User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

May I ask

to put this graphic on your user page? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:48, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I'll just note that I put the graphic on Jimbo's user page about an hour ago. It was reverted and I explained to the reverter and put it back in. In any case I won't start an edit war about this. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:39, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

I like it, please add it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:48, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I just sent another email to you, saying, among other things - Thank you. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:06, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Could this also be added on Image description? Paid_contributions_amendment, we might be able to get more people to give comment.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 22:41, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

It would be good to tie it to a specific campaign.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:04, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Done, is it good? if someone didn't agree with this they may revert it. Thanks Jimmy.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 23:58, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Meh, too easy. Carrite (talk) 03:45, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

May I update the image to an svg version with better clarity and a little better graphics?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:25, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Same design, better clarity - why not? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:40, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I'll use the original SVG handshake (I was tempted to use the Editor retention hands but that changes the look too much) and copy the rest for a little better clarity and improve the graphics a bit but stay within the spirit of the original.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:04, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. When this graphic was mentioned months ago I put it on my user page too, and the new one looks much cleaner. Well done :-) --Atlasowa (talk) 14:44, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Original Barnstar
	You are awesome! Yoadi (talk) 12:30, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello!

I must say, it is quite an honour to be messaging you, sir. :) --What the Heck am I doing here? 05:50, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

What if you pay yourself?

Jimbo, is it paid advocacy editing if you're advocating for yourself? For example, this recent edit wasn't paid for by anyone, but presumably it could promote a greater income for the editor who made the edit. Do you consider that particular edit to be a promotional one? Do you presume that the editor is self-interested (considering the User name)? Is he placing his own goals before the goals of the Wikipedia project? Is it "advocacy" editing? We would like your judgments on this matter, because (as Carrite's recent comments show) there is still a lack of clarity on what exactly constitutes "paid advocacy editing". - Checking the checkers (talk) 13:00, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

We've had rules about this forever, see WP:COISELF.

Now, I've got some questions for you. Are you editing for your own self interest? Are you a paid editor or are you editing as an entrepreneur (as your example might be described)? Are you a sock of the banned editor Mr. 2001? Why do you bother people who are simply not interested in your opinions?

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:59, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I prefer at the present time to define "paid advocacy editing" pretty narrowly to avoid wasted time talking about borderline cases - a classic rhetorical tactic of those who oppose reasonable measures to deal with the worst abuses. Having said that, I think best practice clearly frowns on edits of that type, and that if Mr. Kessler really did make that edit, it was inadvisable at best. (Note well though, the possibility of a Joe job).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:54, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Addendum - I have removed a typical insulting and uninformative comment from Mr. 2001/Checking the checkers because it was nothing more than insult and ranting. I did not say, and have no opinion without looking into it - which I have not - this particular case is a Joe job. I do think that in every specific case where an individual real human being is being singled out for criticism, we have to look into all possibilities as a matter of thoroughness, dignity, and honor. If Mr. 2001 were to take the same approach, he'd likely not be so ineffective at every single thing he tries to do.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:45, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

"So ineffective at every single thing he tries to do"? Even in the 'one lasting marriage' category? - Just sayin', that's all (talk) 02:22, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

As I just mentioned, and I can understand why it was swept out along with the other comment, I think that Mr. CTC/2001/2006 serves a valuable function by keeping the paid editing discussion alive. I'm totally burned out on the subject and have long lost interest, but I'm glad he's still interested and is willing to keep the issue alive. Coretheapple (talk) 20:54, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

I think the reason Checking the checkers isn't being identified by name is because that would be a violation of the WP:OUTING policy. I have a question of my own about "paid editing" vs. "paid advocacy editing". It seems to me that if the new Terms of Use are put into place, then "you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution to any Wikimedia Projects for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation." I wonder if Jimbo believes that for paid editors (note, not paid advocacy editors) a nice mutually beneficial ground would be for them to charge customers for writing high quality NPOV articles about their companies, with sources and verifiability, but for them to work with well known and respected wikipedians who are NOT being financially compensated to actually enter the articles into Wikipedia upon their own independent judgment? Back in 2006, a long-time Wikipedian once said of MyWikiBiz: "Since MyWikiBiz is open about the fact that he's being paid, we can have reasonable NPOV and AfD discussions and not have to guess about his intentions. ...He has been nothing but civil, so far." It sounds like self-disclosure of paid edits was actually Gregory Kohs' idea, and that Jimmy Wales (in October 2006) stomped on that idea. Now, in 2014, Jimbo is in favor of the idea of full disclosure again. I'm confused! - 70.89.23.178 (talk) 20:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Me too. I don't understand the desperation. You've been winning. Why not just let the status quo continue? Continually unfurling the banner of a paid editing shop isn't going to do you much good. Coretheapple (talk) 21:32, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation versus the community

hi Jimmy: in this essay, a community liaison states that the Wikimedia Foundation outranks the community. regardless of your relevance to Wikipedia, some give your opinion enough weight that i am compelled to ask whether you agree with the Foundation employee who wrote the essay: does the Wikimedia Foundation "outrank" the community? Mister 2001 (talk) 23:47, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Correction - the essay was begun by a WMF liason. it was not "written" by that employee. As with all articles on Wikipedia (including essays which are opinion and not fact) it was written by a number of editors as seen in the history. As far as the opinion of others, it may go one way or another, but yes....the Wikimedia Foundation is the sole owner of the site. The site and the domain names are owned by the foundation but your contributions still belong to you. Per WP:OFAQ#WHO:

Who owns Wikipedia?

Who owns the Web site? Wikipedia's tech framework is supported by a non-profit parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation, which also supports Wikipedia's sister projects, including Wiktionary (a wiki dictionary), Wikibooks (textbooks), and others, and owns all of their domain names. Previously, the site was hosted on the servers of Bomis, Inc., a company mostly owned by Jimmy Wales. With the announcement of the Wikimedia Foundation on June 20, 2003, the ownership of all domain names was transferred to the Foundation. The site is run by the community of Wikipedians guided by the principles articulated by Jimmy Wales, including, for example, an adherence to a neutral point of view.

Who owns the encyclopedia articles? The articles hosted on this site have been edited by many people, each of whom has (by editing the article) agreed to release their contributions under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. As such, the articles are free content and may be reproduced freely under this license. See Wikipedia:Copyrights and Wikipedia:Readers' FAQ for information on how you can use Wikipedia content.

By law, the contributions are still owned by the people who donated them. These people are not bound by the license and can use their property in the way they like. However, media with multiple authors require permission from every contributor to use them differently from the terms of the Wikipedia license.

--Mark Miller (talk) 00:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Without approving or disapproving of the details of the essay, I think the basic principle is both sound and necessary. There is way too much snark in the essay, though. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 00:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Mister 2001's contributions history does not inspire confidence that he is looking to have a serious discussion here. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:40, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree but felt compelled to comment in as serious a manner as possible.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:48, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

There is so much fear on the paid-editing gravy train that it's palpable. Imagine if finally the WMF did what it should have done a long time ago and simply banned paid advocacy editing. Here we have a common sense essay pointing out the obvious, which is that Wikipedia has an owner, and here we have a capitalist who makes his living in a parasitic business, saying that this is wrong and that a socialist communal imperative should prevail, Coretheapple (talk) 01:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Uhm...what?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:27, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm just noting that a certain well-known paid editor is going to great lengths to attack the TOU change, and I don't understand the panic. Coretheapple (talk) 02:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not the "paid editor" to which you referred, but I am gravely concerned by the proposal for a change to the terms of use that describes edits as "deception" and allows anyone to make such accusations against any editor at any time. It is impossible for editors to prove they are *not* receiving some form of benefit. The examples of "benefit" (which the WMF has tried to obfuscate now that some people have noticed the expansiveness of the proposal) includes things like receiving a t-shirt or a meal (any "money, goods or services"). Unfortunately, there's a great deal of handwaving about paid editing, but very little evidence that there's any greater bias in edits that are paid for than edits that are not. A large number of the articles created in the latest paid editing "scandal" are still present, and many that were deleted still easily met our notability standards. There is not a good faith editor who hasn't received some sort of benefit or reward from their work on Wikipedia. Nobody has yet demonstrated that people who are paid do any worse at editing Wikipedia than people who aren't paid. Meanwhile, there's lots of evidence that people who want to push a point of view will not hesitate to accuse editors of being paid or otherwise having a serious conflict of interest (q.v., the Arbcom archives). The proposal is one more tool in the arsenal for people who are motivated to go after their opponents, and does absolutely nothing at all to improve the project. Risker (talk) 14:55, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

"There is not a good faith editor who hasn't received some sort of benefit or reward from their work on Wikipedia." Such as? I trust you mean something other than "It's nice to improve the article on XYZ" or "It's challenging to fight vandals" etc. Coretheapple (talk) 15:03, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Those intrinsic rewards are, I assume, what keeps you coming back. There's also community respect, as demonstrated by the granting of advanced permissions or other roles with special responsibilities, or the awarding of successful completion of audited content (FA, GA, FL, etc). That warm fuzzy feeling is a major motivator. On top of that is the very significant number of Wikimedians who have obtained paid employment or other benefits (grants, scholarships, etc) at least in part because of their participation in WMF projects; this goes all the way up to the WMF executive offices, and there are plenty of people who will at least privately acknowledge that working for the WMF is an objective. There are all the GLAM interns, for whom a sound knowledge of WMF projects is a job requirement. There are all the people who have received scholarships, those who attended Wikimedia-focused meetings (all of which are subsidized), all of the people who've included their volunteer activities on Wikipedia on their CV (the office will tell you, if you ask, that they regularly verify that User xxx completed xxx hours of volunteer activity, as well). You've received a benefit from editing, even if it's just the satisfaction that you've shared knowledge. We are all paid editors, because we all receive some kind of benefit or reward for being here. In fact, of all the studies that have been done, the one thing that's pretty much come through is that people don't stay if they do not receive some kind of recognition or reward. There's no difference between a line on your CV and a paycheck, and people who pretend otherwise are kidding themselves. In reality, the line on the CV is more valuable. For that matter, you're posting on the talk page of the user who has had the largest financial benefit from Wikipedia. I don't begrudge Jimmy a penny of it, because he reached into his own wallet back in the days when there was no such thing as fundraising, and kept this project alive in its infancy. But make no mistake, he's received well-earned rewards, both monetarily and in personal reputation, from his work here. Risker (talk) 15:46, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

That's a massive drop of context. The problem is not "oh no someone might make money". The problem is "oh no client will expect advocacy for their money and there is always going to be an appearance of impropriety when someone is editing on behalf of a client - particularly when undisclosed". Let me make this point another way: Bill Clinton got very famous from being President and since that time has made a ton of money giving speeches. Whether you like him or not, whether you like that or not, it has to be agreed that it would be very different if a sitting President were secretly taking money from the oil industry to decide which laws to veto - and that's true even if the secret contract were to specify "This funding only compensates the President for the act of deciding, no matter which way he decides". We'd all very rightly regard that as a silly fig leaf to cover outright corruption.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:48, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, there's actually quite a big difference between you and Bill Clinton. For one thing, Clinton didn't begin his speaking tours until after he'd left office; you're still on the board and wearing the founder hat even as you write your response. In other words, you're still in an extremely powerful position, one that has the opportunity to put pressure on the WMF staff and your board colleagues for a WMF-wide policy when English Wikipedia hasn't buckled and implemented the policy you've been personally advocating for at least 7 years. I'm still trying to work out what happened between when WMF staff had WikiPR pointed out to them and the months-later media reports. Risker (talk) 01:11, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

And well he should. He gets a lot of static from certain quarters for his speaker fees, his this and his that. Piffle. He created this and it's successful so why shouldn't he benefit? But that's why the Foundation (I can't speak for them, but it's obvious) is taking on paid editing. A brand has been built up, and there are people who want to take advantage of the brand, in parasitic fashion. The WMF has a right to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate use of Foundation projects. You can say "we're all parasites, we all benefit" and I just don't buy it. What they're trying to do is to distinguish from common-sense, appropriate "profiting" as you put it, from Wikipedia and, say, running a business of churning out advertorials. They seem to know or to begin to understand the difference, so good for them. It's a shame you don't. Some editors seem to get it but many, including a great many very senior ones, just don't and never will. That's why I always tell Mr. 2001 and his ilk that he should relax, as he is winning. Coretheapple (talk) 15:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

No, Coretheapple, the Foundation is taking it on because they mishandled the Wiki-PR case and now they feel they have to do something, and this is something, so it must be done. We have had paid editors (i.e., people who get money for edits) pretty much since the inception of the project. There are entire wikiprojects that, whether they realise it or not, are dependent on paid editors to maintain and update information in tens of thousands of articles. (I'm not going to provide further details because someone will then go around banning those accounts and reverting all their good edits.) There's no evidence that paid editors are "churning out advertorials" any more frequently than unpaid editors: in fact, our overall article deletion rate is microscopic compared to several years ago. And lots of publicists and other paid employees of article subjects only come to the articles because of vandalism, bias, errors in information, or serious BLP violations, or edit the articles after making serious attempts to have these issues addressed by the community; see Sphilbrick's post below, where nobody even bothers to respond to the people who are following our expectations. A lot of the articles attributed to Wiki-PR editors were kept, and a very significant proportion of them were unbiased and factual; in fact, a lot of the ones that were deleted easily met our notability standards. We have always had it in our hands to make paid editing unattractive or unnecessary, by creating more robust and responsive systems to work with article subjects, and by raising and consistently reinforcing notability standards so that what are now borderline organizations, people, and products (the ones most likely to attract paid editing) don't even make it through their first hour. We can do this without creating a system that tags edits that practically scream "revert me!" to recent changes patrollers. We can do that without making every editor vulnerable to accusations of deception and violating the TOU. We can do that without violating the founding principles of Wikipedia, which establishes that anyone can edit, including anonymously without registration. Tagging edits as "paid" isn't going to do a single thing to improve the project; it won't add a single copy edit, or vandalism revert, or article improvement. It will just change things so that *who* makes the edit is more important than the content of the edit. Risker (talk) 16:13, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Your argument is really over a fundamental vision of Wikipedia, and as such is really with the proprietor of this page. If you look at my user page, I've concluded long ago that paid editing is really a management issue, not one that concerns individual contributors. I feel it's bad for Wikipedia, but ultimately it's not my call, or yours, because neither of us are owners of the website(s) involved. Coretheapple (talk) 16:52, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Risker's argument equating the intrinsic benefits of editing with being paid is pure sophistry. They may have a few things in common but being paid is different - you owe your loyalty to your employer, not to Wikipedia's mission. If you don't follow your employer's wishes, he quits paying you. "He who pays the piper, calls the tune." Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:09, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Smallbones, I call you on the sophistry and raise you an irrelevant metaphor. You remember when the press made a huge deal about people from Congress editing the pages of congressmen, and when the edits were actually reviewed, almost all of them were (a) cleaning up vandalism, (b) fixing errors of fact (c) updating factual information (e.g. voting records) or (d) removing BLP violations. Everyone got all upset about "congress" editing its own pages - until they realised that their interests were the same as our interests.(For the record - I personally reviewed about 75 of those edits and there wasn't one that I looked at that should have been reverted, but several that did get reverted and shouldn't have been.) There is no evidence at all that the interests of the average BLP subject is anything other than having an accurate, current, non-biased article on this project, or that paid editors are any less likely to produce such than anyone else. Keep in mind, we've been wiping off "spammy" articles from Wikipedia ever since the deletion button was created, and there's a lot less of them now than in the past, when nobody was waving big red flags and suggesting that the project was overrun by paid editors. It's not, and this moral panic is just that. You keep talking about using "common sense". Well, common sense would say that if deletions are well down, and "spammy deletions" are well down, then spammy articles are less of a problem now than they were before. Common sense says that tagging edits makes them much more susceptible to deletion without suitable review. Common sense says that we have no grounds to complain if people don't follow our processes when we in turn ignore them and fail to follow our own processes, too. Common sense says that when you change the focus on the edit to who made it instead of what it adds, then you've fundamentally changed the core activity of the project from creating high quality content to a social network with a convoluted hierarchy (but we all know that "paid editor" will be on the bottom). Risker (talk) 17:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

If you turned over the New York Times copydesk to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce you might get some really serious grammatical improvements in the process of destroying the institution. Coretheapple (talk) 17:37, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Coretheapple, we've had paid editors around here forever. Some of them are net positives. Some of them are net negatives. They're no better or worse than anyone else. But here's the core question: why would any paid editor label themselves as such? There's no benefit to it, because their edits are extremely likely to be reverted, regardless of their quality or usefulness. So why bother? If their objective is to edit Wikipedia, they're much more likely to be successful without tagging their edits or their userpage than if they do. There's no incentive here to follow the TOU, especially if people who receive different benefits are treated differently. Risker (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

If they're ethical, they'll abide by the TOU of the websites they are using. f they're not, they'll engage in sockpuppeting, meatpuppeting, and maybe other forms of puppeting I'm not familiar with. So what? The WMF is engaged in an effort designed to protect its franchise. Personally I think that reading arguments like yours indicates that given the amount of misplaced angst that greets the WMF's half-measure on paid editing, it should just go all the way and show some guts and just issue a detailed rule saying what is proper conduct and what is not, and make the improper conduct contrary to terms of use. Coretheapple (talk) 18:37, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

No, the WMF is engaged in a PR exercise. It will do nothing to protect its franchise, any more than having checkusers submit ID that is promptly destroyed does anything to protect user privacy. The WMF finally conceded that ID submission without retention was just security theatre and recommended that the Board drop the requirement to submit ID. This is just theatre as well. Creating an acccount, then creating and editing an article, is not sockpuppetry. There is no rule against segregating edits or even having multiple accounts if there is no overlap of editing. If a company hires 10 people to watch its articles, keeping vandalism out and factual information in, and those editors don't know who each other is, they aren't socking either. The issue is that there is no evidence at all that paid editors behave improperly any more frequently than any other editor; in fact, one of the reasons people and organizations bring in editors who are paid is because of the poor behaviour of "regular" editors who WP:OWN articles and actively prevent improvement of articles. Please see the scenario I wrote up here and comment on what the steps would be when someone is accused of paid editing. If the WMF really wanted to "protect its brand" it would require verified identification of all users, with data retention, and required registration. But that would be too hard, too expensive and would go too far to be accepted by the community; however, I'm very certain that lots of the random IPs who commented on the proposal think that would be the minimum and might well be surprised we aren't already doing that. Risker (talk) 18:56, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Well if you feel that the WMF is acting in bad faith, and is advancing a crock of dung with an ulterior motive, I suggest that you make that argument on the Meta page where this is being discussed, if you haven't already. Coretheapple (talk) 19:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

No, I don't think the WMF is acting in bad faith; I think they're acting in a panicked manner without really working out the consequences of the proposal, they haven't really assessed the effects of "paid editing", and they're subject to the same kind of tunnel vision that anyone else can fall prey to. I actually think they're pretty good people on the whole, and that they got caught with their pants down on WikiPR and overreacted, and this is the long tail of that overreaction. I've made these arguments in suitable places, but it's just as important to make them here where other people are pretending that it will be a panacea to paid editing, when really it won't have an effect. The ethical people already flag their edits or their userpages. Many of them have taken a great deal of abuse and have been treated in an extremely hostile manner, having done so. The lesson the community has been teaching professional editors (if they're being paid, then they're professional, right?) is that being forthright is far more costly than simply editing according to the core editing policies. Risker (talk) 19:15, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

But that's not true at all. Editors who openly proclaim their COI, and who know how to work the system, do extremely well. They are given chestfulls of honors, barnstars by the truckload, proclaimed as "content generators" and model citizens. Indeed, paid editors who announce their COIs are able to use Wikipedia as an advertising vehicle to varying degrees, and indeed there is one "paid editor disclosure" that is nothing more or less than advertising. Current policies do not require disclosure by such people, and if you think that's right then fine, I'm obviously not going to convince you. But I have to say that I'm surprised that a person who feels that way holds such high positions. Or maybe I shouldn't be surprised? Coretheapple (talk) 19:27, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

See now, there's the personal attack I knew was going to come eventually to deprecate my opinions here. End of the day, I don't see any difference between people who get a paycheck for editing Wikipedia and those who gain some other benefit that is significant for them. I don't see the difference between being paid by a GLAM to highlight a collection and being paid by SortOfFamousCelebrity B to get rid of bias and BLP violations. In the past two months, three WP administrators have discussed their links to paid/benefit editing. One was roundly castigated and told his paid editing was obviously biased (it wasn't, based on reviews by a wider audience). One, who had directly linked to the COI edits at the time and discussed them on the talk page, was more or less granted absolution, although the mitigating factors included that the edits were factual or adding refs, and that the person making the accusations was out of favour. The third one wrote an article about his own product, based on third-party reviews which he had sought; he only revealed it when that fact was about to be published on an off-wiki criticism site. It seems he has been forgiven, which is unsurprising given his widespread popularity throughout the community. Three admins, three cases: (1) editing for direct pay, (2) editing an article directly related to one's employment and (3) creating and editing an article about one's own product; three different responses from the community. There is no likelihood that this TOU will be applied any more consistently or fairly. Risker (talk) 19:41, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Uh, no, it's not a personal attack. It is an expression of surprise that I found that I was interacting with a member of the Arbitration Committee. I have no idea if the Arbitration Committee has jurisdiction over this issue. I hope not. Coretheapple (talk) 21:58, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Implying that someone shouldn't have certain rights or authority because you disagree with them on a specific issue is pretty intolerant. It's also a good summation of the issue: you're not expressing concern about the quality of the work I am doing, you're expressing concern that I shouldn't have the right to do it (regardless of how well I do it) because I don't believe the same thing that you do. For the record, I retired from the Arbitration Committee after my term was complete, in early January of this year. My editing philosophy ("Our readers do not care one whit who adds information to articles; they care only that the information is correct.") has been posted on my userpage since November 2007, before I became an admin or was elected to the Arbitration Committee; my opinions on this page should be no surprise to anyone. More importantly, my five years on the committee, and working with checkusers and oversighters and stewards during that period, have informed me a great deal about how this change would actually play out. It will be used to make the editing life of targeted Wikipedians very unpleasant, to out them, to accuse them of being something they're not, to link them publicly with their personal information. In fact, it's already happened during the course of this debate, much to my distress. From my work on Arbcom, I'm aware that there are several individuals who have expansive dossiers containing personal information on probably any registered user who regularly posts on this page; certainly they number in the hundreds. I'm aware that there are many occasions where personal information of editors was used to drive users away from editing certain articles, and I know that the only way to give this proposal teeth is to permit people to make paid editing allegations onwiki - and to be able to support them with whatever information they have, which will no doubt include personal information. I know that this proposal will require all "paid" editors to have registered accounts, because it would be extremely inappropriate to post "paid" notices on the user/talk pages of IP addresses. I know that people who want to edit without flagging that they're being paid will keep on doing it into infinity, absent a decision that ALL users be registered and submit proof of identity, as long as they are consistently following editorial policies and stay on the "not-marginal" side of notability. I know through my Arbcom work that there are many "sockpuppets" out there that at one point fell afoul of WP user rules and have reincarnated themselves, and unless their behaviour or quality of work raises red flags, we'll never find them. I know that we could eliminate a huge percentage of paid article creation with more stringent and consistently enforced notability standards. So, yeah, I'm a former arb. I'm still a checkuser and oversighter and administrator. My opinions on paid editing don't have anything much to do with those "credentials", but those experiences have been instrumental in the formulation of my opinions on this matter. Risker (talk) 17:19, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

You're awesome, Risker. But you're not going to convince the two of them. I don't know what Coretheapple and Smallbones' personal stake is in the matter of paid editing, but they have continually acted to abuse paid editors, especially the ones that label their edits and are open about things. Really, from what i've seen of editing on both sides, the anti-paid editing editors have done far more damage to Wikipedia articles on companies by making them extremely negative (and subsequently biased) whenever a paid editor is involved than i've seen any of the paid editors do in the first place. Silverseren^C 04:57, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Regardless of who is or is not awesome, it remains a matter of ethics. To most of the world, in serious writing, one discloses financial COI; to not do so is seen as dishonest. We do not generally or prophylactically prevent people from doing most anything against policy on this site, however, we do ask them to reflect on it and try to conform. So, the more users reflecting on the ethics of COI in writing, as with our other policies, the better. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:00, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

See now, Alanscottwalker, I also see an ethical issue. What I see is a foundation that is willing to abandon one of its founding principles because of some unpleasant media, instead of highlighting how those founding principles are of great benefit to the mission of the organization. To me, that's almost a classical example of situational ethics. Risker (talk) 17:19, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

"Situational" would be not addressing a situation because you find it uncomfortable to address. As for principle, the principle of honesty to readers is pretty fundamental. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:50, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Should we mark WP:Editor Review as historical?

Currently there is an RFC at Wikipedia talk:Editor review#Mark Historical? on whether or not to mark the board as historical. Please weigh in and add your !vote one way or another for the broadest community consensus possible. Thanks.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:00, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

COI edit requests

I don't really think this page should become a general notice board, but I know there have been intense discussions about COI issues, and that issue is a subject of great importance to Jimbo.

We want people who have a COI to avoid direct editing, and instead, post a request for an edit on an article talk page. If they actually do that, we would encourage that behavior by responding reasonably promptly. We are not doing so.

I left a general note at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Edit_requests, but this page epitomizes the issue—I count eleven politely worded requests dating to early January, not a single one of which has (yet) been addressed.

We need to do better.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:48, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

This is yet another illustration of why banning paid editing is not a workable alternative to company coverage given the current scope of WP. Volunteers are not apt to "waste their time" on topics they don't find interesting, important, or stimulating at some level. Some topics are by their nature gonna have to be pay-to-play for them to exist at all. Short of an enormous change in notability rules for private companies, book authors, etc. and a massive wave of deletions, we are essentially locked into a future in which paid editing is inevitable. Best to simply monitor and regulate these contributions to make sure NPOV is maintained than to try to remake the wheel by WMF fiat. Carrite (talk) 17:04, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

In order to cover gaps like this, what do you think of a system that is *not* pay for play (which is inherently and inevitably corrupting) but in which people are paid (by the Foundation) to respond to edit requests of this type. The only valid argument that I have ever seen for a system of bribery and corruption is that it would help us get more coverage of marginal business topics (though at great cost to our reputation and integrity). Our goal is to create the best possible encyclopedia, and I don't see any actual harm in the Wikimedia Foundation hiring a handful of excellent and experienced editors to work on topic of importance but which have not been of sufficient interest to volunteers to fully cover appropriately, thus leaving open this gateway to corruption.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:29, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I think that's a very interesting idea. Coretheapple (talk) 03:59, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

A couple thoughts—part of me wants to support Jimbo's suggestion, and ask where to sign up :) However, I just became aware of the COI category. As part of the response at AN, some others didn't know it existed, so one possibility is that we simply need more awareness. I'm exploring some alternatives at my talk page, and will propose them when I figure out where best to do so. It literally may be as simple as flagging the cat more clearly when it is backlogged.

I do think User:Carrite has a good point that these types of edits may be inherently boring to most editors. However, I do a lot of edits (CSD, Prod, CCI) that are more boring, and most seem to get done, so I don't think the "boring" aspect convinces me there is no solution. That said, the wp:CCI backlog is not months, it is years, and those are boring. We just lost a very accomplished editor, Wizardman, apparently over CCI backlogs. If the foundation were interested in paying some editors for certain types of edits, I would want CCI cleanup edits on the list, along with COI edits.--S Philbrick(Talk) 21:04, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Other backlogs include 1928 articles at AfC (some waiting since 2005),[1], 2900 articles waiting to be copy edited [2] and 1,605 articles waiting (some since 2009) to be merged [3] -- — Keithbob • Talk • 21:46, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

• @S. Philbrick. Totally agreed that if the WMF goes into the employing of Wikipedia editor business, that copyright cleanup needs to be included. I haven't thought enough about JW's suggested alternative solution above to have an opinion one way or another — I'm fairly sure there are unintended consequences associated with a move in that direction which may or may not prove worse that our current status quo. That said, kudos for a fresh idea, at a minimum. As I pointed out in the Norton case, the current CCI system is not scalable, best intentions and hard work of the handful of committed volunteers notwithstanding. Part of the problem has to do with the standards for accepting cases at CCI; part of the problem has to do with the totality-of-edits-of-problem-editors approach to investigations, instead of sampling to determine actual problem areas in terms of subjects or time frames. It's easy enough to open a CCI case and nearly impossible to close a big one the way things stand. That's a huge problem that needs its own thread, I doubt that too many people even know what CCI is at this point, let alone the size and intractability of the logjam. Carrite (talk) 00:14, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
• Well, Jimmy, I obviously don't have the same concerns about paid editing that you do, so I don't have an inherent problem with the concept of editors being hired to deal with these sorts of problems. I do think, however, that if the WMF is paying people to edit, they're going to run into Section 230 problems. Frankly, most of the "marginally notable" companies could be addressed simply by raising the notability bar, which is something entirely within the scope of this specific community, although I have never seen you argue for that; maybe I just missed it. But hiring people to edit boring topics isn't the issue, it's the need to go in and clean up BLPs and articles about companies that are unbalanced that brings out most of the "paid" or "COI" editors. Nobody's fixing those problems, either; in fact, on several occasions where I've done so (as an oversighter, OTRS agent, admin or editor) I've generally been met with very significant opposition. I am more likely to try to delete articles about marginally notable people or organizations than I am to fix them, myself, but I'm often disappointed at my attempts. Risker (talk) 02:56, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
  • You have Section 230 exactly backwards. The whole point of it is that everyone is responsible for their own actions. The Wikimedia Foundation does not lose section 230 protection against whatever random people do, just because they also pay people to do good work. I urge you to study this issue before spreading FUD.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:57, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
  • "Nobody's fixing those problems, either". Now that is just exaggerating beyond belief. I just removed an image from a page that has been sitting there forever and was added to a city article by the producer of a play that has a financial stake in the production and only added the image to promote himself and his theatre. This guy has accused me of a personal agenda against him in order to demonize me and make himself look better. If you give up that quickly....you are more concerned about yourself than the project. And somehow....that doesn't seem to ring true with you.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:15, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
    • • • Well, I don't usually give up, Mark Miller; thanks for recognizing that. But then I'm a tough old biddy who's been around here for a long time, and I've become inured to conflict, so I plowed through on those cases I mentioned, and I accept (sometimes with chagrin) the community's decisions at AFD. Then again, I have a rather hefty toolbag compared to the average editor. We have a lot of editors (someone once called them "exopedians") who just quietly work away and move on whenever they encounter resistance; their contributions are massive and vital to the project, and I have to respect their decision not to get involved in the drama machine that Wikipedia can become. Myself, I'm not sure I would have removed that photo for the same reason as you did; the article in question has far too many photos in it though, so it's entirely justified simply on aesthetic grounds. So I suppose that illustrates that people can reach the same conclusion though their trains of thought take different routes. Risker (talk) 04:13, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
          • Well it is a good point, but the original reason I removed it long ago (when it was just reverted) was that the city article should not contain images of a single production placed there by the producer himself as COI. He just slapped it back in and continued what some saw as ownership issues, but for me it was simple. It didn't represent the city or the arts community fairly or in a balanced manner and was not at all encyclopedic, but then it was just reverted by the COI editor thinking I could no longer bring up their COI or remove their contributions without singling them out. No, I just don't use their name any more at their own request...but I can continue to mention their conflict of interest. Small town producers are one thing of course and they still have financial investments in promoting their work...but then there are the bigger fish, the artists with major film credits using their own Wikipedia page as a political soap box AND tooting their own horn at the same time. Some of it is not worth any sort of fight or drama, but then if they are that notable...why do they have to fill in their own credits on their page? I see this a lot. One evening I was going through a very well known actors page and ran across large swaths that had been removed and was able to quickly trace the contributions to...his current wife who was removing information about the ex and then created her own page. It had all been reverted of course but anyone looking will be able to see the same thing. It is of no real benefit for COI editors to write their own information unless it is very well cited content and well worth the addition. If not they are placing their reputations squarely on the line just for...what...a longer Wikipedia page with their own name attached to the content? I don't know what is worse for them, the contributions that need not have been added and make them look self centered and egotistical or fighting the removal and putting an even bigger spot light on their themselves...and not in a good way.--Mark Miller (talk) 05:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
            • Or is the person posting the photograph a subject matter expert who had superior access? The town in question is widely known as a top "theatre" city, with one of the best local theatre companies west of the Mississippi, and a regular stop for visiting productions; this isn't really played up all that well in the article, curiously. Would we turn down personal photos from, say, Diane English, because it was of a project she was directing or producing? Nonetheless, as I say, we wind up at the same point through different routes. And that article really could use a cleanup all around. Risker (talk) 18:34, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
              • Oh, there is no doubt the COI editor has access to images, but not that no one else does. Much of what you say would be more appropriate on, say the theatre's page, his own article or even an article on the production itself if it were notable enough for an article, but for the producer himself to add his own production in the city article is a little farther than we generally accept. Now, I do agree that using a completely different route is still suitable as many times there are multiple reasons for the removal, but in this case the editor has a past history of overdoing it with images and edits about themselves. I would certainly agree that it is one of the best theatre companies in the west...but many other theatre producers in similar companies in the west don't seem to be adding production stills to their city articles. Sacramento has one of the largest theatre communities on the west coast but I don't see how adding a production still from any particular production would be an improvement to the Sacramento article. But with some editors, they are not just promoting their art but their political agenda. There are ways to contribute art to Wikipedia. There are ways to contribute political information, but if you are directly involved with either you stand in conflict of interest. Not that it is against the rules right now, just more of a strong suggestion.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:01, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
    • The WMF seems to be well-funded, and if it wants to get into the business of paying people for doing scut work, well what's wrong with that? Personally I think it's better simply not to have marginal corporate articles. But if there is a burning need for them, and if donors don't mind, then I just don't see the harm at all. The articles for this paid system can be chosen at random from requests that are made in an open process. The only disadvantage I can see is that people will say stuff like "well what about X, Y and Z, aren't they more important to Wikipedia than an article on the Acme Finance Co.?" And they'll be right. Coretheapple (talk) 04:06, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
      • Coretheapple, if the WMF hires people to write content, it is very likely they will be considered publishers rather than hosts. That has major legal and financial implications: not the price of paying the editors, but the increased liability and risk that would come with it. Frankly, I'm not sure anyone would insure the WMF if it became a publisher, and speaking as a donor I'm not a big fan of having to build up an enormous war chest to defend against lawsuits that would range from the frivolous to the precedent-setting. Let's just say the editor legal assistance program wouldn't be sufficient. Risker (talk) 04:13, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
        • True, that's a possible dealbreaker. Coretheapple (talk) 04:17, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
          • It isn't even a remotely plausible objection. There is a common misunderstanding of the law (Section 230) which says that if the WMF is the publisher of any part of Wikipedia, it has to take legal responsibility for everything that everyone does on the site. That's false, and is exactly what Section 230 is designed to avoid. If the WMF pays people to write content, then it becomes legally responsible for any libel committed by those employees - but this is a very boring business risk taken on by every newspaper, magazine, etc. It is easily insurable and given proper training, is very unlikely to lead to any lawsuits at all. We aren't doing exposes here, we are writing encyclopedia articles which merely reference already published sources. The risk is virtually zero.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:55, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

You're right. I actually had second thoughts along those lines and was going to retract my comment, but to be frank I'm finding this discussion to be wearying. I mean, we have the same discussion every month or so and nothing ever seems to get done. I do think that paying people is one possible way out. I guess that my main concern would be a feeling that other things warrant higher priority. Coretheapple (talk) 23:45, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Jimmy, I *might* believe that if it was coming from Geoff Brigham, along with a pile of case law to support it; but given the genuine problem areas aren't "boring" articles but BLPs, articles about geographic areas that are in dispute in the real world, and articles about corporations [in other words, subjects that correlate fairly closely with litigation threats], the risk is still very high. As I say, I don't know who would insure the WMF for editing there, and it would be fiscally irresponsible to proceed without some very expert legal advice and a formal risk assessment. Oh, and remember that many will believe that as paid editors they will be assumed to be presenting the WMF's point of view: after all, to quote others on this page, "he who pays the piper calls the tune". Risker (talk) 18:05, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

• • The first priority for hiring paid editors to work on behalf of the WMF and the community needs to be BLP, if we want to be a responsible and respected organization. People have showed up at events and approached me in person asking for help with biography articles, which really brings it home that there are living human beings who appear in these articles. That said, Jimbo's suggestion of hiring editors might be worth some experimentation if it enables us to bring in people committed to building an NPOV encyclopedia to help moderate articles with a high potential for commercial COI. We'd need to select individuals who are knowledgeable as well as diplomatic and give them good access to paywalled sources for fact checking.
  • And in general, if we could do something to ensure that we always have a few competent people on the job who are able to promptly to talk page concerns, (and consider giving talk page editors the option to flag posts that need a quick response), we could prevent a lot of drama. My impression from these discussions is that we may be reaching the point where we don't always have enough volunteers online with the skills for a moderator/oversighter role in dealing with BLP and COI. If this is the case, by all means, let's hire a few skilled people to pitch in. I think the problem here isn't a need to change our current policies on BLP and COI, it is that we need to build the capacity to respond promptly when there are problems. A new policy won't help if we lack the editors with the skill set needed to carry it out. We may need to consider time zone coverage when onboarding editors for this task, to ensure that our process works 24/7. Djembayz (talk) 04:36, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia printed in 1,000 volumes

There are plans to print Wikipedia in 1,000 volumes.

• Wikipedia 1,000-volume print edition planned—The Guardian (Thursday, 20 February, 2014)

I have these comments about the plan.

• This might become a tourist attraction (with a QR code).
• A reader might read an article in volume 123 and (instead of following a hyperlink) follow a plain reference to an article in volume 234. There could be physical exercise in walking and in climbing ladders.
• Presumably there would be the usual imperfections in articles.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:37, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

It'd be intriguing, but with the editableness (if that wasn't a word, I'm making it one now) of Wikipedia gone, is it really Wikipedia? Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 17:45, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't think so, how would it be funded? Would a printed edition still be free? A guy printed a single volume of 0.01% of Wikipedia and planned to sell it (don't know how far he got). See here. Jodon | Talk 18:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Awesome. When can I have youtube videos pressed on 33 1/3? Tarc (talk) 17:56, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Here's how 0.01% of Wikipedia would look in a single volume. I would think there might be a few strained muscles from such reading... Jodon | Talk 18:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is the worst use of money anyone has ever thought of. Formerip (talk) 19:01, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

There have been numerous news articles announcing this crowd-sourced fundraiser for $50,000 to print the English WP. A waste of time and trees in my opinion.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 21:52, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Chicken George!

Me and User:Gogo Dodo were having a debate about whether to include the name 'Chicken George' on the Ben Vereen article and we wanted your input. He is known very well as Chicken George from the Roots TV series. Thanks. --Sålken Trøst (talk) 21:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I have no knowledge about this topic.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

The subject's name is "George Moore, not "Chicken George". The addition of the nickname should only be used once in the main article article and respect given to the fact that this is a real person with actual family existing today.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I also note that this doesn't appear to be discussed at all on the article's talk page Talk:Ben Vereen.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:19, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

One last thing. Sålken Trøst was not just adding the character name in the Ben Vereen article...but in the infobox next to the actors real name [4]. We may have an issue here needing administrative intervention if this continues.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:25, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Gogo Dodo is on it.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:27, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I am sure some people call Patrick Stewart "Captain Picard", too, but that's not his name. Neutron (talk) 00:09, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I was standing next to this guy once in Sacramento at a local theatre I used to work for. It was Theodore Bikel and when I looked at him I said "Hey...your Worf's father"! He rolled his eyes and walked away from me without saying a word. True story. LOL!--Mark Miller (talk) 02:07, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposal from Wnt

User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 158#Death of a Wikipedian. Could you take this up with the board or Sue? --Pine^✉ 21:37, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:46, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I think that the idea of an annual award is an excellent one, Jimbo. Let's be sure that the award's criteria emphasize adherence to the neutral point of view. "Deeply penetrating" is a powerful and appropriate phrase, as long as it isn't confused with advocacy. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:02, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes Cullen, lets start giving an award to honor the death of a well known and established Wikipedian—but first let's argue about Wikipolitics and paid advocacy before we honor his legacy. Jeez. KonveyorBelt 18:17, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Reality check

The problem with the TOU legal approach, the "public embarrassment" approach, and the "Jimbo beatdown" approach is that it's an international issue. For example, this guy is easily seen to be an employee of this company, which happens to be offering Wikipedia Zero. Would the WMF sue him in a South African court? Would Econet be embarrassed that it's employee made "COI edits" on Wikipedia? Would they care at all about what Jimbo Wales says about them?

You had it right 10 years ago, Jimmy: anyone can edit, admins are no big deal, it's about writing an encyclopedia, and however we get to NPOV is worth the trip. How the heck did you get from there to here? --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 00:12, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

The difference is that now Wikipedia is one of the top ranking websites, and #1 for anyone who wants information on a topic. It is now ripe fruit, and it is being plucked. Johnuniq (talk) 01:42, 5 March 2014 (UTC)