User talk:Jimbo Wales

Debbie Does Dallas

Jimbo, I know you are a big advocate of freedom of speech and a tireless opponent of censorship. With that in mind, I would like to relate an issue I have encountered here on Wikipedia. "Charade" is a 1963 Stanley Donnen movie starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The movie is now in the public domain and has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The movie is embedded in Charade (1963 film) so that readers may choose to play it right in the Wikipedia article. "Debbie Does Dallas" is a highly successful 1978 pornographic movie that is possibly the best known porn movie of all time. The movie is now in the public domain and has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The movie was embedded in Debbie Does Dallas so that readers could choose to play it right in the Wikipedia article. For reasons I do not understand, an edit war broke out over whether or not to redundantly link to the movie directly on Commons or simply link to the Commons category. This has resulted in the article being locked and some very odd arguments being made on the talk page. My impression is that the reluctance to include the movie relates to the content of the movie, not policy. Do you have any thoughts on this? Right Hand Drive (talk) 17:37, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

• The issue is currently discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Should we move full-length movies from article space to Commons? (a discussion that started two hours ago) – I'd recommend to keep the discussion in one place for the time being. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that that particular discussion is not going to settle anything. It was written with a fundamental misunderstanding of how embedding works. The question of embedding this particular movie in this particular article will remain. I'd like to hear Jimbo's opinion on it. Right Hand Drive (talk) 16:12, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

First things first. Editorial decisions are in an entirely different conceptual category from censorship. Censorship always involves force or the threat of force - for example, the threat of a fine or jail time for publishing something. Deciding not to publish something, or to publish in one way rather than another, is not censorship.

Having said that, there are very good editorial reasons why we might choose to handle certain controversial or potentially controversial content with some wise delicacy. Without declaring what I think we should do in this particular case, I can say that it seems quite clear that valid objections are possible and that citing WP:NOTCENSORED is, as is so often the case in content discussions, pretty much irrelevant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:16, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment Self-censorship may apply to the assertions above. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:10, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your thoughts on this. The NOTCENSORED guideline may be poorly named, but I think that it would only be appropriate to invoke its spirit in this situation. Having a copy of the movie in the article about the movie seems quite reasonable to me. The movie does not play unless and until the reader clicks on it. Some people may be offended by the content of the movie, but they should not be surprised at that content, since they are reading an article about a pornographic movie. Right Hand Drive (talk) 00:02, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I think people would quite rightly be surprised that Wikipedia embeds a pornographic movie in an encyclopedia article. I daresay it will be the first time in the history of mankind that such a thing has ever been done. One way to think about this is: what is the upside? And what is the downside? I see virtually no upside other than making it 1 click instead of 2 clicks to watch it. That's not very important. But the downsides I see are many. First, some people may be surprised when a stray click launches a pornographic film on their computers. If you do that with the sound up and then leave your desk at work, the consequences could be unpleasant. I'd prefer that if people are going to get a pornographic film, that they very explicitly take action to make sure that's what they want to do - 2 clicks has merit here. Second, it is very easy to imagine a really stupid press story or campaign against us about this. "Wikipedia embeds porn movies in article content" gives people entirely the wrong impression of what we are about. Why invite that?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:11, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry Jimbo, but no one should be surprised that Wikipedia embeds a pornographic movie in an encyclopedia article. And it won't be the first time it has been done. For one thing, no one seemed bothered when I re-added the movie to Debbie Does Dallas in September. It wasn't removed until people started edit warring over a different issue. That article gets about 1,000 hits a day, so it seems unlikely that no editors noticed the movie was there. More importantly, there is a longstanding precedent here in the article about pornographic movie A Free Ride. That article has had a hardcore pornographic movie embedded in it since 2012. It is a considered a "good article". I don't see how Debbie Does Dallas is any different, except the movie is in color. Readers of an article about penises should not be surprised to see penises on Wikipedia. Readers of an article about a pornograohic movie should not be surprised to see a pornographic movie on Wikipedia. Right Hand Drive (talk) 14:32, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

"no one should be surprised that Wikipedia embeds a pornographic movie in an encyclopedia article"? I would be astounded to find such a thing in any encyclopedia, but does that just reflect my lack of experience of Wikipedia? MHAN2016 (talk) 00:49, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

If an encyclopaedia has an article on a pornographic movie then I doubt many would be surprised that the article links to a free copy of the movie. Or rather the surprise should be more that such a recent movie is out of copyright, and that the encyclopaedia has an article on a pornographic movie. Not that an article links to the subject of the article. ϢereSpielChequers 09:48, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I know a fair amount about encyclopaedias in general, and other works of reference, and think you have it backwards. If this film is culturally significant it would have an entry, whether it is regarded as pornographic or not. (Lady Chatterley's Lover was long deemed obscene, but I would assume it is covered here.) But a reference work is not the same thing as an anthology, compendium or data dump. Do bear in mind that the discussion is not about "linking to" but about embedding as content in. MHAN2016 (talk) 11:07, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I suspect we have different attitudes as to what "embedding" means. If the proposal was to have a clip of the film in the article in such a way that anyone reading the article had the clip played to them then I would regard it as more than linking and in this case would be opposed. But as long as embedding means readers "may choose to play it" then I don't see it as that different to an external link. OK it is in the article itself rather than the external links section, but that doesn't seem a big difference to me. Is there more of a difference between embedding and external linking than where we put the link in the article and how prominent it is? ϢereSpielChequers 11:34, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

For me, more relevant than "embedded vs not embedded" is the more practical question of "how many clicks to view the content". I would suggest that protecting people from a stray click (which happens quite often, and more so on mobile in my experience) launching a porn movie is a good thing. In our technical context, the simplest way to do that is to link to the film on commons so that you have to visit commons and then click on the play button. Another approach would likely be vehemently opposed by the POV pushers who want to push porn everywhere as some kind of bizarre "free speech!!111" campaign, and that would be to have a warning message upon that click.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:41, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Jimbo, it has occured to me that perhaps your earlier very strong comments were sarcastic ("I daresay it will be the first time in the history of mankind that such a thing has ever been done") - were they? Did you take a look at A Free Ride which has included a pornographic movie in the article since 2012? Can you explain why Debbie Does Dallas is any different? Right Hand Drive (talk) 16:31, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

JW's position is quite correct as far is goes. Beyond that, I can imagine a great many good arguments against keeping a copy of Debbie Does Dallas on our servers and embedding it in a Wikipedia/Wikimedia website. In my view, though, we shouldn't necessarily be keeping a copy of Charade on our servers and embedding it our article either. The fact that the film may have fallen into the public domain through inadvertence and a technical error on the part of a corporation that held the rights does not, in my view, justify denying the creative personnel on the film the rewards of their creativity that might otherwise be earned by them through more conventional dissemination of the film. Once again the maxim that not everything lawful is the right thing to do comes to mind. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:15, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with this, and it takes a different approach than I was thinking about. I was thinking about the particular difficulties of hosting pornography versus hosting a very conventional film. Newyorkbrad's position is broader and interesting to me - the question is, should an encyclopedia host full length movies at all?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:11, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

One problem is the odd conceit that anything can or should be "the sum of all human knowledge" which some appear to view as "anything that has ever been done, or recorded, or written about should be in the project in its entirety." As I have opined before - the goal should not be to include every factoid or image or movie extant, but only to keep a summary of that which will be useful to readers in 50 or 100 years. Thus we need not make decisions just on moral grounds (which, to be sure, should be considered), but on the practical and proper goals we should have. Which is not "everything we can remotely cram in, no matter its utility or value." Collect (talk) 14:06, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

It *may* be educational to learn what some people have done with cucumbers and electric toothbrushes in their spare time. I won't bore you with the details, but some people have uploaded the photos to Commons in considerable quantity. It was inevitable that Debbie Does Dallas would be uploaded to Commons if it is not copyrighted, setting off the inevitable argument that "Commons/Wikipedia is not censored." My main interest was how DDD came to be out of copyright so early, and apparently this was the result of a court case in 1987.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 14:47, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree that an encyclopedia should not be hosting a full length film, whether pornographic or not. An encyclopedia is not "anything that has ever been done, or recorded, or written about." Peter Damian (talk) 15:52, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

The remit of Commons is broader than just needed on Wikipedia, it also supports wikitravel etc. That said I'm not sure whether the film is educational, but could it possibly be mined for non pornographic soundbytes, clips and stills? At least one of the actors in it has a bio here without an image, another could do with an image from earlier in their career. Presumably we'd be OK with soundbytes and cropped stills from the movie being used to illustrate articles provided the clips were not pornographic? ϢereSpielChequers 20:17, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Whatever we decide about the individual cases of Debbie Does Dallas or Charade, we should not decide on a one-size-fits-all-rule that potentially removes all useful, non-controversial video that is squarely in the public domain from Wikipedia articles like The General (1926 film) or Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy. Gamaliel (talk) 20:55, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

That's right, good selective judgment can and should be exercised; not a lazy all inclusive rule. Nocturnalnow (talk) 01:19, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

"Primary sources" angle

1. Primary sources angle for Commons and Wikisource: there's no doubt in my mind that Commons and Wikisource will host entire primary sources as they do now, whether these primary sources are books, pieces of music, films, reproductions of paintings, autograph or printed scores etc. From this angle: the higher the quality and/or resolution of the file, the better, and also: the less it has been tampered with (photoshopping or whatever) the better. I see only a few reasons for not having a particular primary source at Commons/Wikisource: that is, apart from unsolved copyright issues (which is and remains a definite no-no for inclusion in any WMF project), when an external source does better in stability (of the link), accessibility (e.g. no pay-wall), and quality (resolution, but also other aspects, e.g. text search possibilities, etc.). An example: Entr'acte (film) presents an external link to the movie, but it is (currently) a dead link: for this external link instability it would have been better to have a copy of the work (assuming public domain copies can be had) at Commons. Another example: currently commons hosts an entire book (facsimile in multi-page PDF format) of File:Ermisch Das alte Archivgebäude am Taschenberge in Dresden.pdf: in this case it is reasonable to ask oneself: what is the added value when the same book is hosted at http://digital.slub-dresden.de/en/workview/dlf/88001/1/ ? – maybe there is a slight inconvenience for non-German readers as the second webpage writes "Erscheinungsort" where Commons implies the book was published in Dresden in the "Description" field of the template. So the only reason for not having this book at Commons is imho a minor accessibility disadvantage (for non-German readers), as for the other criteria things seem more or less equal (hosting at the SLUB website being presumably stable, etc)
   • For File:Debbie Does Dallas.ogg: the file is kind of low resolution, but (without searching too hard for it) I don't see a more stable, more accessible link to a higher resolution version of the film being on offer, so I don't see much problem to keep the file at Commons (it being in the "ogg" format can be considered an accessibility advantage anyhow).
   • Other filters for what is kept or rejected at Commons/Wikisource (notability, self-promotion, common decency, etc) would best be sorted out at Commons/Wikisource. I support Jimbo's efforts to not let Commons degenerate into a porn site, but doubt File:Debbie Does Dallas.ogg would make a good poster child for that continuing effort.
2. WP:PRIMARY angle at en.Wikipedia: as I had written at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Should we move full-length movies from article space to Commons?, the Debbie Does Dallas article had and has some problems. My remark there "...about how it got in the public domain somewhat over a decade after its release: the info on that is rather sparse" has been handled with a new section Debbie Does Dallas#Entry into public domain, which is surely a step in the good direction, but overall the article is still a bit on the short end of WP:PRIMARY's "... be cautious about basing large passages on [primary sources]": I still see at least two entire sections of the article apparently being based on primary sources exclusively. That the plot of the film is apparently entirely unrelated to whatever "Dallas" mentioned in its title (see last paragraph of the intro) is probably one of the most remarkable features of that plot, but afaics unreferenced. The article currently gives the impression that no secondary sources ever saw anything remarkable about any aspect of the film's plot –I suppose in that respect the movie is rather run-off-the-mill– yet Wikipedia deems it necessary to add a 8-paragraph section about that plot... in which case I'd refrain from adding more primary source material in the form of of a thumbnail visible when using the [[file:...]] format for presenting the link. When given the choice, I'd largely cut down on the redundant plot description, and use the [[file:...]] format for the link, showing a thumbnail, instead. But anyhow, as long as cutting down on primary source material isn't done, I'd not use that type of link to the file.

As far as common decency is concerned (avoiding "in your face" for aspects relating to human sexuality in an encyclopedic context), I'm all for that, for instance a kid coming home from their first guitar lesson, having picked up the word "fingering" there, and type it in the Wikipedia search box to find out what it means not automatically arriving at the fingering (sexual act) topic is something I supported in the past. In this case however, once one has read past the Debbie Does Dallas intro, explaining this is an article about a pornographic movie, then I don't see a single click to start showing that movie, further down in the article, as problematic in the context. As for the hyphotetical kid seeing their first porn movie, I'd be rather sympathetic towards the idea that could hyphotetically be File:Debbie Does Dallas.ogg in an on-line encyclopedia, than whatever other clip or movie on whatever other site. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:04, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

The section on the copyright status of Debbie Does Dallas actually uses a primary source (a legal decision) as its main reference. The article could use some work, but that seems secondary to the discussion about embedding movies. Right Hand Drive (talk) 16:20, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

The rewrite of the PD history showed, in fact, that the The Hollywood Reporter article is the "main" source for that content, not the primary source material derived from the court document.

I think I'm entirely correct in trying to refocus this to the over-all quality of the article, instead of non-discussions about WP:NOTREPOSITORY, WP:NOTCENSORED, WP:SOCK and whatnot that have lost whatever tangential importance they might have had to this topic in the handful of separate places where this topic is and has been discussed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:14, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. It looks like you are right. I would be pleased to see this article improved, but the discussions we're having came about because people objected to including the movie in the article. I'd like to see it added back in or at least have someone present a reasonable policy-based argument for not including it. There are now three layers of misdirection happening (talk page, Village Pump, and WP:NOTRESOURCE RFC). I thought that the reasonable thing would be to include the movie unless there was a reason not to include it, not the other way around. Let me ask you the question I've put to Jimbo - How is Debbie Does Dallas different from A Free Ride, which has had an embedded pornographic movie since 2012? 23:29, 7 February 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Right Hand Drive (talk • contribs)

Re. "How is Debbie Does Dallas different from A Free Ride" — I think you've answered that question yourself somewhere else before: A Free Ride is a WP:GA article, i.e., according to Wikipedia's standards its quality is "good". By comparison, until recently, Debbie Does Dallas was a meagre excuse of an article to show a low quality porn movie. Hence my insistence on improving the quality of the article: including the primary source with the [[file:...]] tag will have become a non-issue by the time the article itself is top notch.

Let me be clear: I've set up articles where I lumped together some primary sources fair and square before providing much content for the article (I'm not too proud about that kind of work – it can be found here), but that can simply not be done for more sensitive topics like porn movies. --Francis Schonken (talk) 23:53, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

It is ok to embed a little known pornographic movie in a "good article" but it is not ok to embed a historically significant pornographic movie in a not very good article? I don't understand the logic of that. The movie is what it is, regardless of how bad (or good) the article is. Right Hand Drive (talk) 00:11, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, but there's the issue of balance: primary sources overpowering solid article content (based on secondary sources etc) gives a bad balance. When the article is about an almost completely forgotten hymn, that bad balance may be an intermediate step that is "stable" for some time, when the article is about a porn movie the bad balance will have become untenable within months.

At policy level this is expressed by WP:PRIMARY's "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." — Or you may prefer the same idea spun out into an essay (which I wrote long ago): Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a tertiary source, containing for instance "Illustrations and primary source material should not overshadow content based on secondary and tertiary sources". --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Thinking it over I just proposed to promote Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a tertiary source to guideline. Ideas (here or at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is a tertiary source#Current discussion)? --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:27, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Let's delete Wikipedia just to be nice

@Newyorkbrad: You say "The fact that the film may have fallen into the public domain through inadvertence and a technical error on the part of a corporation that held the rights does not, in my view, justify denying the creative personnel on the film the rewards of their creativity that might otherwise be earned by them". How is this different from the creation of Wikipedia? There used to be a rule -- if someone wants to have access to information about all kinds of topics, they pony up the $900 for a big set of Encyclopedia Britannicas. Wikipedia came in and trashed that market. "Sure, just because it's lawful doesn't mean it's right". You see the problem is, in our affections many of us had this notion that we should side with the reader who actually comes to our site wanting to learn something. This is a mistaken, radical, terrorist line of thinking. We need to understand that the world is run by a few men, and whenever we make it easier for a person to learn something, do something, see something without putting up whatever small disposable income he has to the purpose, we are denying a king carnivore his rightful meal. Because our readers, they are just mute flesh waiting to be devoured; to be taught and molded with only such facts and experience as it takes to be permitted to be a blue dishwasher, if that is their designated purpose, and to be phased out and sent to the camp should ever those with money run out of blue dishes to be washed. So we should see your wisdom, recognize that everything in Wikipedia that lets people look up random data is just a bunch of mental wankage, a cruel diversion of resources for which we must answer to the Ticktockman; we must delete it and leave it for Responsible Authorities to dole out that information and make the profit to which the laws of the cosmos entitle them. Wnt (talk) 18:48, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

@Wnt: I regret to advise you that someone has hijacked your Wikipedia account and is using it to post preposterous idiocy in your name. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:30, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Without getting into whether I was thinking the same thing, what exactly is the difference between deciding not to point readers at public domain movies or Rorschach blots or whatever in order to prop up some heir-of-an-heir's profit stream, and deciding not to write an encyclopedia because it detracts from offline paid scholarship? Every time someone reads a Wikipedia summary, that's money snatched from the hands of writers who might have sold more copies of their copyrighted alternatives. One uses the sleazy loophole that someone who is required by copyright law to file a renewal has to file a renewal; the other uses the sleazy loophole of fair use/academic commentary to summarize and quote data from other sources.

All sarcasm aside, Wikipedia has always properly been an instrument against copyrights. It is meant to show that people can work together to build something awesome, without special knowledge or access, provided only that they allow each other to do so. It is not meant to be the be-all and end-all of encyclopedias - that zenith awaits the day when copyright is consigned to the dustbin of history, and people finally breathe free and work together as one grand collaboration. This requires an economic realization beyond copyright, one that makes it feasible for authors to write without controlling who reads what is written; not a hard one really. Wnt (talk) 19:44, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Since individuals no longer have any privacy, then it somehow seems to be reasonable that the products/work created by individuals should also no longer have any privacy. And anything not private is public ( or can be at any moment; e.g. Wikileaks ). Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:44, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Editorial discretion on Wikipedia, like good judgment in most of life, is a matter of balancing. Perpetual copyright would be stultifying to a culture and I would never suggest that we think in those terms. But for a society to reject all intellectual property rights would be equally stultifying, because it would deter the creation of much that ought to be created. Copyright law is where a society seeks to balance between these two principles, although I readily grant that for a lot of reasons, no legal code always gets the balance right. And US copyright law has become the starting point for analysis of rights issues on Wikipedia, partly for obvious practical reasons and partly because it saves us the trouble of grappling with issues that have already been through through extensively by others.

This is a broad topic and I don't think this is the place for a purely theoretical discussion, but if your premise is that the free culture movement should reject, in principle, the very idea of intellectual property rights—grudgingly accepting only the limitations that would be directly enforced against us at the proverbial barrel of a gun, and longing for a hypothetical day when no such limitations exist—then suffice it to say that I do not agree with you. (Am I right, incidentally, that some of the same people who push to construe other people's IP rights as narrowly as possible so that we can use their material on our projects, are among those who complain when a republisher ignores the license's attribution rules?)

And for those of us who do believe that, within limits, copyright laws do serve valid and useful societal functions, my point is that it is neither necessary nor satisfying to impound into Wikimedia policies the strictest letter of copyright law, particularly where IP rights are being disputed or have been inadvertently lost on the basis of legal (not wikilawyered) technicalities.

Put differently, I agree with you that the success of Wikipedia and Wikimedia comes from our decision to collaborate with one another in sharing and co-creating and collating free knowledge. But it is a voluntary collaboration: there remain limis, both legal and ethical, on how much collaboration into our project we can impound from those who have not chosen to participate with us. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:54, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

About 20 years ago I read where Scott McNealy said; "There is no privacy, get over it." I'm thinking the same thing may be said about copyright pretty soon. The crushing of licensing laws by Uber and AirBnb and the tacit acceptance of China's infringements seem to be pushing in that direction too, I think. I'm not saying I like any of these changes. Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:54, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Newyorkbrad, I don't have any difficulty understanding that the idea of editorial discretion. User:Smallbones gave two examples which I think were obvious poor judgment in their part, but we are talking about embedding a pornographic movie in the article which is itself about that movie. And, as I keep saying, there is a precedent for this. I'll ask you the same question I've asked Jimbo - how is Debbie Does Dallas any different from A Free Ride, which has had a pornographic movie embedded in it since 2012? Right Hand Drive (talk) 23:50, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

So you're telling me that we are supposed to honor every last jot and tittle of copyright law, and then, honor whatever "ethics" you make up on the spot. This sounds like the Bundy school of "what's mine is mine, what's yours is mine" interpretation of the public domain. You're incorrect in saying that copyright law is the only way to reward content creation. Copyright law is just a sort of tax farming, a mechanism that seemed approximately workable when books were very expensive to produce, but which now is clearly inferior to other methods of awarding compensation to authors that don't require limiting distribution of a work. But here we see a more fundamental aspect even than its economic inefficiency - this goes back to the origination of the copyright scheme as a method of government censorship; as a way to place books under control of a limited set of publishers. The claim that housing this movie is "unethical" isn't really rooted in concern that the porno producers aren't making enough money to keep them making more. Rather it represents this sixteenth-century idealism that if there just isn't a public domain and a few rich publishers control what gets printed, then their concern for their reputation and future privileges will keep them making conservative decisions about what anyone is allowed to read. But I do not believe in that idealism or those ethics, not even a little. Wnt (talk) 03:17, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

So the synopsis version of your comment Wnt is "Embed the video to stop conservative values WP:CREEPing back into society"? Support! Especially for 'Mericans I'm honestly baffled as to your response and I currently think that you've either turned in a very civil and smart Internet troll recently, or you need to clarify yourself in simpler language – I'm leaning to the latter but ... well, the above is just plain unintelligible and screams "red herring" and "straw man". Conciseness means that we will understand your point. Then you can back it up with rhetoric which we will possibly read before responding. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 06:26, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't reacting only about censorship the film, but to Newyorkbrad's far more expansive and far more damaging notion of not including PD material to be "nice" to the (not) copyright holder. (Unfortunately there is someone else making this argument on one of the other three talk pages where this issue is being discussed, though I forget which now) This reminds me of similar "moralistic" crusades like the push to censor Rorschach test several years ago. I am tired of seeing copyright being treated on one side like an unbreakable sacred wall at the foot of which we see people like Aaron Swartz sacrificed on Moloch's altar, yet on the other like it is a mere technicality with no weight whatsoever. I say if you sign a copyright transfer you don't own the movie, if you get sued in court you don't own the movie, so if you don't bother to renew a copyright... you don't own the movie! Wnt (talk) 11:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Wnt Now you've got me really engaged. The way the feds hunted down Aaron Swartz and pushed him over a cliff is an example of how these copyright laws can be applied in very selective and politically motivated ways by some U.S. law enforcement control freaks is the best point you've made. It is similar to letting crazy people get automatic weapons whenever any laws which are not absolutely required for health and safety are in effect in debatably non-democratic countries. I am ashamed to say I had forgotten about Aaron Swartz. That was worse than the old racist church burnings because it was carried out by government officials. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:38, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Self-censorship is can be a slippery slope

When you've lived as long as I have, you've seen many, many awful things done to innocent people which were/are well known by media who apply/applied Self-censorship which indirectly perpetuates the awful behavior. The child abuse by some priests is just one example, another was the apparently well known for years by Washington media,the serial sexual use of underage pages by a Florida Congressman. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:20, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

These things have nothing to do with what we were talking about. No one is supporting political censorship of Wikipedia. But not every decision not to include some piece of information on Wikipedia is a bad thing. Every day we delete articles because their subjects aren't notable enough. Do you call that "self-censorship" and believe we should eliminate the deletion processes? We don't (or shouldn't) include in Wikipedia information about borderline-notable people that infringes their personal privacy without an encyclopedic purpose; we don't (or shouldn't) include trivial information that distracts from what is important about the subject of an article; we don't (or shouldn't) reuse material whose use would infringe someone's copyright beyond fair use, although we do our best to find another way of presenting the information where we can. "Slippery slope" arguments, while given greater credence in First Amendment like contexts than others, are generally weak arguments, because almost any action could be characterized as the first step on a slippery slope to something. Ruling out good actions, out of concern they could in the future be extrapolated to bad actions, is a declaration that one lacks faith in the decision-makers. And to call every exercise of Wikipedians' collective editorial judgment "self-censorship" is to substitute an epithet for reasoning—a common fallacy that I wish I did not see any more. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:05, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I struggle to see the essential difference between what I would term sound editorial judgment (an implied good) and what nocturnalhow would characterise as self-censorhip (an implied evil). They are sides of the same coin. And actually this is enshrined in policy since WP:NOT says we are not an indiscriminate collection of information, and even the notoriously militant Commons community has no compunction about deleting an endless succession of entirely correctly licensed pictures of penises. Guy (Help!) 22:16, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I did not communicate well. I am not calling every or even any exercise of Wikipedians' collective editorial judgment "self-censorship". I already said above that good selective judgment can and should be exercised; not a lazy all inclusive rule. Indiscriminate collection of info would be an all inclusive process/rule. And political censorship is not on the table in this discussion, I don't think. I am saying that there is such a thing as self-censorship, that it has been applied sometimes by media when it should not have been, and that it can be a slippery slope. I changed the wording above to replace "is" with "can be". When it comes to this film, I actually watched it earlier today and I think it is not important enough to make access difficult or have a big discussion about. Also, parents have the responsibility of overseeing what pops up on their children's computers from all the social media and educational sources. If we start trying to help them do their job, that just enables them to do a less capable job, imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:51, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Yesterday I sent a retired science teacher a fyi link to Thought experiment. This is part of his response; "On another note, Wikipedia provides a wealth of valuable information for humans. We are very fortunate to have access to a website loaded with this kind of valuable knowledge and information." Not sure why that's relevant, but feels like it is somehow. Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:23, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

More nonsense. Censoring movies like Debbie Does Dallas *is* political censorship - it's politics of the worst kind, the politics of limiting what types of expression people feel safe to offer. To say that women shouldn't be allowed to show their breasts in film is little different than saying that people shouldn't be able to talk online without the NSA watching them. They're both arguments about speech, privacy, and propriety. But the only true propriety is to allow people to research what interests them without making them feel hunted and bullied. Wnt (talk) 03:26, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Everything is politics according to Thomas Mann. I think censorship or politics is not the primary issue here nor throughout our societies. The primary issue is poor reading/listening habits; e.g. none of the people promoting censoring DDD seem to have noticed Right Hand Drive's comparison of DDD to A Free Ride in the context of the DDD being embedded is something new as theorized by Jimbo. None have answered his question about "what's the difference" either.

And NewYorkBrad seems to have missed Jimbo's claim that "Censorship always involves force or the threat of force - for example, the threat of a fine or jail time for publishing something. Deciding not to publish something, or to publish in one way rather than another, is not censorship." which was the primary reason I brought up Self-censorship, to inform. Good communication requires taking the time to read or listen to the actual words of whoever one is communicating with, and that does not happen as often as it needs to if we are going to really communicate. These same bad listening and reading and scattered thinking habits are hindering our ability to deal with even a simple, almost childish, matter like Debbie Does Dallas; see how ridiculous it is? But at least its funny. And, Wnt, you are a good listener, imo.Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, the issue is, as has been said elsewhere above, whether the primary source overwhelms the article. It's generally not practice to include full length movies - it seems that is because it's too much padding to a text article, because other than to the synopsis/plot section it is not directly making the article's points (and even then only in specific part) - it does not provide its own critical commentary on itself, nor its own cultural or legal commentary on itself. Now perhaps, you could make the same arguments for not providing a short movie, but because they are short the issues are not joined to the same degree, and the effort at curation and editing the short to make the article's points may not be worth it. As to the "slippery slope", it rather runs downhill in the other direction because it is easier to add everything from the undifferentiated mass of information than it is to curate and edit-out, which takes sustained careful thought and effort in creating a tertiary source. It is also easier to then say every act of a person's expression is an act of self-censorship. As for making "safe expression", that's not the purpose for creating a tertiary source, which by definition is curated expression. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Every single thing Alanscottwalker says makes perfect sense to me, especially that it "takes sustained careful thought and effort in creating a tertiary source." As he says, and Jimbo and NewYorkBrad have alluded to,this would be a demanding mission; to "curate and edit-out" the ever increasing quantity of incoming film material.So, now we have 2 additional questions. Assuming there is a consensus to take on the mission of curating and editing out, what would be the next step and is it even possible from a time and individual editing resource standpoints? Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:34, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

And what if the choice is between hosting porn or people having access to wikipedia? Some countries block sites that host pornography, or require an age verification system. Wikipedia may choose to ignore such laws, but local ISPs have to comply with court orders, and all it takes is one person to file a complaint and a judge to agree. Wouldn't be the first time, what was it on the russian version, a method to make hash? Prevalence (talk) 06:17, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

See censorship of Wikipedia - if you click on the "Cannabis smoking" link in that article you'll get to the Russian article, and as you see, it is not as threadbare as the Russian government originally seemed to demand. Because Wikipedia is continually edited, it is impossible to say that the article was unscathed by the threats, and the agency claimed it had been modified sufficiently when it decided not to block Wikipedia; but certainly it should not be taken as a precedent for surrender. The problem with this sort of issue is that whatever you don't fight on Bataan you'll fight on Corregidor, or in Sydney if that's what you prefer. If you pay ISIS a million now, they'll have ten times as many hostages on ransom next week, and if you censor an article on cannabis smoking today, you'll be censoring articles that put Putin in a bad light the month after. If you won't embed a frame with a porn movie, they'll come back and tell you you're not allowed to illustrate those vestigial penis spines some men have tomorrow, or to have the movie anywhere the day after that. Wnt (talk) 10:17, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

What a poorly chosen flagship !

The Righteous Fighters Against Censorship could have chosen a better battleship. Under-age looking cheerleaders encountering over-age Babbitts lead to a movie that is more about power than about sex. Using 352x240 resolution doesn't help. How to solve the controversy about the Stony Brook University Library without recognizable details ? And finally, the obvious de-synchronization between video and soundtrack suggests that either the Encyclopedists that are building the temple of All the Knowledge under Heaven are unable to resync a movie, or aren't judging the script being worth of their care. Pldx1 (talk) 14:30, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

You tempted me to google for quotes from the film.

Debbie - "Oh Mr. Greenfeld, you're so strong."

Mr. Greenfeld - "That's because I eat my Wheaties everyday."

I can see why some might find the script not particularly worthy of synchronization.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that the synchronization is off, but that can be fixed. It is easy to mock the silly dialog, acting and plot in this movie, but the importance of this movie to contemporaneous American culture should not be underestimated. "It is regarded as one of the most important releases during the so-called 'Golden Age of Porn', and remains one of the best-known pornographic films," according to the Wikipedia article. My quest here is not to fight against censorship but to address the hypocrisy and double standards of removing this movie from the article. Why is it ok that anyone can watch the movie on Wikimedia Commons but can't watch it here? Why is it ok to have the movie embedded in French Wikipedia but not ok to have it embedded in English Wikipedia? Why is it helpful to embed a copy of Charade in the article about that movie, but not helpful to embed a copy of Debbie Does Dallas in the article about the movie? Why is it ok to have a hardcore pornographic movie embeded in A Free Ride, but not ok to have it in Debbie Does Dallas]]? Right Hand Drive (talk) 17:33, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I believe your questions have already been answered for the most part, but for convenience I'll give my own answers. Note well, of course, that this page is a place that I hope is helpful in the community chewing over interesting and difficult questions, rather than a page where policy is set. The final resolution here is in no way up to me.

1. Why is it ok that anyone can watch the movie on Wikimedia Commons but can't watch it here? In the minds of many people, embedding a pornographic movie in an encyclopedia article is a highly surprising thing to do, whereas linking to it somewhere else is not particularly surprising in this modern day and age. There is the additional issue, which I have raised more than once, that we should take care to not subject readers to unnecessary risk of something bad happening due to an accidental or stray click. Having the movie on commons rather than embedded does virtually nothing to prevent people who really want to see it from going over there to see it, but does a lot to prevent people who don't want to see it from accidentally playing it.
2. Why is it ok to have the movie embedded in French Wikipedia but not ok to have in embedded in English Wikipedia? I personally think the same "one click" argument applies there as well as anywhere else. But it is also perfectly fine for different language versions of Wikipedia to take reasonable care for the needs of their readers, and to note that even within the realm of NPOV, those needs can different significantly. Finally, the entire decision making structure of Wikipedia means that consistency across languages is never going to be trivial - that one language has decided one way is not an argument in favor of another language having to decide the same way. This is particularly true where reasonable people may differ, as in the present case.
3. Why is it helpful to embed a copy of Charade in the article about that movie, but not helpful to embed a copy of Debbie Does Dallas in the article about the movie? Again the "one click" argument leads us to a different conclusion. If you're a college kid surreptitiously reading Wikipedia on your phone with your parents in the room, then a stray click on a Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn movie isn't likely to cause you any embarrassment. The same can't be said of "Debbie Does Dallas". If you really want to watch it, of course it should be easy enough. But you should be warned appropriately.
4. Why is it ok to have a hardcore pornographic movie embeded in A Free Ride, but not ok to have it in Debbie Does Dallas? I don't think it is, for the most part, and I'd like to see consistency here. But I will note that there is a distinguishing feature - A Free Ride is silent, and so accidental embarrassment is much less likely in case of a stray click.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I hope that you will recognize that these answers are not insane. You may not agree, and as I have said, this is an area where reasonable people may differ. But I repeat that I see very few downsides (and you haven't mentioned even one) to hosting it on commons only, and several downsides (which you haven't addressed at all) to embedding it. You seem hung up on the 'consistency' argument, but that argument fails because the film is different and so can and should be treated according to its own nature. So I recommend not climbing the Reichstag.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

The movie doesn't start with a porn scene - a single click gets you to a legal notice, title credits, and fairly ordinary scenes of cheerleaders on a football field. It is more than two minutes until the women hit the showers - and while some people might say they are 'surprised' to see such a thing, we should note that lesbians in high school are expected, nay compelled to view fairly similar scenes in person. So at least that scene is not unusual, or shouldn't be, by even conservative educational standards; and it's a fair shot across the bow for anyone still claiming to be surprised.

It may not be a good example, but we have to defend Wikipedia's content where we see it challenged. The people climbing the Reichstag (or burning it) are the ones pressing for policy changes at WP:NOT to make it officially rather than just unofficially a call to delete useful content from articles. I do agree though that we should have a higher-quality version of this film. Wnt (talk) 18:56, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Two whole minutes, eh? I mean, if it were only 90 seconds, that would be "surprising", but that extra 30 seconds makes it a whole different story. Seriously though, I don't think that's really the point. There is nothing wrong with making people click twice and/or give an "adult content" warning before they see something they may not want to see, or as Jimbo points out, they may not want everybody else to hear. (I actually would make it "AND" a warning, and if someone wanted (just for the sake of consistency) "two clicks" for "Charade" as well (but without the warning), I wouldn't have a problem with that either.) This would not be an issue of "defending Wikipedia's content" - the content would still be available. Neutron (talk) 19:50, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I see a slight intellectual paradox in such readiness to install extra clicks in the DDD matter while zero interest in a Rfc suggesting just a more prominent positioning or maybe requiring 1 click to our privacy policy so Readers will know how the policy applies to them. Its only natural I suppose but should we not be as interested in alerting people as to what they are about to be exposed to when they read our product as we are in what they are exposed to with other companies' products? Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:21, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

I never saw that RfC before, but it looks like your proposal did get some interest - from two people who thought it was unnecessary. If it makes you feel any better, I have made proposals on Wikipedia that went over like a led zeppelin myself. As for your analogy between avoiding a single-click launching of a full-length pornographic film and providing more prominent placement for the privacy policy, the connection is not immediately apparent to me. Neutron (talk) 22:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Jimbo, I don't think your answers are "insane". I'm certain that as reasonable people we can disagree without becoming hostile. I agree that having a warning before the movie would be a good idea, but I don't think there's any way for me to do that. Nor is it done on other potentially offensive content (there's that dounle standard again). You cite an example of someone accidentally starting the movie playing, but that does not seem to be a serious concern. The movie can be stopped with one click or tap. The page can easily be closed. The browser can be closed. The phone or computer can be turned off. As people have pointed outm there is no objectionable content in the first few minutes of the movie, so there is ample time to take whatever action is necessary. And while there is a tiny risk of the movie being started accidentally, is that how we decide what content to include? Isn't there a risk that someone will accidentally load an article about sexuality which contains images of nudity while at work? Your argument about the embedded pornographic movie in A Free Ride seems specious. You have twice said that people would be surprised to find pornographic movies embedded in Wikipedia articles, yet when it is pointed out to you that this has been the case for years now, the best you can do is suggest that it is "different" because it is silent? I think people would be surprised by what they see, not by what they hear (or don't hear). Despite what you have said, I'm still seeing a double standard here. Right Hand Drive (talk) 05:21, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

Ok. I've said my piece. You don't seem to be interested in listening, so I'll stop talking.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:58, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I listened, I just didn't agree with all of your points. Right Hand Drive (talk) 22:33, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

RfC about pornographic movie in A Free Ride

Jimbo, based in part on your comments here, I have started a "request for comment" about the hardcore pornographic movie that has been embedded in A Free Ride since 2012. I hope that this RfC will clarify how editors feel about having pornographic movies embedded in Wikipedia articles, so that perhaps we can have some consistency between A Free Ride and Debbie Does Dallas. You are, of course, welcome to participate in the RfC. Thanks. Right Hand Drive (talk) 00:23, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

This is what is known as disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Johnuniq (talk) 00:54, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I think of it more as providing a coherently formulated neutral question at an appropriate venue using the structured mechanisms provided for gathering editor input. Let's agree to disagree. Right Hand Drive (talk) 04:23, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

I gotta agree with Johnuniq. Right Hand Drive, your point of view is reasonable but the Rfc process was not best next step, imo, the discussions you participated in here are constructive, imo. Just my opinion. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:51, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

The discussion here seemed to be finished. The discussions elsewhere were based on misunderstandings of policy and practice. They also seem to be finished. I could sit around and wait for nothing to happen, but instead I'm using the RfC process as it is meant to be used. If you and Juhnuniq don't like it, I guess I will have to live with that. You are welcome to particpate in the RfC if you have something left to add. Right Hand Drive (talk) 22:15, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Sound track copyright

DDD has a music soundtrack from "Group Activity Light/Group Activity Heavy" an incidental music album by the group Midas Touch, published by Standard Music Library, a subsidiary of Bucks Music Group. As such it is likely that the soundtrack is not public domain. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:30, 13 February 2016 (UTC).

If it is from the Standard Music Library, it is most likely royalty-free music, but more research would be needed to determine whether or not this means that it is also copyright-free. Bucks Music Group's article appears to have been copied straight from their website. Right Hand Drive (talk) 04:53, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I have rewritten page "Bucks Music Group" +sources to avoid copvio, and thanks for noting similarity to web About page. We'll see if the copyvio Bot finds any similarity now. Thanks again. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:52, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

More on edit-conflicts

(continued from "#Edit-conflicts still need 2-line separation").

This is a 2nd thread about wp:edit-conflicts, to allow the 6-Feb-2016 thread (above) to archive within a week. Years ago I had discussed edit-conflict merge in Bugzilla, but now we should track phabricator entries because this year perhaps the wp:developers will be able to reduce edit-conflicts in wikitext edits, beyond VisualEditor (VE) just overwriting the prior user edits. Because still fewer than 5% of enwiki editors use VE, then the other 96% use wikitext edits (& reverts) which can hit edit-conflicts. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:25, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Confirmed VisualEd overwrites intervening edits

Although it can be dismal to any users who lose all their intervening changes to a page, the VisualEditor (VE) still overwrites the prior revisions (without warning), and the VE users do not lose their keystrokes (no "edit-conflict" nightmare for them). See diff6163, where visual-edit of top line of section "Hints" also overwrote/undid prior edit to lines 4+5 in that section. Fortunately, VE is only used in ~4% of edits, so the likelihood of VE overwriting the prior interleaved revisions is still small. Otherwise, perhaps warn other editors, when people are editing the same page with VE, how those VE users gain priority in SAVEing their edits, even if rapid users had made hundreds of changes meanwhile in other sections of the same page. All intervening changes (to the same section of the page) are lost without warning when the VE edit is saved, but there can be attempts made by VE to edit-merge with the interleaved revised remote sections. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:55, updated 20:48, 12 February 2016, added diff 21:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

What happens when two visual editors are in conflict with each other. Visual editor "A" opens an article and begins editing. While "A" is working on their extensive changes, visual editor "B" makes some quick spelling corrections, not in a section "A" is working on expanding, and saves their edit which they started after "A". Later "A" saves their major change; does that revert "B"'s spelling corrections? An interesting test to run. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:27, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Correction: There seems to be an edit-merge of remote sections from each editor, and so both edits can be saved together in some circumstances. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:48, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

That sounds serious. We've had problems in the past where V/E bugs made newbies using it look like vandals and get treated as such, I thought those had been fixed. If V/E is resolving edit conflicts with editors using the classic editor by losing the edit someone had just made then I suggest you raise it, with diffs, at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. ϢereSpielChequers 22:18, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

In terms of priorities, because VisualEditor (VE) usage is still below 5%, then the chance of VE overwriting an interleaved edit is very rare, and I would rather focus attention on the wikitext source edit-conflicts instead. Adding more feedback for VE would likely bolster the illusion of wider interest there, and instead we really need to improve the wikitext editor, where many users feel Wikipedia has made no major improvements in like 10 years (and the SAVE-button legal notice or wp:Wikidata doesn't register with them as "awesome innovation"). Of course the same could be said for Google Search, with the same tired list of search-results, with no major option for alternative interface (and Google Doodle does not count as "awesome enhancement"). -Wikid77 (talk) 01:40, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Dear Wikid77 If V/E has a bug so serious that it makes some edits using it look like vandalism then it is important either to fix it or disable V/E. So I would really appreciate it if you would back up your assertion with diffs. I understand that reducing edit conflicts, especially in mainspace, is obviously a more important initiative than FLOW, AFT, MediaViewer et al. But this isn't an either or situation, there are resources to do both, and your very useful comments on Edit conflicts in Mainspace risk losing credibility if you claim to have spotted such a serious bug in V/E but won't furnish diffs to support your assertion. ϢereSpielChequers 10:30, 14 February 2016 (UTC) ϢereSpielChequers 10:30, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, VE overwriting a prior, interleaved edit would be very rare, but see diff6163, where visual-edit of the top line of section "Hints" also overwrote/undid the prior edit meanwhile to lines 4+5 in that section, rather than edit-merged both changes as the wikitext source editor would have done. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

First of all, VE doesn't edit by Sections

1. VE is disabled on all talk pages
2. VE edits by whole pages. If you click on an Edit Section link, the whole page is open for edition
3. When editing whole pages, the second saver wins (whatever VE or WikiEdit)
4. When editing by sections (i.e. both users editing the same section with WikiEdit), conflicts are taken into account.

More details at User:Pldx1/Overwrite. Pldx1 (talk) 13:54, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

BLP violations across multiple language Wikipedias

An issue has arisen re BLP violations related to the Bad Aibling rail accident article. Victims names have been inserted into the article in violation of BLP. I've nuked all instances that I am aware of on en-Wiki, but have no way of fixing this on other wikis. Are you or the Foundation able to exert any influence in this matter. Issue is being discussed at WP:AN#How to handle a BLP violation?. Mjroots (talk) 22:47, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Update: articles at cs, fr, nl, ru, fi and sv Wikppedias have been oversighted.

Articles at es, pt, uk and vi Wikipedias still to be oversighted.

If any editor is at least at lvl3 in those languages, please find the equivalent of WP:AN in that language and file a request for oversighting.

I have asked one admin at each of those languages who is en-3 or above, and active, for assistance. That admin may not fully understand the situation. Stewards have declined to assist in this matter. Mjroots (talk) 22:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

All violtions across all Wikis now nuked. Mjroots (talk) 19:28, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Meanwhile note ~150 on trains, 11 dead, 82 injured

I am not seeing names but rather wrong numbers of people noted for the trains. Based on German WP, "Von den etwa 150 Personen in den Zügen wurden 11 getötet und 82 verletzt; darunter 20 schwer" ["Of about 150 people in the trains, 11 were killed and 82 injured, of those 20 severe"]. So check the numbers in each language. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:27, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

The Knight Foundation Grant

Please bear in mind I have no overall opinion on either the decisions or the processes related to this grant and that my observations/concerns may be of little value given my only recent exposure to the issue and processes. Notwithstanding, I have read through just some of the info available and have already noticed some important words that I find problematic:

1:"Using these platforms as testing grounds, the organization will examine questions around content preferences, queries, the quality and relevance of results, and what information people consume and why."

I do not think we/Wikipedia should be examining or need to try to figure out what information people consume and why, either as individual readers or collectively.

2:"Finding an article on Wikipedia is like opening the first page in the book of knowledge. We have an obligation to our communities to make this first experience captivating for every user."

I don't like the idea that we would want to capture(captivating) the attention/experience of our readers in any way. This is exactly what I was taught as being #1 objective in advertising; i.e. to "get the customer's attention"

To further say this is an "obligation to our communities" is an attempted transference and acceptance of this desire/need to "captivate" from whoever is setting this "captivating" goal to all of us and our communities.

3:BY WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION COMMUNICATIONS ON JANUARY 6TH, 2016

"As the amount of digital content continues to grow, helping people search for and discover relevant information so they can make decisions important to their lives is becoming increasingly essential," said John Bracken, Knight Foundation vice president for media innovation. "This project will help uncover more effective, transparent ways to do just that,.."

I vehemently disagree with Bracken's implication of information being primarily limited to making decisions. This is similar , imo, of saying getting education is primarily to get a job. I also notice he worked for the Ford Foundation, which sets off alarm bells for me.

4:"Jan 29, 2016 Release of further details by Tretikov with the statement that the grant paperwork could not be released due to “donor privacy”"

If our Trustees can see it , we should too, in this case, imo.

What are the activities this grant supports? (quoted text from the grant) Answer key questions:

5:"Would users go to Wikipedia if it were an open channel beyond an encyclopedia?"

This is cart before the horse; I doubt most members of Wikipedia community want to see it become an "open channel" to other stuff.

6:"Can the Wikimedia Foundation get Wikipedia embedded via carriers and Original Equipment Manufacturers?"

This is another cart before the horse; Hell no is my opinion on this. People should come to us!

7:"Use Key Performance (KPIs) to inform product iteration, and establish key understanding and feature development for the prototypes Conduct tests with potential users Create a public-facing dashboard of key KPIs [24] Measure: User satisfaction (by analyzing rate at which queries surface relevant content) User-perceived load time No results rate Application Programming Interface (API) usage"

I am concerned about all of #7. I think a big part of the fun of Wikipedia is having to think and hunt for info while your mind engages to expand the topics/people you are checking out. I think its just fine if there are no results 30% of the time someone comes here looking for something. We should be encouraging critical thinking by our attendees, not make the platform into a seesaw for babies.

I still have not read all of the available material from Lisa. Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:16, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Must read actual grant agreement

grant agreement is interesting to read. Like the $2,445,873.00 search engine reference on page 9 and the Intellectual Property clause on page 5. The last sentence of the first paragraph section a: of the intellectual property clause is concerning to me. Nocturnalnow (talk) 00:42, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't see anything obviously wrong with this. The WMF keeps the copyrights (with stated intent to allow public distribution) but just to be safe, promises the Knight Foundation that in event of material breach they are guaranteed their own license with right to sublicense. The only thing really wrong with it is that "Foundation" is, of course, confusing, since WMF and Knight Foundation are both Foundations. Frankly, it looks like somebody used a stock form letter and didn't really think about it much ... I've seen apartment leases where at least they would capitalize LESSOR and LESSEE and define them explicitly... but the context here is still obvious, and I think any intentional effort by some lawyer to misread this would be nothing but short-term harassment. But IANAL, etc. Wnt (talk) 10:47, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I know what you mean. IANAL either but have seen amazing stretches of contract wordings to unintended consequences. e.g., recently some grocery stores or states in the USA wanted to put "country of origin" labeling on retail packages of beef products and Canada stopped it by claiming it was an infringement of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The same thing in reverse has happened with regards to some newer Provincial government regulations which one would think would fall under sovereignty rights. With regard to this agreement with Knight, maybe it comes down to AGF. If we AGF re: "Knight", then there is nothing wrong with the clause or any of the contract; however, if Knight AGF with us, the clause is perhaps not needed at all. But, I suppose, our AGFing is not/should not be conditional upon AGFing by the other side. So, bottom line, I agree with you that the agreement is just fine in the world of written agreements, I just find it very interesting and thought provoking to read. I must say that I would have preferred if it were much shorter. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:25, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

In Real Life, the Wikipedia letter soup is irrelevant. A contract is a legal binding, describing how conflicts will be solved. At the present time, the Knight Foundation is funding 10% of the first year of the Discovery Team, with some obligations of result, beyond a simple description of how resources were burned (this is the purpose of a restricted grant). In any case, they already received, gratis pro Deo, a large amount of WikiShitStorm©: great investment ! Pldx1 (talk) 14:15, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Basic question about the scope of the grant

Note: I am looking for a definitive answer based upon some sort of documentation, not just opinions or assumptions.

Will whatever does the searching just search things that we control (Wikipedia, Wictionary, Wikidata, Wikibooks, etc.) or will it be searching things that other people control (other websites, for example)? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:31, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I recommend reading the actual grant agreement. There is nothing in the deliverables which includes searching things that other people control. Whether or not a fully realized future result would include, as an example, a tool for editors and readers to quickly find results in open access research, etc., is an interesting question (I think it sounds great) but not one which is at all proposed for this first stage.

Media reports and trolling suggesting that this is some kind of broad google competitor remain completely and utterly false.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:12, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Unblock for me

Hi.

I 3.5 years ago blocked from Turkish Wikipedia by admin Mskyrider 1. And I want return to Turkish Wikipedia. And i sent messages and e-mails to any Turkish admins but they are no answering to me. A lot of puppet account slander to me by them 2-3. And they are ignored me.. Can you help me?

____
1- https://tr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C3%96zel:G%C3%BCnl%C3%BCk&page=Kullan%C4%B1c%C4%B1:Aguzer&type=block
2- https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategori:Vikipedi:Aguzer_kullan%C4%B1c%C4%B1s%C4%B1n%C4%B1n_kuklalar%C4%B1
3- https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedi:Denet%C3%A7i_iste%C4%9Fi/Dava/Aguzer_2

There are only 50 minutes between blocks. First block: 1 month. Second block: 6 month and, Third block: Endless. in 50 minute! and 3.5 years ago.
-Writer: User:Aguzer 22:57, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 February 2016

• Special report: New internal documents raise questions about the origins of the Knowledge Engine

• In focus: An in-depth look at the special report's newly revealed documents

• News and notes: Another WMF departure

• In the media: Jeb Bush swings at Wikipedia and connects

• Featured content: This week's featured content

• Traffic report: A river of revilement

• Blog: Wikimedia Foundation removes The Diary of Anne Frank due to copyright law requirements

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:28, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikitext editor awesome Preview of references

Finally we have a massive improvement in the wikitext source editor; I noticed today how an edit-preview of a section of an article (or talk-page) now shows auto-section "Preview of references" to proofread those section cites without having to append a test-mode {Reflist} template. This is the type of editor improvement we've been discussing for years now. I can't even count the edits where I accidentally saved a 2nd test-mode {Reflist} and had to re-edit a page again simply because I had wanted to preview cites before SAVE to ensure "only one edit to fix problems", and so the actual result of checking cites in preview had been the horrific duplicate cite list after section edited, as the "inverse consequence" of a careful update to fix all key details. Hence, this new feature, "Preview of references" is such a massive improvement, I can't yet calculate the benefits provided, and the number of cite re-edits avoided. Who do we thank next? -Wikid77 (talk) 13:36, 15 February 2016 (UTC)