User talk:Jimbo Wales

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RfA (not again!)

Congratulations, you did a fine job on last night's Colbert Report, Jimmy. I understand from User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_122#ArbCom_Appointments_2012 that you want to start a discussion this month to address a number of problems, including "the ongoing admin-appointment situation... a problem which I think most people agree needs to be solved, but for which our usual processes have proven ineffective for change". From this and past statements, I get the sense that you're not looking for more of the same at RfA with a 10% higher promotion rate, you're looking for something more ... substantial. What I'd like to do is to have a quick RfC at RfA to set up ground rules for a new discussion that takes your constraints into account, that is: if an RfC can produce, say, 5 options for you to choose from, would you be willing to do that? How much time do we have? And, can you give us any sense of what "magnitude" of change you'd be willing to consider acceptable? - Dank (push to talk) 14:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I've just gotten home to London (not actually home yet, on a train) and will go to sleep ASAP. Planning to start writing something substantial tomorrow.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:57, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Did you get any advice from Colbert on possible changes or does he still believe that Thomas Edison was an alpaca farmer? AutomaticStrikeout (T • C) 03:28, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Having seen the remarkable efficiency with which the general community operates on RfCs, I would sugest instead that the WMF establish an ad hoc discussion forum with invited participants to make such recommendations as they see fit. If we expect the general community to make three or four specific recommendations, we will end up with 20,000 words for each of 100 different choices <g>. Collect (talk) 00:09, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I missed that episode of the Colbert Report. That had to be something to see! I'll have to look for it in re-broadcast.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:35, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I for one want to say thank you Jimbo for taking an interest in this. Unfortunately I, as well as others agree that you are pretty much the last hope of trying to fix the process. RFA has been broken for a long time, everyone knows it, a lot of us have tried to fix it and the community has thus far been incapable of affecting any change. Even now as Dank left the message starting this discussion there has been an explosion of well meaning and well intentioned comments and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship. Unfortunately I am pessimistic as to what it will lead too. Its been discussed many times but we never come to anything other than an agreement that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. I am hopeful that the solution you come up with will improve the ever dwindling numbers at RFA. Kumioko (talk) 18:11, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Good point, K, I'll reply to this over at WT:RFA#RfC. - Dank (push to talk) 18:50, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

• Jimmy, I think if anyone can fix this problem at Rfa, it will have be you. Since your famous statement that adminship was "No big deal" it has become just that. I truly hope your proposal is substantial yet easy to implement, and makes sense to a supermajority of the editing community. To me the big three issues are the power to block, the lifetime appointment, and the current relative difficulty of de-admining problem admins, especially ones that "play the edge" by skirting the rules in some cases for years. Most importantly, it must be something that does not get talked into the ground. I hope that you will take back a chunk of your former powers and implement these reforms by fiat. However the well-known statement that "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" should be ever in your considerations. My best wishes in cutting the Gordian Knot! Jusdafax 22:02, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
  • I think there are a lot of things Jimmy could do here, and I'm sure he'll choose wisely. I'm more concerned about what the history of RfA says about us than I'm concerned about what Jimmy will do. No free society should ever say "we can't solve our problems, please save us from ourselves". We need to keep working on this before, during and after any intervention by Jimmy. - Dank (push to talk) 22:16, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
• Considering the spectrum of ailments across Wikipedia, I can't imagine a more stringently therapeutic measure than to solve this by exercising leadership of the founder flag! --My76Strat (talk) 22:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

  If memory serves me, Jimmy said he was going to make a proposal, not a "change". Like any other proposal, it would be looked at and discussed by the community. I'm hopeful, since he has been here longer than the rest of us and is far enough removed (but not too far) to have some unique insights, but I don't think he will actually be flexing any Founder bits here. I wouldn't jump to any conclusions at this stage. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 18:57, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

  Nor would I jump. --My76Strat (talk) 02:39, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Match fixing investigations of Norwegian Second Division

I don't know anything about Norwegian Football, nor do I have any interest. Perhaps someone who does can assist.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:14, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Text suggestion. The Match fixing investigations of Norwegian Second Division association football league are two ongoing investigations that started in 2012 in Norway and in Sweden. The investigations have resulted in police charges pending against nine individuals. Three players from Follo FK and two players from Asker Fotball are among those charged. Norwegian police arrested a player from Follo FK on July 11, 2012. He was charged with receiving stolen goods (siktet for heleri) and for receiving benefits/money from match fixing. Timeline: Norwegian police arrested a player from Follo FK on July 11, 2012. He was charged with receiving stolen goods (siktet for heleri) and for receiving benefits/money from match fixing. Follo FK's trainer, Hans Erik Eriksen on July 14, 2012 admits to having been involved in "illegal acts, linked to the same environment that is being investigated in the [alleged] match fixing case".[1] One player from Asker Fotball was arrested on October 19, 2012. He was charged with assisting in acts of grov corruption and assisting in grov fraud against a Norwegian bookmaker (Norsk Tipping).[2] The police dismissed the case against the trainer of Follo FK, on October 4, 2012. A Swedish prosecutor (Thomas Forsberg) said on December 3, 2012 that Sweden has an investigation that is seperate of Norway's investigation.[3] In advance of this, Swedish police had arrested two inhabitants of Vaxjo, Sweden. --Captain jack straitand narrow (talk) 08:31, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Turkish Wikipedia Problems

Please Take care of this page, And This site is in Turkish Wikipedia protest blog.--Aguzer|communication^E-M 16:54, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

+? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.183.196.12 (talk) 05:08, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Academic peer review committees

At Jimmy Wales#Nupedia and the origins of Wikipedia (version of 22:13, 5 January 2013), there is this quotation.

The idea was to have thousands of volunteers writing articles for an online encyclopedia in all languages. Initially we found ourselves organizing the work in a very top-down, structured, academic, old-fashioned way. It was no fun for the volunteer writers because we had a lot of academic peer review committees who would criticize articles and give feedback. It was like handing in an essay at grad school, and basically intimidating to participate in.

I am interested in seeing archived copies of discussions where "academic peer review committees ... would criticize articles and give feedback".
—Wavelength (talk) 01:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

As a side note, that quote does not appear to be fully accurate. It isn't something I wrote, it's something that a reporter wrote down based on what I said... or... alternately I would say it's a misstatement by me in some details. Anyway to answer your question, perhaps someone can point us to the old Nupedia mailing list archives - I don't personally know where they are now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:40, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

They can be downloaded from Joseph Reagle's blog or read on the Wayback Machine. Graham87 12:57, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both for your replies. I have spent some time in exploring the mailing list archives on the Wayback Machine, but I have not yet found the desired information.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:45, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

No I, We are have a problem !

Please !!...78.183.218.42 (talk) 05:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

You can post this, just don't spam it. Prodego ^talk 05:38, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

This really does seem like something that needs to be looked into, if the admins on Turkish Wikipedia are indeed banning anyone that disagrees with them or supports any sort of action against them. And, unfortunately, it's not something the Turkish Wikipedia community can fix, since...well, the admins there would just ban them if they tried. Someone from the Foundation needs to step in here. Silverseren^C 10:34, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

What Seren said. I have no real way of knowing what's going on over there, but something obviously needs to be done. Who it needs to be done to is what needs to be worked out. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 10:39, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Turkish Wikipedia have too problems, this is Real. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.183.44.37 (talk) 11:04, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Just a cursory glance at this page shows a wide consensus that there is a problem that can and will effectively shut down Turkish Wikipedia. A group of sysops have essentially written a manifesto and hijacked the Wiki. You have not contributed, Jimbo. Please do so. This is important, and needs to be resolved. If it is reposted 100 times, it will not be spam. 174.51.31.120 (talk) 11:13, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Man, I don't read Turkish, but if Google Translate is to be trusted, there is some awful shit going on over there. I still don't think it's been properly summarized in English, though. I haven't been able to find the aforementioned "manifesto", for example. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 11:27, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

It would seem sensible to me for us to ask the Turkish Wikipedians to come here and comment. Over the years, I have heard similar claims about many languages - claims which, upon deeper investigation, turn out to be not true. (Experienced English language Wikipedians can surely imagine what some banned users might say - claiming that "admins on English Wikipedia are banning anyone that disagrees with them". At the same time, if people I trust (Silver seren) have looked into it and found something to be concerned about, then I think it's worth having a closer look, so I shall do that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:43, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Update: I've looked into it, and yes, this looks like a real problem. Reminds me vaguely of some internal wars in other wikis in the past. I'm going to keep studying this and will try to reach some people by email for private conversation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:56, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to The Devil's Advocate for finding these links. This edit appears to be the one where an official statement was made by the five admins that were a part of the "Manifesto". (Maybe this edit is that?) Either way, it seems to be the official comment from the five of them on why they blocked several users that had openly criticized them for blocking the other two users (Regarding the two original users, one (User:Nazif Ilbek) appears to have been blocked because he had been doing outreach with universities in Turkey and presented himself as a representative of the Turkish Wikipedia to try and get more people to edit and had put links on his userpage to represent this and the admins in question felt this was self-promotional, so they blocked him. And the other (User:seksen) appears to have been blocked because he angrily questioned the, apparently normal, process on Turkish Wikipedia where RFAs and RFBs can only be voted in by admins and not the general community.)

As for the official statement itself, at least from what I can understand from Google's pretty bad translation of Turkish, it seems very...pontificating to me. I would almost call it backpedaling and trying to cover one's tracks if not for the air of they can do no wrong. From what is said there, it appears three further users (Users Bermanya, Stultiwikia, and Rapsar) were blocked for criticizing the blocks of the two I just discussed. The blocking reason for them was "trolling", whereupon I guess criticism of admin actions is trolling? Yeah, I think there's problems here. Silverseren^C 02:03, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

It also appears that Asaf Bartov of the WMF made a response regarding the user blocked for self-promotion, saying that they had been working together and that it was all proper, above-board outreach efforts with universities. You can read his statement here. Silverseren^C 02:03, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

This appears to be the community discussion of Seksen's block, where a number of users questioned the appropriateness of the permanent banning. Of those users, Bermanya, Stultiwikia, and Rapsar were among the commenters and, after this discussion, they were blocked for "trolling" about five hours after that discussion, which is when the five admins gave the big response. Silverseren^C 02:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Jimbo. Peace left in the Turkish Wikipedia. I can low speak English but Everything became clear. :) --This unsigned article written by: User:Aguzer 14:15, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I have victim but friends the priority. --This unsigned article written by: User:Aguzer 14:23, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

These barriers are disturbed community in by Turkish Wikipedia. --This unsigned article written by: User:Aguzer 14:41, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Because of changes to these simple Username: İncelemeelemani denied! --This unsigned article written by: User:Aguzer 14:48, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Silver seren made a good explanation about the situation. We (Turkish Wikipedia community) tried to make a discussion on Meta, but none of these admins joined that. I think vote of confidence is the best way to bring justice to Turkish Wikipedia.--Rapsar (talk) 15:09, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• The vote of confidence not support I have. Will repeat the same things. --This unsigned article written by: User:Aguzer 15:19, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• There is some awful stuff going on over there. I would say an emergency desysop would be in order of the blocking admins pending further investigation. How did that Wikipedia even come to that?—cyberpower ^Chat_Online 16:34, 12 January 2013 (UTC)
• I agree with Cyber. An emergency desysop will be needed. We cannot afford to have a Coup d'état on the Turkish Wikipedia. Any steward or Jimbo himself should perform this as soon as possible as a preventative measure before more unjustified blocks are issued. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 17:22, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I have made many contributions to Turkish Wikipedia years ago. It was nearly five years ago and the same group of admins were also behaving editors like dictators that time. I have opened a discussion about if we would make a policy about vote of confidence or something like that. I told everyone that it is impossible to do anything if Dr. Jekyll becomes an admin on Turkish wikipedia and then returns into Mr Hide. Guess what? I was a troll in a moment. They blocked me infinitely. Not only me but hundreds of really talented and hardworking users were blocked whenever they talked on the same issue. We were guilty because we started a discussion about if the adminship would be for life time or not. Then i supported Ansiklopedika which is a website built by some friends who were protesting the dictators of Turkish Wikipedia. And also not hard to guess but they put the name of ansiklopedika.org on spam link of Turkish wikipedia. Its forbidden now to show Ansiklopedika.org as a source on Turkish Wikipedia. Why? Because these dictators dislike the new project. Any spamming history? Definetely not. The head of the gang is now user:Kibele who uses the name of the god kybele as her username. By the way using a god's name is against policies in Turkish Wikipedia but who cares? She and her team is over policy. Well there are millions of words here to write but no time and we need no more headache. I want you to believe that theres really a big big big problem in Turkish Wikipedia for years. 5-6 people are modern dictators. They did not let anyone to be an admin for the recent years. People that have interest on Turkish Wikipedia are unhappy. I have seen hundreds of them leaving the project saying that i will contribute on English Wikipedia but never step on Turkish Wiki once again. Pls help Turkish Wikipedia and protect your project. Thank you.Ozgurmulazimoglu (talk) 17:32, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Homeopathy article and the parody of Neutral point of view

I always wanted to ask you how is it possible that controversial articles like homeopathy make neutral point of view looks like parody? What is wrong and how it can be corrected - I have no idea - I have no ....conflict of interest but I did and do have good intentions. For a curious editor, it would take 15 min to understand the problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Homeopathy#Heavily_Biased_article. Best regards. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Motorola12 (talk • contribs) 00:14, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

This has been a problem for many years. The basic problem with the homeopathy article is that it attracts extremists from both sides: Practising homeopaths who want to present Hahnemann's Gospel as the truth, and enthusiastic members of the "skeptic" community who don't appear to understand science. It's the latter category that really shocked me when I first went to the article under the expectation that I would have to help taking the pseudoscientific garbage out. I had no idea that there is such a thing as hooligan followers of science, and as they bring 'my' side into disrepute I am more annoyed at them than at the homeopathy supporters.

In this environment it is actually rather hard to give sensible, neutral information about the history and practices of homeopathy. Nobody seems interested in that. Everything is considered under one aspect only: "Does it help 'us' or the 'enemy'?"

The Citizendium article, not unlike homeopathy articles in many established encylcopedias, is a disgrace because it is too openly pro-homeopathy. (At least it was last time I looked.) But our article goes too far in the other direction. Consider the current last two sections of the lead:

"Scientific research has found homeopathic remedies ineffective and their postulated mechanisms of action implausible. Within the medical community homeopathy is considered to be quackery."

The first sentence says everything there is to know. The second sentence adds nothing but insult, and even with weak sourcing that does not seem to remotely meet the high standard of WP:RS/AC. It also flies in the face of surprisingly large numbers of regular doctors worldwide who administer homeopathy in one way or another. (The number differs a lot from country to country, but is quite high in Germany and probably still in the UK.) Most likely they use it as a placebo, but I doubt that they think of themselves as quacks. That is not to say that there is no quackery among homeopaths, quite possibly more than among regular doctors.

Our readers have come to expect from Wikipedia an excessively neutral and dispassionate tone. This article, however, shouts right into the reader's face: If you believe in homeopathy there is no need to read on, as we are going to try to teach you otherwise. A neutrally written article will teach such a reader otherwise, and it will not prevent them from reading by using poorly supported insults.

Disclaimer: I have been mostly inactive for almost a year and didn't look at the homeopathy article or its talk page even longer. But my quick research showed that nothing much seems to have changed. Hans Adler 11:05, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

The characterization of homeopathy as quackery has in the past been overwhelmingly supported by MEDRS secondary sources, so perhaps the talk page archives and/or article history needs to be examined to find them. It is not an insult any more than characterizing anti-vaccination activists as presenting a danger to public health is an insult. Stark terms are called for when failing to include them is likely to cause harm or even fail to prevent harm. 71.212.238.208 (talk) 01:13, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Not exactly. There are several other high quality sources which depart from this point of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Motorola12 (talk • contribs) 19:22, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

• Shows need for fringe content-forks: There have been many controversial subjects, with POV-edit-wars, in trying to force a single article page to represent each side's concept of "neutrality". The best solution, while balancing wp:SOAPBOX concerns of wp:GRANDSTANDing in a major, heavily-viewed article, is to create a valid, sourced but fringe-level subarticle (wp:Content fork) where questionable ideas can be explained without tainting the top-level article with too much fringe text as "top-billed" hokum. For example, in a murder article, suppose there were many experts who concluded the major suspects might be innocent, but some other person, acting alone, was the real culprit (as documented by reliable sources); in such a case, there could be a sub-article "Murder of X lone-wolf theory" which could explain the unusual (but heavily-sourced) viewpoint that one guy, acting alone, committed the murder and clean-up, as returning to the scene of the crime to see "did that person really die" and then performed extra clean-up when confirming the death was real. By having such fringe-level sub-articles, then sourced, "minority report" opinions can be explained without flooding the major article with all the details needed to clarify how such a fringe concept actually fits the many facts as a plausible explanation. Overall, it is a balancing act, to provide a voice for credible fringe concepts, but not wp:GRANDSTAND those ideas with "top billing" at the search-results level of a major article. In later years, as a fringe concept becomes more mainstream, then the fringe sub-article could be summarized with a greater presence in the main article, but until then, each subarticle is dedicated to a specific (sourced) concept which ensures full details without (as many) edit-warriors trying to slant the text to emphasize some other viewpoints. That tactic really seems to work, as edit-warriors seem more obsessed with slanting the main article, then the less-read subarticles. Albert Einstein (translated in Out of My Later Years) advised a similar tactic in world politics: to have a confederation of different cultures, each as a sub-page of world culture, but acting together as united nations where each could maintain a different culture supported by a minority group, yet all loosely joined in the overall confederation. His idea made me think of the Swiss university, the "Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule" (the Swiss Federal Polytechnic) as a conferation of different university departments, each a minority to the others. After years of analysis, I really think the tactic of "confederated subarticles" is a good solution (whether Einstein liked it or not!). Anyway, Hans, welcome back, and I think other areas here have improved during the past year. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:41, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Hell no - the last thing Wikipedia needs to do is become a platform for fringe theories. Our articles should represent the balance of consensus of material from mainstream reliable sources. Permitting 'fringe-forking' is a guaranteed way of giving such material more credibility than it deserves. All articles must conform to Wikipedia standards regarding NPOV, weight etc - to act otherwise is totally contrary to the encyclopaedic objectives of the project. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I've concluded that where science conflicts with a belief set, the compromise should be to present the science in a calm way without making a point of bashing the belief set. A more common place for this is religion. I've run into the same situation as Hans Adler. I'm a scientific atheist, but I often butt heads with folks at articles that have my same RW POV / are of scientific bent because they often want to turn articles on those topics into nasty attack pieces that make a point of bashing the belief set. North8000 (talk) 22:54, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Wiikipedia supposes to reflect the scientific consensus or any uncertainty or controversy as long as it appears in a reliable source.

According to the NPOV, the weight of every review is NOT judged by the wikipedia contributors evaluating if their content is "correct" or not, but by typically and better, solely by the significance and importance of the journal.

For instance, whatever review or information has been published in the Lancet or the Annals of internal medicine about the X subject ( Homeopathy for instance ) not matter how pro and anti homeopathy the conclusions or the information are , HAS to be reported. In the latest dispute, the group of the editors who control the article while finally accepted ( at least some of them ) that there are several high quality mainstream sources which don't say that Homeopathy = only placebo= quackery, they refused to report their findings because they are NOT consistent with what THEY believe is the scientific consensus.

This the perfect parody of Np of view. The current homeopathy article is a graphic example of what a wikipedia editor should NOT be doing and how should NOT be behaving. --Motorola12 (talk) 00:03, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

With only 1 page about the topic, then edit-warring can be intense. There were similar edit-war problems in 2006 with article "Search engine" which was often severely trimmed to omit Internet search concepts (as considered irrelevant), until the article was forked, and then subarticle "Web search engine" was expanded to contain numerous details about each type of Internet "search engine" database. The result of subarticles, after years of struggle, was almost like magic to reduce edit-warring and broaden details. It's just the rules of "[p]article physics" to reduce conflicts. In some cases, a disambiguation page can also promote similar branched articles, rather than continue conflicts. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:23, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikid77, you seem to be under a misapprehension as to what Wikipedia is for. Forking articles might possibly reduce edit-warring (though I see no particular reason that it should), but if it is done with this objective in mind, at the expense of violating WP:NPOV within particular articles, it is contrary to the objectives of the encyclopaedia. Wikipedia is here to provide neutral and balanced material to our readership, and violating this principle for the convenience of contributors is just plain wrong. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:33, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:MEDRS, we don't allow contributors to cherry-pick a few random primary case studies to 'disprove' overwhelming scientific consensus - have you any evidence that this consensus has changed? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Nope. (And this just in: Earth still not flat!) --Orange Mike | Talk 00:35, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

See: "Flat Earth" or "Cardiff Giant" as examples of how Wikipedia handles fringe topics. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:23, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

You could have read more carefully what I wrote - There are NOT primary case studies but reviews and meta analyses published in first rate journals - see above ( The Lancet, Annals of Interval Medicine and more) . There is not clear consensus among the researchers - Several reviews published in first rate journals contradict each other. Can you justify why you don 't want to apply the NPOV principle "Make readers aware of any uncertainty or controversy. A well-referenced article will point to specific journal articles or specific theories proposed by specific researchers". Why don't you w ant readers to know for instance about these ? --Motorola12 (talk) 19:15, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Accessibility and equality as core policies

I propose that we add a commitment to accessibility and equality to the Five pillars. Please join discussion at Wikipedia talk:Five pillars#Accessibility and equality. It would be good to have support from the board and Foundation. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:10, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

noreferrer for Wikipedia

Do you think Wikipedia should have HTTP referers? For the non-tech talk page stalkers, when you are on the insecure wiki (http not https), and you click on an external link on the wiki, the external site you visit gets a copy of the wiki url you came from. For example, if you click on an external link in the reference section of any page, such as Banana, the site you go to will know you came from the url http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana .

For those interested, I've started a discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#noreferrer_for_Wikipedia.Smallman12q (talk) 00:08, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm generally sympathetic to your point, although I think the privacy implications are relatively small, and there is a benefit to the web for website operators to have an understanding about traffic flows. If a quality news sites notices that it is getting traffic from Wikipedia entries, it may want to study where Wikipedia links to them and why, and produce more quality work that we would want to link to. That'd be a good thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:21, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Brand new users and BLPs (Biographies of Living People )

I have Caroline Hoxby on my watchlist because of previous BLP issues. This edit which replaced a category with the word "Bum" caught my attention, not because such vandalism is at all unusual, but because of what it said next to the edit: "(Tag: new editor getting started)". I was unaware of this new effort to encourage editing. reading Wikipedia:GettingStarted, it appears that brand new users -- immediately after creating an account -- are presented with a list of articles that they can edit. It is not entirely clear how the list is created, but it obviously includes BLPs. Looking through the edits related to this new feature, most of them are unhelpful, as expected. From the last 50 edits, here are some examples of BLP edits: [4], [5], [6]. Obviously, unleashing new editors on our most sensitive articles with no guidance is not achieving good results.

Jimbo, would you have a word with whoever is driving this effort and ask that BLPs are excluded from the lists present to users who are almost certainly unfamiliar with our policies relating to living people? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 13:54, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree. This seems to be a Foundation initiative and I've posted to the creator of the page - see User talk:Steven (WMF)#Getting started. Dougweller (talk) 14:08, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Edits can be seen here - we also need to ask new users to use edit summaries since only a tiny number seem to be doing so. It is attracting some good edits besides the usual vandalism. Dougweller (talk) 16:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

It should probably also avoid generally obscure articles (those not edited within the past month, perhaps?) for the same reason. – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:50, 12 January 2013 (UTC)