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)

Quite possibly the Checkuser Ombudsmen should be asked to investigate. (Note, this is simply because they are the most appropriate and experienced volunteers, not becasue it is part of their remit.) All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 15:26, 12 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)

You can read all you want about copyright but if the precedents aren't there then the lawyers are just making it up as they go along. Saffron Blaze (talk) 01:23, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Resolute, where is your copyright "expertise" coming from? I know it only loosely, from being a creative person myself, though my years as a small-scale working photographer. Even within Wikipedia, in its own self-contained world of pompous irrelevance to reality and its disdain for WP:TRUTH vs "sources", that any copyright dispute exists at all should mean this photo should be removed from Commons until the case is decided in Wikimedia's favour. As someone here already observed, if a photographer's assistant is the one who fires the trigger, that assistant does not own copyright. As Saffron Blaze observes about "lawyers are just making it up as they go along", that is even more about "wiki-lawyers" and the bizarre babble and self-justification that's going on around here. I'm not an expert on copyright law, particularly on American copyright law....but unless you can demonstrate otherwise, neither are you. The monkey signed no release, and did not fill out a Commons license releasing "her work" into the public domain; she, being an animal, cannot have owned copyright; by default it goes to the owner of the camera; Saffron Blaze is right; though the precedents are there, as per the bit about photographic assistants; I can't cite them but I know they exist or commercial photography would be a very different thing than it is. The opinions on law and the derisive comments about the photographer here are not just BLP and AGF, they will also be used by the photographer's lawyers, and it's very very very likely that photographic associations and their lawyers will do the same. Any taint of legal action, or legal challenge, in Wikimedia/Wikipedia, is supposed to bring on a block or other punishment; yet here a pack of wiki-monkeys and wiki-baboons are chattering in the jungle of wiki-babble as if this were a closed arena. It's not; and much that is being said here can and probably will be used in the court of law. Curb thy tongue, knave; unless you can cite a portion of copyright law that says "pictures taken by monkeys who have grabbed a photographer's camera are public domain", you're talking through your fat hat like all the other wiki-simians here.Skookum1 (talk) 02:08, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

And about those lawyers....I object to the use of funds donated to Wikimedia for supporting Wikipedia for improving its content and interface being spent on a very questionable and obviously very controversial legal case; that is not what those donations are for; and the virulent mean-ness of comments about this photographer is indicative of a very very sad attitude of arrogance within the global fishtank and is not what those funds were donated for and should NOT be used for. You and others supporting the WMF's position here should start your own legal fund for this case; I reject the notion that charitable donations should be used for this case, period.Skookum1 (talk) 02:15, 13 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)

Indeed. It is the instruction to take the picture that establishes ownership, not who owns the camera or who presses the button. That's WMF's own legal opinion, published somewhere on the Foundation wiki. Mr Slater just has to convince the court that he deliberately left the camera with the monkeys in the hope they would use them, then it is his copyright. --Pgallert (talk) 07:22, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

That's complete hogwash; are you a copyright lawyer? I doubt it, or you wouldn't be opening your yap here; WMF's lawyers are simply holding the position that they have been assigned, nothing more. Wikimedia has to convince the court that public domain applies to an image they pirated, pure and simple. This is already an international laughing stock, and the jury's out until the court hands down its verdict. Donations made by people to the WMF to support Wikipedia and its sister projects should NOT be used to finance this case; if you're so ardent about supporting it, I suggest you and the others in the chattering chorus of wiki-monkeys babbling, rather gloatingly, about the photographer and in the gloriously incoherent way that is way too common in the self-referential universe that is the wiki bureaucracy need to establish a separate legal fund, rather than bankrupt Wikipedia et al. with this insane court case. Or do you expect that people donating money to improve the encyclopedia are all on-side with your claims and foolishness? Clearly a lot of us don't, huh? This is misdirection of funds and is full of BLP bullshit against the photographer, very much in contravention of Wikipedia policy about court actions, copyright and more....pay for it yourselves if you want to support this madness, it's an embarrassment and right now a global laughing-stock.Skookum1 (talk) 07:50, 13 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)

And I'm awaiting comment from whatever the national association of professional photographers is called....and their lawyers....Skookum1 (talk) 02:08, 13 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)

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)

So is this a deliberate mistranslation or does the English word really mean "whore" in American English? I had seen references to cultural differences, but this looks more like an actual linguistic difference. I now see that my Macmillan Dictionary of Contemporary [British] Slang gives "a fool, a dolt, an unpleasant person - of either sex (cf: prick)", while the equivalent dictionary of American slang by the same publisher gives "a woman" (though not "a whore"). Presumably, the term is not usually used as a term of endearment on either side of the Pond, but would this campaign have been started if the original utterance had been "the easiest way to avoid being called a prick is not to act like one"? -Boson (talk) 09:32, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

That British dictionary of slang must be giving what the meaning in British English is; it's decidedly now what it means in Spanish, which is "prostitute" or "whore", and I guess can be translated as "bitch" or ...the c-word. Curse words and insults do not readily translate in many cases; in Quebec French "hostie sacramang caaawww-LISS tabarNAC" could be many things, like "c**ks**king mother f**ker", "hot damn", "f**king asshole" and more, depending on context; literally it means "host sacrament chalice tabernacle".....Skookum1 (talk) 11:25, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Interesting! "Bitch" might be another example. In my 1995 edition of Macmillan Dictionary of American Slang, the meaning of "bitch" is given as "a woman one dislikes or disapproves of, esp. a malicious, devious, or heartless woman; the equivalent of the masculine bastard . . .", which exactly fits my (British) understanding of the word; you might call a woman manager who abuses her power "a real bitch". In British English, in my experience, the c-word would very rarely be used of a woman, and "bastard" might be be replaced by "bitch" . Surprisingly, the English version of the slang dictionary does not give this meaning. Increasingly, though, what I think of as the Black English Vernacular meaning of "bitch" has become known - if not used - in Britain, with the spread of Hip-Hop, as in "she my bitch", or Ali. G's "no disrespect to your bitch" in his interview with David and Victoria Beckham. The use of religious taboo words must be a Catholic thing; it's also common in southern (but not northern) Germany.--Boson (talk) 12:43, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Profanity in Spanish is complex as the meanings of words, and their intensity, vary by culture, city, region, and country. Both "puta" (feminine) and "puto" (masculine) are words that directly translate to English as "whore" or "bitch". However, the word has plenty of other meanings (both in context and by itself), which in English can be translated as "faggot" (as in homosexual, etc.), "cunt" (although in Spain the specific word for this is "coño"), and "swinger" (which is the "nicest" translation...and there are better words to translate "swinger" into Spanish). FIFA and the dictionaries that claim this word means "fool" are wrong; Mexicans don't live in a vacuum, and they know what this word means in most of the Spanish-speaking world. In fact, Mexicans also take great offence to the word because they know it means "fag" and "cunt"; it seems they only pretend otherwise so as to get away with using it on others. The fact the English-speaking world hasn't yet classified "puta" or "puto" as hate-speech is quite disturbing (all the more so as, after FIFA ruled it inoffensive, I even heard Italians using it during the 2014 FIFA World Cup). Regards.--MarshalN20 ^Talk 13:04, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

@Skookum1: You should have asked him why the man "had no self-respect". I bet that would have made the translator turn colors. I detest it when "translators" don't give full meaning to a word. It only serves to propagate the hate speech.--MarshalN20 ^Talk 13:07, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

It wasn't a translator, it was a friend in Acapulco when I lived there who explained it that way, and who had good English; his sense was that of debasing oneself, and this is rooted in ancient times with kinaidos in Greek, the "humiliative form" used on men who had sold themselves for sex; the word hybrizei(n) was a bit more euphemistic and didn't necessarily refer to sex-for-money but could include rape; it means "to outrage" or in the form hybrizomai, "I was outraged", i.e. "an outrage was committed on me". Kinaidos was the charge against Timarchos made by Lysias, which disqualified Timarchos from taking part in the Assembly, as men who had been boy prostitutes, or prostitutes, period, could not appear in the Assembly, nor take part in politic (Timarchos had been about to file charges against Lysias on, um, similar grounds, the speech is Lysias' pre-emptive strike; what he goes on about I'm surprised Fellini or a Greek film director has never tried to make into a film...) So in the sense of someone who allows themselves to be debased, for money or not, it could apply in either female or male forms. Another translation of puta I've heard is simply "slut". And, well, yes, hate speech has been with us since pre-antiquity, and often is sexual in nature, and often emasculatory; Catullus is full of it....so to speak.....anyways my point is that my "translator" was trying to be if not euphemistic but explanatory. He nothing against homosexuals, he was trying to explain the context of the word in the culture of machismo that prevails in Mexican male culture (like it or not). "Bitch" of course would be perra or perrita; I remember a (very good) film called Amor es perros, its English title was "Love's a bitch", and figured five very complicated and intertwined stories about dog-owners and dogs.Skookum1 (talk) 15:54, 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)

Rude and dismissive closing comments are also a problem; I won't name the ones I'm thinking of; others here know my opinion of things that have been said, and by whom.Skookum1 (talk) 11:16, 12 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)

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)

That is seriously annoying. I don't really think the kind of content on Wikipedia can be very meaningful in 140 character snippets, anyway. I also seem to recall like/share/tweet/whatever buttons facilitate more data collection and/or cookie deposition on the part of the social media sites. I would be inclined to oppose this suggestion, I'm afraid. NorthPark420 (talk) 00:24, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

See Factbites: Where results make sense.—Wavelength (talk) 01:21, 13 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)

hope over experience

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

I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about. betafive 05:31, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

No? - It's only a language question for you, for y'all, not you personally, - sorry if that was not clear, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:24, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

To clarify: I would rather accept a direct bad word than a general "incredibly toxic personalities" which leaves open if I am perceived as part of that group. - I invite to a stroll, again. to read "I scare away women, children and new editors. Allegedly. But I'll try and be gentle." and "chin up". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:27, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Regarding "Kindness", "Generosity", "Forgiveness", "Compassion". All those appear to be lacking in the current WMF leadership too. So look who's talking. One thing I did like in that speech was "go and make your own website, release it under creative commons license and we'll try to use some of that material, because it's just not working out." Probably what a number of people are going to do that after the latest exercise in assertiveness of the WMF leadership (see superprotect elsewhere on this page and now in the news). JMP EAX (talk) 18:00, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

And I'm apparently not the only editor to think that lately [6]. JMP EAX (talk) 18:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

And as an aside, one piece of CC content saved from Wikipedia (into Neotraf's blog coincidentally) is this interesting piece which is probably related to decline in viewership and the desperation to "modernize" the site. JMP EAX (talk) 18:08, 12 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).

Eh? I missed the bit where this thread suddenly switched from talking about depressing ITN threads to DYKs.... The Rambling Man (talk) 06:30, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Once we are there, did you know that DYK is the place for the positive news, such as an 80th and 91st birthday of living persons? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:14, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Aha, that's what User:Viriditas should do, just keep his eyes closed and scrolling down the main page until he's got to DYK, avoiding the unpleasant reality of ITN. Happiest of birthdays all round! The Rambling Man (talk) 07:16, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The deliberate and manipulative use of violent content to attract a young demographic, in this case as click-bait, has been known about and studied for effectiveness by media and journalism scholars for more than four decades. Most of what is being promoted as "news" at ITN is anything but and does not represent issues important to the world at large or to the average person. Viriditas (talk) 09:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

WP:ITN/C is the place to nominate happy candidates that you prefer to see. Any other forums you'd like to pollute? The Rambling Man (talk) 09:46, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The only options aren't a) violence/sex and b) silly escapism (though thanks for cat shark!) There are all sorts of scientific, technological, cultural, political, etc. trends and events of interest to intelligent human beings. Also, loading the news headlines with violence to attract "a young demographic" really means to attract overwhelmingly emotionally immature and/or stunted males. (Which is a culturally promoted psychological state to make these guys support and fight stupid wars for an imperialist nation state, just so no one takes my analysis personally.) It's just another gender bias issue. Yuk. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 13:13, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

More stories about celebs who have just got married/had children/got divorced. Anyone? Welcome to "OK! Hello! Wikipedia". It would be dumbed-down tripe and I know many women who would agree. - Sitush (talk) 18:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem with ITN is that there are a few regulars who are on it always and relatively few outside voices. We need more people who value the more interesting news, but who wants to stand there and get blown off all the time? I went there assuming that the discovery of the first identified Solar sibling, a yellow star born from the very same cloud of dust and gas as that which birthed the Sun and Earth, was one of the biggest pieces of news of the decade, yet they didn't even want it.

Yawn. This old chestnut? It wasn't "a few regulars" who didn't find interest in that story, it was the consensus of the community. Just to let us know, are you going to keep harping on about this forever? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:05, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it illustrates why we have the "bleeds, leads" material we do, which is what was being asked. Obviously, I am not expecting you to change your mind and ITN the story now. Wnt (talk) 23:54, 12 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)

By the way, this is worth watching to see where WMF and Jimbo's priorities really lie. And not everyone in the press is buying Jimbo's vision on this. Or even everyone in US academia. And by the way, Jimbo has received a personal invitation from the author of that article. JMP EAX (talk) 12:39, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

By the way, Jimbo, are you being payed by Google for your consulting services on this issue or are you working pro bono? Or am I misreading the Guardian [7] when it says: "The problem is the conflict between information and disinformation – particularly, in preventing overburdening web interfaces and search results with augmented content. Here, the expertise of Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales, who has been co-opted to advise Google on this ruling, will be invaluable." JMP EAX (talk) 14:30, 12 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)

We're a lot of things but one thing we're not is robots, so these things are complicated. People who are very marginally notable by our rules and standards (Sandy Frank's not even that, but supposing he was) who have requested that their article be deleted have a special stake and should (and do) get special consideration. Looking at the deletion discussion, I'm confident that the article will be deleted in a few days. Herostratus (talk) 00:53, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Super protect please help

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 [8], 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)

@NeilN: Where specifically has it been moved? All I can see is the notice that it's going to go away in September. JMP EAX (talk) 07:33, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

And another epic LOL for the level of "competence" of WMF devs: [9] 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: [10] 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 [11]. --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)

You must have forgotten TAURUS! In my experience, developing rubbish can be very time-consuming. --Boson (talk) 15:35, 12 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)

We may not be able to effectively go on strike, but we can certainly plaster a prominent banner across the top of every page. If the English Wikipedia does this in concert with other-language Wikipedias, the effect will be stronger. We should start working on the wording.  — Scott • talk 12:57, 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)

I don't presume to know how many edits you have made. I only presume to know that you have failed to link transparently your former IP account and the current one which you have used here. Carrite (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

For the record, I estimate that I've myself made between 50K and 80K edits since 2008. Just because some of us don't believe in gamification (which is what the big edit count associated to one account is really all about), it doesn't mean we edit less than you. And your user page looks like a good measure of the lenght of your e-peen, dear Carrite. JMP EAX (talk) 07:38, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

@JMP EAX. You miss my point entirely. Carrite (talk) 13:36, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

You sure about that bro/ladybro? betafive 16:14, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I am not your "bro." Carrite (talk) 18:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Please respect the collegial atmosphere: we're all bros and ladybros here. betafive 19:25, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I ask you not to call me that again, in the spirit of Forgiveness and Love. Carrite (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

As a brogrammer and a brofessional, I find that personally offensive. Can you not? betafive 05:51, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Carrite's jibe about my edit count made me feel very insecure about the size of my e-peen, so I awarded myself a compensatory Rhodium Star. I feel so much better about myself now! betafive 09:30, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

That is precisely something that a new user would do! Welcome to Wikipedia!!! Carrite (talk) 09:51, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

That must explain yours, lol. Welcome to Wikipedia!!! betafive 10:03, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The answer is simple. Appeal to the Board of Trustees to reverse Erik's bad behavior. Also request that they instruct staff not to implement technology changes without the consent of the Community, and that they remove Erik from a customer-facing role. If the Board fails to execute these policies, then let them go the way of Chancellor Valorum: Now they will elect a new [Board]... a strong [Board]. One who will not let this tragedy continue. 2601:7:1980:BF6:7440:4B16:768B:EE69 (talk) 09:00, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

There is an RFC at Meta regarding superprotect and its use. I think it would be helpful for everyone to comment there so that the community liaison team at the WMF can more easily see the full consensus across all projects on this issue (although I am sure they read this Talk page too). QuiteUnusual (talk) 10:01, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Adjusting how editors view the site it up to the foundation. How the user views the encyclopedia is an editorial decision and should be left to editorial consensus.

If fiat tools are used to override the consensus on how content should be presented I would recommend that we coordinate a day off every Monday, then Mon-Tues if that does not work. Lets see how well Wikipedia works when those whos consensus is ignored decide to let the vandals and POV pushers run rampant for a few days each week.

They may have the software but the true value of this site is the content and maintenance of the content. As an unpaid volunteer I feel taking a day or 5 off every week in response to this is perfectly valid method of collective bargaining. Chillum 16:26, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

It's self defeating; just doubling (tripling, etc) the amount of work for everyone the day they come back. betafive 16:46, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Not necessarily because people only have so many hours/minutes to spare, so a lot of the bad stuff that happens would not get picked up for quite some time. If even 20 percent of admins, for example, did as Chillum suggests then the WMF would soon be staring at a legal morass regarding copyright and BLP issues. - Sitush (talk) 16:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

That is a side effect of every strike like action. Though as unpaid volunteers I would call it a coordinated vacation rather than a strike. The revision history will make it easy to fix when we are back, it will just look like a joke of an encyclopedia on those days we are on vacation. The foundation would learn that they need the volunteers to have their encyclopedia have credibility and that they should be more respected.

The original WP:OFFICE was accepted easily because it had a strong basis in protecting the foundation from legal issues. This is about controlling content and presentation. If we all take coordinated vacations then the number of legal issues will increase rapidly. The foundation may have to choose between using its fiat powers to keep them legal or to control how the site appears to viewers. Chillum 16:54, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Maybe admins could enforce the "coordinated vacation" by blocking WMF accounts for the duration? And maybe a site-banner such as those employed during the donation drives and the SOPA debacle? betafive 17:08, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

@Chillum: any reason you chose Monday? I would have thought that there was more editing traffic on a weekend. - Sitush (talk) 18:29, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

To make the point with the least damage which having the most flexibility. I feel a that we need to come back weekly and clean up so that the contrast can be seen. I figure the weekdays give us 1/7th through 5/7ths of the time to play with.

This is all very preliminary though. This is the sort of thing that will be set off once the tool is actually used to go against a strong community consensus.

Not even sure why the tool is needed when you can just threaten to desysop anyone who edits the page. Chillum 03:43, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I think some solution was needed because if any of 1000 admin accounts could mess with the site javascript, someone who could hack into any of them might activate them, put in some live javascript for a zero-day vulnerability, and cause a major problem. However, I don't think that giving the WMF people an unlimited ability to lock down any page was the right solution. Wnt (talk) 04:16, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

(ec) Superprotect is needed to prevent german sysops from martyring themselves in wheel wars, it seems. betafive 04:18, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Banned editor's study of COI edits that may violate Terms of Use

Jimmy (and company), here is something to think about. A banned editor revealed almost a month ago that numerous editors on Wikipedia are likely violating the Wikimedia Terms of Use that call for disclosure of any edits for which the author is receiving compensation. I assume this includes company employees who are creating or enhancing the Wikipedia article about their company, correct? Anyway, the banned editor claims that "perhaps 5% or more of all Wikipedia article-space edits are not complying with the new Terms of Use", or that maybe 100 article-space edits per hour are both non-compliant with the Terms of Use and are not being reverted within an hour. What struck me is that in the five examples he gave (nearly a month ago), there were still a couple where the user has not been warned about their apparent violation of the Terms. Do you think there could be some program (maybe for zealous anti-COI editors like Smallbones or Coretheapple) where the Wikimedia Foundation provides a micro-grant for established Wikipedians to assist wayward users to become compliant with the Terms, all in a friendly, compassionate way that is in line with your Wikimania thoughts on civility, of course? Maybe they could be paid 10 cents for every probable COI editor who is issued a thoughtful, loving warning. This could be a great way to get poor Africans involved in Wikipedia, too, while providing them a great means of income! - Spotting ToU (talk) 16:01, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Lolwut? Until I got to the last sentence, I thought this was a terrible idea. Then I thought it was also racist, exploitative and condescending. betafive 16:13, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I didn't mean to be racist. I was just following in Jimmy's vision, that Wikipedia is "for that girl in Africa who can save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around her, but only if she's empowered with the knowledge to do so". Paying her some WMF money for good work that helps the project would also help empower her, wouldn't it? - Spotting ToU (talk) 16:31, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

How on earth would tossing her a dime for each CoI she spots "save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people around her?" Besides, if the WMF treats her the way they're treating the fine folk of de.wiki... well, I wouldn't call that "empowerment." betafive 16:45, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I hear you on the German Wikipedia issue, Betafive. Still, consider this -- the mean per capita income in Burundi is only $300 per year. If there are 100 article-space edits per hour that could warrant a Terms of Use notice from our poor African girl, and she could maybe catch at least 5 of them per hour, doing that for 8 hours a day on a Wikipedia Zero connection on her solar-charged mobile phone, that is $4 per day. Working 250 days per year, that's $1000 -- more than three times mean income of her country folk. You belittle that by saying we're just "tossing her a dime", but meanwhile the Wikimedia Foundation tucks away about $8 million a year in unspent revenues, while a program such as the one I suggested could actually change lives. - Spotting ToU (talk) 21:11, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Quote of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for your closing speech at Wikimania 2014

Dear Mr. Wales

While I was attending your last speech at wikimania about love instead of simply kindness, I think of a quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry that I've heard last year in a meeting about social innovation. In my opinion it really worths to remark your idea:

"If we want a world of peace and justice must be resolutely put intelligence i the service of love" (Antoine de Saint Exupery)
Of his book "Citadelle" (1948) (titled in English: as The Wisdom of the Sands).

--Tsaorin (talk) 17:44, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

WMF superblocks its community

Hi,

since Erik doesn't answer, I'm now sending this remark to some other WMF officers and board members. I apologize for using your time.

I'm a crat in german wp. The so-called super-protections that Erik Möller/User:Eloquence and User:JEissfeldt (WMF) have put on our common.js on sunday, acting officially on behalf of WMF, have left some blood on the carpet. Many fellow wikipedians are upset, even those who accept the media viewer (which had been the conflict's origin). Several long-time contributors have left or stopped editing due to this. Journalists picked up the case.

Personally, I strongly protest against the WMF's action, and it's failure to communicate afterwards. Our communities are capable, and willing, to handle problems like this without office-actions.

There have been no official or private comments from WMF in the last days, so I'd like to suggest you have a look and give some response to the criticism.

(apologize again, for my translation errors)

Rfc: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Requests_for_comment/Superprotect_rights

Links to ongoing discussions in german language: [12], [13], [14]

Greetings, -MBq (talk) 20:19, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi, i second MBq's request and also e.g. this post by Rich. This issue is not taken lightly especially among german wikipedians. Regards, Ca$e (talk) 20:55, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

If it's a Board issue then perhaps m:Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard is the right venue. Deltahedron (talk) 21:22, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

There are two big problems I see here. The first is that WMF is losing credibility - you just can't believe what they say. They say software will be assessed to see if people want it, then claim that survey results consistently under 50% approval are a "rising trend", declare that anyone who beta-tests software can be claimed as supporting its use, claim that RfCs don't matter and instead of re-running them simply ignore them, make changes to back up superprotection without proper code review or developer consensus, and end up overruling multiple projects. They say that Office Actions will be for specific Good Legal Reasons decided by Experts, then come out saying that anything they want is an Office Action, even if they have to make it so retroactively because people disagreed with them. The other problem is that the superprotection continues the proliferation of hierarchies we saw when the Pending Changes "reviewer" right was rammed down the community's throat. Instead of being an encyclopedia anyone can edit, this is a media corporation which graciously allows some people to work as unpaid interns if they wish to do work that enhances the editorial vision that people come up with in the Head Office. IANAL, but I suspect a consequence of that will be that it won't continue to be possible for WMF to disclaim that their articles are user-submitted material for which they bear no liability - not when they have staff members watching over the wiki ready to superprotect anything they thing is being changed the wrong direction, with no apparent limitation on their authority. And of course there's very little difference between dickering with lawyers over what you can print without potential legal costs and sitting with PR people and dickering over what stories you should spike to get some outside revenue. A Wikipedia led from a head office might be a Fox News, might be a MSNBC, but what it won't be is neutral; each side is going to be looking to stack it with board members to vote for their POV to come out on top.

Now superprotection is nominally a solution for a real problem - the vulnerability of Common.js - but in order to reign in this debacle, WMF needs to a) say exactly how much authority it is taking and promise clearly that it will take absolutely no more (i.e. make it like things would be in the Ukraine if the Russians had simply taken Crimea and formally promised that would be it and not kept troops massed on the border waiting to go all the way to Kiev). b) look for better technical ways to take just that authority, i.e. by some kind of mandated code review for Common.js or a special status for that file rather than an unlimited superprotection. c) state in advance some genuine test criteria for new features and clearly promise not to impose them if they don't meet those criteria. d) follow through on those promises. Wnt (talk) 23:50, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

More of you should have stood up when Arbcom enshrined that concept that "office" actions did not need any credible legal basis.—Kww(talk) 00:46, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Kww, that is indeed peculiar. I knew that Office Actions could bar changes to pages, but I didn't know by increasing a page's protection level they mean to ban admins from increasing a page's protection level further. Especially when the one they set is not one used on the wiki. Was there actually a purpose on-page to setting the page's permissions like that, or was this a means of imposing yet another unwanted hierarchy-establishing "feature" (PC2)? Wnt (talk) 03:26, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

It was solely Philippe's personal preference, forced upon us because he had the power to do so and no one thought it worthwhile to resist.—Kww(talk) 03:40, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Tech help required to improve categories

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#CatVisor and User:Paradoctor/CatVisor#Planned features if you are willing and able to assist this innovative WP project move along it would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, IZAK (talk) 23:42, 12 August 2014 (UTC)