported in the past, but it failed to get consensus mainly because of the unfairness of having admins being able to discipline the newbies in a dispute but having to escalate the disciplining of the other side of the dispute to the crats or whoever takes over blocking the regulars. Find a solution for that, and yes potentially we could restrict blocking of accounts that have over 500 edits to a smaller group of people. ϢereSpielChequers 17:48, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, restricting the blocking of regulars to certain people might be a good idea, but I think that we would have to expand on this idea. First off, if this does become a thing, I think that the perm should automatically be given to crats, and the crats should also be allowed to grant the perm to admins that they think display exceptional judgement. Also, regulars would have to be redefined. I think that we could probably define regulars as people with above, say, 1000 edits and 6 months tenure. This would just be for protection against sneaky socks. But, before we actually try and make this a thing, I think that we need to see some statistics to see what percentage of blocks are regulars being blocked (as I have defined regulars) and what percentages of blocks to regulars are overturned (or possibly highly disputed). This will give us an idea of if this is actually a problem or not. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 18:14, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

• Yesterday, I reviewed a cafe on Google Maps after I ate there. Google then gave me a pleasant surprise; telling me that I qualified to be a level 3 Local Guide and asking whether I wanted to join up. It was interesting that the bundle of powers at this level included the ability to moderate discussions; the sort of thing that our admins do. I had slackened off on my reviews but their programmme encourages me to do more. It's quite different from what happens on Wikipedia where content creators are commonly treated with suspicion and actively persecuted. Consider User:Cwmhiraeth, for example – someone who has created so much content that they have won the Wikicup twice. They are currently wondering whether to try RfA but the feedback there doesn't rate her chances. Andrew D. (talk) 18:09, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

  Administration is not purely about content creation, it's about the ability to handle oneself in difficult situations, about the ability to not bear a grudge, about the ability to be told to fuck off regularly and not react, or to be called a prick by fellow admins, or to be claimed as being anti-Semitic without any recourse. In particular, editors who have been around a while, as you have Colonel, will naturally divide the community into groups. The longer they've been around, the bigger the groups are, and it only takes a handful of dissenting voices to scuttle an RfA. And frankly, who needs the stress of RfA's when some of the opposition voting is patently absurd and doesn't reflect the need to maintain the integrity of Wikipedia as a core project. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:19, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

A successful RfA normally demands sufficient edits to prove you know what you're doing, but not so many that you've butted heads with many ideology blocs, POV-pushers or trolls, especially those with off-site discussion groups (e.g. GamerGaters). Call me cynical. Guy (Help!) 20:15, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd be interested to see how many editors with say eight years experience here have gone for RFA successfully. Butting heads with the pricks, anti-Semites, fuck-offers, etc is an inevitability, the longer you leave it, the less successful it's going to be. Like getting pregnant I suppose. The older/wiser mothers are less likely to succeed than the younger/naive mothers. Fact of life, force of nature. No point in fighting it. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:20, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Answering question above on my ideas, these two could probably be started by baby steps.

On the new admin process start an outline of the key qualities needed, and start promoting pasting it in and responding on the points on reviews for new admins. Sort of like the criteria and outline provided for Good Article criteria / reviews.

On the extra qualifications, we could start with the extra qualities needed for someone who would be disciplining / using tools against established editors. Make up a name for it. Start as an essay, then elevate it to a guideline, in th e beginning only to nail down the process for obtaining that moniker, not (yet) to require it for those situations.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk)

How did this change from a conversation about not having enough admins to tackle COI-editing to a conversation about making it potentially harder for admins to tackle established COI editors? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:17, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok, now that you brought that up, it becomes clear to me that the proposal to not allow admins to block regulars would just further us from our goals. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 23:36, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Not that I plan to carry it further here, but I think that the overgeneralization issue is fundamental to the topic as defined by the section header. North8000 (talk) 11:43, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

To NeilN, Its a group creativity technique by which efforts are made to find a conclusion for a specific problem by gathering a list of ideas spontaneously contributed by its members., otherwise known as Brainstorming. Nocturnalnow (talk) 14:57, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Derailment seems apt. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes I'm having trouble following this conversation. Personally I see COI as less of an administrative issue as it is a Foundation issue, for reasons I've explained previously. And since the Foundation wants the "community" to in effect protect its reputation, these discussions tend not to be productive as the "community" is riddled with COI, advocacy and pro-COI editors. Coretheapple (talk) 16:55, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

• North8000 (talk) 's 2 specific suggestions above are a good start. Let's focus on moving forward on those ideas unless someone has any better ideas. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:45, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

• A good start for what? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:33, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I'll rephrase. I'm just suggesting we focus on North800s suggestions in order to give them a fair hearing. Perhaps "start" was an unnecessary word. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

• North8000 (talk) 's 2 specific suggestions above are good, imo. Let's focus on moving forward on those ideas unless someone has any better ideas. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Wanna test a theory of mine? In the normal scheme of things, the correct common wisdom is that it's near-impossible to get any significant changes done in Wikipedia. My theory is that a small group of 3-8 of the right editors can get all of the needed changes done. Each needs to:

• Thoroughly understand how Wikipedia really works, including the underlying structure and structural issues (or trust / support someone who does)
• Most important: Pick changes that are really really good and needed ideas, and be able to explain why they are that. If an idea is fundamentally good, the more you explain it and its rationale, the more people will support it.
• Understand that in Wikipedia, incremental progress is usually the only available way.
• Ready to compromise to pull together...perfection is the enemy of progress.

Those 2 ideas could be a catalyst and an indicator for such things. If a few people sign on below, I'll try to start something.  :-) Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:38, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

As one of those newer admins who feels that disciplining established users and closing difficult RfCs is above my pay grade (for now at least, my plate remains filled with relatively easier tasks that few if any others do, and technical work for which there is an even greater shortage of qualified people), I agree that this is worth pursuing. I believe that this is the main reason for the trickle of new admins... some feel burned by unqualified disciplinarians abusing their powers, and that it took the arbitration committee too long to remove their sysop privileges. I fear that whatever software solutions the Foundation provides us will turn out to be less than satisfying, if those tools can't be put into the hands of admins who are qualified to use them. I'm a big fan of incremental progress. Occasionally disruptive innovations happen, but a lot of effort is wasted on constantly trying to make such innovations, at the expense of trying incremental innovations that are much more likely to succeed. Many disruptive innovations just kind of strike you like lightening anyway, you may not even recognize how disruptive they'll turn out to be when you first see them. Wikipedia itself may be an example of that. Wales & Sanger weren't trying to implement a disruptive new model for encyclopedias, they were just trying to find a way to make Nupedia work. wbm1058 (talk) 00:08, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Problems of the system

This slide show (see right margin) from Wikimania 2016 makes a good presentation of the current state of affairs, and suggests that to counter imbalance, projects should spring from ideas inside the community. More measures to combat non-neutral editing and harassment should be put in place. North8000, does your experience here have any relevance to this? (I haven't read it all, and realize it's four years old so the issues there may be stale). Determining neutrality and balance in contentious topics is probably the hardest issue that administrators have to deal with. There isn't really any "court of appeals" for this, as content is outside of scope for the Arbitration Committee whose charter is to handle behavior issues. Perhaps eliminating imbalance is impossible, but if we had an elected editorial board as the final arbiter of neutrality, then we would at least have a democratically-determined balance, and maybe that's the best we can do? – wbm1058 (talk) 01:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

On your question, that particular item was minor and resolved the way I chose, and so not of particular concern here. Collectively it and zillions of other things over 43k edits have informed me on a wide range of other topics. E.G in that case unreliable "WP:RS's" being used to use Wikipedia to establish a neologism. My 30,000' view is that just a handful of the right policy and structural changes would 80% fix the problems in Wikipedia. North8000 (talk) 11:02, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

North8000 (talk, just to clarify, you are inviting editors to consider and indicate here if they are interested in being part of "a small group of 3-8 of the right editors (who) can get all of the needed changes done." Is that correct? Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:14, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

That is a meritocracy, and the problem with a meritocracy is that it requires idealism, and policies requiring idealism or catastrophism are almost always bad ideas. Of course, this could be an exception to this rule. Also, how we will we pick these editors? And what authority would they have? If they have too much authority then idealism comes up again. Overall, I think that since there seems to be a higher concentration of people on Wikipedia open to changing their minds, that community consensus is the best way to go. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 22:40, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Give up plan?

I hesitate to mention this idea that was mentioned to me by a non-Wikipedian, because it would mean giving up on stopping paid editing. However, if the community and the WMF are truly impotent in dealing with paid editing and other COI, this might be better than the status quo. The idea is to have the volunteer,non-advocate editors self declare on our User pages and everyone else can be assumed to possibly be paid or advocates of one sort or another. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:26, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

To be honest, it seems that before we can even start making changes, we will have to try and agree on what we want Wikipedia to be. Do we want it to be the place one goes when they need information on an obscure topic, or a reliable and curated encyclopedia? After we have decided that, I think that we need to try and consider the consequences of proposals outside of the subject being discussed. Then, we will be able to make the most logical choice in this scenario. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 00:26, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Why can't we be a reliable and curated encyclopedia covering both the obscure and the popular? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 03:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Not following the argument here, as obscurity or fame has no bearing on COI. Also I disagree that the Foundation and community are impotent. They are unwilling, not impotent. Coretheapple (talk) 16:56, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Ok, so we want to try and be as reliable as possibly, but covering both the popular and obscure. If we want the obscure (which I most certainly do) then we will have to stray away from upping the notability requirements. Being reliable and curated means that we will have to (likely) have a bit of a wider pending-changes like thing. Maybe have some sort of pending changes (or just use pending changes) for medical articles with a lot of viewers, or maybe have a system for those that are high view pages and have had fictitious information added in the past. To get to the issue on COI, I think that we may need to better establish our goals in subjects a bit more related to that, although we have just established that upping notability is the wrong way to go. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 17:46, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

"If we want the obscure (which I most certainly do) then we will have to stray away from upping the notability requirements." Only if you define obscure as along the lines of trivial fancruft and/or commercial spam dressed up as encyclopedic. I don't and I don't want those articles. But 99.9999% of the population hasn't heard of William Gell and he's still a notable figure in classical archeology. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 19:42, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, if it passes the notability requirements (which most fancruft doesn't and thus should be deleted), it still could be deleted for other reasons. I do feel like fancruft is ok if it can satisfy our notability requirements, with coverage that is not just in a specific community. I'm ok with patching up little holes in our notability requirements, but I don't want any significant upping of notability, even in a specific subject area, as otherwise it could impact our coverage. What I am trying to do is to set up some basic axioms that we can follow to their logical conclusion. Of course, we will likely have to establish more agreed-upon axioms in a bit more specific policy areas. In general, I just want to find good solutions for problems facing Wikipedia. Anyways, I think that these axioms should be a leaping point to figure out new solutions. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 20:45, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Suggested fix

Long-time users habitually cite "Subject fails wp:PROF" even in the face of the fact that the wp:PROF guideline itself is designed merely as an alternative means of establishing notability in cases where a potential academic bio subject doesn't prove notable otherwise, viz., through there being in-sufficient reliable secondary sources per wp:BIO. These users' awareness of this language at these guidelines indicates their lack of candor in promoting their favored work around WP's actual guidelines. This needs to be fixed by rewording the guidelines at wp:BIO and wp:PROF, etc., to indicate that academics and the like are to be held to a higher standard in certain cases than other potential subjects.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Alternatively: Train a cadre of closing admins to discount !votes lacking candor as to their attempt to end-run WP guidelines.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:52, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

I do not understand this post. Can you please rephrase it? What exactly is this a suggested fix for?--greenrd (talk) 23:03, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Decade-long editors routinely !vote to delete scholars otherwise notable, eg as bloggers or commentators, if they "don't pass wp:PROF", despite the guideline wp:PROF itself which says,

Academics/professors meeting none of these conditions [Edited: ..as wp:PROF will list below..] may still be notable if they meet the conditions of WP:BIO or other notability criteria, and the merits of an article on the academic/professor will depend largely on the extent to which it is verifiable.

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:12, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying about inclusion standards for university college professors, and I still think that a college professor is more notable than a new player who kicks a ball for money, especially where "publish or perish" causes those professors to write for professional journals or academic conferences. Too bad there are thousands of professors, beyond the 250,000+ footballers on record. I would like to know about 30 professors who taught at Princeton University when Einstein was a professor there, and similar. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:25, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

• I assume this is about Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benjamin E. Park? There were no substantial reliable independent sources in that article, it failed WP:GNG, and WP:PROF is actually a lower bar than we have for most articles. Guy (Help!) 20:11, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Sources should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability. There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected.--wp:GNG

In actual fact there were a lot of independent sourcing even via mention by MSM reporters of either this guy's opinions, w/rgd his subfield, or else with regard his scholarly review articles. Dude also wrote dozens of opinion etc. columns or pieces. An academic controversy even bears his name. (For background see "Shake-Up Hits BYU's Mormon Studies Institute: Longtime Editor is Ousted as Mormon Studies Review Charts New Direction", then "Split Emerges Among Mormon Scholars: Some Argue for Wider Research; Others Keep Focus on Defending the Faith". Then see where the dude has been the topic of back and forth commentary (of sometimes more heat than light, according to the commentator) at "To Whom Shall We Go: From Apologetics to Mormon Studies: The Case of Benjamin Park — with Reference to Dan Peterson, David Holland, and Terryl Givens" and " "Intellect and Affection – How to Be a Faithful Mormon Intellectual" (plus more eg at "Clarification on Park's View" and "Hamblin's misreading", etc.) He was among the inaugural editors of--and contributor of reviews for--the only review journal in this subfield. And was doing this after earning a Cambridge MPhil (itself akin a PhD in the U.S.) and on the way to his receiving a Cambridge DHist.

wp:PROF is to make it easier for academics to receive WP treatment.

It is possible for an academic not to be notable under the provisions of this guideline but to be notable in some other way under one of the other subject-specific notability guidelines. Conversely, if an academic is notable under this guideline, his or her failure to meet either the General Notability Guideline or other subject-specific notability guidelines is irrelevant. ... Some academics may not meet any of these criteria, but may still be notable for their academic work. It is important to note that it is very difficult to make clear requirements in terms of numbers of publications or their quality: the criteria, in practice, vary greatly by field. Also, this proposal sets the bar fairly low, which is natural: to a degree, academics live in the public arena, trying to influence others with their ideas. It is natural that successful ones should be considered notable. -- wp:PROF"

But long-term WPdians routinely reference wp:PROF to make a college-level instructor harder to merit a bio than if s/he were not such. Quasi-credentialism is perfectly legit if it's the WP wants to roll however the guidelines should be adjusted to account for this discrepancy. As it is now editors merely help WP institutionally creep toward wp:PROF's being a harder and not an easier standard for inclusion by way of turning up their noses when someone "isn't a full professor" or is as yet "not published" per institutional publish-or-perish standards.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:11, 26 March 2017 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 22:32, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Your understanding of what constitutes a reliable source could use some work. As I say, the article did not meet the general or subject notability criteria, and the subject notability criteria are lower. If nobody had even mentioned WP:PROF, this would still have been deleted. Guy (Help!) 23:51, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

reply - Guy, how do you reach such a finding?

With due respect to the wisdom of crowds, the non-argument you offer seems more attuned to...crowd dynamics.

I created the blp, having known of its subject first as a founder of the preeminent Mormon history blog Juvenile Instructor and susequently (See my comment above) as somebody especially noted as having promoted a new kind of Mormon "quasi-apologetic." And--well, despite the non-unfounded belief that Mormonism itself is kinda less than fully pro-intellectual (Um-- See Dawkins, Richard.)--I knew that the very new sub-filed Mormon studies is certainly very intellectually legit (with, eg, there being, domestically U.S. and worldwide, as many LDS adherents as there are of Judaism (Bloom, Harold: "[...Jews form less of a tenth of one percent of the world's population. That is about the proportion of the Mormons..."]; Pew Research Center: "Mormons make up 1.7% of the American adult population, a proportion that is comparable in size to the U.S. Jewish population"). So, not wanting to do something akin to reviewing a book I haven't read, I checked various "find sources" links and quickly was led to the following wp:V sources:

1. "[Harold] Bloom holds up as the legacy of Joseph Smith 'betrayed' by modern Mormonism is a fantasy glimpse of the moment of the religion’s inception. Mormon historian Ben Park...." Joanna Brooks of Religious Dispatches
2. " ...such interdenominational alliances, but according to Benjamin Park..." New Humanist, United Kingdom
3. "Some have aimed their reprimands at the choir for accepting the invitation. Benjamin Park, a history professor at Sam Houston State University and an associate editor for an academic journal called the Mormon Studies Review, wrote a post on his personal blog shortly after the choir’s announcement. 'I am disappointed[... ... ...] To my friends who have been the direct targets of Trump’s attacks: even though the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is a missionary arm for the LDS Church, I hope you know that their appearance at Trump’s inauguration does not reflect my values or interests[...]'" Newsweek
4. "As Mormon historian Benjamin Park explained to me, 'Mormonism’s attachment to the Republican Party has largely been centered on the conservative values of the religious right.'" Slate
5. "...Park, a historian of American religion and a Latter-day Saint, offered an apology..." Slate
6. "In a commentary published in The Washington Post, Sam Houston State University assistant history professor Benjamin E. Park wrote about the church's history of speaking about against religious tyranny." Daily Herald
7. "Walker was a 'watershed in the LDS Church's historical conscience,' wrote Benjamin E. Park" SLTrib (Note: By premier secular journalist covering Mormon beat, Peggy Stack)
8. Stack reviews Terryl and Fiona Givens's The God Who Weeps, quoting Park here
9. "In a blog post, Benjamin Park, an assistant history professor at Sam Houston State University in Texas, tallied a baker's dozen of 'surprising facts' he gleaned from Prince's book...." SLTrib's Peggy Stack
10. "...some LDS researchers are celebrating the new direction. ... 'By following the example of the LDS Church History Library in Salt Lake City, which engages with broader academic disciplines and communities, the Maxwell Institute will provide a much better service for the average member as well as the academic world' [said Park]" "Shake-up hits BYU's Mormon studies institute," by Peggy Fletcher Stack, The Salt Lake Tribune
11. "Park said Smith’s vision was for a 'new civilisation destined to expand as God’s people multiplied. Gathering and city building were not incidental parts of sanctification, but the goal.'" The National of Scotland
12. "...compact settlements that would go on to influence the planning of hundreds of American towns. 'This farm boy ... dreamed to build a metropolis that rivalled the large seaport cities he had only heard about,' writes the academic Benjamin Park, in a 2013 paper. In the 1830s, Smith laid out a detailed plan called the 'plat of Zion'." The Guardian
13. "Algunas personas piensan que las persecuciones tenían que ver exclusivamente con la práctica de la poligamia entre los miembros de la religión. Pero el historiador Benjamin Park explica que eso no es así. 'La poligamia se convirtió en una controversia nacional recién en 1852', cuando la iglesia anunció públicamente su práctica durante una conferencia en Salt Lake City, Utah. 'Antes fue practicada en secreto por un número limitado de miembros. Muy poca gente lo sabía', según Park." Per Google Translate: "Some people think that the persecutions had to do exclusively with the practice of polygamy among the members of the religion. But historian Benjamin Park explains that this is not so. 'Polygamy became a national controversy only in 1852,' when the church publicly announced its practice during a conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. 'It was once practiced in secret by a limited number of members. Very few people knew,' according to Park" Univision
14. "'It teaches the lay reader that [Mormon] facts, quotes and issues aren’t set in stone, nor are they easily decipherable,' Park writes in an email." The (San Jose) Mercury News
15. Daily (Provo, Utah) Herald
16. Prominent Mormon speculative lay theologian Terryl Givens gives Park thanks in Given's seminal 'Wrestling the Angel' (Oxford University Press) and cites Park: "...see Benjamin E. Park, “Reasonings Sufficient': Joseph Smith, Thomas Dick, and the Context(s) of Early Mormonism'"here.
17. Givens and Matthew Grow cite Park's "Parley Pratt's Autobiography as Personal Restoration and Redemption" in Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, Oxford Univ. Press
18. Non-Mormon Mormon studies luminary John G. Turner references Park's "'Build, Therefore, Your Own World': Ralph Waldo Emerson, Joseph Smith, and American Antebellum Thought," in Turner's 2016 book "The Mormon Jesus," Harvard Univ. Press, link
19. etc etc etc.

Respectfully, Guy, I inquire of you, if these are not "multiple reliable sources" per the guidelines at wp:GNG, What in the universe ever could be!--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

To make Wikipedia not an April Fools joke either revamp the guidelines and hereinafter make wp:PROF, wp:AUTH, etc., somehow equal to wp:GNG and wp:BIO or else make some kind of mechanism to universally discount would-be !votes which would prioritize any of the former over any of the latter.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:39, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

These are not secondary sources about Park. There are approximately 2 million university professors in the world, and arguing with each other in journals is what they do. This generates citations. The consensus at AfD has converged on the h-index, and everybody agrees that articles on people who pass the GNG get kept at AfD. Compare Park with Massimo Pigliucci, whose wedding was covered by the New York Times. Abductive (reasoning) 00:36, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I have to agree with Abductive that most of this is not actually about Park in any meaningful sense. It's about polygamy or Joseph Smith or the library or other historians. From what I can tell, Park hasn't even been reviewed in the Journal of Mormon History, much less any bigger-name history journals. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:59, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

As mentioned, as a blogger alone the subject is well known (see wp:WEB)! And regarding mention the Mormon History Assoc.'s journal: not only has he published there but here is the subject's very influential among Mormon studies scholars annual rundown of notable books in the field, as published on the Assoc.'s website (which assoc. incidentally had given him the J. Talmage Jones Award for a graduate-student paper of his in 2014). Whereas in the LDS subfield Park has mainly written review journal reviews, his non-"review" articles (see his publications list), both those having to do with the LDS area and those about more general American religious and/or intellectual history, as would be expected, are often cited (see here). (Also as he does have a couple of upcoming books he is preparing ((although he is also otherwise quite busy, I'd imagine))--and, from what I understand, these will not be considered about Mormon studies, per se....)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 01:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Two million books are published every year in English alone. Abductive (reasoning) 05:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I concur with User:JzG's perspective above. I know it's disappointing to have one of your articles deleted; I've been there, trust me. But continually escalating this with a "fix" to a non-existent problem is not going to create change. If anything, the notability criteria around biography articles need to be considerably tightened to reduce the piles of low-quality articles on marginally notable living people that we are saddled with. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 07:14, 28 March 2017 (UTC).

• The above sources at, a glance, fail "substantial coverage" rather than the "multiple independent reliable" parts of the test. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 08:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC).
  
• Comment I think this should have gone to a deletion review. That said, for example Park being one of 19 people that Givens thanks for their help in reading over drafts of his "Wrestling the Angel" is not really a sign of notability. There might be some that come to substantive coverage, but this is an issue that should be brought up in a review of the deletion. However, even in that case I see little argument. For one think, the response seems to be ignoring what is said. The Mormon History Journal has not as far as I can tell reviewed a book by Park. To show that Park is actually a notable blogger, we would need something more than the one article in the Salt Lake Tribune that draws from what Park said on a blog. He may be a notable blogger, but the sources are not showing this, at least not the ones shown so far. I think people would be much better served by trying to restore the article on Grant Hardy, whose article was deleted a few years back, but since then was the subject of much of an edition of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies in a way that shows that his literary studies of the Book of Mormon have gained a wide audience.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:07, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Just to be clear, this has already been to DRV. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 23:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC).

• reiterated thesis - I didn't actually come to Dr. Wale's (honorary) page to vent. I have a grand idea to improve Wikipedia. Currently the system is very complex. Accdg to Nicholson Baker (see Criticism of Wikipedia#Notability of article topics), our notability standards are arbitrary and essentially unsolvable, with there being "quires, reams, bales of controversy over what constitutes notability in Wikipedia: nobody will ever sort it out." This is currently true. But only because vagaries of practice are collated with the actual language of the guidelines. My proposal is unbelievably simple. Simply disconnect any weight given to vagaries of practice and solely rely on written guide of standard operating procedures, as in integrated circuit plant in Silicon Valley. (If they still have any there.) It isn't Wikipedia's job to figure out if some field is mainstream enough. It only need see if the topic is covered in reliable sources. Period. This simple idea of genius is actually the way the guidelines are written and would make the whole process entirely streamlined. Too many submitted biographies of those d*mned Alt-Right activists out there? Instead of engaging in pretzel games of logic in order to find these guys not notable, simply see if they are covered in multiple reliable sources. And end there. If the Community truly believes there simply are too many of them, put whatever criterion to narrow the field of coverage down a bit right into an addendum to the guidelines somewhere. But do so...precisely!

  In the current case, an argument is being made that a potential subject would have to have news or feature articles or newspaper profiles written solely about him. Mere passing mention of his opinion don't count. (Maybe Richard Dawkins would pass measure by that standard. What about such respected experts in the subdiscipline as: Daniel C. Peterson? David F. Holland? Terryl Givens? Ralph C. Hancock? William J. Hamblin? Well, maybe not. Indeed in actual point of fact by such a draconian measure enture swaths of Wikipedia would be deleted! Because, of course, the guidelines simply do not contain any such standard for notability. Period. Such a standard's being but certain editors' extremely fringey theory of practice--and not one even they would resort to consistently but only when they might come across a subject they sense somehow unworthy of coverage (...viz., as in the current case: because the scholar hasn't been deemed to have paid his journeyman dues toward some status of true mastery as of the current time...). But relying on such on-again, off-again, nebulous mere "sensings" between relative statuses, within various WPdians' vagaries of practices is what gets us into the very territory that poor Nicholson Baker is talking about. (I mean: What else would coverage of a commenter be about but his opinions? Surely not t/hier upbringing or how t/hey prepare notable cuisines!)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:24, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

• continued - The argument "Look. Scholars argue with each other. If we have an article for each and every scholar who gets in an argument, we'll have an article for d*mned every scholar" is especially tinged of vagariness, of being of the not-specifically-in-the-guidelines fringe! The guidelines inquire of a deceptively simple dichotomy. Is there coverage of _X_ in reliable sources: Yea? or, Nay? And the business is done! As it is in a matter conveniently at hand for illustrative purposes: Drs. Peterson, Holland, Givens, Hancock, Hamblin, et al, give full attention to coverages to a proposition within their subdiscipline brought to the fore by one Dr. Park (whom I redlink here per...um of course, wp:REDLINK!). This is the very dictionary meaning of someone's being "of note": "People known to be notable publish in reliable sources about your ideas." Is Patheos a reliable source? Well, does it enjoy editorial review? Are its writers vetted for their qualifications to pontificate about religion? Yes on both counts. So the subject, a public intellectual commentator, has multiple, published full-article coverages of his ideas. Boom! Done. Remember it takes but to pass a single criterion at wp:PROF or wp:AUTH to be considered notable. And lo and behold the very first criterion at wp:AUTH happens to be: Has the subject been referenced by peers? Just as in, perhaps, the public policy of tax reform(?) ha ha ha...Let's have Guideline reform(!!!)--by WP's jettisoning all by-the-pants standards not specifically in the guidelines. (Must a historian have written a book to be notable? Well--- As it turns out: Sometimes not! Just look at the sourcing. Done!...hah!) --Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 18:47, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I was asked on my talk page to contribute here, presumably because I had already contributed to the Park AfD. My opinion: This is neither the place to relitigate the Park AfD (see WP:DRV) nor to suggest adjustments to the guideline on notability for scholars (see Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)). As such, putting it here smacks of forum shopping, and is not worth responding to beyond that. Take it to a proper channel if you want change. Or vent here, if all you want to do is vent. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:22, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I have also been canvassed on my talk page and my views are as above. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:30, 28 March 2017 (UTC).

Malayalam Encyclopedia

While working the linked-misspelling patrol, I came across an interesting article that was linking to [[Mediawiki]] (of course, the correct spelling is in camel case: MediaWiki). The article is about the Malayalam Encyclopedia, a Malayalam language encyclopedia. That's the language spoken in the southwest Indian state of Kerala. What's interesting about this encyclopedia is that it's sponsored by the Kerala government's State Institute of Encyclopaedic Publications, and is powered by MediaWiki (hence the link). I also soon found a fork of this article titled Sarvavijnanakosam. Of course, this state-sponsored wiki competes with the Wikimedia Foundation's own Malayalam Wikipedia. I'm now curious to know whether there are other such MediaWiki-powered state-sponsored encyclopedias, and between Sarvavijnanakosam and Malayalam Wikipedia, which draws more traffic and contributions, and which tends to list higher in Google searches. – wbm1058 (talk) 19:08, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

These links might be helpful.

• Category:Kerala Wikipedians
• Category:User ml
• Category:Wikipedians who contribute to the Malayalam Wikipedia (User:Cskumaresan, User:Deepakramdaspt, User:Netha Hussain, User:Ranjithsiji, User:Vanischenu, User:Viswaprabha)
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Kerala#Participants (more than 80 editors listed)

—Wavelength (talk) 22:18, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Enciclopedia Libre Universal en Español is a fork of the Spanish Wikipedia.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:21, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. I'd heard of the Spanish fork (it's the reason why "Wikipedia will never have ads"), but never looked at the article about it before. – wbm1058 (talk) 23:01, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I see there is also an article about Malayalam Wikipedia. Now Malayalam Encyclopedia just needs to have a statistics section so we can compare. We worry about having too few admins, but look at that one: only 19. wbm1058 (talk) 23:09, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia seems to be starting to stagnate

So, recently, it seems that Wikipedia has begun to slow down. For example, nothing has been promoted (as of this post) at WP:FAC for eight days. There hasn't been an RfA 17 days. In general, not much is getting done. I think that one of the main causes of this is the fact that now, processes like WP:FAC and WP:RfA are scary places, and many have been driven away from Wikipedia, for whatever reason. It also seems that Wikipedia is now a gathering place for all of the nerds and such, and we aren't getting many people that diverge from that category. Overall, I think that Wikipedia, somehow, needs to be better at retaining editors that aren't really nerds and that don't want to be inundated with pages upon pages of policy when they join. Any thoughts? RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 19:51, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

We've had ten RFAs succeed so far this year, that's pretty bad, but this time last year we'd only had two. I'd agree that RFA is a scary place, I'd even say dysfunctional, but I don't see it as being worse than two or three years ago. Other indicators such as Wikipedia:Time_Between_Edits show we are significantly busier than when things bottomed out in 2014. I'd agree that it isn't good to inundate people with pages of policy when they join. In fact I've been testing a welcome that avoids policy completely. ϢereSpielChequers 21:31, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

See Wikimedia projects edits counter.—Wavelength (talk) 22:21, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Probably my bias of being a not-really-but-kinda new editor is affecting my view of activity. Anyways, I took a look at your welcome template, but I don't know about that either. It is still a bit overwhelming. I think that probably the best way to introduce newcomers is to slowly give them advice and such, and telling them about mistakes without writing a whole paragraph as they go on. I also feel that it might be a good idea to, at the start at least, not point out all of their mistakes, as that would overwhelm them. Of course, if they make the mistake again or the mistake is a huge thing, it would be best to point it out. In addition to this, it might be good to not really mention having a COI to editors that otherwise are basically fulfilling our policies (like neutrality, notability, etc.), as that might scare away these so-called "good" COI editors. That, although, is a whole other thing. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 22:23, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Actually, I just checked the time between edits, and it seems that ever since May 2007, the average time between each millionth edit is slowly climbing up. Maybe the number of retired editors (which I suspect somehow correlates with the average number of FACs per month because most people at FAC are "older" (not in actual age, but whatever), and "older" editors are the ones who we usually consider to be retired if they leave WP) is like a habitat indicator, showing when Wikipedia is starting to slow down. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 22:30, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

It rose from 2007 to 2014 when we had two consecutive 10Ms that took 73 days. The last two are below 60, that's quite a significant rally, and that's despite the rise of the edit filters and the switch of intrawikis to Wikidata. ϢereSpielChequers 22:58, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

@RileyBugz:

It also seems that Wikipedia is now a gathering place for all of the nerds and such, and we aren't getting many people that diverge from that category. Overall, I think that Wikipedia, somehow, needs to be better at retaining editors that aren't really nerds and that don't want to be inundated with pages upon pages of policy when they join.

Agree. I think a good way for that would be to streamline and modernize the WikiProject-system and use it to (make it so that it) both attract and engage new editors. WikiProjects basically equal interest-domains and new users as well as unregistered users could be connected with their respective relevant ones. For this I made this suggestion for the community wishlist 2016: " Suggestions for WikiProjects to join" (some more details and suggestions can be found in the WP X page post linked there).

I think that probably the best way to introduce newcomers is to slowly give them advice and such, and telling them about mistakes without writing a whole paragraph as they go on.

Good point - maybe there could be a newcomer mode (which could get disabled after a few months or via a setting) which displays relevant tips and tutorials at the right places and the right times or highlights parts of pages (with hints) etc. One should recognize though that it's not just about getting newcomers to learn Wikipedia's syntax and other internals but to get them started (which currently often requires such of course).

@WereSpielChequers:

In fact I've been testing a welcome that avoids policy completely.

Nice template. It has many good aspects that are pretty useful for getting newcomers involved: not too much information but simple, basic one, concrete easy starting points, info on WikiProjects, etc. However imo its format (meaning a text talk page entry added at some point for a minor fraction of newcomers) is not adequate for it to be very effective and I agree with RileyBugz in that newcomers would benefit more from continous help as they participate.

For instance I would suggest building a proper location (and object) linked photo request system and then display missing photos in the app's nearby map. As of right now there's Category:Wikipedia requested photographs by location.

Also I'd suggest central pages that display simple tasks to get started, along with the tools and methods to execute them most conveniently (those could be built in). Those central pages could be WikiProject-pages and the tasks could all be in relevance to that WikiProject / domain of interest. So for instance info on how to add pictures could be displayed under the task of "add images to cooking pages" along with categories that can be used to find pages in need of images and the images themselves etc. This would be information at the time users need it, builds upon and stregthens motivation, makes the existing tools and pages most useful, allows for various enhancemens/modifications relevant to the domain of interest (e.g. useful external links or embedded irc chats with users executing the same task at the same time), most importantly gets users started etc etc.

@Wikid77:

I'd agree that software-related improvements and WikiProjects would be most effective here and I also think that making users' contributions more visible, comparable and feedback-generative would improve participation tremedously. For these points I think that Wikipedia needs more development-efforts (for which rethinking salaries, hiring volunteers who already contribute and actively contacting relevant potential volunteers would be help), an improved streamlined WikiProject system and ways to analyze/categorize contributions. For the latter I made some suggestion here and created Category:Wikipedia contribution leaderboards.

Imo a main issue with FAC in this context is that it doesn't really motivate editors as in most cases it's near-impossible to (co)create such an article in a timespan of relevance. Maybe there could be nominations for the most constructive improvement drive (or WikiProject; note that such drives could be built into a streamlined WP system as well) and most useful new articles or alike. Imo FAC etc are more a certificate of article quality than some sort of motivation or feedback for individual editors.

--Fixuture (talk) 19:14, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@Fixuture: Streamlining and trying to revive dead Wikiprojects is a very good idea. Using Wikiprojects to revive (at least temporarily) content creation works very well, at least in my experience. I think that one of the problems with Wikiprojects, although, is that some topics are pretty niche, don't have a "fanbase" crazy for the subject, or both. I suspect, although, that the fanbase thing is what most influences Wikiprojects. For example, WP:MILHIST, although sorta-kinda a niche subject, has a fanbase absolutely crazy for it. So, it seems that we should focus on Wikiprojects that aren't niche, but aren't relatively broad either.

Your suggestion that people could take photos of things that need photos sounds like a good idea, but I just want to make sure that we agree that the people that we want to attract with this, non-nerdy types, would probably not be happy doing gnomish tasks. I think that the best way to retain them is to have them do more "worthwhile" things, like helping to expand a page a bit.

I agree and disagree with your thought that we should have a newcomer mode. What I mean by this is that I think that a newcomer mode should not be automatic, I think that the best way to do it is to, when they log on for the first time, there would be some notification box with a link that would take them to a simple page (no more than five setting things) that would allow them to turn on newcomer mode (although if we ever decide to implement this, newcomer mode would be a terrible name. I suggest tips mode) and allow them to change a small number of other settings. Tips mode would then notify them of small errors and highlight them, say if they use a level one header or don't have an equal number of equal signs. I surmise that if we made tips mode turn on automatically, new nerdy people, the people that this project would be hard-pressed without, could be pushed away. Anyways, thanks for your in depth reply. Thoughts on these things? RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 20:38, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

@RileyBugz (p):

Good point with the niche WikiProjects without much of a "fanbase" - I guess the streamlined WikiProject system could also have some hierarchical project structures built into it. As of right now there are WikiProjects and taskforces (that's 2 levels) - there could be additional levels and better organization via various changes and e.g. subgroups. The "fanbase" refers to potential contributors who are interested and/or knowledgable in the WikiProject's topic. I suggest that WikiProjects for all missing broad topics are created and that less broad and popular WikiProjects can simply be created by editors (which implies that some "fanbase" exists) and are typically one level below the broader WikiProjects. It would be very good to make it very easy for people to create and participate in such WikiProjects and set up subgroups etc.

WP:MILHIST could for instance have the WikiProjects "Military" (as of right now that seems the most correct title for the WP; it doesn't yet exist and would need to be created) and "History" as parents.

Also I'd like to note that these WikiProjects can also be useful for recruiting new editors of fanbase however small, including doing outreach.

but I just want to make sure that we agree that the people that we want to attract with this, non-nerdy types, would probably not be happy doing gnomish tasks

Well these would be to get them started. The various tasks that WikiProjects could feature wouldn't be constrained to gnomish tasks but also creating new articles and various other things. (I wouldn't consider taking & uploading photos to be gnomish though.)

I think that the best way to retain them is to have them do more "worthwhile" things, like helping to expand a page a bit.

For this things like {{Expand section}} could be used. Some WikiProject members would add this tag to sections that are too short and maybe also leave some suggestions for expansions and refideas and some would work out the expansions etc.

--Fixuture (talk) 22:29, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

@Fixuture: The photos suggestion is a great idea—exactly the reason I didn't mention it. It seems that I kinda misinterpreted your suggestion of creating something that suggests where newcomers can help.

On the niche and fan base thing again, it seems that if a project has a relatively nerdy and dedicated fanbase, then a Wikiproject would be successful. Thinking on this, it has come to me that whether a project is niche doesn't seem to matter too much, it might actually help. This reasoning comes from the fact that most fanbases are pretty specific. Also, the jargon and structure, even of topics seemingly similar to each other, can vary widely. And new jargon usually makes people shy away from a subject. So, it seems that we need to revive projects that are wide ranging, but not too wide ranging. For example, mammals over life and short stories over literature. We really need to find, also, more subjects that have a dedicated fanbase.

Having a more visible section on projects detailing (without details, as I have discussed before) what people can do to contribute seems to be good. New articles requested—with sources. People would remove things that have been done or non-notable things. This would, I stress, need to be highly visible on the project page. Not some box to the side with a link to pages requested.

It seems that we are starting to come a tiny bit closer to some solution. The first order of business, judging by this discussion, seems to be to start to try and modernize and clean up WikiProjects, mostly those that aren't really active (judging by the talk page). After that, it seems that we should see what projects that aren't active or don't exist that have a dedicated fanbase that we could utilize. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 23:18, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Some way to give editors tangible rewards would help. After 7+ years I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get my heart into something which doesn't forward my life in any meaningful way; yes, I have the satisfaction of knowing that people read some of my work and that I've helped sustain some nebulous movement, but it's been at the steep expense (I'm coming to understand it's been far more than I ever realized) of a lot of other things in my life. For all my work I've gotten a very nice T-shirt and some praise, which I appreciate (not sarcastic) but know that there are many other things I could do that would bring me a lot more. I have no idea what solution there is, if any, but I figure it might help to see the vantage point of an admin with severe burnout who simultaneously doesn't want to completely leave. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

+1 – I've only been around for only 6 years (and I'm one of the newer admins) so I'm not burned out... yet. But I do realize the extent to which Wikipedia has "taken over" my life. wbm1058 (talk) 02:41, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Need more improvements and wikiprojects

We need more obvious improvements, such as new simple "Publish-Changes" button (already on Wikimedia Commons), to increase enthusiasm, where editors can see other people actively improving Wikipedia, beyond just talk about future. German WP has also been slowing down in recent months, but that might be a seasonal or special event with immigrant issues. Remember Swedish WP survived for years on just "23" core editors, so we know not to worry if 1,000 core editors go on Wikibreak; otherwise users such as myself have left for 2 years but returned later. Hence, the future seems excellent, and we can promote more WikiProjects to improve detailed contents. There is much more to add, about many topics. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:47, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the perspective on this so that we don't go crazy. Anyhow, I do agree that WikiProjects will (and are) help. RileyBugz^{Yell at me} | _Edits 00:04, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

16 years of editing, today

Hey, Jimbo Wales. I'd like to wish you a wonderful First Edit Day on behalf of the Wikipedia Birthday Committee! Have a great day! Chris Troutman (talk) 22:35, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

This is lovely but a bit late. I wonder how many of us are around whose first edit date in Mediawiki differs from their true first edit date (pre-Mediawiki!)...--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:22, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Larry's oldest surviving edit has yours beat by nearly a month! ;) But the WP:OLDEST surviving edit dates to January 16, 2001. No edits survive in the database from 15 January 2001, the day that Wikipedia was founded.

Being first isn't everything though. Based on your 567 + 1774 edits to article-space, I'm afraid you would both be NOTNOWs if you ran for administrator in today's environment! wbm1058 (talk) 13:33, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Graduated editing

I propose a new page, Wikipedia:Graduated editing, listing (1) various kinds of editing and (2) various kinds of pages that might be edited. I envisage perhaps 100 items in the first list, sorted into perhaps 10 sections, not necessarily having equal numbers of kinds of edits. New editors can be encouraged to limit their editing to the most elementary kinds of edits, and the least problematic kinds of pages (in user namespace and draft namespace and article namespace, and their respective talk namespaces). They can be kindly discouraged from editing policy pages and guideline pages. (I have seen many instances of tinkering on Wikipedia:Manual of Style and related pages, not always beneficial tinkering, and discussion of changes in accord with WP:BRD can be time-consuming for editors with more experience—on Wikipedia in general, and on certain policy pages and guideline pages in particular.) I am not prepared to produce the new page at this time, but I would like it to be produced, so I am hoping that this message will motivate one or more other editors to do so.
—Wavelength (talk) 00:24, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

How to make Wikipedia fun RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 00:28, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Physical exercise can be a source of fun.—Wavelength (talk) 04:50, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

For people who enjoy it... I think that content creation is one of the potential ways we could invigorate newcomers. I mean how many newcomers, besides the nerdy type, immediately start on content creation? A good amount of them, correct? This shows that for them, content creation is a fun way to get in to Wikipedia. I think that, then, we need to focus on promoting content creation and encouraging more of it from newcomers. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 14:30, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Whereas shūdankōdō (ja:集団行動; https://forvo.com/word/集団行動/#ja), meaning "collective action" or "group action", requires of each participant exactly one specific action or inaction at any instant, graduated editing is more flexible in allowing a variety of options to a new editor.

Generally, people crawl before they walk, they walk before they run, and they practice the musical scales before they play complex masterpieces. A bus passenger wants the driver to know more than the basics about driving.

I can write an article to fit my own policies and guidelines, but writing an article to fit Wikipedia policies and guidelines requires time for learning them. If an new article does not fit Wikipedia policies and guidelines, then additional time is needed for experienced editors to make corrections or to explain to a new editor what is required. I would like Wikipedia editing to be orderly and harmonious like synchronized walking; I do not want it to resemble a game of bumper cars.

You made a claim about newcomers and content, but you did not provide evidence to support your claim. Even if the claim is correct, your proposal would sacrifice quality for quantity.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:02, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

You have a point there, so until we have more knowledge, that claim should not really be considered reliable. But, I am in the middle of reading this paper, which so far seems to say that for newcomers to stay, they need early support. It does say that newcomers don't really know too much about how to help, nor do they know about WikiProjects, which, from my experience (confirmation needed, but it seems there is wide agreement for this), can really help get people in to editing Wikipedia. But, the paper also seems to suggest that newcomers find Wikipedias policies extremely confusing, so there is that. Sorry for being a bit condescending earlier. RileyBugz (p)^Yell | _Edits 01:20, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Legs-it, Daily Mail, and London time zone

This is bound to come up here sooner or later, so I might as well start it with some facts.

The Daily Mail has a very obnoxious front page today, headlining the legs of 2 prime ministers. The Huffington Post has a story about the front page and some vandalism on Wikipedia, Daily Mail Front Page Outrage Sees Editor Paul Dacre’s Wikipedia Hijacked. In the HP article is a tweet dated 2:27 am March 28, 2017 that points out that the Wikipedia article on Paul Dacre (DM editor) has been the subject of "Excellent ... trolling". You can see that the vandalism took place at 4:26 am and was reverted by Cluebot the same minute and then re-reverted by the same anon 8 minutes later. The anon locates to London. The 2nd vandalism stayed in the article for another 2.5 hours (presumably most Londoners were asleep). So my only question is the difference between the time of the tweet 2:27 am and the time of the first vandalism 4:26 am UTC. Is London's time zone 2 hours earlier than UTC?

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:27, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

London is currently on British Summer Time (BST) which is UTC + 1 hour. The change to BST took place at 0200 hors on Sunday 26 March. Brianboulton (talk) 15:39, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

It would strike me as the wise and humane thing to do to semi-protect Mr Dacre's Wikipedia entry for awhile. While it may be their policy to viciously attack people with whom they have some disagreement, it will never be ours.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:44, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I tend to agree, and have done so (confirmed users only for three days). Should give User:Philip Cross a break too. Yunshui ^雲_水 15:49, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

The time of the tweet is currently displayed in the HP article as 7:27. The screenshot shows 7:24. The vandalism was removed at 8:09. Twitter tells me it was tweeted at 23:27 the on the 27th, but that it was also 10 hours ago, which would be about 7 in the morning, London time. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 16:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

It is a good idea to protect the article. Clearly I'm having trouble with the hours displayed by twitter and perhaps by Wikipedia. The question I'm really interested in is whether this is a type of "fake news" or maybe "self-made news". The following scenario looks possible, but quite confusing and I'd like to make sure: Anon from London vandalizes our article at 4:26 am (Cluebot reverts at 4:26 am) Vandal tweets at 4:27 am. HuffPo publishes article within the hour. A later edit to the HuffPo quotes the 4:34 edit and the tweet reflects the 4:34 edit (not the 4:26 edit even though it was sent at 4:27). Obviously I'm missing something or somebody is pulling the wool over our eyes. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 16:43, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Going by my London clock, at the time of the tweet at 7:27 the vandalism had been in the article for around two hours. It's no surprise that some random person would pick it up and tweet it. I couldn't say how the HP created an article within half an hour of the tweet - maybe they write really quickly (it's not a long or complex article) or already had some story prepared - but based on the gap between the vandalism and the tweet I wouldn't describe it as obviously being "self-made news". -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 17:46, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. that helps a bit. The X:27 coincidence and twitter/HufPo displaying times in different time zones is confusing. I still haven't figured out how "11:27 PM - 27 Mar 2017" appears on Twitter, but the same post copied to HufPo says "2:27 AM - 28 Mar 2017". But now I see, by hovering on that 2:27, "28 Mar 2017 6:27:07 (UTC)" appears Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:04, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Should we be more diligent with articles about trademarked items?

Hello Mr. Wales, and page stalkers too. I came across a thing that I believe deserves our attention. It came as an uncontroversial technical request to facilitate a page move.[1] that involved the rewriting of an article about the Hacky Sack, a trademarked item owned by Wham-O, to transform it into an article about the trade-name as a generic trademark. No reference was given to show the trademark had lost its protection and I could not find a source that referenced such a claim. I don't know how prevalent these types of rewrites are, but Wham-O has also had Frisbee, Hula Hoop, Magic Sand, and Trac Ball rewritten as well. AFAICT, none of the rewrites are referenced and they could just as well be original research. Consider this source, titled "Losing Grip on the FRISBEE" where it says:

Wham-O is facing an uphill battle in seeking to keep its trademark alive. ... The opening sentence in a Wikipedia article about "Flying Disks" states: "Flying disks (commonly called Frisbees) are disk-shaped objects ..." This sentence alone exemplifies that the FRISBEE mark is in a lot of trouble. The word "commonly" and the term "Frisbees"—a trademark used in a plural form with no ® sign next to it or even a single mention of Wham-O—sound like a public verdict of genericness.

The block-quote is from a 2010 article about Wham-O's litigation to defend their Frisbee trademark while Wikipedia had already began describing it as a generic trademark. Our policy is not robust in this regard and I think we can be better stewards of these trademark tales than the examples I have seen. I am curious to know how others feel about this posting, in particular, the thoughts of Mr. Wales Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 00:55, 29 March 2017 (UTC)