User talk:Jimbo Wales

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System crisis with Russian wiki

Now Russian Wikipedia goes in system crisis with Russian-Ukrainian war and Putin's regime attack on the human rights and freedoms. It seems that Russian Wikipedia controlled directly and indirectly by russian government that make impossible to write any anti-putin information. An example of systematic political censorship is article Putin khuilo! that exist in 21 wikis, but not in russian. (Some more examples you can see at Арбитраж:Посредничество ВП:УКР (in russian)) Wikimedia can verify fact of non-anonimous russian authorities edits this via logs of wikipedia's servers. So the question is - is it possible to perform a lustration in the Russian wikipedia? Or is it possible to create ru2 wiki - wikipedia in russian for all russian-speak people exept russian authorities and its Ministry of Truth that will be really free? --Pragick (talk) 10:23, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

Bill Clinton supporters here managed to get the section header on his sexual abuses removed and mocked the idea it was important enough to be there. Now it's just a bunch of paragraphs under the "Bill_clinton#Public_image" section. So you don't necessarily need the government to removed negative material about a country's leaders or former leaders (or future leaders??). There is one in Public_image_of_Bill_Clinton#Sexual_misconduct_allegations but no listing of songs about his sexual allegations and other cultural phenomena, or about foreign reception. Perhaps his misconduct is as worthy of an article as a "Right sector"(?) football chant. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 10:49, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

1. article Putin khuilo! is not about Putin's personal sexual abuses. 2. "government controlled" means in ruwiki not only edition, but as well access to personal data of users and threats to life and freedom of wikipedia's editors. We know some facts that pro-putin's kind of Hitlerjugend collects addresses and other data for the punishment of undesirable editors. Рersonal data may be obtained from checkusers.--Pragick (talk) 12:25, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

The same collection of data - probably more - is being done in this country. Americans have been threatened with prosecution for "material support" on flimsy grounds from surveillance. Edward Snowden and others warning Americans have been incarcerated or had threats to life and freedom. I don't see your WP:RS evidence it's being done there yet, though I'd be surprised if it wasn't. In any case, let's have facts, not propaganda. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:37, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

• @Pragick: To be clear, are you alleging that checkusers are improperly using their permissions at ru. to facilitate political retaliation? Because that would be a really serious issue if true. Monty₈₄₅ 00:23, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

  I guess it's possible. I know that checkusers can check the user only for its interest for some themes such as ruling party's corruption and stealing. I know that checkusers block not only open anonimous proxy, but as well paid vpn serveсes. --Pragick (talk) 00:59, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

It is hard to keep a wiki from discriminating if enough of its members are committed to censorship. So I think the impulse to "ru2" is a good one. As a whole, the WMF or English Wikipedia can't arbitrarily pick out a few Russian editors or articles we think are good. What we can do is have a more open structure that gives more opportunities for alternative views to take hold. For example, we can encourage Russian editors to work on Russian-language drafts here for immediate translation to supplement our own articles, and in turn to translate our articles, properly updated, into Russian. In this way we can house some "ru2" drafts on en.wikipedia, knowing that they are effectively being watched by a larger pool of editors. Alternatively, I've started a suggestion meta:Usenetpedia... for now most people don't see the need, but it might become apparent; for Russian speakers it might already be apparent (though something tells me Usenet might not be doing so well in Russia, ru.wikipedia is an international resource). Wnt (talk) 17:07, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Putin has a lot of support in Russia. If you're looking for Russian government agents, you're more likely to find them editing articles about US government policy. Russian objection to Putin khuilo! is not about Putin. Russians consider Ukrainians as less civilized, especially when they resort to using profanity about their esteemed leader. As a result, the Russian effort to keep such "filth" off their Wiki is an effort to keep the Ukrainians out along with any Ukrainian supporters. Even those who don't support Putin are more likely to align with their fellow Russians against Ukrainians in this case. (This is an opinion from your friendly foreign political commentator here.) USchick (talk) 17:54, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

I see the problem especially re checkuser..... but this would equally apply to Ukrainian editors, and those in countries such as Iran and China and Saudi Arabia and more. Current Russian laws about blogging, just brought in, may apply to Wikipedia, even though it's a collective undertaking (blogs with more than 5000 hits can be subject to licensing requirements).Skookum1 (talk) 03:17, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Monkey business

From the same BBC article: "the foundation rejected his claim on the grounds that the monkey had taken the photo, and was therefore the real copyright owner." Really? The WMF got involved in that? JMP EAX (talk) 00:20, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

The communications team is working overtime to get corrections about this. Of course the Foundation did not claim that the monkey owns the copyright. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:24, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: it would appear that User:Odder is going the communications teams' job for them. Perhaps he should be given a job at the WMF as he is more effective than they are it would seem. 200.59.5.221 (talk) 11:01, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I guess I missed the memo [1] "Wikimedia Foundation revealed Wednesday, in its first-ever transparency report, that it denied Slater’s request to have the image removed from Wikimedia Commons." JMP EAX (talk) 00:25, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

For reference, the files in question are File:One-of-the-photos-taken-b-013.jpg and File:Macaca nigra self-portrait.jpg, and their derivatives. Seattle (talk) 02:51, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

In the news today (posted Aug 6th) “Photography is my only source of income,” he told ABC News.¸--Moxy (talk) 10:45, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

His source of income has nothing to do with the copyright status of the photos. Seattle (talk) 14:54, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

[Insert] If the shot is in the public domain, he can't sell it. If he is the copyright holder, he can. Writegeist (talk) 23:57, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, he's playing an appeal to emotion fallacy there. He's also invoked Godwin's Law. Dude certainly isn't endearing himself to any sympathy for his position. Resolute 16:14, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

And Wikimedia and its arrogant community of know-nothing-at-alls are not endearing any sympathy whatsoever; more like international derision. Photographers' associations and their considerable funds, and army of copyright lawyers, will fall in behind the photographer. Paraphrasing what Stalin said about the Pope, "how many lawyers does Wikimedia have". It certainly does not have unlimited funds, as appeals for donations constantly remind us; should people's donations to improve the Wikiverse be used to defend a copyright dispute and contest interntational copyright law? If so, it is an abuse of those funds. Wiki-lawyering and the pontificating of Wikipedians about someone's motives are quite irrelevant to copyright law. Yes, Slater does have a right to make a living, and there's nothing wrong with that, though you are all insinuating his motives are suspect. That kind of insinuation about another Wikipedian results in a block. He invested in the trip to Indonesia, and for his supplies for his days in the jungle, and for his cameras and more; Wikimedia invested nothing. This is the tyranny of the ignorant and arrogant over someone being victimized by wiki-foolishness. But being victimized and doing the victimizing is common fare in Wikipedia, as is a complete moral vacuum on too many things to list. This will end badly, and very expensively, for the Wikimedia Foundation; it is already an international laughingstock; the schadenfreude of the press when Wikimedia is brought to heel and forced to pay damages will be even more of a chorus of hilarity and the butt of jokes for years to come. A consensus of fools is only foolishness. The monkey has the common sense to stay in the jungle...and as observed below, has not filled out a wiki-license relinquishing her copyright to the public domain. Animals cannot own copyright.Skookum1 (talk) 16:51, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the Foundation lawyers will need to put in a lot of thinking about this one, because this is a very important issue affecting our attempts to try to protect the public domain. There are going to be a lot of arguments essentially appealing to some manner of "sweat of the brow" and various other circumstances that have favored various extensions of the copyright principle beyond the direct action of the photographer. For example, companies presently claim to own faithful photos of the Earth from orbit, even though any satellite in that orbit would have gotten pretty much the same thing. Modern artists fling paint at canvasses more or less randomly, or even paint it blank!, and claim it as an original protected work of art. You can purchase a commercial drone with a commercial camera, take a shot with all the default settings, and claim that simply because you controlled (with a very low level of accuracy) where the drone happened to be flying, that gives you a copyright over the photo. So what about handing a camera to a monkey?

However, once you abolish the sacred (if somewhat silly) principle that any monkey (literally) who presses the button owns the copyright, where do you stop? You go to the store, you buy a phone off the rack, you shoot a picture of the Taj Mahal and you upload it to Wikipedia as "own work". But why shouldn't the manufacturer, which spent years designing the CCD, lens, image adjustment software and physical layout of the camera, have the right to say that they put in all that design work, and you're just a monkey who pushed a button, no better or worse at it than the one who did the selfie? And say that that photo of the Taj Mahal you took is their copyright, and get it taken down off Wikipedia? There are other such examples, for example the very common "copyfraud" where people scan in a public domain document and claim to own it because it was their scanner. Well... why not, if the copyright goes to those who provided the camera?

I don't know how you draw a line on this one. A consistent theory of copyright won't be satisfied until a company can have a chip put in your head by court order to charge you when you think of a song, and with the power to make damn sure you never dare to hum it. All I see is a vast morass of inconsistent theory that depends mostly on who you are, and responds favorably to the application of large amounts of money. Wnt (talk) 17:29, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Herro Jimmy, I have just seen this tweet which has this photo of a ducklips selfie with a photo of the macaque. Do you not think that, aside from the photo not being funny, that it is in extremely poor taste that this image is being widely discussed in the news at the moment, and here are people at Nerdpalooza making light of the situation, led by none other than yourself. The projects are already taking a bit of a beating in the media, and if this photo comes to the attention of the media I can imagine that the wider public will be thinking "Jimmy, what an asshole"...because this is the general sentiment that a large proportion of commentators are saying about Wikimedia in general over the issue. Thoughts? 106.185.32.199 (talk) 23:23, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Jimmy you look great. So studious. But why does a monkey need glasses? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:48, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Several printouts of "the monkey" were propped up here on the Registration desk at Wikimania this morning, for attendees to take their own selfies with this newfound celebrity. But now, they have all been removed. I'm not sure by whom, or why. Censorship maybe? :) Arthur goes shopping (talk) 10:34, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it's clear the photographer hasn't a leg to stand on here, but at the same time I think the selfies and such are in extremely poor taste. We're talking about a regular guy trying to make a living

here, even if he's wrong, I don't see any reason for the mockery and teasing being conducted by the movement's best and brightest on the topic. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 12:43, 8 August 2014 (UTC).

I have just taken a selfie of myself with a printout of Jimbo's selfie with the printout of the selfie of the Wikimonkey. Now I'm trying to decide who's the best looking guy in this photo.   Mandruss |talk  11:51, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

It's all a lot of fun (and I hope the photographer at least gets some useful publicity), but the coatracking at Macaque#Copyright test case and Celebes crested macaque#Copyright test case is a bit hard to swallow. Johnuniq (talk) 12:09, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure there's been a lot written on this, but I'm adding this Washington Post/Volokh link mainly because I remember reading the original post from three years ago. We've all seen stories that get parts of this wrong, and this one gets most of it right.--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:38, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

No opinion about the copyright of the pictures (not strong enough to mention, anyway) but... I have disagreed and agreed often with Jimbo in the past (not that he cares, off course :-) but I always thought of him as an intelligent person. That selfie with monkey-selfie does not make sense. Jimbo can't be that.. much.. well... he was high, or it is a fake. It must be... - Nabla (talk) 20:44, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it is very interesting that until the very moment he published that image to the internet it was totally within his control as to what happened to it. No one could demand he publish the image. If they took it out of his hands and downloaded the image and handed back the disk they would still be arrested for theft. Yet the very moment he publishes the image people think they may take it away from him saying it never belonged to him in the first place. Despite all this, I can see the merits to both sides of this debate, but I also think the clear precedent is not there. The bothersome part is the almost savage need to belittle and grab this image away from him because he doesn't hold to a free culturist's perspective. Frankly I think the WMF has and continues to be a bully in this situation. Saffron Blaze (talk) 01:13, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

This is embarrassing to Wikimedia, not just the photo dispute itself that the allows no edits there but that it is going on at all. The speciousness of the now-closed "keep" discussion is specious and evidence to me of the low IQ and lack of worldliness and sophistication of wiki-lurkers. Might as well change the description from "that anyone can edit" to "that any idiot can mess around with and screw up". Time and again Commons has seen images deleted for extremely minor issues with the license, or any whiff of a copyright dispute; even my own images and those from my family estate which I donated have been threatened by deletion for the merest flaw in the license, maps and images based on already-in-Commons maps and images have also been deleted, partly because there's a paltry 7-day warning notice and many people just aren't on Wikipedia all the time like the bandits who presume to power that they don't deserve. In the delete discussion, there's a bunch of "Keep" votes that observe that an animal cannot hold copyright, which by logic mean that their votes should be "Delete", not "Keep". US law, German law, UK law, Canadian law are all set aside saying "we'll keep it until the court decision" etc...well, have a nice lawsuit Mr Wales, I'm a photographer myself and know where this will end - with a big hole in the funds donated to support Wikipedia/Wikimedia et al, and a black mark (among many) in the history of the Wiki-verse; in the meantime it's all over the world media and making Wikimedians look like a bunch of jackasses. The Berne Convention is international, and US law is only a reflection of it. The Wikimedia Foundation is not a law unto itself; but that's definitely the position of the know-nothings in those discussions, very few of whom I recognize as regular Wikipedians, at least English-languages Wikipedia users. The last comment on the most recent keep/delete discussion, from User:Yann is the patronizing and loaded "Apprentice lawyers should look for padawan-lawyers.com"; but it applies most strongly to the "keep" voters being bulls***ers about copyright law that they do not understand but presume to interpret, and says "let the courts decide" . Oh, they WILL and it's going to be very, very, very expensive for you. But that's what happens when you let a bunch of monkeys and arm them with keyboards and let their chattering shipwreck the Commons' and Wikimedia's reputation....such as it is. Sadly, it's not Shakespeare. That macaque's wonderful smile will haunt this place for years to come; there are other pictures available of black macaques, is it so important that this one be kept - much less claimed copyright to by Wikimedia in the name of "public domain". Come again? The illogical nature of Wiki discussions and "votes" is one of the curses of the wiki-environment, and threats of lawsuits cause blocking and banning; here it's an invitation to lawsuits and the courts. You've got to find a way to cage the monkeys, they've turned the Wiki-zoo into a circus of mob-rule and tomfoolery. The photograher owning the camera and processing the images owns copyright, animals can not hold copyright under any int'l agreement or in US law, which supposedly governs Wikimedia; it's that simple. Unless the monkey's lawyers show up in court and argue for ownership of copyright, this will wind up decided in the photographer's favour and to immense cost to Wikimedia on top of the mounting international embarrassment still underway.Skookum1 (talk) 01:54, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that anything that encourages hipsters not to harass wildlife with their first world money making schemes is a good thing.^TM. AnonNep (talk) 02:19, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

that's just another stupid reason to support Wikimedia violating copyright law because of its own community of illogic+vanity+arrogance. Anything that brings that b.s. to heel, as this court case will do, is a much better thing, given all the abuses of logic and wiki's own guidelines that are being fielded to defend this nonsense and theft. And besides, if you've ever been around monkeys (as at Ubud in Bali, or on the wild trails in and out of Railay/Tonsai to Ao Nang in Thailand, you'd know that monkeys excel in harassing humans; let them out of the zoo they'd do the same in the Bronx or Compton or Yonkers. They steal, they tease, and this monkey was not being harassed, she was the one doing the harassing.Skookum1 (talk) 03:53, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

From the BBC (there are similar statements in other reputable sources): Mr Slater said he spent three days in Indonesia shadowing the monkeys in 2011.. AnonNep (talk) 06:50, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

So what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Jane Goodall spent years "harassing" gorillas by your logic. But your opinion, and that of the other arrogant-but-uneducated monkeys fielding their opinions on copyright law that have no basis in copyright law (wherein animals cannot own copyright) is beside the point. The court case, and the inevitable verdict in the camera-owner's favour is going to bankrupt the Wikimedia Foundation. A consensus of fools is only foolishness. Unless the monkey has lawyers and wants to press the case, it is none of Wikimedia's business to claim copyright. Wikimedia did not take the photo, and the monkey did NOT sign a release or fill out a Wikimedia copyright-release-to-public-domain license of any kind. American court costs and damage settlements are famously expensive, this is only going to end badly; it is already an international embarassment.Skookum1 (talk) 16:42, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Point of quote was to respond to your claim the monkeys were harassing him. And I've never heard Jane Goodall claim she must have copyright over Gorilla selfies to fund her holidays. AnonNep (talk) 16:59, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Yet another patronizing comment/accusation about this guy; photographers travel for a living, particularly nature photographers. Get a grip on this living person per BLP.Skookum1 (talk) 03:08, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

That also something else that he said in interviews (that he needed the money to pay for his holiday). It seems that you haven't read very widely on this issue before commenting. AnonNep (talk) 12:40, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

So WHAT does the fact he said that he needed the money to pay for his trip? He's a working photographer and ANY photo taken with cameras he bought and paid for is HIS. Your rationale is nasty, as if someone should be begrudged to make an income off their undertakings. That is NO reason to field a completely condescending attitude towards his RIGHT (aka copyright) to make earnings from his photography (which includes camera ownership, and contingencies such as accidental pictures taken, whether by a monkey looking at her reflection or a branch falling on the shutter or any other means). It's his camera, NOT Wikipedia's/Wikimedia's and it's most definitely NOT the monkey's. Appropriating it to the public domain, and then justifying it with weird rationalizations like "oh, he just wanted the money, as if that were a crime or suspect in any way is an argument that only someone with an axe to grind could make. A judge would certainly not tolerate it, and if Wikimedia's lawyers were to claim it in court the objection from Slater's counsel will be supported by the judge, just as it is supported by copyright law and the Berne Convention. You "obviously haven't read widely" on copyright law before shooting your tomfool mouth off about his motives; which are the motives of any artist of any kind about works undertaken with their equipment, at their cost. Argue as you are doing in a court and you would be held in contempt. You, and others with vindictive and self-righteous comments defending an untenable position not supporrted by law, definitely have mine and that of journalists (and photographers) all over the world. And since you clearly hold him in contempt, regarding YOU with contempt is fair game. And correct.Skookum1 (talk) 15:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I can't see this progressing constructively and I'll leave it at that. AnonNep (talk) 16:54, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I suspect, Skookum, that WMF legal has done a hell of a lot more reading about copyright than you have. Particularly since you think owning the camera automatically means you own copyright over everything created with it, regardless of the circumstances behind the creation of an image. Resolute 20:10, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Poor decision-making

Who's brilliant idea was it to print up the "monkey selfie" so that Wikimania participants could create "derivative works" from it? The photographer is already clearly posturing for a lawsuit (see "Monkey selfie sparks copyright battle,") ad infinitum. WMF refused a DMCA takedown request on the basis of a novel technical interpretation of the law, the photographer is alleging loss of income... This is certainly not a WMF position that I would want to bet money on holding up in court. So then we're going to make a game of the matter, with the public face of WP effectively taunting the potential litigant at London? Terrible breakdown in decision-making there... Carrite (talk) 13:50, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

• Derivative works was my phrasing to describe what they were making. The people who were doing it called them "selfies".  — Scott • talk 21:55, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

My apologies if I have deprived you of royalties by lifting your excellent phrasing without credit... ;-) Carrite (talk) 05:04, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I must agree with Carrite on this. We are, legally, in the right, but morally this is wrong - we're effectively saying "ner-nerny-ner-ner". We should be making reasoned arguments to support our position, not behaving like bullies. -mattbuck (Talk) 09:00, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Morality in my estimation, and repeated experience, is in short supply in Wikipedia....Skookum1 (talk) 15:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that WMF is legally in the right on this issue either. The obsession with who pressed the button is ridiculous. Carrite (talk) 01:22, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

As is also far too common in Wikipedia (ridiculous decisions/arguments).Skookum1 (talk) 04:20, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

How about the WMF fights for PD-ing something more worthily, like orphaned works?

How many animal selfies does Wikipedia or Commons have? And how many orphaned works photographs does it show, through the "graces" of national archives in various countries, which have appropriated the copyright to some such works, typically by a special interest [section of the] their national law. Some but not all of these are then "magnanimously" released on Commons with the copyright holder set to the national archive. (There's a Bulgarian saying about giving as gift somebody else's pie.) 188.27.81.64 (talk) 12:09, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Just a comment about that re national archives; it may vary on countries and lower-tier jurisdictions and institutions within them, but photos in the National Archives of Canada, the British Library (whose excellent collection of images is now in the Commons, the Vancouver Public Library, the Vancouver City Archives and more are in the public domain. The British Columbia Archives, a subdivision of the Royal British Columbia Museum, claims on its website to own the images thereon, but in actual fact that's a bluff; they only own copyright on images made from the negatives in their holdings; they are a profit-making subcontractor (actually run by Disney) and their claims in many cases are specious; the same photos are in public circulation and no formal copyright on many of them, such as the photographs of Artie Phair, are in postcard form or copies held by other museums and archives and in private collections; his estate (his descendants) claim copyright, but they are ignored by the BC Archives; those that were undertaken with public money had had Crown copyright, such as those of Frank Swannell, who was a prolific land surveyor photographer, are covered by the pd-50 license and even though digital copies are hosted on their site, and they have in most cases the negatives, any claim of copyright over them would not hold up in a court of law....there have been no test cases nor is there likely to be...because they know they'd lose. They're an exception, public domain in Canada is a dicey issue in Wikipedia, because American copyright law is 100 years, not 50 years, after the death of the photographer; but that's if the photographer owned the copyright, when photos are taken on government contract or on government payroll, the photographer does not; pictures taken under governemnt contract/payroll; Wikimedia's "rules" assert American extraterritoriality in these matters; but again, logic and morality and "doing the right thing" in Wikipedia are rare; in fact WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS is used to justify great wrongs, or at best to shrug off any responsibility. It may be different with teh Bulgarian national archives and in other countries; but the Berne Convention applies under international law in any case, including this one.Skookum1 (talk) 15:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I am also rather disappointed with the triumphant and tactless gloating over the macaque selfie business. And I am a strong supporter the legal argument. This whole issue has sparked an unwholesome bout of coatracking across various Wikipedia versions. I have done my best to stem the tide. Some projects get the point, others simply balk and pretend that this is an appropriate way to illustrate an encyclopedic article about a primate species.

An Italian admin even went so far as to block me for a week without motivating her/his revert and without any warning. Just a blanket excuse that I had tried to revert coatracking, particularly in stubs.

Can we please apply a little off-wiki civility to this? We're part of one of the most influential open source enterprises in the world. What's the point of making an enemy out of someone like David Slater? People here seem to forgetting that while the legal argument is clearly for a free image, the moral argument is unequivocally on Slater's side. Without him, we wouldn't have these wonderful images to fool around with and rejoice at. In cases where museums and corporations try to lock up reproductions of ancient works of art and PD photos through technicalities, we tend to get very upset and protest their actions. But this is essentially the same thing, but in reverse. The least we could do in this case is to act with more humility. Peter ^Isotalo 13:09, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I am awaiting the release from the WMF where they state they sympathise with the photographer and that by denying him copyright and moral rights in this image they may be doing him a favour by forcing the issue to court. Saffron Blaze (talk) 16:35, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Am I the only one who sees a massive disconnect between Jimbo's new crusade for "moral ambitiousness" and what's happened with this monkey's selfie? There can surely be no doubt that the photographer has suffered financial loss from WP's usurpation of his copyright, whether strictly by the letter of the law or not. But that's totally at odds with the focus not on the floor for what's right but on a higher moral purpose. Still, I suppose it's easier for some people than others to hold two inconsistent ideas in their heads simultaneously. Eric Corbett 21:14, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

A question?

Hello Jimbo, first time on your talk page. I saw some of your talk page archives. Many come here to complain, criticize, or praise Wikipedia. I just wanted to know how you feel if someone criticize Wikipedia on your talk page?? Obviously it would have hurted if I was in your place but how you feel?? People often get criticized for something done on good faith or by mistake. Do you remember any such moment when you're hurt by someone on Wikipedia. And how do you handle those critisim when you face?? This are some questions I would like to ask. Please take a minute and share your thoughts with us. Thanks, Jim Carter (from public cyber) 15:25, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

@Jim Carter: One example of how Jimbo handled a comment described by someone else as "bloody rude", can be found in the "Just a comment" section further down this page.

Jimbo had some ideas on how people could or should handle less constructive types of criticism (and other negative interactions) in his presentation at Wikimania earlier this evening. Not sure if the live stream has been recorded and put online somewhere or not, but I imagine we may hear more about these ideas in the future. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:41, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Pinging @Jim Cartar: as well --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:45, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

For those of you who missed the link on Wikipediocracy, the Sunday presentation is at THIS URL. JW takes the stage right around the 7 hour mark. Carrite (talk) 06:26, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Fed up with the status quo...

... she takes her campaign for Wikipedia civility to the Twittersphere.

• "https://twitter.com/Lightbreather/status/497391868674461696"
• "https://twitter.com/Lightbreather/status/497392404593254401"
• "https://twitter.com/Lightbreather/status/497401939055742976"

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. - Lao-tzu

--Lightbreather (talk) 15:33, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

So why is this relevant exactly? Also: Hashtag activism may be of use. Tutelary (talk) 16:07, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I've read your tweets. This step seems not to be a call to action, but rather an attempt to tear down wikipedia as a whole. Isn't promoting that wikipedia is an awful place just going to keep away the type of people the projects you're a part of trying to attract?--Cube lurker (talk) 16:19, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe that promoting your twitter account is a valid use of this talk page or the project. Generally this sort of self-promotion is frowned upon. 208.76.111.243 (talk) 16:22, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

It would be interesting to create a designated Twitter handle that just tweets out rude things said on Wikipedia. Though it may technically be a form of off-wiki canvassing and there is a risk of quotes being taken out of context, it may be useful nonetheless. CorporateM (Talk) 16:29, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

If technically feasible, that would be an excellent idea; it could display results much the way @congressedits does. As for Lightbreather's posts, sometimes sunlight is the best disinfectant, so no problems at all here. Tarc (talk) 16:41, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

"Burn it down" is a legitimate philosophy. I just didn't think that was what the gender bias task force etc Lightbreather was going for.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

It is just more forum shopping, this time externally because even the umpteen sections opened on this talk page are not appeasing her. While just as legitimate a mode of criticism as, say, Wikipediocracy, Lightbreather needs to tread carefully otherwise a sudden influx of supporters here might look like WP:MEAT. I doubt that ultimately it will do her cause any favours. - Sitush (talk) 17:13, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Snippets of conversation taken entirely out of context? That's a less than superb way to open a dialog. Capeo (talk) 18:25, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

With examples like this she's moved past dialog and has gone directly to coercion. It's certainly not collaborative. Pity. 208.76.111.243 (talk) 18:33, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

It's all quite irrelevant. Mostly because, despite the rhetoric, Twitter is vastly less collaborative than Wikipedia -- what I would describe as a much higher Gini coefficient -- by which I mean a few famous people have lots of followers, but most tweets (like these) drop unheard into the memory hole, only to be seen again if somebody wants to make a case against the speaker. Here we are still part of the old Web, which is to say, the Web where people listened to each other rather than the new vision of the Web, which is essentially watching a few hundred channels of cable television but allowing companies to spy on you in the process. So she will find in the end that this or other low-Gini sites are vastly more amenable to serious collaborative development of ideas. Out there she'd have to win a PR campaign, which pretty much implies paying the right semi-famous people to do PR, or at least, laying a lot of groundwork to simulate a network of followers in advance; and even the winner doesn't get any real collaboration out of it, just parroting. Meanwhile, I don't think this should affect how we deal with these issues, and deal with them we still must -- but correctly. Wnt (talk) 19:41, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

That last tweet linked above just has me now saying "whatever". It is especially misrepresentative because we are not tolerating workplace hostility. We are not a workplace; we are a volunteer agency. Trust me, I have encountered enough real-life hostilty in a work environment that it literally put me on disability. Here we can just sign out and walk away, although wounded and unhappy. One is literally trapped in toxicity in a terrifying work environment. Here we are losing no paycheck nor benefits, such as one would if a workstation is deserted by a victim. Fylbecatulous talk 15:05, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd never say one person can't change the "world" I will say though that it probably won't happen here. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 19:50, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

No, of course not, because all y'all are too busy attacking the messenger, which doesn't change the message, it just distracts from it. Nice work. Viriditas (talk) 01:47, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

• Is calling somebody a "disruptionist" a personal attack? So, tell us about your topic ban — we'd like to hear about that. Carrite (talk) 02:31, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Well enough answered HERE. Carrite (talk) 00:38, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Quoting someone above discussing: "designated Twitter handle that just tweets out rude things said on Wikipedia." Not much of a twitter user myself, but it does seem like it could be a way of pointing out comments that really are not acceptable. Of course, it probably would be abused and cause more trouble than it's worth. (Same with a "rude comment of the day" box on the main page which I've long thought might be a lot of fun.)

The two actual quotes remain problematic, but changing the attitudes behind them is a long term project. A well-organized, high profile boycott campaign could be useful down the road if there was no Foundation and community response to more civil people's demands for a change in culture and some structures of Wikipedia, including to make it easier for women to edit free of harassment, double standard attitudes, etc. But even far less drastic forms of organizing are nascent, as the Gender Gap task force is still working on basic infrastructure/goals/projects/etc. and hardly even sending out invites yet. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 06:24, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I look forward to the boycott. The rest of us might get a bit of relief from the forum shopping/thread hijacking etc ;) And Wikipedia will still progress while it goes on. Since you've been told on umpteen occasions that there is a difference between a gender gap, sexism and obnoxious comments, I'm not sure that the GGTF really has the latter two within its remit. Add them to the remit and it might become more of a political exercise that a traditional wikiproject. At what point that would step over the bounds is moot; for example, the Article Rescue Squadron has had a few problems over the years regarding accusations of concerted action. - Sitush (talk) 06:37, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

If you want to see what it takes for Sitush to yell incivility (carefully couched as "Tendentious referencing of other people's motives"), see his ANI against me last fall here. Double standards ride again. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 07:27, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I haven't yelled incivility and I haven't been incivil. I'm just bored with the tendentious campaigning and, one day, it will catch up with those doing it. If for no other reason than they repeatedly fail to back up their claims with decent evidence and they repeatedly misrepresent other people. As for the boycott, surely it is better to be inside the tent pissing out ...? - Sitush (talk) 07:41, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Geez, Sitush, first we're criticized for organizing in the tent, and then we're criticized for contemplating maybe some day, if and only if taking a week or two vacation from the tent. In any case, thanks for validating my analogy of dogs urinating on territory with the wikipedia editing of some (not all!) males. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:46, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I didn't criticise you contemplating a boycott. Nor have I criticised the existence of the GGTF. I've criticised its name, and I've criticised any potential attempt to turn it into some sort of pseudo-political pressure group of the sort you get involved with in real life. Do you really struggle to understand what I say or are you just being deliberately obtuse? You seem to make a habit of it. I'm not even looking at the diff - it will be point-y and repeat what you've said hundreds of times before, doubtless. - Sitush (talk) 16:59, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not some all powerful activist, Sitush, just one of a number of "fed up" women on Wikipedia. Someone else proposed changing name to "GENDER GAP TASK FORCE". And several others besides me agreed. Do you want me to give you their names so you can hound them around Wikipedia, including on their talk pages after its necessary to ban you, and say nasty things about them and demand they follow your dictates of how Wikipedia operates? I think the first serious task the "GENDER GAP TASK FORCE" should take on is ending harassment/wikihounding of women (and guys of course) whose views and modus operandi don't live up to the standards of whatever male(s) who get a jones for following them around. I'm quite fed up with it myself. But we haven't started prioritizing yet, so time will tell... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:19, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I've no idea what a "jones" is, sorry - some US-centric term, I guess. There isn't really anything for GGTF to do re: alleged harassment/wikihounding, except maybe in the case of a newbie who is unaware of the policy and of WP:ANI. If you have a complaint, take it there. - Sitush (talk) 15:26, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

A "jones" is a serious addiction. Harassment and wikihounding only seem to be taken seriously when its a guy editor who has lots of guy editor and admin friends; certain has been my anecdotal experience. (Ah, yes, another study needed to confirm or deny a feeling many women editors have.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:48, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Indeed you need to support such a statement with at least something. Otherwise you come across as poisoning the well with your oft-repeated vague, unsubstantiated rants. Have you ever thought that the reason your ANI complaints sometimes fail might be because sometimes they are not justified? Oh no, of course not: it's always the men's fault, isn't it? - Sitush (talk) 15:56, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, boo hoo. :-) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:57, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

{{od}minor correction; "jonesing" is a phase of the withdrawal, i.e. the angst and craving when the addiction is in need of satisfying. A "jones" is NOT "an addiction" and I've never heard the term used that way, nor without the -ing ending.Skookum1 (talk) 16:37, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

It most definitely can mean an addiction, craving, or better - obsession. See Basketball Jones. Lightbreather (talk) 18:29, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

See also Me and Mrs. Jones Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:50, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

It's a heroin term. A "jones" is a fix; "jonesing" is being in withdrawals for a fix; "The Basketball Jones" was a fix for basketball junkies. It is not a general term for "a serious addiction." Junkies suck, by the way. ('Cept for basketball junkies, who are less apt to break into your car or steal your television to support their habit...) Carrite (talk) 16:38, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually Jones disambiguation only leads to addiction article which doesn't use or define the term, so it all looks like WP:OR to me at this point :-) Wiktionary's definition mentions both relation to heroin and separately "An addiction or intense craving." For what that's worth. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 18:57, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

(sigh.) Quoting your own link just provided: "Etymology: Ed Boland, in The New York Times, March 2002, attributes the term to heroin addicts who frequented Great Jones Alley in New York City, off Great Jones Street between Broadway and Lafayette Street,[1] although the slang term has obviously been around much longer. Dan Waldorf explains that the noun use originated from heroin users." — muttermuttermutter... Carrite (talk) 05:12, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Could someone translate the Spanish for me? Does "puta" really mean an arsehole or bastard (which is roughly what the (British) English means)? --Boson (talk) 22:25, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

No, it's feminine and means "whore". An "arsehole" (my, that's quaint ;-)) or bastard would be pendejo or cabron, by idiom if not direct translation. The male form of puta is puto, used for a homosexual and roughly equivalent to faggot or queer; it was explained to me in Mexico that its sense was "a man with no self-respect", I guess with the same meaning implicit in the femining form puta. Ijo de puta is equivalent to "sonofabitch", it tends to be pronounced ija de puta, a feminine form, which adds to the insult.Skookum1 (talk) 04:17, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

German study 2014

• I really do hate to hijack this 9th sub-thread on this page (or is it the 12th?) on the same topic, but I will point out that researchers from Beuth University (Berlin) and Wikimedia Deutschland have released a 24 page summary report on various diversity issues, Charting Diversity: Working Together Towards Diversity in Wikipedia. My full-contact comments and criticism are in a thread on Wikipediocracy, for what it's worth. The report identifies the following 5 primary factors to explain the gender gap:

1. Lack of time. — Statistically, women have less.

2. Media preferences. — "They mostly prefer social media, such as Facebook and Pinterest, where the level of female participation is far higher than 50 percent,... as well as online and mobile games..."

3. Technical difficulty. — "8.8 percent stated that they would be more likely to edit Wikipedia if the technology were easier to use," with Visual Editor as the planned solution.

4. Lack of support. — 43% of contributors faced deletion of their work without comment, with the 2011 Lam study indicating that the contributions of women were deleted at a higher frequency than those of men.

5. Atmosphere and tone. — "Women (but also men) stated that they left Wikipedia because they felt personally attacked by other users, were confronted with prejudices and stereotypes, or simply lost their initial drive to edit because of the endless discussions the task involved... Women rate the general tone of communication in Wikipedia more negatively than men do." /// Carrite (talk) 07:28, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

This is probably not the right place, but...I wonder how solid those conclusions are, and what the relative weight is. For example, 5 items are mentioned, and the recent discussions have concentrated on the last one. How much does that one contribute? Some of the items are not in our control, specifically items 1 and 2. However, I'd like more information about item 1. Obviously it isn't meant literally, and should be read as referring to free time. However, while women with children are likely to have less free time than men with or without children, only 14% of editors are in that category, so how important is it? If, for example, women with childen have 20% less free time than men with children, then we are talking about a 3% difference, barely measurable. and not in our control.

Item 3 mentions Visual Editor, (which I am using more, as it gets better). Is there any study to see if this helps?

I am puzzled by item 4. Articles are not deleted without comment. I suppose there are some reversions without edit summaries, is that really ubiquitous enough to be a major issue? (to be clear, I think rude and dismissive edit summaries are a problem, but that's item 5, not this item).--S Philbrick(Talk) 12:06, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

After reading over the report, it seems obvious that #1 — free time — is the most important single factor related to contribution at WP. Sociology is rich in research illustrating that women with families have precious little of it, compared to men in the same position. The inevitable conclusion is that there is this enormous factor driving the gender gap. The argument I've made elsewhere is that if WMF is concerned about efficacy in terms of building the base of active content contributing volunteers, they shouldn't be so obsessed with the (horrid) gender numbers, they should be targeting older people, regardless of race or gender — particularly retired teachers and professors. Carrite (talk) 13:19, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Though choosing this spot to interject, as there are various spots this might fit here, not all women are married or have children; though the very prolific and much-missed [User:Phaedriel]] I know counted wanting to spend time raising her family was one of the many reasons she left (another big one was sexual harrassment from SPAs creating taunting usernames and shortcuts). User:KootenayVolcano was/is, I believe, an LGBT person; User:CindyBo runs a liquor stores and breeds Bernese....Carrite knows I've also had experience with women editors who are very aggressive in their actions and claims about others, yet express fear of those who they have criticized, and indignation when their actions are challenged and make various NPAs and AGFs, often without substance and often a very hypocritical one-way street; not just women do that, of course; which is implicitly AGF.....treating criticism of an action or interpretation of a cite or a guideline is often railed at as NPA, which means that nobody can say "boo" in some cases. I agree with the 'regardless of race of gender re older people; it's by no means a gender-specific issue when it comes down to widows and widowers, empty nesters, or single, older women or men, straight, childless for whatever reason, or otherwise. I don't buy the argument that a lack of civility or "tone" of discussions repel women. Encouraging older editors, many of whom do not like the rigidity of the wiki-bureacracy's mindset (one sfsorrow, who only briefly created an account and only raw-signed his IP posts, often made very valuable points on history and more, albeit in a very erratic "un-wikipedian" style. Too often ANI is full of alleged "un-wikipedian" claims, and there's even [[WP:NOTHERE}] to bolster that in the course of blocking or banning someone for life. WP:EXR should be referred to here; and a review of WP:Missing Wikipedians and their history and experiences could be very revealing, no?Skookum1 (talk) 16:04, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Follow up query: how much outreach has WMF done to retired women? How many people over age 50 does WMF have doing outreach? Carrite (talk) 13:26, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Can we revisit my point? If free time is the number one driver, only 14% of Wikipedians have children. Of course, that makes it mathematically possible that all female Wikipedians have children, but that is unlikely. My guess is that more than 14% of female Wikipedians have children, but the proportion would have to be materially higher to make this a major issue. Do we know?--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:15, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Children are very time-intensive pets, as anyone who has spent time around them and their owners knows... To me the detail "Only 14% of Wikipedians have kids" was the "a-ha" moment from the German report. Having kids = lack of WP participation, and the reason is time. I'm sure the Gender Gap Task Force could generate a report summarizing the work of sociologists doing comparative analysis of the time budgets of women and men with children. I'm certain it is a huge literature. Long story short: women have much, much less free time than men in the same family and employment situation due to traditional gender roles within the family unit. Having a Job + kids + being a woman, and there ya go, that's what's driving this thing... Not potty language. The detail on the disproportionately large amount of editing done by older editors further bolsters the notion that it's all about kids + Job + free time... The way to actually chip away at the gender gap AND actually bolster WP content, it would seem, would be to target older women. Carrite (talk) 14:27, 8 August 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 14:37, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

(ecx3)Responding, in part, to your question regarding outreach to retired people, there was a session at Wikimania 2012. Good session, needs more followup. There are more retired women than men, and they do not have the time constraints of women with children in the home, so more efforts here might reap general benefits as well as gender gap benefits.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:34, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think husbands etc. failure to do their share of the housework should be an excuse for saying "there's nothing wikipedia can do about it." Obviously, Wikipedia is trying to do something about Media preferences and Technical difficulty, even if those of us who already know sufficient code may find the new interface annoying. Lack of support. (read "deletion of their work without comment") can be dealt with by considering chronic or targeted or obviously purposeful lacks of an edit summary to be an example of disruptive editing. Atmosphere and tone is what we've been discussing here, to sometimes hysterical caterwauling from various individuals which I summarize as "oh, we can say dirty words all we want but if they complain about it they're being tendendious and should be blocked." So many adjectives that could be used, so little time.... Anyway, teaching new women editors about, and encouraging them to go to, WP:ANI, sooner rather than later is certainly a worthy goal editors can take on voluntarily. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:59, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

After reading over the report, it seems obvious that #1 — free time — is the most important single factor related to contribution at WP

I haven't read the full report (if it's in English, I will), but I really doubt this. If women are answering "lack of free time" in a survey, I doubt they mean it literally. I might say "lack of free time" is the reason I haven't decided to read all the Harry Potter books, but it isn't strictly true. It's just that I don't have enough free time to do everything under the sun, and that one's not a priority. If, as the list above also says, far more than half of contributors to Facebook and Pinterest are women, then it seems clear that women do actually, collectively, have plenty of time available to idle away on the Internet, it's just that they are making decisions about how to spend it that don't favour Wikipedia. That's likely to be partly for reasons we can't help, and partly for reasons we can. Formerip (talk) 15:27, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

You are seriously suggesting that Wikipedia should do something about husbands who fail to do their share of housework? What did you have in mind? I'm an invertate optimistic, and love tilting at windmills even when there is a low chance of success, but even that sounds like a task outside Wikimedia/WMF remit.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:30, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Lack of time/choices in how to spend it makes sense to me. Whether we can do anything to make WP as attractive a proposition as Facebook etc is moot but, yeah, something that positively encourages the older demographic might be a partial solution. - Sitush (talk) 16:59, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

A good place to start would be respecting them and understanding older points of view and personal life-experience et al in terms of content and input; and also, the increasing 'code-ization' of Wikipedia has made things like citations and infoboxes and templates more code-heavy; easier for younger generations to do and talk about but it leaves many older people cold and left out of the loop and often frustrated (sfsorrow again comes to mind; he's older than I am even). Similarly complaints that somebody is long-winded (ahem) is somehow unwelcome to the point of being treated hostilely by those from the point-form, I-have-no-time/patience people of the sped-up world this has become, is a generational culture difference that needs to be acknowledged...rather than dismissed and derided and punished.Skookum1 (talk) 16:13, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems exactly right. I know my WP productivity crashes when I go to work or have stuff going on. We've had five days of wild wailing over naughty language intimating that it's what's driving the gender gap. In reality, it's probably an effect, not a cause. Carrite (talk) 19:18, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

It isn't often that I have work but, yes, it obviously impacts. I also have to do my own housework, cooking, washing etc and, being generally unemployable, an awful lot of DIY that would otherwise be delegated to a tradesman. I hate to draw more flak but the Facebook involvement variation (apparently, 30% more female Wikipedians' time spent on FB than male Wikipedians around 2011) makes a lot of sense to me. At least where I am, women like to socialise, like to gab, like to swap photos of what they've been doing etc to a much greater degree than men - but Wikipedia is not really a social network. There are fundamental differences between males and females that extend beyond the physical, and that the figure is only 30% surprises me. Lady Astor made a brilliant comment about the physical one in the UK Parliament pre-WW2 - look it up) One bizarre quote at Gender bias on Wikipedia says that (paraphrase) WP's focus on facts is off-putting to women. I'm glad I was sat down when I read that one because I'm not sure that, for example, an encyclopaedia based on gossip would really cut the mustard. And, Carrite, I'd be wary about using "wailing" as you did - I got into trouble here for using "drama".

FWIW, I've been trying to improve what was a pretty dreadful article - Sara Jeannette Duncan - but am now out of my comfort zone. I've worked on quite a few bios about women but I'm not good when it comes to paraphrasing literary criticism, which is going to be a significant part of this one. Being concerned about it turning into a quote farm, I've left a note on a couple of project talk pages. One of those is the Feminism project. It will be interesting to see if anyone picks up on it, although I guess that announcing it here might make a difference. In any event, all I'm interested in is improving stuff, not all the sideshows. I'm good at improving things; I'm not good at politics. - Sitush (talk) 00:50, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

"I don't think husbands etc. failure to do their share of the housework should be an excuse for saying "there's nothing wikipedia can do about it." That's not what he suggested. Carrite suggested targeting the retired (or generally 55+ I guess). I'm curious about this "deletion of their work without comment", it is a fact that pseudoscience true believers are generally much more likely to be women [2] (for example ~40% of women from a Canadian dataset [3] vs ~21% of men have paranormal beliefs), which leads me to wonder what are the natures of the articles being deleted? A qualitative study of what these people were actually trying to do before they quit would be interesting. I imagine there was generally a warning because they don't know how to use the technology (point 3), I assume they couldn't locate it Second Quantization (talk) 19:20, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I really can't wait for a female editor to chime on this sub-discussion. IF THEY HAVE TIME, and aren't writing pseudoscience articles.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 21:02, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Although I'm not a woman, I think wikipedia has too many "History" sections. This could be one source of the problem. Brian Everlasting (talk) 21:13, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

So you want to get rid of or minimize history content in Wikipedia?? In favour of what??Skookum1 (talk) 16:07, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

More of the usual problematic claims from Second Quantization. The source you cite does not say "pseudoscience true believers are generally much more likely to be women". It says that some small surveys show that more women than men believe in ESP, and this makes a lot of sense considering how emotionally invested women are in children that they give birth to, while men are incapable of developing this kind of deep bond with another organism. As usual, Second Quantization cherry picks a meaningless survey to promote his own pet theory. It's hilarious to me how the biggest and loudest "skeptics" on Wikipedia are often promoting pseudoscience themselves. Viriditas (talk) 00:34, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah, now the New Agers come out of the woodwork. "In most cases, more women than men believe in these types of pseudoscience. In response to the 2001 NSF survey, women were more likely than men to believe in ESP. The percentages of men and women who said that they believed in UFOs were about equal, which contrasts with the findings of other surveys. In fact, in most other surveys of this type, aliens-from-outer-space-type questions are the only ones that show higher levels of belief among men than women" Also the canadian dataset is a sample of ~1800 people. Yeah, nice reading comprehension there, let's not let facts get in the way of your rant. You have no counter, so you dismiss it as cherry picking (despite it being the second result from a search [4]), I cherry picked the NSF too did I? Where are the counters? Neither article mentions children or emotion, so I wonder where you pulled that out of? I like how you think women believe in pseudoscience and the paranormal because men can't make deep bonds with their childre, weren't you a second ago criticising me for an alleged "pet theory". How embarrassing for you, Second Quantization (talk) 09:57, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I would be leery of concluding too much from this sort of study. So far as I'm concerned psychology is not undeserving of listing as a pseudo science. :) When women say something summarized as "believing in" something, does that mean that they are "true believers" or only that they express a sense of the diplomatic by speaking in a way that implies more open-mindedness? My perception is that culturally women have come from a bad position where it often behooved them to act as if they didn't know so much about the technical matters, lest they need to change their position under coercion later; but this does not imply actual ignorance.

I would also reject a bulk reaction to some definition of heretical beliefs that fails to take into account varying possibilities for a truth behind each. For example, the Japanese have a now-nonsensical belief that blood type affects personality; but if you look into the history it turns out that toxoplasmosis, susceptibility to which is greatly affected by blood type, was widespread there after the war. Astrological emanations from the planets may be bunk, but historically different foods were available when the Sun was in different signs of the zodiac. And as for precognition... it is amazing that the purely religious belief in causality is treated as a science while any consideration that the time-reversible mathematical descriptions might actually work in reverse now and then is treated as some kind of superstition. Wnt (talk) 15:23, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

A little bump

I added my comments in a couple of places previously, but the discussion was so fast moving, new sections added etc. that I have not had any replies. So I'll list them again. Post about how the BBC manage their message boards end of first part of this section (just prior to the "Early response from BHG & LB" section). Post about the idea of a jury-style solution for blocking decisions end of this section (just prior to the "Conflict resolution" section). --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 14:07, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

on my list to check out when start gathering more proposals of interest to add to bunch I've found on GP email list, etc.; starting to finally to organize mass of relevant links - including academic studies and mainstream articles - as resources. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:21, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—July and August 2014

The VisualEditor team is currently working mostly to fix bugs, improve performance, reduce technical debt, and other infrastructure needs. You can find on Mediawiki.org weekly updates detailing recent work.

Dialog boxes in VisualEditor have been re-designed to use action words instead of icons. This has increased the number of items that need to be translated. The user guide is also being updated.

The biggest visible change since the last newsletter was to the dialog boxes. The design for each dialog box and window was simplified. The most commonly needed buttons are now at the top. Based on user feedback, the buttons are now labeled with simple words (like "Cancel" or "Done") instead of potentially confusing icons (like "<" or "X"). Many of the buttons to edit links, images, and other items now also show the linked page, image name, or other useful information when you click on them.

• Hidden HTML comments (notes visible to editors, but not to readers) can now be read, edited, inserted, and removed. A small icon (a white exclamation mark on a dot) marks the location of each comments. You can click on the icon to see the comment.
• You can now drag and drop text and templates as well as images. A new placement line makes it much easier to see where you are dropping the item. Images can no longer be dropped into the middle of paragraphs.
• All references and footnotes (<ref> tags) are now made through the "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cite-label⧽" menu, including the "⧼visualeditor-dialogbutton-reference-tooltip⧽" (manual formatting) footnotes and the ability to re-use an existing citation, both of which were previously accessible only through the "Insert" menu. The "⧼visualeditor-dialogbutton-referencelist-tooltip⧽" is still added via the "Insert" menu.
• When you add an image or other media file, you are now prompted to add an image caption immediately. You can also replace an image whilst keeping the original caption and other settings.
• All tablet users visiting the mobile web version of Wikipedias will be able to opt-in to a version of VisualEditor from 14 August. You can test the new tool by choosing the beta version of the mobile view in the Settings menu.
• The link tool has a new "Open" button that will open a linked page in another tab so you can make sure a link is the right one.
• The "Cancel" button in the toolbar has been removed based on user testing. To cancel any edit, you can leave the page by clicking the Read tab, the back button in your browser, or closing the browser window without saving your changes.

Looking ahead

The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. Your ideas about making referencing quick and easy are still wanted. Support for upright image sizes is being developed. The designers are also working on support for adding rows and columns to tables. Work to support Internet Explorer is ongoing.

Feedback opportunities

The Editing team will be making two presentations this weekend at Wikimania in London. The first is with product manager James Forrester and developer Trevor Parscal on Saturday at 16:30. The second is with developers Roan Kattouw and Trevor Parscal on Sunday at 12:30.

Please share your questions, suggestions, or problems by posting a note at the VisualEditor feedback page or by joining the office hours discussion on Thursday, 14 August 2014 at 09:00 UTC (daytime for Europe, Middle East and Asia) or on Thursday, 18 September 2014 at 16:00 UTC (daytime for the Americas; evening for Europe).

If you'd like to get this newsletter on your own page (about once a month), please subscribe at w:en:Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter for English Wikipedia only or at Meta for any project. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:13, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Is it possible to use citoid (Cite-from-id) without the visual editor? The volunteer operated bots in this area are very flimsy. One in particular (User:Citation bot) has been malfunctioning for weeks now. JMP EAX (talk) 22:04, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi JMP EAX,

That is the eventual goal. I understand that the current work is focused on stability (a service that has fallen flat on its virtual face is no good to anyone), but there's also the problem of making it expandable. In early testing, you can hard-code your method for figuring out what part of a web page is the title or the author's name, but for production work on hundreds of wikis in a couple hundred languages, you really need something more flexible or locally configurable. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 06:36, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

DOI has a good set of tools. The catch is that they can ban you from using their service if they think it's abusive (too many queries). It has to be a more or less official approach from a high-volume site like Wikipedia. I'm not sure why Citation bot is currently broken, it could be for another reason. JMP EAX (talk) 07:37, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Note their system is currently working. I can use their Google Chrome extension for example to format (broken by Citation bot) to "M. J. Kilgard and J. Bolz, “GPU-accelerated path rendering,” ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 31, no. 6, p. 1, Nov. 2012." (page number[s] are wrong) But of course they don't offer citations formatted using Wikipedia's template. JMP EAX (talk) 07:47, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

• I raised the question of large-scale free access in the long term for bibliographic databases some weeks ago on Mediawiki. Presumably I was not the first person to raise the question, and it will surely have been adressed in some kind of WMF document, which might be a useful way of answering both that question and a useful contribution to this discussion here. I found it regrettable that on Mediawiki, one member of WMF staff who presumably knew the answer chose to bury it in a list of half a million other links, and that another, quite senior, member of WMF staff chose to be personally insulting rather than give any kind of details, useful or not, for the benefiot of the community. However, I am glad to note that yesterday a helpful non-staff passerby was able to give some useful information about ISBN databases there. Deltahedron (talk) 08:47, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I think citation auto-formatting from identifiers should not be tied to the use of VE. JMP EAX (talk) 13:52, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
    • I agree, and so does the editing team. They're starting with VisualEditor, and then will look into expanding it. It is possible that the expansion into the wikitext editor will not appear at the English Wikipedia very soon, however, because there are already multiple systems in place here for that (vs zero at most others).
      About the databases, if that particular one has an access limit, then there are others available. In general, it is easy to get high-volume access to databases, especially for books. (The problem with books is choosing which one; as Deltahedron was told repeatedly on the page he links, there are multiple good-quality book databases that offer high-volume access "gratis and for nothing".) But if this one is preferable for reasons of quality, then the WMF does not, in principle, have any objections to negotiating an agreement with them. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 02:14, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

"Told repeatedly" is misleading. Rapeated answers are not necessarily useful ones. One member of staff's initial response was to suggest I google for the list, another member of staff was simply rude. A helpful non-staff member gave a better answer than either. I suppose that could be described as repeatedly. I have still to see a good answer to the question of sustainability, in other words, the data is available now, but what reasons are there to believe that long-term large-scale access will be made available over a period of years? Has this point been explicitly addressed, and where, and how, was it resolved? Deltahedron (talk) 06:45, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

• Anyway, the useful thing is not to rake over the past but move on. There is the question of an agreement with reliable and sustainable sources of data such as DOI and ISBN. There are issues about specialised data sources such as MathSciNet and Zentralblatt MATH in mathematics and of course many more. Has it been decided to make use of those, and if so, presumably the relevant specialised editing communities are going to be consulted? Has it been decided whether to maintain a bibliographic database on WMF servers? Will it be open source? What format might be used internally? I would be interested to see the position paper on the method to be used for resolution of discrepancies between data sources, which must have been an early design decision, as it would be interesting to compare with my own experience on a similar but much smaller project. Deltahedron (talk) 17:12, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
• On a related point: what is the WMF position on database rights, especially when a large portion of a free database has been processed into Wikipedia and re-released under a CC licence? Deltahedron (talk) 19:54, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Editor review/Wifione

Hello Jimbo and talk page stalkers. I hope the summer goes well for everybody. I remember you were interested in this matter (User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_152#User:Wifione), so I'm here with an update. User:Wifione vanished for more than half a year, then came back and resumed editing without addressing the issues outlined in his editor review, despite previous promises to respond. He visited the page only after I wrote on his talk page about my intention to start a ban and desysop request of his account. In his response, Wifione has basically called me an incompetent liar unfamiliar with our policies and a person connected with dangerous people at Wikipediocracy. After that, he closed the editor review. I can't help myself but I don't feel the answers are satisfactory. Quite oppositely, I think they are evasive and obfuscating the real issue - biased and manipulative editing of articles on competitive subjects in the area of education in India. You can find the arguments, diffs and all related links at Wikipedia:Editor review/Wifione. I'd accept that I might be wrong but I have to follow my common sense, especially when I feel that something is being swept under the carpet. So, thanks for any independent opinion. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 07:13, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

I think he did reply to basically all the allegations. Let me quote from that page:

“

• It's a little difficult to offer an opinion without some further information: "... I am not the paid editor that the Wikipediocracy article claims" sounds (perhaps unintentionally) as if you deny only some of the off-site commentary. It would be helpful if you could answer the following questions: (1) Have you edited Wikipedia articles in exchange for money? (2) If so, which ones? (3) Did you previously edit as Nichalp (talk · contribs) and/or Zithan (talk · contribs)? WJBscribe (talk) 14:52, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• WJBscribe thanks for getting my attention to the perception my statement is giving out. (1) I've never edited Wikipedia articles in exchange for money. (3) I have never edited as Nichalp or Zithan (or any other editor); and had no idea about the existence of these individuals till the email thread popped up. Wifione ^Message 18:43, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• In extension of the above question, are you the employee or contractor of these universities being discussed here, or any of their affiliated or sponsoring business or organizations, or of their principal officers or owners or any of their organizations? Are you a current or former student of either of the two universities and their affiliates? DGG ( talk ) 17:38, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• DGG, hi. I'm not the employee or contractor of any of these universities being discussed here, or of any of their connected entities, directly or indirectly, or of their principal officers or owners or of any of their organizations. I'm neither a current nor a former student of either of the two universities or of their affiliates, or of their competitors. Wifione ^Message 18:43, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

• I hope I'm wrong, but that phrase raised a red flag for me, as well. It doesn't sound like a refutation of being a paid editor, but a refutation of being some specific paid editor. I look forward to clarification. In the interest of full disclosure, I have edited Indian Institute of Planning and Management, and some other related article now deleted.)--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:44, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

• Hi Phil. I understand my statement gave off an unintended view. To be precise, I'm not a paid editor. I don't have any CoI with the said articles above. Wifione ^Message 18:43, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

”

So he basically denies everything. Since you don't really have any investigative powers outside his wiki edits, what do you hope to achieve by reiterating this here? The WMF now has a ToU that requires disclosure of such issues, but I think they lack the resources to investigate this themselves as well. So if you (and/or the other editors) think Wifione's edits are beyond the pale of acceptable POV, just go to AN and ask for a topic ban. Reopening the discussion of whether he really has a COI seems a big waste of time unless you have some new and damn obvious evidence. JMP EAX (talk) 22:55, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

A tangential point about university alumni

DGG asks, "Are you a current or former student of either of the two universities and their affiliates?"

I think this is a really bad question to ask. It's acknowledged by people informed about the debates over paid and COI editing that university (and school) pages suffer from the fact that almost no-one is interested in them except people who attended them (and therefore tend to be broadly positive, overall), and people working for them (who are paid to be positive). And no-one else is interested at all. Thus, yes, university and school articles have a problem.

But, and this is important, being an alumnus of a university is not a conflict of interest. I regularly remove random promotional crap from the article about my university, and from related articles too. I suppose I might one day find the time to add something promotional about my former university, but I haven't done so thus far. (It's been a few years now.) Jumping to brand people as paid advocates because they happen to be alumni of a place that has several thousand alumni per year, is silly.

Other types of paid advocates are, surely, more of a concern. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:36, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Invitation: Frankfurt Revisited and Ten Year Society meetup

Jimbo and everyone else who is at Wikimania 2014 who are members of the Wikipedia:Ten Year Society and/or were at the first Wikimania in Frankfurt in 2005, there is a joint meetup happening in the Barbican conservatory at 1pm lunchtime today (Sunday) to which you are welcome. Chris McKenna (WMUK) (talk) 09:11, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Tweeting Wikipedia snippets

Since your are fond of tweeting images, how about snippets of articles? Try selecting a piece of text in Slate for example, e.g. in this article. The pop-up under the cursor is a bit annoying, but it suspect it could be refined so it's less intrusive. JMP EAX (talk) 16:20, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Just a comment

In Wikimania I noticed you got, uh, plumpier than usual. BMI must be higher than average, which can be unhealthy. Why not exercise a bit? 94.116.50.150 (talk) 16:31, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your generous concern for my well-being. With a baby in the house, exercise and (sometimes) healthy eating sometimes take a back-seat. But as the little one is just turning 1 soon and sleeping better at night, I think the coming year will be better.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:41, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

I think that's bloody rude. Don't worry Jimmy, I've had four children (well sort of) and still retained the same weight as when I was 21. The secret is to employ a nanny, and on her night off, to employ generous doses of Calpol, which was recommended in those far off days. But then in those days, we used to feed them with a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other - one wonders how any child born before 1990 ever manged to survive infancy. I feel sorry for you younger parents deprived of all these props, so if you are getting "plumpier" it's hardly surprising. I bet our anon friend has never had a howling baby that's fed, clean and still screaming at 3am - so you have my sympathy. Giano (talk) 20:28, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

A little gin in the milk, Mother's Ruin, but Nannie's Friend. RF 22:04, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

I've never had kids but, based on personal experience, if you thought Mr. 2001. was persistent, wait until you've met ... cue ominous dramatic music ... the the chubby chasers. AnonNep (talk) 20:51, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Apologies from Wikimania

Hi Jimbo. Just wanted to say sorry I didn't get a chance to speak to you at Wikimania - every time I got close you disappeared off behind a staff-only door! I would have stayed for the party, but unfortunately I needed to go and do all the weekend stuff that had been put off to attend. I know we've had our disagreements, but I do appreciate the work you've put in to Wikimedia, and I hope you enjoyed Wikimania as much as I did. -mattbuck (Talk) 19:30, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Annoying User, Good Content

While following the events of Wikimania this year I saw that you had a slide in your presentation addressing this subject. For those of us that were unable to be present can you please expand on how many users meet this criteria, how these problematic editors are to be identified, and, in your view, what types of encouragement should be given for them to leave the project? Thank you. 81.171.52.10 (talk) 22:27, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Obviously, you'd prefer to hear from Jimbo, but while waiting for his response, I hope it includes starting with (quoting Jimbo):

• Kindness
• Generosity
• Forgiveness
• Compassion

and only if those initiatives fail, should we find some way to separate the user from the project. I'll also predict that while he may have some ideas, he is but one voice and it needs to be a community approach. (And in a weak attempt at humor, I'm thankful he chose "generosity" rather than "unselfishness")

Back to a serious point, I think we ought to develop the idea he mentioned about floors - if you focus on the hurdle needed to make sure you aren't banned, there may be a tendency to drive to the floor, rather than aspiring to a more congenial atmosphere. In the same way our standards for copyright are not just barely legal bit something stronger; in the same way our standard for inclusion in a BLP isn't well, it's not libel, we ought to be striving for behavior better than just meeting policy.--S Philbrick(Talk) 23:12, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Let's face it, "annoying" just doesn't cut it. Annoying to who? There are plenty of annoying editors (some in very high places, with effectively zero content). The Wikipedia test has always been "disruptive". And to be ethical we should (and usually do) narrow it a little further:- if the folk who are claiming disruption have an option of ignoring it, without damage to the encyclopaedia, then they should do so. I'm thinking here of a user who got banned, as far as I can see for writing TLDR comments. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:14, 11 August 2014 (UTC).

Unofficial transcript. —Neotarf (talk) 23:55, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

'Offensiveness' of speech may play a role in the civil/incivil debate

Thank you for your interesting speech, Jimbo. Many viewers here probably know, I recently submitted an ArbCom case, which has been declined -- a decision I support, as detailed in a statement I made yesterday (([5]). Reflecting on the issue, it was was fact the offensiveness of the statement that was at hand. I think unlike incivility, offensiveness is something that is more readily identifiable. As you noted, I agree that it is not that helpful to continue to define civil vs. incivil behaviour in what a "race to the bottom", however I was surprised that, given the large amount of acronym-full essays and guidelines we have here, I don't think we have one which clearly outlines a statement may offend another user, why, and why that's harmful.

With that in mind, I have created the essay WP:OFFENSIVE. The word 'offensive' has not been often used in this in/civil debate, yet I think it is statements which are widely considered 'offensive' that are the crux of this debate. I think it is often 'offensive' statements, rather than the more nebulously-defined 'incivil speech' that is the cause of a lot of contention. By writing this essay, I hope to clarify that statements that are offensive can indeed be defined, are harmful to the encyclopedia, and that there are some indications as to whether something will offend someone or not.

In my mind at least, incivility is going to be a natural part of conversations on topics us users care a great deal about, yet 'offensive' represents one part of the spectrum of incivility, is more readily identifiable, and perhaps a greater amount of users would agree as to what constitutes offensive speech. --Tom (LT) (talk) 04:12, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Megadittos! Offensive speech is obviously readily identifiable. betafive 05:24, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

You mean, terms such as "incredibly toxic personalities"? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 05:28, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Level of public interest in Wikipedia related projects

Hello Jimmy, I was very glad to be able to attend both of your major talks at Wikimania, which I found both interesting and inspiring. Referring to a comment made by someone else on this page, I too must try to find some time for exercise and healthy eating now that Wikimania is over... though right now I am breakfasting on a caramel nut bar left over from the crew room, 495kcal per 100g, oh dear... but I do note that in many parts of the global south, having a larger waistline is still viewed positively. Food for thought.

I wanted briefly to mention something else I experienced at Wikimania. About an hour after you finished your closing address to end the conference last night, I re-occupied the Wikimania help desk in the ground floor foyer. Partly to assist anyone still looking for help and information, but also for a place to park a large laptop in need of charging, a plate of food and a drink. Anyway, the interesting thing is that while I was there, at least four different people came up to me and attempted to buy tickets for Wikimania, despite being told the conference had already finished. Some were very interested in how Wikipedia works, some wanted to network with tech geek type people for business purposes, some were interested in the ongoing entertainment programme, one exclaimed "Jimmy Wales was here?!? Really? Wow."

Anyway I didn't feel it right to charge them £30 each for a day ticket when the conference was already finished, so in each case I encouraged them to wander downstairs looking confident and just go wherever they wished without worrying about tickets and badges and so on... but I think it is an encouraging sign of how the public at large is very interested and positive about the project and about how it works behind the scenes. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 06:55, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Arthur, that is absolutely fantastic. But you owe User:Kudpung, User:RexxS and me party food! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:17, 11 August 2014 (UTC).

Problem with WP:ITN

Please see Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news#Depressing_and_pessimistic. The current version of ITN features six current items and four ongoing items on the main page all concerned with death from crime, death from natural or mechanical disaster, and death from war. Only one news item does not concern death. Viriditas (talk) 09:04, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

It's certainly true that the current ITN criteria don't provide for a cap on sad and depressing stories. Perhaps we should reserve a couple of slots for happy stories like a cat wearing shark suit on automated vacuum cleaner getting 8 million YouTube hits. Feel free to suggest a solution at WT:ITN (although last month showed that fewer than 45% of the stories at ITN featured "death and destruction" (tm)). The Rambling Man (talk) 10:59, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Or perhaps Katy Perry Makes A Baby Stop Crying And It's Adorable. Check out the parody version. Seriously though, are we really saying that things like Ebola or Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 are too "depressing and pessimistic" for ITN?--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:34, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

This is reflective of the 24/7 drive-by media evolution of the last 30 years, sex 7 violence sells. You don't get thoughtful commentary by Walter Cronkite, you get the shrill bombast of Nancy Grace. Tarc (talk) 12:24, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

• I often agree with Viriditas, but I question his coming to this page to complain about ITN. I have my own issues with the page, which like the rest of Wikipedia is imperfect. Nevertheless, after years of working with others there, I think the feature is holding up reasonably well. There are much bigger fish to fry, in my view. Jusdafax 16:02, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Meh. If DYK is a mutual admiration club that manages to encourage its members to add content, that's fine. But rather than 3 sets of 6 uninspiring, misleading or downright wrong DYKs everyday, all from new articles, I would be happy to see one or two that would inspire a normal person to say "well, fancy that!" (Which in other dialects is "Bugger I down dead", "hot damn!" and so forth.) All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:09, 11 August 2014 (UTC).

WP:BLP1E == the right to be forgotten?

Note: I've chnaged "S" to "1" as the other shortcut goes somewhere else. 188.27.81.64 (talk) 16:52, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something obvious, it seems to me there's a fair bit of hypocrisy on WMF's part in their battle with EU regulators on the "right to be forgotten" because WP:BLP1E is basically the same thing. (As you can see from my IP, I'm writing from the EU [at the moment], but I'm by no means a fanboy of the EU as whole.) I dare you to create a page for Adria Richards for example (a US citizen); it seems she has the "right to be forgotten" on Wikipedia, even though she's in the proverbial WP:109PAPERS. I don't see why much obscure details about a person's life, like which houses they bought and sold need to be on the first page of Google hits for their name. Would it be appropriate to list such info on Wikipedia? By all means, if you have a legitimate interest conduct a background check by soliciting the appropriate records. It seems to me that the WMF is basically endorsing doxing as long as Google does it. 188.27.81.64 (talk) 11:58, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Assuming that it is this Adria Richards, she does not meet WP:GNG or WP:ANYBIO on the basis of the current sourcing. The Donglegate incident recieved a good deal of media coverage, but would not sustain a BLP on its own.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 12:11, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Ugh. The Gender Gap people would not be happy with this one. While the person may not be notable without additional reasons for coverage, the incident Donglegate may well deserve exploration. Until tech companies learn (as WMF per se largely seems to have done) that it is wrong and deeply counterproductive to fire people every time somebody complains they said something weird (or to reward a DDOS attack), any attempt to enforce policy in a tech setting is just a power duel with WP:BOOMERANGs. Wnt (talk) 14:27, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Arbitration case request declined

An arbitration case request in which you were named as a party has been declined by the Arbitration Committee. The arbitrators views on hearing this matter, found here, may be useful. For the arbitration committee, --S Philbrick(Talk) 15:14, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Having an article deleted

Hi, Jimbo,

I recently did s site re-design for a client named Sandy Frank, and he contacted me last week about having his Wikipedia page removed from your system. I referred to your procedure for having this done and inserted the necessary code on the page to request removal, then gave it a week as your instructions state.

I got a call from the client this morning informing me that the page is still up, and when I went to the page I saw your explanation that you couldn't rely on an anonymous user's request to remove a page (understandable) and the link to message you, so here I am.

The client does not know who initially set up the page (it may have been a former employee who is now deceased), so they've tasked me with trying to get this done. My question to you is this - if the person who set up the original page is now deceased and no one in their organization has any knowledge of an account corresponding to the page, how do we go about proving to you that our request is legitimate? Would providing contact information to the company or the subject of the page help? I'm at a loss as to how to prove that my request is legitimate, and would really appreciate any pointers on how to provide you with sufficient proof to legitimize the request.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Don Waller 74.101.141.17 (talk) 15:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's currently up for Proposed Deletion, but there's a few sources out there. Worthy of a Wikipedia article isn't defined as the person wanting it or not, it's about notability, especially through reliable websites. Supernerd11 _{Firemind ^_^ Pokedex} 17:18, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Please understand that Wikipedia is a service for the reader, not the subject. We're not a Who's Who that you can (and have to) buy your way into; we're volunteers sharing what we read in public sources with one another and anyone else interested. What we choose to talk about is, therefore, ultimately up to us. Because this person has touched films that have entered the popular culture - apparently deciding (directly or via subordinate), for example, how much material to cut from films about Gamera when they were dubbed into English - the interest in his role is now inevitably part of the popular culture, and therefore, of Wikipedia. Wnt (talk) 17:30, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Just a heads up

You may want to keep your eyes on this as it's liable to blow up into another shite storm. It's essentially developers vs end users regarding a new level of protection. Kosh Vorlon    17:10, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Super protect please halp

Hello Jimbo :). I am verry sad. The WMF has added a 'superprotect' right – granted to the 'Staff' global user group and abused it on dewiki. :( PLS help! https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Superprotect_rights //Diego 186.134.73.1 (talk) 17:44, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Alas this is the time when you'd have to exercise your right to fork. The superprotect right has apparently been used on de.wiki already [6], in an wheelwar over the MediaViewer. I expect to read about it in the German press [first] soon enough. I'm honestly thinking about suspending all my editing, indefinitely. My gut reaction to WMF's action is basically very similar to this. They seem to not give a damn about editors anymore in their campaign to make Wikipedia twitterrific. You can read more reactions here JMP EAX (talk) 18:57, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, and WP:REFLINKS is going away in September thanks to more WMF handiworks. I will not format manually a single fucking URL, that's for sure. DOI citations are already broken. But who needs infrastructure like that when you can tweet wiki images. And upload selfies of monkeys with abandon. JMP EAX (talk) 19:18, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Looks like one or two devs are exercising their right to fork us.  :) Kosh Vorlon    19:38, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

@JMP EAX: What's this about reflinks? I thought it was moved to another private server? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:46, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

And another epic LOL for the level of "competence" of WMF devs: [7] There was an easy hack around the superprotection. And the solution to that was another quick code hack by the WMF which fucked up the intended design of permissions: [8] All while the WMF is posturing about code reviews being necessary for what admins do. The hypocrisy is astounding, but I've come to expect it by now. JMP EAX (talk) 19:48, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Just FYI: the account of the WMF person behind all this mess, Erik Möller, has now been blocked on :de [9]. --Túrelio (talk) 21:01, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Let's hope he'll soon be blocked here as well. Eric Corbett 21:06, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Is ignoring the consensus of the community incivil? Hm. - Sitush (talk) 21:08, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Quite so, yes. The kicker is that what these developers are developing lately is such absolute rubbish lately that the WMF may wish to reconsider their employment. Tarc (talk) 21:16, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

What's difficult to understand is why it takes them so long to develop rubbish. Developing rubbish is surely very easy. Eric Corbett 21:22, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

One would think so, and an answer may be found in that these projects are likely not failing at the developmental level but at the organizational level. It seems that WMF management believes that list to be a guide to successful software development. 208.76.111.243 (talk) 22:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

It is stunning that this happened. I see no respect for the community or consensus, let alone "love" or "kindness" here, this is the very behaviour that we relied on developers not doing - implicit trust in the devs, virtually implicit trust in the stewards and 'crats, moderate trust in admins. Code is Law, but Content is Power. The probability of a serious fork grows by the day. We need to re-think the community-foundation interface as I have said in many places over the last few weeks. To some extent super-ing the German Wikipedia is worse than doing it to the English. Here we vacillate and argue about everything, but the German Wikipedia has a good record in standing as a group when the Foundation "comes the heavy", and it grieves me to see them treated this way. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC).

I have a feeling that this would've been implemented immediately on the English Encyclopedia if the admin who initially disabled it would've reverted WMF's edit just one more time, and if he would've been desysopped, and another admin disabled it they would've implemented it here to prevent us from doing it here again. I feel that they considered the situation at the de.wiki as more importance because we stopped reverting after the initial threat of desyssopping, whereas they continued (and maybe forgot) to issue the same threat to them, only citing it as a 'WMF action'. Oh, and there was more than one admin involved at de.wiki. Anywho, I'm speculating, but I don't like it one bit; this specific right being shoehorned specfically to prevent people from disabling it. Tutelary (talk) 01:21, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem here is essentially a social problem: for whatever reason, WMF engineering and some of the larger communities do not see eye-to-eye on the desirability and usability of certain software projects. (Others, like Echo, have basically gone smoothly, excepting the usual "Eek! Change!" complaints.) The WMF decided, in a rather cack-handed manner, to treat it as a technical problem. Now they have a bigger social problem. Choess (talk) 23:31, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

The normal course of action here is to have an opt-in thing in the Preferences, like what happened with MediaViewer (after the initial shitstorm made it clear that it sucked), but with a user right like this, I'm not seeing anything other than a yes-or-no option, which, the way things look right now, could be bigger than the WMF thinks. Supernerd11 _{Firemind ^_^ Pokedex} 02:01, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you mean Visual Editor. I don't disagree with the ostensible rationale for superprotection, that we can't just have anyone noodling with common.js, and I think the Arbitration case here was a pretty stupid idea, Erik and Pete having shook and made up, as it were, and left (IMO) nothing arbitrable. But what just happened on the German Wikipedia strikes me as very much analogous to an administrator protecting a page to win a content dispute. That would make for a great deal of agitation on the drama boards here, and it's not surprising that the WMF using tools to "win" a dispute has aroused a similar reaction. A little conciliation would have made this go down a bit easier, e.g., Erik saying, "Look, I meant it when I said no more JS hacks, and we're going to fix things so people can't do that. But we recognize there's a problem, so we'll delay opt-out Media Viewer for 6 months here out of respect for your community processes and the decision they've reached. That will give us a deadline to find some modus vivendi between the WMF and the community." The rushed implementation of "superprotection" may not have been intended as a slap in the face to de.WP, but really, it doesn't take that much social acuity to realize that it would be perceived that way, and I'm amazed that no one on the WMF side seems to have given much thought to making the action a little more palatable. Choess (talk) 03:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I think you miss part of the point of being a bully: making it clear that you don't care what the person you are bullying thinks and letting him know that you can do anything you want and he can do nothing to stop you is part of the fun.—Kww(talk) 04:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

We need to unionize. The relationship between the volunteers and the paid staff in San Francisco is unequal and only going to get worse. Carrite (talk) 04:34, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

How do you propose we do anything after unionization, though? We're just volunteers working for the WMF, we hold no rights against them. Supernerd11 _{Firemind ^_^ Pokedex} 04:52, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Great idea- that way, we can collectively bargain for the death of superprotect next time our volunteer employment agreements come up for renewal! </sarcasm> Seriously though, check your San Francisco privilege and take a fucking hint: if you don't want to use the software the WMF is choosing to run on their servers, you're welcome not to. betafive 04:55, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the Thoughtful and Loving reply, Mr. 241-Total-Edits. Carrite (talk) 04:59, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome! Please don't presume to know how many edits I have; the only reason I finally made an account is because of abuse by individuals like you who are "against IP editing." betafive 05:11, 12 August 2014 (UTC)