User talk:Jimbo Wales

Banner linking to Facebook on Portuguese Wikibooks

On the Portuguese Wikibooks ( https://pt.wikibooks.org/ ) there is a banner that says "Curta o Wikilivros no Facebook" (Wikibooks on Facebook) with a link to [ https://www.facebook.com/wikibookspt ].

Is it appropriate for a Wikimedia-owned page to have a banner linking to a commercial website that is rather famous for selling user's information?

See:

• Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal --Wikipedia
• Is your data safe on Facebook? Not really --CNN
• Facebook: Your personal info for sale -- CBS News
• Facebook Is Now Selling Your Web-Browsing Data To Advertisers --The Consumerist
• Facebook Is Using You --The New York Times

--Guy Macon (talk) 04:48, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Depiction of Wikimedia Foundation destroying Wikipedia with Visual Editor and Flow.

You probably don't want to look at User:Jimbo Wales, which also has a direct link to Facebook, in that case. (Personally I agree we shouldn't be linking to Facebook except in the rare cases where it's genuinely necessary to cite it as a source, but that ship has long since sailed.) ‑ Iridescent 09:47, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

That is totally different from a banner that is forced on to every page. Johnuniq (talk) 10:03, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

An apt question is, who is running that Facebook page? Daß Wölf 18:17, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Related question: who is running the Portuguese Wikibooks page? I tried to edit my own talk page and found that it is configured so that I cannot edit the source.

Looks like they have a bot running that forces everyone to use WP:FLOW.

See [ https://pt.wikibooks.org/wiki/Especial:Contribui%C3%A7%C3%B5es/Flow_talk_page_manager ]. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:51, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I would be very surprised if it is anything other than a community decision at Portuguese Wikibooks. So, the right people to talk to about it would be that community. If you'd like to communicate my thoughts, which they may or may not take into consideration as they see fit, it would probably be better to not link in that way - not just because of the concerns that people rightly raise about Facebook that Guy Macon cites above, but just that generally advertising banners linking out to commercial services run the risk of being perceived incorrectly as endorsement or advertisement. At the same time, I strongly support that Wikipedians (and chapters, and the WMF) be reasonable and balanced about the usefulness of using social media to share our ideas and culture. So, running official (community) accounts to do outreach for our projects is often going to be something that I approve of.

I'm not personally happy with what I perceive the 140/280 character nature of twitter has done to public discourse, but I still use twitter and find it a useful tool. I like Instagram and use it more in a personal way (I post about cooking, my hobby), even though I'm concerned about their slowness in dealing with self-harm images, etc.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:54, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Good points about appropriate use of social media. The above raises another question in my mind; how, exactly would a person who doesn't speak Portuguese talk to that community? I just posted some ideas about that at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#A place for inter-wiki communication --Guy Macon (talk) 05:40, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Machine translation is much better than it used to be, but also it shouldn't be hard to find someone who speaks Portuguese and English.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:01, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Defining moment in USA discussion/debate

A young gay mayor is running for President and was on CNN today. He was challenged about the fact the green new deal is being framed by Republicans as being "socialism". His response was that his generation and younger are only interested in the content and results of a proposal, and can not, will not, be distracted by terminology which he referred to as a "kill switch" e.g. "socialism" in this case. These "kill switches" have been around in USA discussion maybe forever but long ago a kill switch was "that's communism", then there is "UnAmerican" and nowadays "conspiracy theory" and "socialism".

If kill switches don't work anymore, the productivity of discussion and debate will soar, imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 18:49, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Well, what makes them work then? Ambiguity. Imagine that. ~ R.T.G 20:27, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I hadn't followed this, but searched [1] to find Pete Buttigieg. I found a quote:

But you can no longer simply kill off a line of discussion about a policy by saying that it's socialist. If someone my age or younger is weighing a policy idea and somebody comes along and says you can't do that, it's socialist, I think our answer will be, is it a good idea or is it not? That idea has lost its power when you think about the way it was applied to characterize the ACA... Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, invented by a conservative think tank, relying on market principles, implemented first by a Republican governor. And they said that was socialist. So I think the word has mostly lost its meaning. It's certainly lost its ability to be used as a kill switch on debate.

Wnt (talk) 22:17, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

The so-called people with conservative viewpoints (like Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson) despise "identity politics" (which itself is an unestablished term) and the media's portrayal of them as the right wing. Yet, the irony is they use the "radical left" as the scapegoat for every possible argument. This, I think is the kill switch present today, mostly on the internet. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 01:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

There exists a fake news, real news cycle. It starts with people accepting fake news even when they think it's not 100% accurate as to them it's a banner for the party they support. Any discussion on dealing with real problems is then impossible due to kill switches. E.g. in case of climate change, even if you could get some conservative leaning people to acknowledge that there could be a real issue, they would end up saying something like "perhaps there are some issues we need to look into it, but largely it's all about Al Gore pushing his socialist agenda". But then, on the long term by ignoring the real news in favor of fake news, reality will eventually start to bite and then the kill switch will be put aside. Another example is criminal justice reform in the US. After years of propaganda from right wing talk radio leading to ever longer prison sentences, the problems become ever more visible and then one needs to reform the system. Unfortunately, in case of climate change, the use of the kill switch may have gone on for too long:

"The history of the Earth system is a story of change. Some changes are gradual and benign, but others, especially those associated with catastrophic mass extinction, are relatively abrupt and destructive. What sets one group apart from the other? Here, I hypothesize that perturbations of Earth’s carbon cycle lead to mass extinction if they exceed either a critical rate at long time scales or a critical size at short time scales. By analyzing 31 carbon isotopic events during the past 542 million years, I identify the critical rate with a limit imposed by mass conservation. Identification of the crossover time scale separating fast from slow events then yields the critical size. The modern critical size for the marine carbon cycle is roughly similar to the mass of carbon that human activities will likely have added to the oceans by the year 2100." Count Iblis (talk) 20:52, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Why is this discussion happening on this talk page? What has this got to do with Jimbo? 65.152.229.94 (talk) 15:13, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@65.152.229.94: lol IDK. It just happened. I think it's important for this community to understand media and politics. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 15:26, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd like to mildly discourage general political discussions here if it doesn't relate to Wikipedia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:53, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Did Ilhan Omar's twitter thoughts get hit with a "kill switch"?

This one is really out to lunch. If someone suggests, or asserts, as Trump did, that US foreign policy re: Saudi Arabia is influenced by how much American stuff Saudi Arabia buys, is that suggestion Islamophobia? According to the info here, her opinion was based on a practical deduction, not anti-Semitism, as far as I can see Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:39, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@Nocturnalnow: great observation. That's clearly not antisemitism. Unfortunately, the media and critics from both sides (Republicans and Democrats) have "alleged" her of that. It seems somewhat unbiased, unless there's any kind soul who publicly defended her for this wrong and twisted allegation. THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 23:52, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

It was clearly antisemitic, and she rightly apologized for it. But this has nothing to do with Wikipedia, so I suggest we move on from it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:46, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia discussion/talk pages are substantially less prone to lead to optimum valuable consensus, imo, when a "kill switch" cuts off discussion, and that does happen sometimes.

So that's the Wikipedia connection; maybe I should've mentioned that connection at the outset. Sorry. Nocturnalnow (talk) 05:30, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Dear Jimmy Wales. We asking for your help with publishing article about "AllatRa" book in Wikipedia.

Appears to you us an active user "International movement" (Ukraine) of Wikipedia. There was a non-standard situations and I ask you to help us to solve it.

In Ukraine in 2013 year has appeared the book "AllatRa", which began to become popular in Ukraine and abroad. It has already been translated into 9 languages of the world (English, Czech, Uzbek, French, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Italian, Bulgarian) and still translated into many languages ... I have a relationship with the university and students and I know that often students have been trying to find information about book "AllatRa" in Wikipedia and they couldn't find and it was surprising for us. And Couple days ago I decided wrote an article in Ukrainian Wikipedia about of book "AllatRa", however, it turns out that the article does not meet the requirements WP:NBOOK.

(Note that the moderators of Ukrainian Wikipedia were tolerant to me and all explained, but rejected due to inappropriate activities WP:NBOOK. There are no claims or disagreements with them, and I am grateful to them.)

There were worldwide attempts to write an article about "AllatRa" (book) but again, because of non-compliance with the criteria, they were also denied. In particular, in the summer of 2018, the Czech Republic wanted to register an article on "AllatRa". There's even in the magazine Forbes was published article about "AllatRa" (https://www.forbes.sk/premyslajte-ako-hessel-kulich-ci-cifra-ake-knihy-odporuca-5-top-slovenskych-ceo/). There are many different articles about book "AllatRa" and references on the Internet, in the periodical, it can be found on Google search. Link to page Ukrainian Wikipedia book "AllatRa", here I provided, for an example, 17 points of reference about this book. That's how this page of my book about "AllatRa" is presented by me: "AllatRa" (book).

Well, in fact, this situation with regard to the article "AllatRa" in Wikipedia is clear to me and I am grateful to everybody for the hints and for this experience.

However, by reviewing WP:NBOOK i saw the point about WP:WIARM. And this was an extremely successful advice for us. After all, life is a living and plastic, and not a cannery conveyor. :-) Therefore, thanks to your opinion WP: COMMONSENSE, I decided to ask you: Can you help us with article was published in Wikipedia as an exclusive case? which is interesting to many people all over the world, without exaggeration. I want to note that considering the popularity of "AllatRa", non-compliance with its criteria WP: NBOOK is a temporary phenomenon.

Take this opportunity I want to thank you for creating Wikipedia. Thanks to Wikipedia people all over the world have the opportunity to easily and extensively engage in the knowledge of our civilization and enjoy and multiply the best. Wikipedia helps people become more tolerant, peaceful and confident in looking at tomorrow.

With respect and wishes of further creativity for the benefit of all humanity -- International movement (talk) 13:48, 12 February 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by International movement (talk • contribs)

I am afraid I will be unable to help you. The place to start is not with me, nor with Wikipedia, but with obtaining high quality 3rd party sources. If you are in some way associated with the book or its author, I recommend seeking out media interviews and published reviews of the book.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:20, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Categorizing all songs by an artist by genre

See also: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Songs § Categorizing_all_songs_by_an_artist_by_genre

No need to reply, "Jimbo", but I've become very frustrated with how Wikipedia often classifies all albums or songs by recordings artists as one or more specific genres. As an arbitrary example, you'll notice Category:Lady Gaga songs suggests all Lady Gaga songs are dance-pop/electropop/synthpop, when many of her songs would never be described as pop, let alone any of these specific subgenres. If we require appropriate secondary coverage to include genres in an article's prose and infobox, why are we being so lazy and sometimes grossly misleading for categories? I propose we only categorize albums/songs by genre when sourcing confirms.

I plan to submit a more formal proposal at the village pump soon, but right now I'm seeking feedback here. I invite all talk page watchers to participate in the ongoing discussion. Thanks! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 22:48, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Interesting and obviously you have a strong point. It's a tough thing though because of how categories work.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:51, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, tough, but I'm hoping we might be able to make some adjustments. Thanks for commenting. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:03, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Minor weirdness on the WMF home page

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T200742

At [ https://wikimediafoundation.org/?noredirect=en_US ], even though I have selected "English", part of the page says "Stell dir eine Welt vor, in der jeder einzelne Mensch frei an der Summe allen Wissens teilhaben kann." The rest of the page is in English. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:44, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Is there any reason you can think of why it might do that? Are you in Germany (or to be more precise, are you using an ip address that geolocates to Germany)? Is your browser set to request German pages?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:53, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

At meta

I left the following note

Somebody complained on en:User talk:Jimbo Wales that the supposedly English language page

https://wikimediafoundation.org/?noredirect=en_US has a large German text sitting near the top like a headline for no apparent reason. "Stell dir eine Welt vor, in der jeder einzelne Mensch frei an der Summe allen Wissens teilhaben kann." which is "Imagine a world ..."

Rather than just leave a complaint to Jimbo which he probably won't be able to handle easily, I figured I'd just contact the people who take care of that page. Searching for a contact email (or whatever), this is the best I could find. It started with "Contact a human" on that page and gave me about seven choices, but after a few more clicks petered out here. I do assume you, the reader, are human. Anything you can do about that page? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:26, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

A trouble ticket has been opened here: phab:T215988. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:47, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Update, this is phab:T200742 - which has been opened since August 2018 - and is possibly intentional. That site is a bit messy for sure, read T200742 for a long discussion. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:58, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

The above is a poster child for why I refuse to use Phabricator. From T200742:

"The German language version of the Wikimedia vision you are seeing on the website is a writing choice, not a bug. It is entered into the CMS in the same way the rest of the writing is added to the site, and shows up exactly the way we intended and expected it to."

The other reason is the ticket involving blind people not being able to edit Wikipedia, unaddressed for well over 10 years so far.

It is in the power if the Wikimedia board of trustees (which Jimbo is a member of) to put their collective foot down and tell a WMF employee who is 100% immune to any sort of pushback from the community "NO! You will NOT insert a line written in German into the English version of wikimediafoundation.org!". That is one of the functions of the board; to oversee a collection of employees who are (for several good reasons) not required to answer to the community and make it right when they do something incredibly stupid. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:34, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

The block is in other languages in each version. French -> Arabic -> Spanish -> Chinese -> English -> German. But I see no German version on the menu to get back to French, nor does manually putting de or de_DE get a German result, so I guess there's a bug here after all. Wnt (talk) 00:20, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Everywhere on Wikis "Republic of Macedonia" was replaced with North Macedonia, except on Macedonian wiki, where yesterday it became plain "Makedonija".

Hi Jimbo, everywhere on Wikis "Republic of Macedonia" was replaced with North Macedonia, except on Macedonian Wiki where now we have plain "Macedonia" contrary to the Prespa Agreement, namely "Republika Makedonija" yesterday became only "Makedonija" (see Macedonian Wiki). Is that Ok?109.93.112.195 (talk) 14:24, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

It is apparent to me that all them are User(s) Operahome. Or what? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.245.227.169 (talk) 21:46, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Are questions about your political opinions pertinent to Wikipedia?

Jimbo, given the influence you wield in your Founder's Seat on the WMF Board, and now on its Advocacy Working Group, are there any reasons that questions about your political opinions, goals, and affinities aren't pertinent to Wikipedia? I recently asked you, "where you would be on the tycoon spectrum. Do you feel closer to Dell or Hanauer?", a question I am returning here from the archives since a related opinion was recently expressed by Bill Gates, a well-respected luminary who has had something of a rough-and-tumble relationship with the free culture movement. Do volunteer editors have a right to know where you stand on issues affecting them? EllenCT (talk) 19:03, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Unless an issue has some direct bearing on Wikipedia/Wikimedia or the free culture movement, I don't think there's any good reason to have a political discussion on my Wikipedia talk page. You want me to offer a general opinion about wealth inequality and mention my role on the WMF Board but I see zero relevance. The WMF is not going to take any position on what the appropriate level of taxation is, obviously.

On certain other matters where I am involved in diplomacy or negotiations, I must deliberately sometimes hold my tongue if speaking is not in the best interests of the movement. I defer to the WMF on such things.

A good place to ask me about random political issues would be twitter or quora. But as I am not a political candidate running for election, and have no intention to ever be one, I do reserve the absolute right to speak or not speak on various political issues as my personal mood strikes me. So no, I don't think volunteer editors - or anyone else - has a "right to know where I stand" on such things as marginal tax rates.

On the other hand I'm a friendly and open person and I might answer just about anything that I'm asked - in the appropriate venue!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:05, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

"The text of Article 13 and the EU Copyright Directive has just been finalised"

Quoting MEP Julia Reda:

Moments ago, negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council concluded the trilogue negotiations with a final text for the new EU Copyright Directive.

For two years we've debated different drafts and versions of the controversial Articles 11 and 13. Now, there is no more ambiguity: This law will fundamentally change the internet as we know it – if it is adopted in the upcoming final vote. [2]

XOR'easter (talk) 19:57, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

@XOR'easter: Any idea on how this will impact Wikipedia? THE NEW ImmortalWizard(chat) 00:56, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

@ImmortalWizard: See this blog posting by Eileen Hershenov (former General Counsel of the WMF) for a brief summary. The main threats remain, i.e. the mandatory introduction of upload filters and the restrictions regarding news snippets. It all depends now on the final Parliamentary vote short before the EU elections. --AFBorchert (talk) 08:12, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

@ImmortalWizard: Cory Doctorow has also outlined it in June 2018 at EFF.org as well, especially how bad it will be for Wikipedia. Regards SoWhy 08:38, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Now can we have that blackout? This makes SOPA look pretty damn tame by comparison! Concerning Jimbo: we should get some expert opinion on whether any of the proposed Brexit deals would encourage or mandate this sickness to spread out of the EU into Britain. Wnt (talk) 13:44, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Here is Julia Reda's explanation of what has been agreed. The text of Article 13 and the EU Copyright Directive has just been finalised. The WMF has asked me not to speak to the blackout question just yet. I am seeking permission to do that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:48, 14 February 2019 (UTC)