User talk:Jimbo Wales

WP traffic from Google declining

From Business Insider: "The amount of traffic that Google sends to Wikipedia has declined by more than 250 million visits per month, according to SimilarWeb, the traffic measurement company." Apparently Google is adding links to its own content to search results pages, rather than links to WP articles. [1] Everymorning (talk) 14:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Google is specifically using a "micro-Wikipedia" <g> for searches - many folks just want date of birth, death, and a celebrity overview - rather than the generally hard-to-read (see articles on "readability of Wikipedia"), massive articles (the vast majority of future users will use mobiles or tablets) which all-too-often dominate Wikipedia. I commented a long time ago about this inevitable phenomenon, but no one noticed <+g>. Expect Google-driven traffic to go down substantially more in future. Collect (talk) 14:52, 14 August 2015 (UTC) (the article you cite: The problem is that a few months ago that click might have gone to Wikipedia. And in fact the info in the Google box is drawn from Wikipedia. So on the one hand, this is good for Wikipedia (its info is featured prominently and the box does give Wikipedia a link). But on the other, Wikipedia thrives on clicks and this box is designed to save you from actually clicking through if you only need the bare bones info." which is basically what I said above as well <g>. Collect (talk) 14:54, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

My understanding is that the Foundation is looking into this report with preliminary indications that it is wrong. The headline in particular is almost certainly wrong: "Wikipedia suddenly lost a massive amount of traffic from Google". We know there is a longterm issue with decreasing traffic from Google but this article makes it seem like something new and "sudden" and "massive" has happened. It is also false that "Wikipedia thrives on clicks", as least as compared to ad-revenue driven sites. The relationship between "clicks" and the things we care about: community health and encyclopedia quality is not nothing, but it's not as direct as some think.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:58, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

There is a direct correlation between people that read the actual wikipedia article, and click our actual edit-button for the first time. Wikipedia does thrive on clicks, in that sense. There is also a significant risk that google might just decide to fork wikipedia content, into their own project, a la Google Knol (2008-2012) v2.0 to be specific, and stop linking to wikipedia entirely (when they can). In this sort of scenario, the difficult-to-read state of many wikipedia articles is an advantage of sorts... it encourages people to click edit, and fix the problems. They cannot do so, if they never leave the GOOG. Please note, I'm not advocating we make our articles even messier, as a means of making it even *more* tempting for the readership to pitch in and help edit. I am advocating we see the siphoning of our click-traffic as a direct and potentially fatal threat. We are still a long way from the google-backed fork, as far as I know, but we are experiencing a bad long-term trend in new-editor-retention, and simultaneously a bad long-term trend in click-through from the #1 search engine, a one-time-and-potential-future competitor for serving up encyclopedic content. Wikipedia doesn't need the money-revenues from clicks, that is true, but we do need the editor-influx, I submit. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 16:37, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

• This is probably an excellent time for me to point out that there is no provable connection between the growth of the Google "Knowledge Box" and the related decline of direct hits on the WP site on the one hand and the size of the core editing community on the other. The numbers for June are UP IN THE USUAL PLACE and they show the count of Very Active Editors (100+ edits in June) to be up once again over the weak figures of 2014. Indeed, the count of Very Active Editors at WP in June 2015 (3,241) not only erased the June 2014 decline, but also topped June 2013 (3,202), June 2012 (3,217), and very nearly met June 2011 (3,278). So: no panicking, this is no demonstrable connection between overall site traffic and size of the core volunteer community. Carrite (talk) 17:08, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Theorizing why this is so: very casual users of WP are not the source of long-term volunteers; the latter come to the encyclopedia on their own, not via proximity generated by random Google hits. I've heard it said that "Wikipedians are born, not made." Given the terrible track record of edit-a-thons and university class projects in creating lasting Wikipedians, this ironic line may well be somewhat true. Carrite (talk) 17:20, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Further theorizing, I note there is a JimboTalk section just above, about the rise of paid editing, disclosed and undisclosed. (The Atlantic also says that wikipedia is no longer merely a place that regular people get information, but the place regular people get information. Which is good news as far as it goes.) I agree with you that most true wikipedians are "born not made" aka have to be genetically predisposed to liking it here... but I would suggest that, per my own anecdotal experience and stuff like the Atlantic article, that there are some faux wikipedians that are "paid not made" aka they are able to successfully make a lot of edits not because they have the mental predisposition of a born-not-made editor, but because they have financial incentive to learn the wiki-ropes. If we get into a dualing-encyclopedia match with Google, guess which of those offerings is going to be a more profitable environment for paid editors, disclosed or undisclosed? To be clear, I think that "faux" editors with COI have a useful place here on wikipedia, but I strongly suspect that the recent reversal of years of steady decline in editorship is not because there are magically more genetically-predisposed-wikipedians being born into the world (and certainly not because the wiki-rules have been recently simplified nor the wiki-culture recently nice-ified!), but rather, the new uptick is merely a symptom of the not-very-magical fairly-recent-but-growing appearance of a large number of financially-incentivized-wikipedians. Do we have any data on that distinction, i.e. what percentage of the recent uptick is due to cold hard cash? 75.108.94.227 (talk) 18:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

My own take is that the population of core Wikipedians is stable and has been more or less stable for coming on 5 years, after the "fad" of 2005-2007 died down. Of course, WMF is way too busy with whatever to actually figure out who its 10,000 or so core volunteers across all projects are, so we are all just guessing rather than working off hard data. I doubt that the paid hands are racking up 100 edits a month (I should probably quiz A Prominent Paid Editor about the count for an average paid job). Carrite (talk) 05:33, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

............and so I asked A Prominent Paid Editor the following: "Would it be, generally speaking, fair to assume that a typical paid editor would not be getting to 100 edits per month? These are usually like 15 edits by a SPA, correct? I'll enlighten the masses with your response unless you tell me not to do this." To this Mr. or Ms. Prominent Paid Editor replied: "Those are fair assumptions for the paid editors who use one or two accounts per project/client. Maybe more like 20 for me." — So, there are doubtlessly a handful of known multiple-paid-editing-jobs accounts that contribute to the monthly Very Active Editor count (insiders could probably almost recite them by name), but the under-the-radar Paid PR types use throwaway accounts that aren't gonna get to 100. In short, the Professional Paid component of the Very Active Editor count is probably small. Carrite (talk) 15:44, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Clicks are useful, because they allow us to measure stuff. That's pretty much it. If people were hitting local caches of Wikipedia, then we would get many fewer clicks (and need less hardware/bandwidth). But the goal of providing them the information would be met, and probably faster.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:39, 15 August 2015 (UTC).

It's important to remember that Google has started using Wikipedia both to identify news stories and trends by locale, and improve the accuracy of Page Rank search result ordering. And anyone who uses Google Search can't help but notice that for most of the search terms which are directly associated with an article, snippets from the first sentences appear twice and have for about a year. That alone could explain the drop in click-throughs. However Wikipedia is included as a search term less often than it used to be, but still much more often than popular news sources. EllenCT (talk) 01:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Jimbo said; "My understanding is that the Foundation is looking into this report with preliminary indications that it is wrong." Well....my cursory belief, off the top of my head is; "It is way off". Lets see how far the two sides meet but frankly, it seems like little more than bashing the site with wishful thinking by haters. But what do I know. ;)--Mark Miller (talk) 07:17, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Now it seems Jimbo's remarks in this section have been covered by Search Engine Land: [2] Everymorning (talk) 20:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

The question is, why is there a decline in Wikipedia’s traffic from Google? Some have theorized it might have to do with the Google Answer box, others say the algorithm has changed. It is hard to say for sure, but overall, it’s clear that Wikipedia is noticing a steady decline in traffic from Google. — Supposing that interest in Wikipedia has declined and fewer users click on links to Wikipedia in their search results, Google has probably just adapted its algorithm and now ranks Wikipedia lower compared to other websites. Nothing spectacular. Reasons might be that Wikipedia content has become less useful to people as it used to be. After all, Wikipedia is nothing new and spectacular any more. That was easy. ;) --79.218.93.143 (talk) 21:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Business Insider has released another piece on this subject, this time about Wales' comments in this section. [3] Everymorning (talk) 14:16, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

The people reading this thread may find this report published by my team's analysis group interesting. In short, based on the data available to us, Wikipedia has not seen a decrease in referrals from Google; in fact, referrals from Google are trending upwards slightly. --Dan Garry, Wikimedia Foundation (talk) 05:11, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Cracked.com article on Wikipedia

From cracked.com: Wikipedia Hates Women: 4 Dark Sides of The Site We All Use. (Article author self-identifies as User:Morwen)[4] --Guy Macon (talk) 18:47, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the "deployed member of the military" mentioned in the article, see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Husnock. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:11, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

Makes a fair point about agenda editors, including the "traditional counties" loons. The issue of trans people is a festering sore. I don't know when the queer-bashers started getting any traciton here, they used to get short shrift back in the day and should still. Guy (Help!) 21:55, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

An impressive and moving account of what Wikipedia has become. I've yet to see any plausible solution to this mess, or any will to find one; without it, I expect swift and firm measures from both the US government and the EU. MarkBernstein (talk) 23:06, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

What can the US government and EU do? There are plausible solutions, and the Foundation have been championing a few of them, but there are a lot of active measures which could be taken but aren't. EllenCT (talk) 00:39, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

This harassment is terrible to hear about. --Rubbish computer 23:45, 15 August 2015 (UTC)

I do think that anyone leading off an article with the 9% women editors figure, which is not only years out of date, but was demonstrated to be wrong shortly after it was published, seriously damages their credibility as a retailer of fact. Regardless of how many Star Trek reference works they own. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:03, 16 August 2015 (UTC).

What is the current correct figure? 13%? I'm not sure it's a substantial difference in the context. EllenCT (talk) 00:39, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

We're probably somewhere in the general ballpark of 80:20 these days. WMF is years late in spending some of its money to study the question. Carrite (talk) 05:39, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

They repeatedly study the question carefully, but they sit on the answers for more than half a year, when they even release them at all. EllenCT (talk) 14:25, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

It's a tricky question - and the answer doesn't really tell us an awful lot - but yes it appears to be in the low to mid 20s. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:25, 17 August 2015 (UTC).

Link? EllenCT (talk) 01:48, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

[User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_185#Gender_balance] All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC).

I think that Wikipedia has some serious problems related to women, but while it may have been to make a point, I find the title Wikipedia hates women to be an exaggeration, and quite insulting. Some people genuinely hate women, unfortunately, but this cannot be applied to Wikipedia as a whole. --Rubbish computer 00:22, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I suggest the people who genuinely hate women stopped getting "short shrift" as User:JzG put it above, about the same time as the queer-bashers. EllenCT (talk) 00:39, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

@EllenCT: I hope this hasn't occurred: this is terrible if it has. I can't say either way about how editors who harass others are treated, as I don't really know. Rubbish computer 01:22, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be great if Jimbo started taking a stand for reform? One can hope. EllenCT (talk) 01:25, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

@EllenCT: I hope he does after reading this, in some way at least. --Rubbish computer 01:30, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

"started"? I have a longstanding view that we need to get serious about this and that a fair number of toxic personalities need to be shown the door immediately. If anyone wants my personal list, I can give it. The thing to understand is that I do not have, and do not want, the direct Henry the Eighth power to declare "off with their heads". But I will fight all the way to the top (and can guarantee success at that level, if there is community backing) at the Foundation to enforce strong community demand for positive change. If I were confident that I had the backing of the community and the Foundation, I'd personally get rid of a fair number of misogynists. In the meantime, I strongly support efforts to build consensus.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:38, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Why so coy? Publish your list and let's see where you rank in the top-ten "toxic personalities". If you're afraid to do so publicly for whatever reason then please feel free to email it to me. Eric Corbett 17:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Discussion on WP:HARASS hasn't been closed yet... but I'm thinking the only way things will change is through WMF intervention. Too much entrenchment, entitlement, and outright disbelief that anything is wrong. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:42, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree but I remain hopeful.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 03:08, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

What good is banning people who just come back as sockpuppets? One thing you could do that would really help female editors and women everywhere, Jimbo, is to renounce the misogyny and supply side trickle down economics that you brought in with your Objectivist fanboys. Rand's popularity was enabled by Art Okun's terrible mistake which is now completely discredited. How about a video of you telling the camera, "Ayn Rand was right about the importance of reason, purpose, and self-esteem. Ayn Rand was wrong about relying on amphetamines, she was wrong about supply side trickle down economics, and she was wrong about the virtue of masculine assumption of female consent." Courage, Jimbo! EllenCT (talk) 14:43, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Please record that on Neil Tyson's set, or something that looks similar, with http://listen.hatnote.com/ in the background and these display panels to be added to your chair's armrest in post-production. EllenCT (talk) 00:48, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

"I do not have, and do not want, the direct Henry the Eighth power to declare "off with their heads""

-- I don't know the particulars in what kind of 'power' you do or do not have, and I agree that one person with that type of power can be a bad/dangerous thing. But it's the only position on this site I would ever want. What needs to be done should be done via WMF. Shrugging your collective shoulders(boys will be boys¯\_(ツ)_/¯) and allowing the same things to repeat over and over is in essence saying "Wikipedia hates women". Dave Dial (talk) 03:51, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree. If the discussion at HARASS fails, the only recourse would be WMF. If they do not act, it's clear how they feel about the issue then. Their lack of action thus far shows indifference at least, though worse motives could be inferred. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 04:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

If you look at the Grants:Evaluation/Community Health learning campaign/Questions, you'll find several people using the word "polite" as their idea of a healthy community. So it's interesting to see how the WMF Grants and Wikimedia Blog sections are developing into happy PR about getting along, but meanwhile, parts of the "community" of English Wikipedia editors take the less respectful positions towards women you see below. It looks increasingly possible that "consensus" for being polite and treating women better here will need to involve the general public that actually uses Wikipedia, and not just the people who spend their free time arguing on the site. At some point, it's just not right to blame the "community" for being the ones that are failing to reach consensus, and for failing to invent a fully functional anti-harassment policy with enforcement mechanisms by arguing back and forth on talk pages. The WMF sets out the terms of use, and either these terms of use are enforced or they aren't. --Djembayz (talk) 01:03, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• I found the Cracked piece to be a particularly lame rehash with one ridiculous sensationalistic headline that was swapped out for another. If you want food for thought, check out the mini-essay on the user page of our own Yngvadottir, which includes the following:

Part of entrenched bias of course is the underrepresentation of women and "women's topics" in the encyclopedia. Here, our insistence on reliable sources exacerbates the problem already presented by historical (and continuing) gender bias - there are online projects to document the lives and achievements of unsung women that in some cases don't pass our litmus test, and the sources for things like Barbie dolls, traditional knitting and quilting patterns, and so on are often unimpressive even when in print. I wrote up a toy manufacturer (founded by a woman and using local women for labor) that I had seen news articles on in the late 1970s, but what had been put online was patchy.

However, on the woman issue, the WMF's approach does more harm than good. their research on the percentage of female editors is fatally flawed, and they have used those bogus numbers to negate the existence of those of us who are female editors, to condescend, and to divide the community. Seeing pop-up ads inviting people to apply for grants to fix the problem that I don't exist alienates me. Being told in a blog post by the past head of the WMF that half a dozen of her friends know better than me about what turns off women from editing Wikipedia—about the fact the lady assumes I don't exist—alienates me. (Most of these turn-offs don't matter to me at all, by the way.) The constant advertising of editathons on women's issues, for women, is divisive. The demonizing of editors who dare to question the statistics while being male-identified is divisive and counterproductive ... as well as condescending. I left the Gender Gap Task Force alone because hey, each to her own, but it does not speak for me and the WMF's promotion of this political effort and lionization of those women who spend their time yacking there instead of actually writing the encyclopedia chaps my butt.

On point. Carrite (talk) 05:46, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The issue here is a I've seen a number of established editors do this sort of behaviour, and unfortunately, no admin wants to deal with the typical "but they are a good editor" backlash while blocking them, and if the WMF takes this on, this will make them even more unpopular in some people's eyes. Personally, I think we need a few more admins willing to make and defend these sort of blocks, or even take these cases to ARBCOM more regularly, otherwise WMF involvement would be the only realistic solution (Which I would happy support in any way I could) Mdann52 (talk) 06:33, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

In her recent RfA, User:Liz saw significant opposition because she had expressed the opinion that "the role of administrators is undermined if there is the impression that there are different standards for behavior based on an editor's contributions and the view that some editors are unblockable". One editor commented that many voters opposed her nomination "because Liz dared make the statement that content creators should not be given carte blanche exemptions from the rules. Everyone knows this". After reading the comments posted in that RfA, I agree. Not only is there a significant faction on Wikipedia that thinks that heavy content creators should be exempt from most rules, but they oppose any admin candidate who doesn't agree, and tend to only support admin candidates who have created multiple GAs or FAs. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:23, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

That's a complete misrepresenation of the concerns expressed. The issue was centered around the goals of the project. Civility exists to serve content creation and building the encyclopedia. The concern was that it appeared Liz expressed open hostility to the sole reason we are here. All of the subplots regarding editor retention, gendergap, etc, are to improve content creation and quality. They are not ends unto themselves and administrators that don't understand that are harmful. If an admins goal is to push a social egenda on wikipedia, they need very close scrutiny and that it is why her nomination was controversial and divisive. The rules exist to serve content creation and quality, not the other way around. It's why "Ignore all rule" and "not a bureaucracy" are fundamental aspects and why good administrators clear out obstacles to content creators rather than fuel drama that inhibits it. --DHeyward (talk) 07:01, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I am baffled how that mild statement can be interpreted as one of "open hostility". Gamaliel (talk) 00:33, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Reading the opposes and the concerns, it should be less baffling to realize that mild statement wasn't a major reason for opposes and is why the strawman argument above is a misrepresentation of the opposes. There were a number of editors that relayed personal experiences that were viewed, in toto, as a pattern of behavior rather than simply reaction to a mild statement. Bishonen, for example, posed a question, an oppose rationale with example and gave a personal response for her reasoning. It was not a unique experience that was expressed nor was it related to a single comment or incident. My reading of the opposes was a concern about wading into disputes with only the letter of the law, but limited background on the nature of the dispute, the history, the parties, etc, and those factors are relevant when dealing with trolls, socks, fringe theories and other issues. --DHeyward (talk) 12:43, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Can you identify any statement of hers that expresses "open hostility"? Gamaliel (talk) 13:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

That would have been a good question to pose at her RfA but it doesn't change the view that was expressed by the opposers who held that opinion. You can read the various accounts that were cited as examples of hostility. There's multiple discussions on the talk page as well. --DHeyward (talk) 15:17, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I have read those accounts and discussions and I don't feel that there is anything that supports the characterization of "open hostility", though I may have missed something. Could you identify a statement or account which you think supports your characterization of "open hostility"? Gamaliel (talk) 15:29, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Did you have difficulty understanding the opposers? It's one thing to disagree with the argument but quite a difference in not understanding the argument. 'Hostile' as a term is mentioned a number of times on the various pages. The crats seemed to have understood it when they they evaluated the comments and this appears very near the top of their discussion: Liz appears to have given the impression to those who focus on writing content that she regards them with contempt. --DHeyward (talk) 16:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I am having difficulty understanding why, if this attitude of hers is supposedly so obvious to everyone, you can't produce a single statement of hers to support this. Gamaliel (talk) 16:34, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

As I said, you should have asked the opposers during the RfA. It's clear that was their opinion and reason for opposing, though. Clear enough that the crats mentioned the appearance of contempt for content creators in the opening bit of discussion. Did you have difficulty understanding that assessment? I didn't participate in the crat discussion so they may be of more help as to why they thought the opposers believe she had contempt for content creators but it's a fair summary of the overall oppose view. There were 70 or so opposers and that was the 'crats first summary. It's obviously a superficial and a strawman argument to blame the opposers view in a single statement. --18:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I am asking one of the opposers now, opposer #36 to be specific, and the one who made the specific claim here of "open hostility". Since you are unwilling to substantiate your claim of "open hostility", you should strike your remarks. Gamaliel (talk) 18:39, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Oh please. Get over yourself. The concern (of the opposers) was that it appeared Liz expressed open hostility to the sole reason we are here. It is an analysis of the oppose votes and the same conclusion the crats had. For whatever reason, that was the concern. There were 70 opposers with variations on that basic observation. "Contempt for content creators" works equally well and those were the exact words in the 'crat discussion. It had nothing to do with a single or simple statement. How about you strike the patronizing nonsense that 70 people opposed her RfA over a "mild statement." --DHeyward (talk) 19:33, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Do you find you normally win a lot arguments without providing a single piece of evidence? Gamaliel (talk) 20:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

You seem to think I need to convince you to change your opinion before you recognize there is actually another side that wasn't "Support." That's not rational. Fortunately, 'crats weren't burdened by irrationality. As I said, here's an early assessment of a 'crats thought of oppose votes as a whole: Liz appears to given the impression to those who focus on writing content that she regards them with contempt. is one diff given as a summary by a 'crat. That's a fair assessment of the oppose votes and it's not my view and it's not my diff. It's an assessment by a 'crat that believes she should get the tools, but still understood what the oppose votes were highlighting. You don't have to agree that it's a correct view, but it is the view expressed. It wasn't opposition to a "mild statement" that you seem to think it is. The crat's obviously didn't think it was enough to prevent her from getting the tools, but they didn't dismiss it. In fact, it was discussed as being a concern regardless of the outcome and it was sugggested that she considers carefully how she gave that impression and (avoid) doing so in future regardless of the outcome of this RfA.. Do you often have trouble separating arguments presented from arguments that convinced you? Do you often need to be convinced an argument is only valid if you hold that opinion? I can list why a number of supporters believe she will be a good admin as well even if I don't personally think they outweigh the concerns. It doesn't invalidate their assessment simply because I don't hold it. Not from your eloquent support testimonial, of course, but from supporters that put thought into it and also addressed some of the oppose concerns. The only argument I presented here is that dismissing 70 opposes due to a "mild statement" is an incorrect assessment. If you cannot be convinced of that, then, no, I do not win arguments when the opposition is irrational. --DHeyward (talk) 23:27, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

And if you really want my personal opinion, which is largely irrelevant, as there are 70 others that registered opposes, my concern is summed up barely a week after getting the tools, Liz templated admin Masem over edit warring on a gamergate spillover topic (how "My little pony" is gamergate is beyond me, but the regulars showed up to do battle including IP's). Masem had the good grace to ignore it. She realized her mistake as well. It's those types of things that create unpleasant experiences for long time contributors and a reason why we don't template the regulars. Had it been someone else with less patience than Masem, it would have been a bloody talk page mess just as it was with Sitush's example (check the history of Masem's talk page and you will see edit warring there as well over comments on the template). --DHeyward (talk) 23:56, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I was already roasted over a spit at my RfA and I don't want to relive the experience, DHeyward. The RfA ended two weeks ago. Could you please stop with the direct and indirect personal attacks on Jimbo Wales talk page? You once accused me of stalking your contributions as we both ended up editing the same talk page. But now, you seem to be scrutinizing my edits...can I expect this to continue? Because, personally, I'd like to get back to editing the encyclopedia rather than talking about my RfA or defending myself, especially on another editor's talk page. Let's both move on, shall we? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:11, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

You will have to ask Gamaliel. He seems unsatisfied with the roasting and keeps asking for "proof". I'd just as soon let it drop. Welcome to the conversation though. And yes, if you continue to template regular content contributors as an admin, you will be scrutinized. Not by me, though. If you noticed, I didn't comment or revert you on any pages even when you felt it necessary to revert me. I try to avoid interacting with you. If you do template regulars on talk pages on my watch list, you can expect that I'll see it and if it's not on pages I watch, I won't see it. Not sure why you would think templating Masem would be an invisible act, though, considering your involvement with Gamergate. --DHeyward (talk) 01:28, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Most of the oppose votes were Gamergate. Gamergate follows women around the internet to harass them and they followed Liz here. Liz is a good Wikipedian who’s done nothing to deserve criticism except being born female and becoming a Gamergate target. Giving her oppose votes any credibility means supporting a harassment campaign. 208.167.254.227 (talk) 19:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It's always the people most outspoken on the gender gap and misogyny on wikipedia though who actually contribute the least content on here. Those of us who really care about systematic bias against women in articles actually get on with doing something about it instead of moaning about it. And those of us who are the apparent worse offenders of bias against women get on with promoting women to FA, which is more than I can say for Mr Wales.♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:00, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

"Always" is a universal quantifier. Why did you decide to use it? I've created plenty of content in some of the most frequently read articles on the site, and I have a very deep skepticism of people who use universal quantifiers as ambigious hyperbole while bragging about articles they took to FA which get a dozen hits a day. EllenCT (talk) 16:44, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Typical "no real scotsman" argument paired with the Randian "content creators" stuff. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 16:57, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Article is WP:LAME. Discussion about it is WP:LAME. Who the heck reads "cracked"? NickCT (talk) 10:06, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

150 people per day read the Cracked.com article. That's more than 10% of the people who read the CNN article. EllenCT (talk) 14:29, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Dr. Blofeld. Don't talk about it, or write an article which seems very self-congratulatory, almost embarrassingly so, but if there aren't enough women FAs, do something about it, like we are. As for Jimbo above, and his little list, words fail.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:27, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I feel compelled to agree with Blofeld and Yngvadottir too - as an out woman (albeit as a wikignome who no longer has time to do much of that, even) I hope I can say that. There's a lot of stuff which just feels patronising and if people could find a way through the genuine 'women's participation' issues that wasn't so condescending it would help. LouiseS1979 ^(pigeonhole) 11:30, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

What amazes me is that Jimbo and foundation seem to think that the odd utterance of the "c word" or "twat" (directed at a male at that) or whatever is more responsible for women leaving wikipedia than the general hostile attitude towards content producers displayed by new page patrollers for instance. Every day we lose dozens of notable articles, and those produced by female editors too because these people don't bother to check externally to see if they can be improved. They plaster tags over articles and they get deleted, and people despair and think "wikipedia is a waste of time" so leave. The way adminship functions at times on here is also hostile towards potential content contributors and people are put off by it, They don't want to be drilled warnings when they're trying the best to learn the ropes on here. So I find it astounding that the gender gap problems with the site are blamed purely on editors perceived as misogynistic and that Jimbo seems to think that if he banned them all suddenly everything would be smelling of roses. The problems are far more deep rooted in the system on here, and it's something that the foundation seem oblivious to and unwilling to bring about improvements. While most of us would prefer that editors avoid calling each other cunts or twats, again it's pointless saying "If I had the power I would" when it's clear that you don't and no matter how much you moan about it it's not going to change the situation.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:06, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

BTW If you really did a survey of all of the women to date who have tried to edit wikipedia and gave up, or those who might potentially edit wikipedia I'm pretty sure "an editor called xxx the c word" would be a reason far down the list. The real reasons why most women leave wikipedia and give up are no different to why most men leave. And those are the deep rooted site problems and natural hostility and lack of good faith on here. I'm pretty sure if anybody here started an account with a female name or a male name it would make little difference to how their work might be treated on the new pages. And for the record, most of the women I know who have left wikipedia is not because somebody swore at somebody but because of that hostility, a POV pusher on an article, ANI silliness or harassment, and by harassment I mean really psychological harassment, not sweary personal attacks and the odd gender joke, stuff which really get to people and go unpunished. The last two or three women I know who left wikipedia or took leave on disgust was because of the misconduct of an admin abusing his position actually. Those are the real reasons why most people leave, men or women.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:32, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, as long as the argument turns to "who really cares" about systemic bias, than at least the discussion goes somewhere - in the end, although not a winnable argument, it may lead to good results. Covering topics or having "editors avoid calling each other cunts or twats" is a false dichotomy, is it not? Surely, both are possible, and "what most of us would prefer". Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:25, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

The main issue isn't getting more women bios as FA. It's how editors are treated and the atmosphere of harassment and sexism on Wikipedia. Editors are what make Wikipedia, not FAs. Fix that, more women will edit and other manifestations of the gender gap such as FAs will close with it. Of course we have the typical offenders here opining how saying "cunt" shouldn't be a big deal though. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 17:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to be bold here but to my knowledge the female editors I know on here don't experience any serious harassment or sexism on here because they're female. If they do they've never complained to me about it. You'll regularly hear complaints about cowboy admins, infobox pushers, POV pushers and civility warriors but I never hear "He victimises me because I'm female". The times I've seen female editors complaining of harassment, it's been from other females, not males. I find female editors are usually more agreeable to work with in article collaboration anyway, and I'm not the only one who thinks that. It really does seem to be something claimed by the gender gap lot, the types like yourself who feel vulnerable in society anyway and perceive everything negative on wikipedia to because of their gender or sexuality. We do need more featured articles on women and in general, but if we are to attract women to the project the main issue is the general hostility towards everybody on here who creates new content or edits core articles, not sexist remarks against women. Sorry, but I've really not encountered that sort of thing myself, all I've heard about it is associated with the gender gap project. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:32, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Self-selection into your editing circle would probably be the biggest reason for that... also confirmation bias. But you also are making a fundamental attribution bias in thinking it's due to personal factors that people at the GGTF are upset. FWIW, anti-harassment policies that prohibit things like calling editors "cunts" has been shown to increase productivity and morale.[5] EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 18:43, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

My perception of the situation is that there's more a hatred of male editors at the gender gap project based on feminist ideologies than vice versa. I think you have a tendency to view negative situations as a male vs female thing rather than a general website problem in agreement anyway. Beyond Eric occasionally calling somebody a cunt, where is the evidence of this mass harassment against editors purely because they're women?♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:57, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

This "cunt" thing really does need to be put into perspective. I think in my eight years here I've only ever called two editors cunts, and both of them, one of whom was Jimbo Wales, I have good reason to believe are male. The word may make hearts palpitate in American feminist circles, but it doesn't have the same bite elsewhere in the English-speaking world, especially when applied to males, as it almost always is. In fact I'd not be in the slightest surprised to see it reclaimed in the not-too distant future. Eric Corbett 19:20, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, another misconception, I think Jimbo is convinced you go about the site every day doing nothing but specifically targeting female editors and calling them that, and that any female editors who leave wikipedia somehow got gist of it and broke down in tears.♦ Dr. Blofeld 06:22, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

"In fact I'd not be in the slightest surprised to see it reclaimed in the not-too distant future." Perhaps a bit off topic of me, but I'd like to point out that this is already happening with university zines like Cuntry Living. Brustopher (talk) 20:44, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

My local listings paper was for some years called the Shoreditch Twat, so named because of the (generally well-deserved) nickname given to the locals by the rest of London. The world did not come to an end. ‑ iridescent 20:56, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Then, there is this article here, WP:THREATENING2MEN: Misogynist Infopolitics and the Hegemony of the Asshole Consensus on English Wikipedia by Bryce Peake from Issue #7 of Ada:A Journal of New Media and Technology. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:59, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Wadewitz found that her gender caused people to demand more reliable sources, but it's a cloud with a silver lining: no pain, no gain, when it comes to figuring out how to find peer reviewed literature reviews on economic topics, for example. I don't think there are more than a handful of editors who really have proven that they know how to find those. Much misogyny online is simply a reflection of trends in popular culture, many of whom in Wikipedia's community have shown they can rise above, along with many who have demonstrated that they are unable or unwilling to rise above. EllenCT (talk) 22:05, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Wadewitz found no such thing. Eric Corbett 00:27, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I watched a lengthy panel with Adrienne Wadewitz, with the unfortunate (and somewhat repudiated) name "Storming Wikipedia".

She mentions the move from pseudonymous to orthonomynous resulted in comments "oh you're a woman" "you can't really be a woman" "you don't write like a woman" and not being taken as seriously, being judged to be hysterical and emotional, and that Wikipedia suddenly seemed to be a masculine place, where as it hadn't seemed like that before.

I did some searching for any references to "hysteria" on any talk page with Adrienne's sig, and none of them were a reply to her. This makes me wonder to what extent this was subjective, due to revelation of her gender making her feel vulnerable, rather than an objective change in the nature of responses. It would be a good RQ to find the proportion of such comments before and after.

If, however, this is valid then simply not identifying one's gender (or falsely identifying as male) removes the "masculinisation" of the environment, which would be a simple fix - do not allow gendered user names.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:57, 17 August 2015 (UTC).

If it's so simple then post the RFC to rename all those people, most of whom haven't logged in recently, to WP:VP/P. There are simpler ways to impose the benefits of anonymity. EllenCT (talk) 01:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

EllenCT, if it can be demonstrated that a significant percentage of females feel happier when they edit with a gender neutral name, I would certainly be willing to propose that the "Create account" dialogue contains advice to that effect.

Conversely if it can be demonstrated that the remarks Adrienne mentioned are a widespread (I have searched for all of them, finding, I think, one match by a blocked IP, on their talk page) then I would be happy to put in place measures to stop them.

Acting on the basis of hunch and feeling is recipe for disaster.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 18:16, 17 August 2015 (UTC).

• Just so this doesn't get buried, I note here that I have asked Jimbo above for a copy of his personal list. Eric Corbett 18:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Coming out of retirement and a life of joyous relaxation to endorse Eric's comment. You say: "a fair number of toxic personalities need to be shown the door immediately. If anyone wants my personal list, I can give it." I do want it; so please can I have it. Giano (talk) 18:44, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Umm User:Jimbo Wales/Jimbo's List of Cunts - No. Do not want. --DHeyward (talk) 16:31, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

  You may not want it but I do. Jimbo publicly offered above to make it available to anyone who asked for it, so I'm asking. Eric Corbett 18:26, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean to be off topic but under point 2 of the 4 the article states "... the number of Wikipedia editors shrank by over a third" - with a source- "with most of those that left being women". I haven't read through the source it cites but I have never heard of the proportion of female editors on Wikipedia actually shrinking over time. I am not exactly an expert on this, so forgive me if I'm wrong. Is this statement an observation by Morwen? --Rubbish computer 20:29, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

This female/male editors issue should be treated as irrelevant, by English Wikipedia. We're all Wikipedians, leave it at that. GoodDay (talk) 20:30, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd hardly consider it irrelevant unless we're all just here to write about knowledge on the basis of one POV. Actually, if anything, Wikipedia has made me more aware of just how necessary things like black and women's history month is. MurderByDeadcopy^"bang!" 23:59, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

@GoodDay: Yes of course, but I am questioning the accuracy of the statement in the Cracked article. --Rubbish computer 20:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

@GoodDay: Apologies if you weren't replying to me. Rubbish computer 21:07, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• I read the Cracked article, and I believe some of its criticisms are valid, but some are the product of sour grapes over how the Manning arbitration case concluded. I suggest if the article's author really wants to see some sexism in play in Wikipedia, that the author check out the alternative medicine and other pseudoscience articles and observe the behavior of many of the "pro-science" editors. Cla68 (talk) 01:02, 17 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Because all the FRINGE pushers are women or because no women back actual science? I hardly think that is valid claim at all. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:38, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, if that article bothered you, just imagine what kind of press Wikipedia would be receiving if ArbComm had adopted its tone-deaf proposed language instructing women not to fight back against sexual harassment. Really now. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 04:01, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo, please do make something like that video described above, or take a principled stand on the issues somehow. You're a talented skit communicator. How do you think the factors described in [6] and [7] have influenced Wikipedian culture? Are you still holding on to supply side trickle down; if so, on what grounds? EllenCT (talk) 15:31, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Editors accepting Jimbo's offer to provide his list of "toxic" editors that should be "shown the door"

• Sorry Jimmy, you obviously missed this in all the noise above - easily done. So I'll say it again: You say: "a fair number of toxic personalities need to be shown the door immediately. If anyone wants my personal list, I can give it." I do want it; so please can I have it. Giano (talk) 19:29, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• Me, too. - Sitush (talk) 19:38, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• Me thrice. Cassianto^Talk 07:43, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• I also would like to take Jimbo up on his generous offer. (Now there are four of us we can have a game of dominoes whilst we wait.) pablo 07:53, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
• Somebody just publicly asked Jimbo to provide this list. I don't know how long that question will stay up, because Quora in the past has sometimes deleted uncomfortable questions posed to Jimbo. Cla68 (talk) 00:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• Jimbo committed to providing his list to anyone who asked. I've asked and I've received nothing. I suspect he knows that he's made yet another of his faux pas and won't be back until this thread is archived and, he hopes, forgotten. Eric Corbett 19:57, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  If I had a more cynical mind, I'd say he's just realised that considerably more than 13% of his "fair number of toxic personalities" are female, including the name at the top of the list, and someone has pointed out to him just how that's going to look in the current climate. ‑ iridescent 20:08, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  Iridescent, you're a flatterer, I don't really think I'm at the top of the list anymore. But I'd be interested to see it too. Bishonen | talk 08:06, 19 August 2015 (UTC).

  There is that. It seems to be difficult for some people to keep two ideas in their heads simultaneously. Eric Corbett 22:23, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I too am curious to see this list of contributors that Jimbo thinks should be kicked off the project. Please add me to the mailing list. Yunshui ^雲_水 08:50, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

And me. Doug Weller (talk) 09:34, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I would like to see it as well please. Is it going to appear here or be sent via mailing list? DeCausa (talk) 09:59, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• I have email enabled if you'd rather send it to me that way. BethNaught (talk) 10:35, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Also would like to be on that cc list if you don't mind. Thanks.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:03, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Count me in. Writegeist (talk) 20:26, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• +1, although I dare say I could recreate the list without too much effort. (Jimbo, would "the other editors to comment in this section, one former arb and two now-banned users" cover it?) ‑ iridescent 20:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm trying to figure out whether the people still posting here are incredibly stupid or whether they just don't know how to read. --JBL (talk) 21:09, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Which best describes you? Writegeist (talk) 21:23, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah, "I know you are but what am I?", truly the insult of a brilliant intellect. --JBL (talk) 00:39, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to see Jimbos Editor Hitlist as well. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 23:58, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Editors not wanting Jimbo's list of "toxic" editors that should be "shown the door"

It's a trap! Don't publish it, or e-mail it to anyone, Jimbo. If it is e-mailed to anyone it would likely be published on this very page. There may well be toxic personalities on en.wp, but it is not within WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA to state your opinion on this matter, unless considerable evidence is given. And even if evidence is provided, it may cause more problems than it solves. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 10:46, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I think we all realise that he knows that. BethNaught (talk) 10:47, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, if asking for it is a trap, and he would be "a fool" to answer it [8], than isn't asking for it baiting? He has opened himself to be baited but that does not mean anyone should do so. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:31, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about "opened himself up to be baited" but he did offer to provide the list, and a number of people have taken him at his word. pablo 12:36, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

That context was addressed in the comment I linked to: "Jimbo would be a fool to publicly post a list of people he believes should be removed from Wikipedia or even to privately write it down. I'm sure if you asked me I could come up with a list of people Wikipedia would be better without and I'm one of the most tolerant people on there. ¶ Looking at the context of the statement though, Jimbo was replying to an individual who was implying he was happy with the status quo and perhaps he should start to instigate reform. He responded (probably too quickly) to say that he wasn't happy with the status quo and why he wasn't happy with it." [9] Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:51, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. It was a foolish remark said in an emotional moment. A number of people should take off their Spider Man suits and back away from the Reichstag.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Looking forward to the Night of the long (Britney) Spears. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

It is nothing to do with Spiderman impersonations. A number of people should stop hinting at throwing their weight around and then backing down, Jimbo. All this malarkey resembles nothing more than a disingenuous attempt at death by a thousand cuts, ably supported by acolytes who in many cases are or were WMF employees and thus at the very centre of the cult. You've had at least a couple of shots fired across your bows in recent months for ill-advised, albeit vaguely-worded, attempts at rabble-rousing here. Calling it a "foolish remark" doesn't come close, sorry. I'll say it again: this talk page, which attracts vast amounts of attention in large part because nobodies mistakenly think you are a somebody, should be shut down. If you must deal with issues relating to the WP project as a whole then it should be done at Meta. Or you could help, say, get Walter Whitehead to FA status in something close to record time: that is something beneficial to the core purpose of this project. - Sitush (talk) 15:58, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

"because nobodies mistakenly think you are a somebody" I think Jimbo is making his point, there are definite civility issues to be addressed. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 16:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Starting with Jimbo himself of course. Eric Corbett 16:17, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I somewhat naively assume that when Jimbo says list he actually means that he is able to name several off the top of his head that he personally doesn't like and isn't actually keeping a "list". If he were keeping an offline list that would trouble me a bit. Not that he is keeping it, but that he hasn't done anything with it. He hasn't submitted it to the Arbcom or the WMF for review, submitted it to the community, taken action himself (I see he has admin powers), started some discussion about specific issues that he must see as patterns, nothing. Just retort here. So I feel like if these problems were actually problems, then he would feel stronger about them and address them in some way other than just get everyone spun up. Certainly some actions would cause controversy, mostly because he has never bothered to use his admin access (as far as I can tell). So naturally if he just started acting out of the blue, then it would ruffle feathers. It seems like there is some benign efforts he could do though to help out if he doesn't feel like doing the heavy lifting, so that those who do, would be freed up from other tasks. RingofSauron (talk) 17:08, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

RingofSauron, I don't see any ambiguity in "If anyone wants my personal list, I can give it." That pretty much does what it says on the tin. Cassianto^Talk 18:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I was afraid of. RingofSauron (talk) 18:17, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

There are certainly some on here who refuse to believe the existence of this "toxic list", so I would request that Jimbo divulges this list (if any) to end any more speculation. If not, I would be most interested in why he said it? Cassianto^Talk 18:22, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I think that there might be a real issue here, regarding the nature of this alleged list and/or the names on it if it is real, as well as, at least conceivably, who might have been told of those names. Personally, I tend to think that Late Show Top 10 Lists have been so common since the David Letterman regular use of the idea that it is not unreasonable to see the initial comment as being what I think it probably was, a comment indicating that there are a number of "toxic" editors who Jimbo may have recognized over the years, using language more for effect than for strict accuracy. While it might not be an official, formal "list", the phrasing certainly leads to thinking that it is or was such a real list, at least in Jimbo's head. There does seem to be some reason to think that Jimbo has at least thought of at least a few regular editors as "toxic." If the list has never been discussed or displayed to anyone, fine, I could take the statement as simply a bit of an exaggeration. But if there is any reason to believe that at some point the names on the "list" were communicated to others, I could see how it might be reasonable for anyone who is still active and thinks that they might be, metaphorically, in Jimbo's "dog house," to want to know that. Some clarification of whether this alleged "list" has ever been discussed or circulated might be welcome, as well as any details as to who is included in the alleged list and any individuals the list may have been distributed to in some form or other. John Carter (talk) 18:38, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

If we're going to compile lists, then I can publish a list of editors whom I would consider to be complete and utter wankers. The difference is, I would be able to justify each and every one of them, unlike, I suspect, Jimbo. Cassianto^Talk 18:45, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Here is the problem as I see it. Who and how do we define "toxic"? Is it how they use some tool, their demeanor, do they or do they not have any Featured content, do they have a group of friends that protect them? There are so many ways that someone could be qualified as "toxic" based on just the limited list of criteria I gave (let alone the dozens of others) that its too subjective. I have no doubt that all of us could generate a list of a few names of people that we have crossed paths with that we would rather not have to deal with. In the end, we have to decide what's best for the project. Is the project better off dealing with some editors we don't personally like that do a lot of X or do a really good job at Y or do we systematically remove them all from the site, so that all we have left are people who edit once in a while under the radar, don't do too much and don't get involved in anything that could ruffle feathers? Or do we realize that not everyone is going to share our same mindset, will have different views and values, will believe in different things and come from different backgrounds and will require additional discussion and collaboration to work through disagreements? Given that this is a world wide project with a lot of variety of social statuses and backgrounds I assume the latter would be expected and that we would go to great lengths to avoid the former in order to improve the quality of our content for our readers. I would also say that, IMO, whomever presents such a list had better be able to provide some credible reason why that individual is on the list and be ready to discuss it. Otherwise, its probably a personal attack or would at least be argued as such. RingofSauron (talk) 18:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo's list of "toxic editors", like my list of wankers, is a subjective one. I suspect that 90% of the names on the "toxic list" will be made up of content contributors who spend their time and money improving the project. I have said all along; if these "toxic personalities" - for that, read content contributors - were removed from the site, there would be no project. Owing to recent RfA's, such as Liz and NeilN, it's been proved that you don't need the ability to write at all, just the ability to loiter at drama boards and do the sweeping up after. Cassianto^Talk 19:08, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I would say it is expected and appropriate behaviour to draw attention to anyone harming the project if you have sufficient evidence as the basis of those claims. I would not take such an action without the proper due diligence. I fully disagree with the idea that such things are not to be pointed out when seen, simply that they need proper substantiation. Chillum 19:13, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah Chillum, I was just thinking of you! Cassianto^Talk 19:48, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Considering that this is Jimbo's talk page he says very little I've noticed. I don't know why people bother, it's clear that he's not impressed with a sizable percentage of editors commenting here! I think the time has got to come where people start to see him less as a God-King and more as a PR man. The fact is he has little control over the day to day running of the encyclopedia and it's only his opinion whatever he has to say at the end of the day. So he has a list of toxic personalities. Well so do I, I'm sure most of us have a list of them, only mine is more similar to Cassianto's...♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:19, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Don't want it. But if he does follow through, it should be put here: User:Jimbo Wales/Jimbo's List of Cunts in the full spirit of how discussions like this both start and end: with offense that is brash, shocking and controversial. (In the spirit of the latest hullabaloo at Arbcom, maybe User:Jimbo Wales/Jimbo's Final Solution to Cunts and Little Boys - it could literally explode the ArbCom and ANI board with stack overflows of "Edit Conflict"). (Oh and the title is why the list shouldn't be created because no matter what, being included will be offensive regardless of what it is called - I doubt inclusion would inspire self-reflection or anything more than drama.). --DHeyward (talk) 20:51, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo, if you don't immediately hand over your list of people who should stand behind you in Wesley Crusher uniforms on Neil Tyson's sound stage while you renounce Ayn Rand's misogyny and supply side trickle down, I am going to have words with my local chapter of the PC users group. EllenCT (talk) 21:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

RingofSauron makes a fairly good attempt at hitting the nail on the head - So I feel like if these problems were actually problems, then he would feel stronger about them and address them in some way other than just get everyone spun up. They miss the point that by sheer repetition it would seem that Jimmy does in fact feel strongly about the "problems" but they're right about the "spun up". Jimmy, put up or shut up: you are doing more harm than good. - Sitush (talk) 23:47, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

But there is more to it. Jimbo claimed that he could go to the WMF with his list, and with sufficient community support he would be able to have everyone on his list banned. Discounting the fact that unless he made his list public, gathering any community support would be highly unlikely, I think he has a lot yet to explain; being "emotional" just doesn't cut it. Try vindictive. Or toxic. Eric Corbett 23:58, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

"Try vindictive. Or toxic." Calling Jimbo that seems to contravene WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. You also seem to be backing up his premise. --Jules (Mrjulesd) 00:26, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Leave the picket line for just a moment to consider the uncivil claim of such a list existing in the first place Mrjulesd. Or are we to assume that you think Jimbo is exempt from such incivility? Cassianto^Talk 01:00, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I really would like to to see the most toxic personality on Wikipedia explain himself without any further lying or obfuscation. Will it ever happen? No. Eric Corbett 00:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Editors not wanting Jimbo's copy of Toxic

No thanks. Got any Fleetwood Mac? --Dweller (talk) 12:15, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Support. Obviously.--Jules (Mrjulesd) 12:18, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Oppose. I'd love it. A real happening groovy sound, pop-pickers. Great to see Jimbo "in the zone". Martinevans123 (talk) 13:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I already have her greatest hits album so I am good.--The Britney Spears Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo, If you upload the Rap version on Spotify it could even reduce WMF dependence on the annual fundraiser. ϢereSpielChequers 22:05, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Editors wanting an end to the subsection !voting of a supposed list taken waaaay too seriously

• Support.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:13, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• Really? You're presumably not among those who might be insinuated as being among the listed. Jimbo has not said that it was a joke, and his past references certainly seem to demonstrate that he does take it seriously. Just being emotional is a pretty poor cop-out, given that he actually trades - financially or otherwise - on his emotions about this project. - Sitush (talk) 00:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I AM among those that have been heavily criticized for my actions by Jimbo. I never assumed it was a joke nor stated that. We have all "traded' on our emotions by reacting to Jimbo, as you have and even I have. We just took different routes to handle the emotions. Try calling them what they really are, not emotions, but just a reaction. We all react one way or another.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:04, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

So, is this a vote for stupid or illiterate? --JBL (talk) 00:42, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Careful you might end up on Jimbos list JBL. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 01:11, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• Quite frankly, I think "the list" was a poorly thought out comment and I was surprised it took more than one minute for three people to latch onto it. I doubt many of the names on "the list" would surprise any of us, though. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:26, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• I think most of us just want to see if Jimbo is a man of his word. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 00:30, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

  And we've seen that he isn't. Eric Corbett 00:38, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• Oh dear God please yes. The level of inane drama-mongering here is painful. --JBL (talk) 00:42, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

PLOS ONE article about Wikipedia POV-pushing in the sciences

Just caught this press release from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies on Eurekalert. Here's the article on PLOS ONE. Despite the tone, I don't actually see much there - basically, they measured some article edit rates and wrote a just-so story, with an illustrative anecdote. They suggest (based on other sources) two measures to counter bias ("automatically identify and flag pages with significant controversy [24] and quantify user reputation [18]") - the latter idea sounds particularly hard to believe, and given that it's locked behind a Springer paywall I get the sense the authors of that paper weren't really serious about Wikipedians having a look at it. Still, thought I might shoot this over and see if anyone can pick out something useful. Wnt (talk) 09:50, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• Yeah, I saw that earlier. It seems their concerns about accuracy of scientific articles potentially deteriorating is largely theoretical because it is "difficult for experts to monitor accuracy and contribute time-consuming corrections". Everymorning (talk) 13:07, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

"Articles on controversial subjects get edited more" is all this article, and their research, says. Do they actually get paid to write this rubbish? --Rubbish computer 15:56, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Articles on controversial subjects are also going to be vandalized more, which will add to the total number of edits, as will reverting such vandalism. As scientific views change and science progresses, articles such as global warming are required to be changed to reflect this. --Rubbish computer 15:59, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

An example for the vandalism point: global warming is indefinitely semi-protected. --Rubbish computer 16:01, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

It is a poor article. I wrote it up here: http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2015/08/15/content-volatility-of-scientific-topics-in-wikipedia-plowshare-prates-anag/. Boris, who does actually do science, commented It's amazing that they got a peer reviewed publication out of something so utterly trivial with no attempt at in-depth analysis or insight William M. Connolley (talk) 17:45, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't actually think this dataset can make any claim about controversial subjects at all. It simply looks at too few articles, and there are too many explanations. For example, do we know whether articles on subjects that are controversial in China get edited more? For all I know (though I doubt it) Chinese editors are too polite and collegial, or at least too worried about getting hauled down to the police station and lectured about a harmonious society, and they might edit a controversial article less. Or it might be that only articles that affect business interests with big lobbies get edited more. We could collect that data, and we might have some guesses about it, but we can't say without doing more study.

Which brings us to the opportunity here. PLOS ONE wasn't intended to be a terrible journal - I would speculate they might suffered for content recently as more labs are obliged to issue preprints, which frees them up ethically to publish in a well-known copyrighted journal with fewer up front fees. (But that's a guess as bad as these authors made...) If a group from Wikipedia got together and did a bang-up job on statistics like this, they'd be just about honor bound to publish. And certainly we could - Wikipedians can get together and count a lot more statistics, write software tools to do it, at the same time we can get together 50 editors to look at random articles and say how rancorous they are on a scale from 1 to 10 i.e. neutral subjective data. Think of all the math we could do if we collect parameters on everything from the number of editors blocked shortly after editing to the geographic distribution of the places listed in the articles and make data mountains and do principal component analysis.

And that's when we really stick it to them, because we ought to be able to get a paper published that credits Wikipedia usernames rather than giving full authorship data for every contributor. After all, lots of labs that are particularly stingy with credit will list undergraduates by their initials in an acknowledgment rather than giving them authorship; but in our case the objective isn't to stiff the contributors but to make it so that anyone, anywhere can be a Wikipedia contributor, work casually on a research project here, and get recognition in PLOS ONE. Once we do that - once we don't have to sign up, register, biograph and out every person listed on the paper, we make it far easier for people to make minor and spontaneous contributions to a peer-reviewed paper. (I don't neglect that some degree of high level scrutiny on our end is required so that some named person is claiming the work is all real and not fudged)

Think of all the research that people on Wikipedia have done informally - the tendency of articles to link indirectly to Philosophy, gender gap data, even the formula on my userpage that at one point related number of edits to editor rank (which I really ought to look back at to see if it's changed...). Zipf's Law ought to be good for a dozen papers on its own. We could literally make Wikipedia an academic institution with a decent publishing record. And what comes after that? Government grants, huge amounts of monies, eventually perhaps even enough that we could actually give compensation to every contributor.

So I think it would be a good thing if Wikipedia could get started on a more informative followup to this paper. Wnt (talk) 20:42, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

• It has long been a source of bewilderment to me that we allow climate change denialists to run riot on Wikipedia. Unfortunately Wikipedia is only following in the tracks of a (predominantly US) population which, faced with scientific facts it finds ideologically threatening, feels the need to snowstorm the media with competing "facts" which are in reality complete bollocks. Look at the popularity of Donald Trump, viewed here in the UK as a comical figure, a caricature of opinionated over-entitled redneck arrogance - and he's leading the race to the endorsement of the GOP, which has a majority in the legislature. A majority which has put a climate denialist in charge of environment policy. We have endless arguments over whether calling denialists out as denialists is legitimate, because it hurts them in the feels. Wikipedia used to be a very small-l liberal project, it has accumulated a very substantial large-C conservative cadre over time, and this is detrimental to our coverage of important subjects, including and especially those related to gender politics. Guy (Help!) 21:12, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

JzG, Trump may well appeal to rednecks, but he's not a redneck nor does he have redneck arrogance. (His arrogance comes from his wealth; rednecks don't have money.) Drmies (talk) 01:09, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

@JzG: I respectfully disagree, not because I think you are wrong about climate change, gender politics or anything else, but because I believe Wikipedia's impartiality to not be more or less compatible with either conservative or liberal viewpoints. Hopefully scientific fact ultimately takes precedence on topics such as global warming on Wikipedia, which is the general impression I get, meaning what a large number of people believe does not necessarily affect this. Fortunately, even governments do not get to decide what is written on Wikipedia. Rubbish computer 21:26, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I think everyone should be allowed to edit. That includes climate change "skeptics", anti-vaxxers, creationists, 9/11 truthers, homeopaths and everyone else. It gives a window to views that are held by large swaths of the general public. And countering their arguments helps keep us sharp. Granted this can waste huge amounts of time and cause lots of other problems (which are magnified by admins or arbcom members who are sympathetic to their causes). But there really is no other choice. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 22:27, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Do you think those who advocate physical violence against specific individuals should be allowed to edit? EllenCT (talk) 22:35, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:SOAPBOX, of course not! But I presume you mean against other editors? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:13, 17 August 2015 (UTC).

No, I meant, should people who insist on inserting advocacy of violence against living people be allowed to edit? Whether they are editors or not should not matter. EllenCT (talk) 01:43, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Where would you draw that line? "Cecil the Lion" advocates? "Occupy Wall Street" anarchist advocates? Is it a form violence to advocate food crops be turned into fuel as renewable energy? Are "Death Penalty Supporters" advocates of violence? Are "Pro Choice Supporters" advocates of violence? Deciding who is an advocate of violence is a minefield. I think it would be hard to find anyone that didn't advocate violence at least through the eyes of a third party. --DHeyward (talk) 16:50, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

It's not clear you read the words "specific individuals" and "living people". EllenCT (talk) 17:10, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I think I understood it. Maybe I missed something. For example, there are editors that expressed views that violence should befall the dentist that shot a lion. Others have expressed vies that the South Carolina Aurora shooter and the South Carolina church shooter should get the death penalty. Those views don't make it into the article and certainly discussion is cutoff on the talk page per SOAPBOX but it does occur. It would be very difficult to make objective value judgements about what type banter is "okay" and what is not. Advocacy in any form is bad, but it's consensus that decides what is advocacy. Violence isn't the criteria, it's advocacy - whether it's for or against violence is immaterial. We shouldn't tolerate pro-life or anti-death penalty advocates more than we tolerate pro-choice or pro-death penalty advocates simply based on the perception that one is more or less violent than the other. -DHeyward (talk) 18:02, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:NPOV is quite sufficient to deal with those who insert such material into the encyclopaedia. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:10, 20 August 2015 (UTC).

That is the difference between objective truth and religious Truth. Their Truth is objectively false. Wikipedia is not required to allow them to assert otherwise. As Professor Brian Cox said, "The problem with today’s world is that everyone believes they have the right to express their opinion AND have others listen to it. The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!" Climate change denial is bullshit, and advocacy of climate change denialism is antithetical tot he purpose of Wikipedia. Being respectful towards people does not require us to respect their opinions, especially when they are the result of motivated reasoning. Guy (Help!) 23:20, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, now I see more of your POV exposing itself here. Not just this comment but several other above also. I always felt that administrators should remain neutral and not have such an obvious bias like this. You are also appearing to be one of the more uncivil admins I have run across in a while. Just my opinion so feel free to roundly ignore it. Nyth63 18:43, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Except the problem is there is no such thing as "Climate change denial" in any meaningful sense except as an emotional response in the mind of activists. There are accepted facts, there is data and there are theories - there are no "denialists" or "warmists". There are many theories with very prominent scientists that simply can't all be true and that's just within IPCC. The fact that you want to label some views as denialism but others as mainstream (even though they all conflict) shows a gross lack of understanding of the science as well as motivated reasoning that has no place here. Go peddle demagoguery somewhere else. Go read about Grand Unification theories and see which of those scientists we should label "denialists" because of politics. *gasp* some scientists have different ideas about "dark matter" and "dark energy" so we must villify some of them. Please. --DHeyward (talk) 23:03, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Please don't be fatuous. There are some views on climate change which, while often couched in sciencey trappings, are so inconsistent with the totality of existing data that they require active denial of reality, rather than passive skepticism, to maintain. When a U.S. Senator brings a snowball into Congress in the belief that doing so "debunks" global warming, then there is clearly something pathological and deeply irrational at work. Anyhow, please forgive the digression; I guess I'm just fed up with listening to Wikipedians pontificate about how science works when they clearly don't have the first motherloving clue. MastCell ^Talk 04:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

That's why we call them "Senators" and not scientists. The same set of people with the same understanding of science also claimed that our children won't be able to enjoy snow anymore during a warm winter. Just as much nonsense but no need to label them with anything other than "politician using weather to get pet project approved." Senator NoSnow is "denying" science just as much as Senator Snowball but because one or the other backs a particular Wikipedians political solution is no reason for silly labels that are nothing more than politics couched in science. It's easy to spot: scientists that agree completely with IPCC but then make a statement that the issue doesn't make his top 50 list of problems facing his nation or mankind, he'd be facing the "denier" label. That's politics, not science. --DHeyward (talk) 21:21, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I actually think the topic might be interesting, but besides the other problems, there is an obvious issue with the statistics. They used a Geometric Mean (GM) to characterize right-skewed distributions, but GM +/- Standard Deviation, as used pervasively, makes no mathematical sense. See comment at Stoat for more explanation. JohnMashey (talk) 21:41, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

I noticed that as well. Like you, I think that this was a simple error: the deviations from the geometric means should be */÷ SD, rather than +/- SD. Yes, this suggests some very large edits, but it's at least plausible (they may represent large section or page blanking followed by reverts restoring huge amounts of text, for instance).

The bigger question is why the authors used statistics at all. The use of geometric means and—in particular—p values is completely superfluous given the actual data and hypothesis. Leaving aside the window dressing, the paper basically found that a set of three articles the authors selected as "controversial" (acid rain, evolution, global warming) were more heavily edited than a set of 4 articles that the authors selected as "uncontroversial". That point is made decisively by the raw edit counts of these articles. Tacking on a p value derived from non-parametric pairwise comparisons doesn't make this finding any stronger, except perhaps to people who are easily impressed by statistical language.

To address one other of the manuscript's glaring conceptual flaws: there appears to be no reason why these 7 articles were selected as representative, except that the authors felt like it. The findings are obviously highly sensitive to the articles selected; one could easily choose 7 other articles, label some "controversial" and others "non-controversial", run the same R scripts, and come up with exactly the opposite finding. MastCell ^Talk 08:13, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

I fear almost the entire article falls into the Captain Obvious category.

What would certainly be of more real interest would be (rather than the present instance of using a pre-selected subset of articles) to run a far wider study (similar to the major readability study) seeking to see what is in common between the most unreadable articles and most readable articles, and the amount of editing done on each <g>, or between the "solid science" articles and "science articles which have gotten political notoriety", or "pure medical articles" and "articles where monetary interests may have affected edits", or "candidate articles" v. "candidate articles where trivial events are included" and the like - a slew of possible studies (including possibly one based on "relative readership" and "number of substantive edits" where one would count contiguous edits by an editor as a single edit, and one would remove "non-utile edits" from any counts (I was called on the carpet for calling one such edit "possible vandalism" even though it was such, so mainly say "non-utile" for edits like "the person is a kitten murderer"), bot edits, spelling and trivial edits, etc. from the counts.) The problem at hand is that many editors could have made the same conclusions as this article made without doing a single thing <g>. Collect (talk) 14:15, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• The data is three years out of date, which is rather poor too. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:02, 17 August 2015 (UTC).
  

I concur with many of the criticisms of the paper already made. Ultimately, the best counter-weight to a less strong research paper is to publish better research, and one way of doing that is to continue to bring together scientists and Wikipedians. I've published myself on Wikipedia in a health context ( Motivations for Contributing to Health-Related Articles on Wikipedia: An Interview Study ) and am in the middle of analysing two studies with User:Johnbod. We'll be presenting at the inaugural Wikipedia Science Conference.

I note that PLoS ONE allows readers' comments, so one option is to respond there.

While the paper seems rather naive, I do note that in some background research before doing the JMIR paper, I found hotspots of editing in a random sample of health-related articles related to certain controversial conditions, like chronic fatigue syndrome. There are clearly issues for the community around controversy and editing of controversial articles in a science/health space. Bondegezou (talk) 14:30, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

• I was asked by another journal to peer review an earlier (and much longer) version of the paper in 2012 (obviously they ended-up not publishing it). Among many of the points made above, and others, a quick analysis of the articles chosen showed that editing volume was very strongly correlated with the level of page views, and with the number of reference sources dated within the dataset period (ie refs in Global warming were being frequently updated with more recent data, while those in Heliocentrism were not). There was also a relation with growth in the article size over the period chosen - this varied between x 3.5 and x 65. I concluded that while the paper had some use in demonstrating that these variables had impact on editing rates, the weaker relationship based on the subjective idea of (very US-centric) political controversy was not demonstrated. Anyone please let me know if more details are wanted. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Latest 90 day count has Acid rain with about 84K page views, and General relativity with 124K page views. One out of three of the "Controversial" articles did not have any especially high readership. In my experience, such an outlier tends to be a problem for any statistical claim that edits and page views have a strong correlation. What is far more likely for correlation is "number of major media articles on the topic ('minutes of coverage' for broadcast media, I suppose)" - if the media cover a topic a great deal, it is likely that Wikipedia editors will make edits reflecting such coverage. Wanna bet this gets a much higher statistical correlation? Collect (talk) 15:02, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Going on the latest 90 day count back in 2012 the articles neatly lined up in the same order 1-7 for the paper's editing figures & the page views: I said then "A crude index of the relationship between edit/view figures shows values between 1.40 and 2.16, with the political group averaging 1.72 and non-political 1.86, and an overall average of 1.80". The "recency of refs" would also have produced the same 1-7 order if the data period had ended a bit earlier - it was thrown by a recent spate of updating for Higgs boson. My main point was that their figures did not show what they suggested; what they might actually show was of less interest, given the inadequate sample size etc. Johnbod (talk) 17:18, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

It are actually the articles that are not edited frequently that are potentially more prone to contain errors. I think Jimbo commented on that some time ago here. Count Iblis (talk) 04:02, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Gizmodo piece

Gizmodo have released a piece related to the PLOS ONE piece, entitled Anti-Science trolls are starting edit wars on Wikipedia. I assumed this would be relevant, although the way these established facts are being dragged out across different media looks to me like filler. --Rubbish computer 21:47, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

How is this any different from homeopathy trolling ten years ago? EllenCT (talk) 21:54, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Dear Gizmodo; I am shocked -- shocked I tell you -- to find out that Wikipedia articles that attract more readers also tend to have more edits. For bringing this unexpected result to our attention, I hereby award you the Captain Obvious award, and look forward to hard-hitting followup articles explaining that water is wet and politicians don't always keep their promises. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:20, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Speaking of homeopathy, is water still wet if you dilute it with lots of water? Arthur goes shopping (talk) 16:55, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but it's a special sort of wet that can cure pretty much everything. Black Kite (talk) 18:13, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Fire brigades make water wetter by adding surfactants. Shocking isn't it? Nyth63 20:50, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

That would be shocking, if it were true. Which, of course, it isn't. Surfactants don't make water "wetter". Instead, they enable water to penetrate or cling to hydrophobic surfaces more readily. That's why fire services use them to increase the efficiency of water as a fire suppressant. MastCell ^Talk 05:09, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

It seems that professional fire fighters use the "making water wetter" terminology in articles in publications like International Fire Protection Magazine. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:38, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Those of us who are among the motorhead (not necessarily Motörhead) persuasion sometimes use similar language. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Talking about making water wetter still seems a bit wet, I think. Rubbish computer 14:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article on Wetting and it is not proper to say "water is as wet as it can get" as it is also clear that the issue of such factors as polarity of molecules, surface tension, temperature, pressure etc. which are all relevant. So yes - surfactants are one means of making water "wetter". Wiser is to understand that the "wetness" of water depends on what the water is in contact with - which is how most people use it, including scientists. Collect (talk) 14:17, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

You beat me to it. I was going to reference that article. If you read the article, it has several different measurement methods for defining wetness. The use a surfactant increases this value in most, if not all, cases. So yes, the mixture of the water and the surfactant would be wetter than the water by itself. It takes very little surfactant to achieve this result, that for practical purposes, it is still considered to be water and not a mixture. Nyth63 15:21, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Comment What is the point of discussing the paper here? It might be interesting or not. prokaryotes (talk) 21:49, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

We are not really discussing it, but rather seem to analyzing a joke about it. It appears that some people have little to no sense of humor. BTW, could someone define what a British sense of humour is? From watching shows like BBC's Top Gear or movies like The Holy Grail, it seems to involve a fair amount of sarcasm and absurdity but can't quite put my finger on it. Nyth63 23:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Well...cross dressing seems to be a staple of Britsh humor.....if that helps. See The Rocky Horror Show and Dame Edna for clarification.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I think its hilarious considering the amount of scientists (or their representatives) that I have recently seen trying to push their own agendas across a large swath of politically controversial articles. Just exactly who are the trolls in these cases hmmmmm?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Template:Age

Template:Age maintains up-to-date ages.

• The wikicode {{xt|{{age|1989|7|23}}}} returns "34".
• The wikicode {{xt|is a {{age|1989|7|23}}-year-old person}} returns "is a 34-year-old person".
• The wikicode {{xt|is {{age|1989|7|23}} years old}} returns "is 34 years old".

—Wavelength (talk) 01:41, 18 August 2015 (UTC) and 01:46, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your point is, but if you are 26 years old today, happy birthday! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:13, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

My point is to publicize this template to Jimbo Wales and to editors who watch this page.

—Wavelength (talk) 02:15, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be great if the syntax of such things wasn't so awful? What if instead, we could write $subject.age and have that render as '26'. If someone wrote $subject.age into a page, and no age was known by the system, a box would pop up asking to enter the date of birth. This would then populate the infobox, which would itself not be wikitext but would instead be populated from (and to) wikidata or similar. A lot was made possible by a paradigm of raw wikitext plus templates. But imagine a different paradigm.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:30, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I can imagine it. Unfortunately, I can't imagine it being developed by the people responsible for the present system. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:48, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

There are a number of Wikipedia editors like me with years of experience managing software projects who would be glad to volunteer our time to improve the Wikimedia software. Alas, every time I have made any suggestion in that area the response has been a wall of silence from the WMF.[10] (Related:[11][12])

As an example of a totally noncontroversial and easy-to-implement suggestion that has been ignored multiple times, in the HTML that Wikipedia sends to the browser, every line sent to the browser has a DOS-style carriage return and line feed (Hex OD OA) as a line ending. If we used a Unix-style line feed (Hex 0A), that would save one byte on every single line of HTML on Wikipedia (actually HTML works just fine with both the carriage return and the line feed removed, but let's just discuss (OD OA) vs (OA) for now). We could ease into this by making the line ending configurable in the preferences with the default (OD OA) and make (OA) a user-selectable option, then after we are sure there are no bad effects, change the default for new users. This would be easy to do, would benefit our readers, and would reduce our operating costs by a small amount. So why am I unable to get anyone at the WMF to discuss the merits of doing this? Not even a "no". Just silence and stonewalling. -Guy Macon (talk) 13:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Right there's your problem. You are mixing up you capital o: O with zero: 0. The hex should be (0D 0A) rather than (OD OA). See, I just saved you from years of headaches! Nyth63 23:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Instead of trying to get a discussion of the merits, which seem clearly positive but rather slim, why don't you open a PHP RFC https://wiki.php.net/rfc on modifing PHP so that everyone, not just Mediawiki sites, benefits? EllenCT (talk) 15:39, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

First, PHP already supports either kind of line termination:

\r = %0D (carriage return)

\n = %0A (line feed)

\r\n = %0D%0A (carriage return then line feed

Second, I have over a dozen software issues that are waiting for a WMF response that will never come. I just picked the one that was easiest to understand and least controversial for my example. Most of the others will require a deep technical discussion to explore whether they are worth doing. And that is the real issue. The WMF sets up these pages where we can supposedly make suggestions and then nobody at the WMF reads them. For example. look at this diff:[13] Now look at the page history and show me any evidence that anyone on the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees reads the Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard. Or evidence that anyone in WMF engineering reads any page that is set up so that Wikipedia editors can communicate with them. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Have you tried posting to wikitech-l, pinging the pertinent code review staff on Freenode's #mediawiki and #wikimedia-dev IRC channels, and Tweeting or posting to the Facebook pages of whoever is in charge of allocating Engineering's code review resources? EllenCT (talk) 17:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

How is it remotely appropriate that anyone should have to use multiple channels of communication in order to attract the attention of developers? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:36, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Should have or has? EllenCT (talk) 19:57, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, someone please hire a support help desk of 20 people, so that people stop having to do that. And then please approve the budget for that at the same time. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:36, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Just in case you're serious WMF could easily afford to do what you say. As of its last financial statement WMF had about $89M in net assets, equal to roughly two years of expenses.

I suspect that part of the problem is that stuff like bug fixing and simple tweaking is unglamorous work compared to developing new features. That's not a knock on WMF; it's that way in the commercial software world as well. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:33, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Twitter? Facebook? IRC? Why not suggest that I try USENET or Gopher? If I ever decide to use social media to try to fix the problem of the WMF stonewalling me, I will raise a stink on Slashdot, Wikipediocracy, and Reddit. Or we could -- you know -- fix the problem. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:16, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

You are so upset about having been ignored by developers, that you have decided to boycott the channels which the developers actually use to allocate their attention, and turn to commentary fora less frequented by developers? What could possibly go wrong? Answer me or suffer the consequences of a sternly worded Quora query and a snide remark on Ars Technica and the Ladies Home Journal letters column. EllenCT (talk) 19:57, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I am hoping for a sarcastic headline on Drudge. :) (And I am not "upset", My actual emotional state when discussing this is bemused detachment and cynicism.)

Actually, it isn't just the developers. That's just the example I chose. I could have just as easily picked as an example the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees stonewalling reasonable questions posted on their noticeboard.[14][15] Any solution you suggest has to work for the WMF developers ignoring community questions, the WMF board ignoring community questions, the WMF accounting department ignoring community questions, etc. It's a WMF-wide problem, not a WMF-delevopers problem.

As for the developers not responding to anything posted anywhere on Wikipedia or meta, before I start attempting to engage them on Twitter or Facebook, I need some actual evidence that those are, in your words "the channels which the developers actually use to allocate their attention". I would also note that every time I have seen anyone attempt to start a conversation about something like this in a forum dedicated to reporting bugs, it gets instantly deleted (and rightly so).

Finally, the very fact that in this very conversation I am, as usual, conversing with a Wikipedia editor who is a self-appointed WMF apologist while, as usual. The WMF remains silent is pretty strong evidence that the WMF does indeed stonewall reasonable questions from the Wikipedia community. Again I refer you to the questions I asked at Wikimedia Foundation Board noticeboard#Accountability to the community. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:03, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• I can empathize with the problem of trying to get IT changes through the WMF. I spoke to some of the WMF people in Mexico and they were quite candid tat one of the problems was in evaluating and prioritising a thousand different possible enhancements for mediawiki, so I took the liberty of making a proposal in the Idea lab for Community prioritised IT developments, might that solve the problem? ϢereSpielChequers 20:42, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. diff for Guy. EllenCT (talk) 21:45, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Terms of Use

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Terms_of_Use is a discussion centering on the amount of detail a person who may have a COI is obliged to post. The "terms of use" states "employer, client and affiliation" but all the material from WMF (including its FAQ) basically treats that catenation as s single entry - that is one should disclose the relevant single datum, not every single datum pertaining to the editor.

In the case at hand, the person works on behalf of clients of a one-person agency - and identifying a one person agency basically identifies the single person. The WMF FAQ states it is sufficient to name the company on whose behalf the person is editing, but some in this discussion suggest that it is essential to identify even a single specific person if they are in any way connected (i.e. the company is already named, but is the name of the person who is the agent required? and are "affiliations" (which seems vague here) "required"? .

My opinion, and it is opinion, is that seeking specific individual names is intrinsically a violation of WP:OUTING and as such can not be required, and, per the WMF FAQ and the WP guidelines, is not "required." Other opinions are welcome, but if we allow outing of any individual, we shall have allowed outing of all individuals. We can not be "partly protective of rights." Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I disagree very strongly. "Outing" is obviously not the right terminology to use here, and our policy on "outing" should be seriously reconsidered and adapted in light of the many problems that it causes. If you are a paid advocate, you must disclose that fact and in order to earn the trust of the community you must disclose whatever information is necessary for the community to be able to understand and monitor your activities on the site. Anything less risks trouble.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:14, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Collect: I agree: even if a person is, say, a paid advocate editor who continuously pushes a POV to the point that they are eventually blocked after sufficient warnings, outing is not necessary, or acceptable. Rubbish computer 14:09, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Unpaid editors who obsessively push POV edits are in that boat too - in fact most of the editors who abuse Wikipedia deny any COI whatsoever. The prime problem with many of the paid editors has been a tendency to include totally worthless trivia in articles, like a full list of every model number of their patented gizmo. The other issue has been with regard to editors who fail to understand the difference between opinion and simple fact - "X Corp's Gizmo(TM) is the world's most advanced" is the type of edit which is a sore thumb. Collect (talk) 14:23, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

@Collect: I see what you mean about unpaid POV-pushing editors. I have seen content like that last point many times, which is something I like fixing: it is very annoying and often stays on articles for many months. Rubbish computer 15:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't mean the identity, or suspected identity, of editors shouldn't be shared among Oversight or involved Administrators, I think nobody should have it made public, so everyone knows. --Rubbish computer 00:41, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

This has been finally decided [16] after CorporateM took the dispute to the WMF, after taking it to ANI, and various talkpages. The terms of use stand as written. If businesses want to do business on Wikipedia, the editor they pay has to disclose who they are. This makes perfect sense to me as an American - businesses anywhere in the US have to disclose who they are when asked, though like the ToU the requirements aren't drastic, usually only being in "fictional name" laws (aka "doing business as" laws). Isn't this the same everywhere? Is there a place in the world where you can legally do business without disclosing who you are? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:16, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Regarding my case specifically, please accept my apologies for any and all conduct violations. I have just volunteered for a topic ban, provided additional disclosure, discontinued my financial relationship and walked away.[17] CorporateM (Talk) 21:54, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Once again: harassment

After a handful of cases about sexual harassment, ARBCOM is considering a case regarding racial harassment now. After Lightbreather's case the committee encouraged editors to address the issues and Wikipedia_talk:Harassment#Sexual_harassment_policy shows how much good came of that. How many good editors will be driven off this project because of the obstructionism by those squawking that "all harassment is equal"? EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 18:40, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Once again, good editors are rarely driven out of this project by sexual or racial harassment. It's largely all in your head. People typically leave wikipedia because of a hostile community and conflict over articles. Sex or race rarely comes into it on wikipedia in a place where few of us really know if the other person is black or white or a woman or a man. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:09, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we actually know why "good editors" leave, so I wish people would stop generalizing about it. I personally know at least one African-American individual who chose not to even start editing Wikipedia after taking a look at the not-so-thinly-veiled racism that was rampant at Talk:Shooting of Trayvon Martin. I'm not talking about commentary from drive-by trolls; I'm talking about the discussion from established Wikipedians. At the same time, I know plenty of people of all genders and races who stopped editing Wikipedia for reasons that had nothing to do with those characteristics, and had more to do with the issues that Dr. Blofeld mentions. I won't pretend to have a generalizable answer as to why good editors leave, but let's not pretend that you have one either. MastCell ^Talk 20:05, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi MastCell, yes I used to look into the Martin article from time to time and was ever so happy to see that you seemed to have it on your watch list, at least for a time. I hope that if you get a chance, tell your African-American friend that it is not typical of WP's treatment of African-Americans. I watch over a lot of articles related to African-Americans, including most of the string of police shooting that we have seen of late, and I find them to be just the opposite of what was seen at the Martin article. Do you want to take a guess at what I have found to be the article that is most frequently called inaccurate by racists? Gandydancer (talk) 23:29, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah everybody has their reasons, I'm just speaking of all the people I know who've left and the reasons for it and generally it's because of pressure from others over an article/personal attacks, or a trigger happy admin. I guess bullying and psychological warfare at times is partly one of the reasons, but I've really not seen somebody being racially or sexually abused on here. We're very serious about things like that and tend to block people over even the slightest suggestive remarks anyway.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:27, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

"Considering a case regarding racial harassment" is misleading, to say the least. Two editors on opposing sides in Israel/Palestine lost their temper and started taking cracks at each other which escalated into name-calling, one of them used the phrase "sonny boy" (which is undoubtedly belittling but has no racial connotations at all anywhere other than some parts of the US), the other party took it as a racial insult and replied with another on "how do you like it?" grounds. The issues Arbcom are considering there relate to under what circumstances, if any, it's unreasonable to expect editors to keep their cool in the face of perceived insults, and some technical matters on when and if it's acceptable for an admin to use deletion powers to delete their own comments, and under what circumstances automatic desysopping prior to giving the admin in question a chance to reply is appropriate. They're all genuine, legitimate concerns but to dress it us as a case of "Wikipedia racism" is highly misleading. ‑ iridescent 19:25, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

... but par for the course for a very small subset of contributors who are intent on turning this place into something rather different from an encyclopaedia. - Sitush (talk) 21:37, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• Iridescent, it's not just "some parts of the US"--it's the US, as a whole, where "boy" is just about the worst thing you can say to an adult black man. I have no doubt that the editor used it purposely to get the highest possible rise out of his opponent (who identifies, as anyone who looks at his user page knows, as a black American adult man) and he clearly succeeded. No, this was not a small matter. Sorry to disagree with you, but this was a racist sneer, of the worst kind. After twenty years in Alabama, I think I know a couple of things about it. Drmies (talk) 02:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

@Drmies, just for the record, "sonny boy" as originally coined 50 years, 75 years, 100? ago, had ZERO racial connotations, period. I do agree that the use of "boy" directed at an Africam-American adult is one of the worst things, after the n word, that can be said and does have a long history.That said, I have NO idea how it was used in this case, and if it was meant as an attack is unacceptable. Thank you, --Malerooster (talk) 16:07, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Drmies got here first, but I'll reinforce this: the word "boy" to an American black man distills centuries of every kind of abuse, subjugation, disrespect and contempt down to a single three-letter word. It's powerful and hurtful. Perhaps it takes some time living in the deep South to understand (seven years in Georgia for me), but it's absolutely the most disrespectful single thing you can say to a black man. Acroterion (talk) 02:26, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

The discussion wasn't a total loss. The harassment policy now states "Harassment against an editor on the basis of a real or alleged race, gender, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity is not allowed." This isn't as much as I would have liked, but it is a silver lining. CorporateM (Talk) 22:02, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I think "alleged" is a very unfortunate choice of words. Why on earth use “alleged” rather than “supposed”, “conjectural”, “imagined”, “assumed” or something else? An allegation always involves something undesirable. MarkBernstein (talk) 22:20, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

 Done Good point. I put "real or assumed" Feel free to copyedit further. CorporateM (Talk) 22:44, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Maybe, and this is just a maybe, adding something to the effect of social, philosophical and/or political might be reasonable. I'm thinking of, for instance, possible discrimination against people on the basis of being, for instance, acknowledged users of alcohol or maybe marijuana, or maybe supporters of fetal stem cell research or any number of other things. So far as I can see, such aren't necessarily covered in the existing phrasing, and, in at least some areas among some editors, such positions could be just as much a cause for abuse. Having said that, I have no clue how to change the phrasing in a reasonable way. John Carter (talk) 23:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

My view is that, since genetic studies have basically proven that you cannot tell someones race by their genes, that there really is no such thing as race, only differing surface characteristics. What has been tradionally label as Race then becomes a social grouping or construct. I view it as not unlike the difference between a white rose and a red rose. I wonder what would happen if we start discussions about race by always stating that premise at the beginning. Labels like African American have always struck me as inadvertently elevating the stigma of racism to the front of any discussion, especially in light of the genetic findings that a majority of people labeled as African American average less than of 78% (or 73% by some sources) African descent. There is a good essay about this by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who himself is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Nyth63 23:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I like @John Carter:'s point. Something broad like "personal characteristics or beliefs" might do the trick. CorporateM (Talk) 01:46, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

The relevant part of WP:Harass now reads:

"Harassment of an editor on the basis of race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age or disability is not allowed."

The most important part of that is that it certainly reflected the consensus of the discussion there and nobody has contested the basic idea. In other words - it is policy now. It is not what everybody in the discussion wanted in a sexual harassment policy. I'd say the majority wanted something stronger. But please do not give up hope. A little tenacity goes a long way. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I hope this does not imply that harassment for others reasons like funny colour dyed hair or ugly tattoos is still allowed. Since it is not possible to make a comprehensive list, would it not be better to say Harassment of an editor for any reason is not allowed. as implied in the subsequent paragraph on that policy page? Nyth63 01:34, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the next paraggraph says IMHO exactly what you want, "The prohibition against harassment applies equally to all Wikipedians." The difference made by the addition is that people wanted to emphasize that identity-based harassment was included. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:01, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I said that. see the subsequent paragraph on that policy page part of my comment. This is rather like in Wisconsin that passed a law against texting while driving when there was already a law against any type of distracted driving (presumably like eating, reading, putting on makeup, or shaving?) that would have covered it. Nyth63 10:53, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes and all lives matter blah blah blah. Don't you have something better to do with your time? --JBL (talk) 20:40, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Better than nothing. Glad something came of it (this is @CorporateM: too). EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 01:38, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Based on my own experiences, including recently, I've found that sources written by women authors/journalists are more likely to get reverted than ones written by men. Cla68 (talk) 01:40, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

A lot of the bias is in the sources too. The press (largely men) tend to focus more on a female executive/politician/etc.'s appearances and fashion choices than they do for men. Although I am usually a stickler for following sources to the letter, I think can agree this is not encyclopedic information. CorporateM (Talk) 01:44, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Please note that I don't believe the issues of sexual discrimination and harassment is now complete. I'd think that the best place for a "no sexual discrimination policy" that applies to users (not just to WMF employees) is at WP:Non discrimination policy, although the main form of sexual discrimination possible on Wikipedia is likely harassment. I would also suggest that somebody who has actually experienced sexual harassment, first write a proposed addition to the harassment policy on how to identify sexual harassment, then do an RfC on it. We did it backwards last time, first everybody !voted for a change and then the wording was argued about. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:16, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

The fact that there is no way to confidentially report sexual harassment says a lot about the values of this organization. Currently, editors are urged to report to a largely anonymous group at Arbcom, which is all male except for one person, does not take phone calls, has had leaked e-mails in the past, and is not necessarily sympathetic to people who prefer a non-hostile working environment. Creating a confidential reporting channel for sexual harassment, which includes the option of speaking on the telephone with someone of your own gender, and where the person responding has signed a binding non-disclosure agreement with regards to confidential and personal information, would be a step forward. --Djembayz (talk) 14:25, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Orlowski is at it again

In the Register, he writes that "Wikimedia UK, the national charity supporting Wikipedia and its sister projects, has told the MP and former Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps he can't see internal emails he has requested under the Freedom of Information Act ... because it's deleted them." [18] This of course relates to the snafu involving Chase me ladies i'm the cavalry blocking Contribsx earlier this year. Another issues is that Chase me (real name Richard Symonds) still works for Wikimedia UK. Everymorning (talk) 14:12, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

IIRC he volunteers for WMUK rather than being employed by them. _Fortuna ^{Imperatrix Mundi} 09:50, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

I see several problems here personally. First, if they still work for WMUK that should end. Based on what they did and the outcome that seems appropriate. Second Deleting something, even if its oversighted, doesn't mean its gone. Its just hidden from public view so if that were the case they should be able to get them from the WMF Main office who, I assume, would give them an appropriate response (yes or no) with some sort of justification. Also, as far as I know, the Freedom of Information Act only applies to government agencies and their representatives (congress, the white house, DoD, etc.) and some countries don't recognize it, so that argument the Register is using doesn't really hold up either. Also, although there is some connection, each of the "Wikimedia's" are separate from the WMF for just this sort of reason. So if something hits the fan, the WMF can deny any knowledge and cut ties. RingofSauron (talk) 16:32, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I imagine the Freedom of Information Act 2000 is what's being referred to, which has nothing to do with agencies in the USA. Also, Wikipedia oversight is not a tool that can be used on private emails. Finally, I am not sure what distinction you are making between "WMF Main office" and "the WMF", if any. The Wikimedia Foundation does not run Wikimedia UK's email service. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 16:55, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Since Wikimedia UK is not a public authority, I would have thought the Data Protection Act 1998 would be slightly more relevant. --Boson (talk) 23:24, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

That's true, but appears to be a detail that the journalist discussed here is unaware of. Arthur goes shopping (talk) 09:44, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

The article claims that The law firm engaged by the charity, Stone King, told Shapps that "the email had been deleted in the normal course of business, before the date of your Subject Access Request, and is therefore no longer held by the charity". That's a direct quote, so unlikely to have been faked; if true, its rather odd, as not much time has gone by. Are emails really deleted from the server so quickly, with no backup? That doesn't sound like normal policy; that sound more like deliberately deleting them quickly because you know full well you don't want to have to reveal them. El Rego continue We've asked WMUK whether it has an email retention policy, and if so what it might be, which seems like a reasonable question. Anyone know what it is? Its not https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Data_retention_guidelines William M. Connolley (talk) 19:37, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

User page edit war

This edit added content that has been removed and added several times, but I can not figure out what the source is or if it should even be in there. I does not appear to be either an original or recent line from Jimmy. Does his user page need to be semi-protected again? Nyth63 13:51, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

@Nyth83: You should probably discuss this with the users involved first. One IP editor added something in good faith, they were reverted and somebody else then reverted them. This edit should be discussed but unless there is persistent disruptive editing by unregistered or new users, semi-protection is not necessary. The only other thing I can think of is asking Jimbo Wales if he approves of this edit. Rubbish computer 14:29, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

It seems fine to me. Am I missing something about it?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:59, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

is Gawker a good source for sensational claims?

[19] is at issue - the original published source per actual sources is Gawker, and they all hedge this by using the term "rumour" etc. Will anyone weigh in on either side? I also fear we may set a precedent from using allegations based on unconfirmed data from a hacked source. As always, I find "celebrity gossip" sources to be about as vile and unreliable as any on this planet, but your mileage may vary. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)