User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

Article feedback → Flow

Yesterday I learned that the Foundation quietly pulled the plug on Article feedback on March 3, 2014. How did I learn that? Through a Signpost article? No, I noticed because of this diff in Help:Special page, which is on my watchlist. It says something about the dysfunctional state of product development here that documentation wasn't updated until 5 June 2014—three months later—to remove this deprecated system. The reason for shutting Article feedback down is stated here: "Most participants agreed that Flow is better positioned to give our readers a voice -- and that we should clear the way to make it a success." I'm not sure that I agree with the premise that "talk pages—as a discussion technology—are antiquated and are not intuitive." That description might well be more aptly applied to something like this. Heck, here I am starting a discussion on this meta-topic here on Jimbo's talk page because I find it more accessible than a Wikimedia maling list. Where are all the complaints that people have trouble using talk pages? I haven't seen that many.

OK, I guess I need to just "go with the flow". I want to submit a {{subst:Requested move}} on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Breakfast. So I tried to start a new topic there and put this into the edit box:

{{subst:Requested move|Wikipedia:WikiProject Meals|reason=Breakfast is too limited a topic for a WikiProject. Expand coverage to include lunch and supper as well.}}

I was not successful, as I see:

An error occurred.

The error message received was: Database query error

I do trust that Flow will support WP:Requested moves, how is that supposed to work? Wbm1058 (talk) 14:44, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

• I suspect that everyone is so shell-shocked and hoarse from screaming about the debacle that has been VisualEditor that Flow has been ignored by many and consigned beneath the bed with other monsters. Alas, it is coming to save us all from a problem we don't even have. Of the recent software engineering initiatives that come to mind, I personally feel that two have been positive (1. the new look, feel, and functionality of USER CONTRIBUTIONS > EDIT COUNT; 2. the way clicked image thumbnails respond, first generating an enlargement with file info requiring two clicks, instead of vice-versa). Two have been failures (1. the new format for the New Pages queue for page patrol; 2. the reader-generated article feedback system). And then VisualEditor, which is clearly the most important initiative of any of these and which has been — to date — a catastrophe. The latter is about to be relaunched on English WP, I understand. I hope it has been improved mightily since last time around... Carrite (talk) 15:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
  • VE is definitely getting there. If it had been put out to the community for the first time in the state it is now, the WMF's engineers could have saved themselves a lot of lost trust. — Scott • talk 15:17, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
  • @Wbm1058: Oh, that edit was by me! It's not like I was acting in any official capacity, either. I was just removing a useless red link to a tool that I knew in a general sense had been withdrawn. The page you link to at MediaWiki is pretty risible; it says This page and related documentation will be edited in coming days to reflect these recent developments, which completely isn't the case - anyone reading mw:Article feedback would think it's an ongoing initiative. Dysfunctional indeed. Somebody from the WMF should really fix that. — Scott • talk 15:27, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Right, Special:ArticleFeedbackv5 red-links, but I don't see a record of which administrator deleted it, I just see: No such special page : You have requested a special page that is not recognized by Wikipedia. A list of all recognized special pages may be found at Special:Specialpages. Some time ago I pointed out that is not true, that special page does not list "all recognized" special pages. Unfortunately I can't do a "what-links-here" on "No such special page" to find any other instances of Special:ArticleFeedbackv5 that might still need to be removed. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:48, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Maybe Special:ArticleFeedbackv5 should redirect to mw:Article feedback/Version 5? Perhaps I can use Flow to submit an edit request for that? Sorry, sarcasm intended. Sigh. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:01, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
    • I'd like to know when the WMF is going to make it a priority to give editors a voice. They should just let the editors worry about giving readers a voice, since it's the editors who make most of the content decisions. Wbm1058 (talk) 16:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

The problem with Flow isn't just that it's half finished, buggy, lacks basic things like a table of contents (at least they have something of a history now).

The big problem is that it is being pushed by radical philosophies of user interface that we don't believe in. I called "bunkum" months ago on their claim that #333 text is easier to read than black on white text - [1] - nobody bothered to respond. Then they de-emphasize content with grayer text, with prefill instructions greyer than that, until you can scarcely read them. You can scarcely read anything with their bunkum about huge margins being easier to read with, which I see they're being called on at [2]. For those of us who like to flip down a screenful at a time, tap tap tap, until we see something interesting, or scroll the whole thing fast when we're in more of a rush, this is a terrible way to go through a talk page. Even if you "Zoom out" on the browser, those narrow columns just get narrower and narrower, and the 100%+ dead space between lines means the print gets unreadable faster than it would otherwise - especially since, for some reason, replies are given smaller fonts than the text they reply to. It's just plain awful.

But out of everything, the very worst thing is a seemingly trivial decision to reorder threads by when they were last edited rather than when they were posted by. This allows them to do "infinite scrolling" of the type seen on many online forums. The problem with this is that "infinite scrolling" makes old postings quite inaccessible, and really only the top few threads are going to get most of the attention. The result is that the Gini coefficient of our talk page sections is going to go way down - some posts will get huge numbers of replies, others practically none. If you have a question or comment about an article, it will have one brief moment in the sun, maybe someone will respond, but 90% of the time, it will quickly sink down behind the perennial edit war of the day, never to be seen again. Whatever you post, good or bad, most of the time you will never get an answer. That may be just fine for a site like Reddit that mostly looks to entertain the lurkers, but it's absolutely unacceptable for an encyclopedia that needs to cherish every criticism it receives in the hope of purging most of the errors out of an article. Wnt (talk) 17:12, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

Right on all counts. If Flow is rolled out in any state closely resembling where it's at now, the community's response will make the VisualEditor debacle look like a tiny hiccup in comparison. I can only hope that the WMF's engineers have learned from what happened last time. To be completely honest, I can't really see it being broadly accepted at all by the user base any time soon. — Scott • talk 18:09, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

reorder threads by when they were last edited That's not how Flow works currently, it's sorted with Newest topics at top. Soon you'll be able to switch between that and sorting to Recent active topics which is what I think you're describing. As for topics sinking out of view, it is a concern. In Flow you can close a topic with a summary, perhaps we can have a filter to show all unclosed topics. Meanwhile, the crazy obscure "Archives: Index, A, B, ..." that you see on this very talk pages has its own access issues. Regards. -- S Page (WMF) (talk) 02:08, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

That one of not only the very oldest, but also the very busiest user talk pages in all of Wikipedia has had various inconsistent ad-hoc archive formats applied to it its 13 years' worth of content is completely irrelevant to Flow. The incredibly defensive way in which you refer to that speaks volumes. — Scott • talk 14:42, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

• @Wnt: et al: Flow is not "half-finished" - it has only just started, relatively speaking. It has an incredibly large number of features to implement (many listed at mw:Flow/Release planning#Feature buckets), design-decisions to revisit (the light-grey text being top of my frustration-list), and yes, bugs to fix (as any software in development has) before a larger-scale rollout (beyond the pages that have volunteered to live-test the ongoing development) is even considered. There's also an overhaul to the front-end design coming soon (next few weeks, if all goes smoothly), with many more aesthetic changes, based on our feedback and user-testing, in the months and years after that. In the meantime, if you've ever been at all frustrated with classic wikitext talkpages, or with workflows involving convoluted multi-step multi-template processes, or had frustrations trying to explain them to someone who was smart but non-technical, then please, please, bring your suggestions and brainstorms and ideas, to the Flow talkpages. It aims to improve the life of powerusers and newcomers alike, but it needs all of our input, steadily and patiently, in order to get there, in the long-term. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:29, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

  OK, it looks like my question isn't going to be answered here, so I'll have to hunt down the appropriate Flow-related talkpage and ask my question there... hopefully I won't need to sign up for an email list to get my question answered. But if the answer is, "that's a workflow involving convoluted multi-step multi-template processes" and Flow is better than that because it's not convoluted", well that would be a wrong answer. Meanwhile there are real problems crying out for Foundation-provided solutions, see here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wbm1058 (talk • contribs) 04:21, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

  Oh, I see: mw:Flow/Architecture#Workflow. So I will "define a "requested moves" type of workflow. What's an "MVP"? The details don't appear to be much worked out yet. You guys should realize that we've already put a lot of time into designing the existing RM workflow, which for the most part is working very well, thank you. Now the proposed mergers workflow is another story, but we'll get to that eventually. Heh, I see: work"FLOW" Wbm1058 (talk) 05:00, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

  @Wbm1058: I'm sorry that I didn't reply to you earlier, when I left the other reply; I was slightly late for dinner, and had to dash without investigating.

  Regarding the subst error, I've filed bugzilla:66307, and S has filed bugzilla:66303. Thanks for helping discover these new bugs. MVP stands for "minimum viable product" in that instance.

  Regarding renaming the wikiproject, I'd suggest that they specifically chose a narrow area to cover, because that's what they wanted to focus on? See Template:Food projects for the related family of WikiProjects. You could always just ask them. HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 05:32, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

  Somehow it's not encouraging to see that a bug needs to be filed for something as basic as template substitution. One should have to work a little harder to find a bug. Despite the message at the top "it is NOT a sandbox for random testing of Flow" that seems to me to be just what it's being used for. My move request was just a test, not a serious request. Cheers, Wbm1058 (talk) 13:33, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

This is sort of off-topic, since you're really all talking about Flow, but there's no point in you filing that move request anyway, because it's going to be very properly denied. "WikiProjects have the exclusive right to define their own scope", regardless of anyone else's opinion about whether they have chosen "too limited" a subject. A WikiProject is a group of editors, and if a given group of editors happen to want to work only on articles about eating duck eggs for breakfast, then there's no good reason for any of us to discourage them from working on their chosen set of articles, and no practical way to force those WP:VOLUNTEERS to work on a broader subject even if you thought you had a good reason to do so. In the specific instance, there are only three or four editors in this particular group, and they're already trying to support a thousand articles. That's plenty of work for a group that size. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I thought my reply to Quiddity above made my intentions clear, but evidently not. My point in attempting to file that move request was to see how compatible Flow was with WP:RM. The answer is that right now, it's not at all compatible because it doesn't support template substitution. I don't really care whether my "request" to move the project is accepted or denied. In any event, most of the volunteers participating seem to be more concerned with Flow than breakfast. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:54, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be more accurate to say that "most of the volunteers participating" aren't actually volunteers participating in the WikiProject at all, but instead are people demonstrating how badly they're affected by banner blindness, since they're not (a) running their tests on the designated test page or (b) posting their feedback on the designated page for feedback. Both of those pages are linked in the large, bright-pink box at the very top of WikiProject Breakfast's talk page, in the event that you want to find them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Whatever. OK, I tested requested moves over on the official test page. Check it out. Based on my testing, I would say that Flow is a "fail fast and cut what we cannot do" project that attempts to solve problems that don't exist and unnecessarily distracts volunteer developers from their work on real problems. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:41, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

• Correct any logical flaw here: assuming Visual Editor comes back to us fixed, there is no reason why any new participant can not edit talk pages effectively using the current format and the current software. Carrite (talk) 06:05, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
  • That seems sound to me. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:11, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
    • VisualEditor is (currently) unable to "sign" posts, which is why it's not enabled in any talk namespaces. As far as I know, there are no plans to create this feature. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:36, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

      Why do we say drove and not drived? Only ~3% of all verbs are English irregular verbs, but the ten most frequently used verbs are all irregular, per ISBN 978-1-59448-745-3. When rules of grammatical conjugation die, they leave behind fossils. If the VE developers continue to insist on grammatical purity, and refuse to let Wikitext language leave behind fossils like ~~~~ and [[ ]], then they may be dooming their product. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:54, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

@Whatamidoing (WMF). Is there a reason that something as basic to daily life as a Wikipedian as a signature is not part of VE? Carrite (talk) 14:41, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Regarding feedback from readers: Readers aren't trustees of the WMF, employees of the WMF or editors. What they think doesn't matter. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:15, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

My sense is that the theory behind Flow is the same as that which motivated the "Reader Feedback" idea: that if casual readers can be induced into commenting, they will find commenting fun and they can easily be converted into actual editing work. This notion has been proven false, yet professional inertia pushes the Flow program forward. It is akin to a suggestion that posting a reader comment on a newspaper's website will cause a person to become a journalist...

There is no objective reason we need to have a new way to handle Talk Pages. They work fine. If the developers really want to improve the world with new visual presentations of content, come up with some cool new OPTIONAL skins for WP and make the use of skins better known to casual visitors and long-time editors alike. (PREFERENCES > APPEARANCE > SKIN for any signed-in account — I use Cologne Blue, it's swell). We don't need buggy new software to make talk pages perform more "Facebooky"... Carrite (talk) 14:49, 9 June 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 14:51, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, Talk Pages do not "work fine" for newbies. Regular internet users that have no problems posting a reader comment on a newspaper's website or commenting in a blog (for years, say since 2004) do have problems commenting on Wikipedia talk pages, being confronted with wiki markup and formatting. Maybe this doesn't matter so much to enWP, since talk pages here seem to be mostly storage space for all kinds of huge assessment/wikiproject templates etc, but other WP projects actually want to use the talk pages for article editing coordination... Soon, editing article pages will be easier (thanks to VE) than writing on discussion pages. Is that a good idea, given that maintaining and updating millions of existing articles is getting a bigger and more important task which needs coordination?

That being said, the unreadable light-gray Flow design is awful (i was forced to use the flow beta in order to give feedback to another beta feature...^^) Another headache is that currently, you edit article and user and discussion name space in the same way: with wiki markup - only learning it once. But how will i suggest/include a picture for an article on a flow talk page? How can i copy formatted article text/templates to a flow talk page? How do i format even source links to newspapers when proposing them on a flow talk page? Currently i don't even know how to bold a word on a flow talk page... Yet another item for my to-do-list of learning curves for new WMF features: learn flow, learn echo, learn wikidata, learn lua, learn article-feedback moderation (and now forget it), learn tool.wmflabs (and forget about the toolserver-tools that no longer work), learn using bugzilla, etc. etc. --Atlasowa (talk) 12:04, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I think bugzilla may be on the way out too, but I'm not sure. So far I've just let others enter the bugs I've found into the system. Yes, it is frustrating that the growth curve for technology is getting steeper and steeper, with products having shorter and shorter life cycles. It's gotten to where the tech growth curve is steeper than the human learning curve. If I'm struggling to keep up, what hope does the "average" user have? Soon only the bots will be able to keep up. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:40, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Flow=Visual Editor=failure. The WMF keeps implementing these half finished poorly designed pieces of crap and then expects the editors on this site to fix the mess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scoobydoobee (talk • contribs) 12:10, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

"Carrying the conversation into the wikis..."

On the Wikimeida-l mailing list WMF's VP of Engineering and Product Development Erik Möller suggested recipients engage in "carrying the conversation into the wikis" about Engineering&Product's draft goals for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1. The complete document may be found HERE. I'd like to do that with a big question in this very prominent place.

One of the line-items for "Editor Engagement-Core Features" for the July-Sept. 2014 quarter is this: • Auto-archiving existing talk pages when Flow is turned on. My interpretation of this line is as follows: (1) There is a plan at WMF to "turn on" Flow across English Wikipedia. (2) When this takes place, there is a plan to immediately auto-archive all existing talk pages and to "start from scratch" with new Flow versions of those pages. Is this accurate? Carrite (talk) 14:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know but it sounds extremely positive and about time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:36, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

It sounds extremely................ major to me, if my take is correct. There may be enormous unintended consequences and it may not be something that can not be reverted (in the event Flow is a debacle in practice) without another set of unintended consequences. I certainly hope that Flow is not turned on system wide without extensive testing, including a couple real-life high traffic talk pages — not just sandboxy things like the talk page for WikiProject Breakfast... Carrite (talk) 17:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Of course, but keep in mind that some people will climb the Reichstag no matter what happens.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Some people might be very upset if active discussions, move requests, RfCs, etc suddenly disappear from sight. Surely that isn't the plan? Dougweller (talk) 17:53, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully it just means that auto-archiving will be added to talk pages, not that they will actually be archived, but I've asked at [3]. Dougweller (talk) 17:57, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Tim, have a look at Wikipedia talk:Flow/Archive 2#What's going to happen to old talk pages? for some discussion about this last year. — Scott • talk 18:21, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

We can probably get away with using the wikitext "header" section of the new Flow pages as a temporary host for existing discussions, starting all new discussions in Flow, and aggressively bot-archiving wikitext-based discussions away as soon as a discussion is, say, a month old. Either way, wouldn't it be better to have this discussion on the technical Village Pump? {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 18:02, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF) just told me above that Flow was "just begun" and definitely "not half finished". It doesn't seem to have changed much since last year. If it's being rolled out in three months, that's some remarkable acceleration! Wnt (talk) 19:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

@Wnt: Read the document carefully. Broad rollout on Wikipedia in Apr-Jun 2015. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• Scott's link above leads to the following, seemingly official, comment from Brandon Harris/Jorm: "Flow-enabled pages will "subsume" the User_talk space for areas they are enabled. The older talk page (or talk pages) will be moved to a different url... They will remain wikitext pages. Flow will then ignore them forever." In other words, everything standing on every talk page is going to be effectively "hatted" when Flow is "turned on." That will be interesting, eh? An RFC is in progress? Whoosh, gone. A content change request is made? Vanished. Every discussion on every topic? Hidden from easy view. That's just three major consequences off the top of my head in about 45 seconds of thought... And, if this thing sucks, turning it off is going to cause the same set of problems all over again, in reverse. (And how is an RFC going to run on a talk page, by the way???) Carrite (talk) 19:28, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
• Oh, I see. Once the switch is flipped, if everyone goes with the Flow, then there will be a new WMF-provided way for doing everything on talk pages. If they don't, then editors will carry on as usual on "archive" subpages that haven't been converted (unless all talk subpages are protected). The existing RM process might work on subpages. In any event, I realize I'm supporting a dinosaur, so won't waste much time on further short-term enhancements to a dying system. I like to climb to high places, but I'm not up for drama. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I for one am prepared to start directing people to "User:Scott/Talk" to converse with me if Flow is forced upon us. I suspect many people will do similar. It's not a prospect that I enjoy considering. — Scott • talk 19:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if that will work, since people will want the same talk pages, and won't want to ignore what's left in Flow wasteland either. True, you pretty much need your own talk page just to track the relevant threads on a well-read Flow page that drop out of sight due to lack of replies, but doing this manually would be a lot of make-work. So far as I know Flow is still un-Lua-able and untranscludeable ({{WT:Breakfast}} yields "

 Main page Article assessment Article collaboration Article alerts Project templates Members Talk page 

nutritional Information about oats

In the english article on Wikipedia about oats, it says in the nutritional values of the product that it has "2,5grams of protein per 100 gram" Never have i seen the protein content in oats this low and i believe it is faulty information.

Hope someone knows how to edit it. i have tried but failed since the info is somekind of link form another site.

Requested move 18 October 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) estar8806 (talk) ★ 14:14, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

---

Wikipedia:WikiProject Breakfast → Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink/Breakfast task force – I propose that this inactive food and meal wikiproject be merged into WP:FOOD as a task force, same as how Cheese TF and Desserts TF are, and how other inactive wikiprojects have been converted into taskforces over time. -- 65.92.244.127 (talk) 08:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support. This probably should have been a regular discussion and not a move discussion as it's about the scope (changing from a project to a task force), but since this project is inactive and since the RM discussion is anyways on the same page, I guess the RM will bring more eyes to this and provide for a better consensus. Gonnym (talk) 09:45, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support Rreagan007 (talk) 20:02, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A note on the revert of the requested move

The bundle move of Wikipedia:WikiProject Breakfast and its subpages has been reverted per WP:PMRC#3, as the target's title is unambiguously erroneous and in the wrong namespace. Under the correct title Wikipedia:WikiProject Food and drink/Breakfast task force, the outcome of this closed discussion may still be valid, but please leave it for a further discussion. NmWTfs85lXusaybq (talk) 16:17, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Nomination for merger of Template:WikiProject Breakfast

Template:WikiProject Breakfast has been nominated for merging with Template:WikiProject Food and drink. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. 65.92.244.127 (talk) 05:29, 26 October 2023 (UTC)"), so you can't organize and reorganize them like you can our present talk pages.

I think it's time to take a step back and riddle out the theory of this debacle. To begin with, what is a Wikipedia developer's job? Be honest. I assume the answer is "to get a job at Facebook or Google". To do so, you need to write Facebook-like interfaces and code, you need to defend Facebook-like privacy policies (i.e. "no", put more verbosely), but above all, you need to maintain functional APIs for these companies to scrape the Wikipedia database most effectively. What this means for us is that stuff like Wikidata supports APIs right out of the box, but even years later a trick I used to get some of the functionality inside Wikipedia was considered a bug that developers actually had to remove from Lua in order to keep from happening. Anyway, according to this hypothesis, m:Flow/Architecture/API mw:Flow/Architecture/API is the place to understand and use a Flow board effectively (and perhaps even make it readable), and it needs to be done from off site; the question is whether an honest site going by old-fashioned Wikipedia principles has a place in this, or whether it'll all be left to the PR people and professional critics. Wnt (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Wnt, this is from beginning to end, nasty, horrible, mean-spirited and false. It is not even a remotely credible or serious hypothesis. I am very disappointed in you and ask you to refrain from posting such bile on my talk page ever again.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you're right about developers wanting to work for Facebook or Google. Well, maybe they do, but FLOW really is something that's coming at us from WMF as a body, not from loose-cannon developers. Markup and user-led innovation are old hat and a barrier to participation. People understand social media, so if we're not exactly like social media we are locking them out. They seem to be fairly open about the fact that they are not interested in Flow being fit for purpose, only in it being as intuitive as possible. They would probably deny this, but the rationale set out at mw:flow says: "Many things about the culture that has grown up around talk pages ... are confusing. That is not to say those conventions are wrong, merely not what those users are prepared for." In other words, the way we currently do things may be right, but that's not the point. So there seems to be a knowing trade-off. Flow is more intuitive, but it is less flexible and less suited to collaboration. The core problem, it seems to me, is that most social media is not actually designed to be productive or facilitate collaborative working. Formerip (talk) 22:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• Wnt, I'm confused. I think you mean mw:Flow/Architecture/API. Why do you need an API to edit chat pages? So bots can "chat" with people? So bots can edit people's comments? But one of the reasons for Flow is that people are "confused" by the fact that they can edit each other's Wikitext comments? It doesn't make any sense. But, since I don't do social media (FB/twitter) maybe I'm missing something. Wbm1058 (talk) 00:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm presuming that talk pages with flow will still be able to be redirected, like User talk:ClueBot NG currently is, for example. If so it ought to be simple - redirect the talk page to a non-talk space page. Anyway, can anyone see what happens with archiving Flow threads? I mean, having to scroll through 500 headers, even if there were a table of contents (which I've heard there won't be), to find an old discussion is quite ridiculous. BethNaught (talk) 21:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

It also appears that when the archiving takes place, the new blank talk page won't show the history of the archive. See [4]. And I hate the absence of a ToC. Dougweller (talk) 08:48, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Alleluia! See WP:Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms

Or see Ad Age

I see this as a key turning point for Wikipedia (assuming the ToU changes are also put through).

Remember when the BLP policy went thru? Everybody thought it would be difficult or impossible to enforce and would bring Wikipedia down by violating our first principles. Instead it marked a new life for us as readers and new editors started taking us seriously. I predict that's what will happen this time as well. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 21:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree. A great opportunity is upon us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:04, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• I was invited to the meeting at the Donovan House that ended with this agreement; sadly my grant request was turned down and I was unable to attend. That said, Ive stayed in pretty constant contact with the organizers of the event, as well as some of the participants. In my estimation, the PR people involved in this are being deadly serious in their positions. This is, I think, likely to provide us with our best chance to-date to integrate PR editors in to Wikipedia's workflow in a way that doesn't damage the integrity of the encyclopedia (and helps us cover undercovered areas better,) and at the same time discourage people and companies from using under the radar Wiki-PR style groups. I honestly believe that this has a significant chance of representing a turning point in our relationship with the PR industry. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

• There have always been a number of "Good Guy" PR firms, including many of those in CREWE. They aren't the problem. They might be part of the solution, in that they will be looking to establish new editing structures to address the legitimate concerns of their clients, but this group of companies saying they are going to play by the rules (implicitly under the assumption that the rules will be fair to them) doesn't affect the broad situation in which WP content writing is a growth industry for freelancers, in which companies of smaller and smaller size are coming to see WP presence as an essential part of their marketing efforts, in which there are absolutely no fetters upon the creation of multiple accounts and paid COI editors flying under the radar. It's an opportunity for an alternative editing process to emerge, yes, but I still don't see anything from WMF but continuing efforts to ratchet up the rhetoric and the war with paid COI editors — which will continue to drive things underground, away from supervision and control. Carrite (talk) 23:10, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't see that at all. Rather quite the opposite. The path forward is to reward and encourage disclosure and ethical behavior (i.e. to drive things in public, toward supervision and control). I wonder, though, rather than just being negative about other people's efforts to deal with what I think you agree is a problem, why don't you give us some detail about what you would do differently.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:21, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, I think the basic question is this: do we believe in anonymity of contributors and ease of entry as our fundamental principle, or do we believe in validity of content and transparency of contributorship as our fundamental principle? We cannot have it both ways. If we really want to ban paid COI editing, it is going to require real name registration, one user-name per account, sign in to edit, and an end to so-called "outing" prohibitions — things that can be determined by WMF as part of Terms of Service. The cost will be the loss of perhaps 25 to 50% of the editor base. If we want to maintain anonymity and ease of entry into editorship and current outing rules, we need to accept that paid COI editing is a fact of life and to split the difference with these editors: mandating disclosure but banning retribution against those who disclose. The software can be tweaked so that COI edits can be identified with a button the same way that minor edits are identified with a button. The key will be to keep an eye on paid COI edits without pursuing paid COI editors like they are outlaws and villains — giving them space to work and parameters of good behavior. Treating them like gophers to be shot on sight will just force them underground. It will be a cultural change either way. The current stalemate is sort of the worst of both worlds, easy underground shenanigans and an officially authorized "game" of liquidating those who engage in underground shenanigans. It all comes down to a fundamental decision about anonymity vs. transparency. Myself? I'm for transparency. Carrite (talk) 01:18, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. These are thoughtful remarks and much better than the innuendo and snark that are too often present here. I don't have time for a full response at the moment, not to mention that a full response requires some thought, but I invite you (and others) to think about third way approaches. That is - there is value in both ease of entry and (in some cases) anonymity, and there is value in validity of content and transparency of contributorship. AND, this is key, the two are only sometimes in tension. In many or most cases, ease of entry and validity of content are perfectly aligned. As are anonymity and validity of content.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:23, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

A quick response: there is comparatively little tension between anonymity/ease of entry with historically "encyclopedic" content. There is a great deal of tension between those things and commercial or contemporary biographical content, which involves self-interested parties on the one hand and really boring, volunteer-repelling topics on the other. Community notability rules aren't going to change, tweaking those is not a viable solution. It is a puzzle. The key thing is this: I think every single one of us agree that NPOV content is essential and that unsupervised and left to their own devices, paid COI editors will not tend to produce NPOV content. The question is how to eliminate the problem, not that there is a problem. Either we regulate paid COI editors under the current system or fight an unending and ultimately unwinnable war of annihilation; or else we accept that the days of IP editing and 40 socks per customer are relics of the past and actually do annihilate paid COI editing. I honestly can't see how one can split the difference on this matter. —Tim Davenport, Corvallis, OR /// Carrite (talk) 01:44, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I was surprised there was not more support for corporate accounts, which would make COI edits much easier to identify, whether it is on Talk or in History. Also, if companies opt-in to a corporate account, that makes it easy to create a category of accounts that can be supervised/reviewed and easier to contribute on behalf of a company without disclosing your volunteer account or personal information. Just like accounts get upgraded to auto-confirmed, I could see new corporate accounts having no article-space privileges, but after a certain point they can request permission for a Pending Changes-type situation (pending changes reviewers would have to learn to revert anything controversial and tell them to take those items to Talk). Rather than review each edit individually, volunteers can conduct quarterly reviews of all corporate accounts and blanket revert with a button-press if their edits are 75%+ bad.

However, several editors I have talked to have sarcastically asked the question as to whether WMF would develop the software for new features for PR participation, especially given that COI editing (participation?) is strongly discouraged. And I'm sure they have lots of features on the wish list for the volunteer community as it is. CorporateM (Talk) 02:51, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

One solution which can go a long way without changing identification requirements is make special sourcing requirements for information on currently operating businesses, business leaders, and currently marketed products. Instead of applying general RS guidelines, allow only facts sourced to reputable academic sources on the one hand, and a more limited whitelist of news and business sources on the otherhand. This whitelist could list just well-established newspapers and business magazines (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Businessweek etc.) and the requirement be that only regular reportage (not advertorials or anything unusual) among those whitelisted could be used to source claims. This wouldn't solve everything, but would go a long way as much of the material that paid advocates add are sourced to lesser-quality sources and self-published sources which nonetheless still meet basic RS requirements. With a whitelist requirement like this, much could be summarily removed without much fuss. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 04:11, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Though I don't necessarily agree with everything that Carrite is recommending, his comments are incisive, thoughtful and worthy of consideration. I disagree that formal "corporate accounts" are a good thing, as that erodes our key value that editors are individuals rather than groups. I have a lot of concerns with this declaration by 11 PR firms. The signatories have Wikipedia accounts, most with only a handful of edits, mostly to their own user pages. If they truly want to engage with Wikipedia, the way to do so is by editing productively, in addition to issuing grand declarations. Are other people from those firms editing? If so, who are those accounts? And if 11 firms commit to following our policies and guidelines, how about the hundreds of firms that haven't? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:23, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it would be nearly enough to simply forbid undisclosed alternate accounts and beef up our data collection enough to do a decent job of preventing socking (which we could do virtually automatically for most editors, given software that made a robust effort at doing so). The privacy concerns are pretty negligible to my mind: there may be the occasional nuclear physicist and scat porn enthusiast that wouldn't want to use one account to edit both topics, but we can live without one or the other set of contributions.—Kww(talk) 05:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I've been saying this for a while now that it doesn't seem like it would be hard to automatically track MAC addresses, device IDs and other anonymous, non-personal information and automatically detect socks without interrupting the user experience of non-socking users. This wouldn't even have to prevent legitimate alternate accounts if there is a way to add exceptions into the system. It would become very difficult to sock if each the user had to use a different computer for each sockpuppet account. CorporateM (Talk) 15:46, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

As a representative of one of the agencies involved--Peppercomm--I created an account so that I could answer any questions people have and so that anyone on Wikipedia would have a means through which to contact me. My answer is solely for Peppercomm's situation; I can't speak about any other agency involved. I have never had another account, and I don't edit Wikipedia pages professionally (and, as Cullen328 points out, haven't done anything of substance editing on Wikipedia personally, either). Likewise, none of our employees are tasked with doing paid editing or even intervention on Wikipedia for our clients--nor do we hire freelancers to do so. In our agency's case, we counsel on what NOT to do. If they believe, however, that there is an inaccuracy or situation that requires some sort of discussion with Wikipedia editors, we have gone to an outside firm we trust who knows the Wikipedia editor community much more deeply than we do--in particular, in our case, Beutler Ink--to ensure that any requested edit our client wishes to make is done in an ethical, transparent manner that abides by all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. To NOT edit pages has been Peppercomm's policy since at least 2008, when I joined the firm full-time...and, it seemed, had been the policy prior to my arrival as well. Our 11 companies issued this statement to make it clear to the Wikipedia community that many of us do have policies in place to align with Wikipedia's policies & guidelines--& Wikimedia's ToS (although our exact approaches and policies may differ). And our hope is that others will sign on or, if they don't already have these policies in place, will start to think about why they should. To be frank, intentional sockpuppetry and other forms of editing are one thing--but as substantial a problem are corporate employees or people at agencies who "don't know enough about Wikipedia to know what they don't know"...who understand this is an "encyclopedia anyone can edit" part but not COI and other very important parts of what makes Wikipedia what it is...Leumas712 (talk) 08:07, 12 June 2014 (UTC)Leumas712

• For those of us who (like me) haven't been following the TOU discussion recently, is this still the wording that is going to be added? Coretheapple (talk) 17:35, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

If you're going to only allow sources like the New York Times for businesses, what do you do about businesses that cater to specialized markets? I remember Jimbo trying to make an article about a restaurant in South Africa. Good luck trying to find information in the New York Times on that. You probably wouldn't even find much about, oh, an anime producer, and even if you can find enough to create an article, all the existing articles on such companies would have to be rewritten with new sources.

I think the mistake here is trying to figure out how you can prevent COI editing and only thinking about the particular type of business likely to engage in COI editing. Having standards which limit the usable sources would help in articles about those kinds of businesses, but would completely destroy articles on others. Ken Arromdee (talk) 17:59, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

What makes you think that South Africa does not have any well established newspapers? Or that they might not report on small restaurants from time to time, if they considered the restaurant worthy of note for some reason? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:20, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

It is rather, say, irritating that the Englisch WP community allows for the public relations and advertising industry to use the Wikipedia namespace for a press release. We should rather reflect on why we have not succeeded to exclude those people from WP altogether.--Aschmidt (talk) 18:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree, because it is a given that reputable corporations, including PR firms, will not violate website terms of use. That is not a cause for celebration. Most reputable and indeed some not-so-reputable PR people and corporate executives already abide by the TOU amendment (assuming it is what was originally proposed; nobody has yet addressed my question above). While this has been billed as the beginning of \the end of paid editing, in practical terms it seems more like an acceptance of paid advocacy editing. Coretheapple (talk) 19:07, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

+1. Indeed, this page should be deleted because it violates our rules for the Wikipedia namespace. It should not be tolerated that those companies misuse Wikipedia for their business communication. Wikipedia is not an outlet for press releases. It is financed by donors who give their money for an educational project.--Aschmidt (talk) 19:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

It strikes me as a form of advertising, especially for the less well-known firms and PR people signing on. Seriously, every Tom, Dick or Harry who wants a client, such as my personal firm Coretheapple Communications LLC, can and will sign on. Seems promotional. Coretheapple (talk) 19:54, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

SCG International Risk - what does Jimbo think?

I removed text here from a banned editor. It was in the form of the usual claptrap from that editor. It did raise an interesting issue about the firm SCG International Risk, and I've made a change there from the banned editor's information, after checking it fairly thoroughly. I do think there are potential problems with this approach - the BE might, e.g. post good info here for reasons that are known only to him, but that we would not agree with such as getting back at somebody.

Any advice from non-banned editors appreciated. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:02, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know who you are referring to, so I don't really have the full context. Therefore my remarks are necessarily abstract in nature.

The most important thing in this context is the quality of Wikipedia. The second most important thing in this context is taking care to not reward bad behavior. These two things can sometimes be in tension, and so judgment calls must be made. One thing to really look out for is BLP violations and COI editing, to make sure that we aren't simply being used as pawns for bad editors. For the current case, I think we should consider the concept of WP:COATRACK - that is, does the article about a defunct company exist only to indirectly disparage the principals of the company? Would we bother having the article in the first place, had it not been for POV pushing of some kind? I don't know the answer to that question - I just note that it is one we should consider.

Finally I note that the article is in pretty poor shape. It speaks in the present tense about things that must be in the past, if the company is really defunct. ("SCG International offers dozens of courses...") It is a laundry list of information without much explanation of why it might be notable. The vast majority of the information is completely unsourced and reads like an advertisement.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

@Smallbones. Of course the banned editor is bringing this up here trying to make a point, and I guess that is by definition trolling. Still, the core of the complaint was valid: that there are lots of propaganda pages like this (hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands?) that sit in mainspace unexamined, unresearched, unchallenged and that there needs to be a better mechanism for verification. It strikes me as counterproductive to vanish said editor's comments when the core of the complaint is truthful. (In the future, you might want to summarize the complaint after you vanish his exact words, assuming that you feel compelled to vanish his words.) I'm not sure what to advise here — WP is so big and registration and article creation so easy that these sorts of situations are pretty much inevitable. We need more eyes looking for such things; we have less. I'll make the radical suggestion that there is going to be a need for paid WMF editors at some point — people who make it their business to handle such editorial matters. PR people seeking amendments to articles via "legal" channels is the same deal; volunteers want to write about what excites them, not about boring commercial topics, even if these need to be addressed. The encyclopedia is maturing in terms of actual encyclopedic content. Marginal content is being gamed by interested parties and will inevitably continue to be gamed. Volunteers don't want to deal with this shit; there needs to be somebody to deal with this shit. WMF has lots of money and writers work cheaply. Said banned editor might be snarky about it, but it is a problem and there must be some sort of systemic solution, yes? Carrite (talk) 00:26, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. The banned editor also gave some feedback, which will likely make my future responses to him more strict. I'll likely summarize some things, sometimes from this persistent editor - based on my judgement. But I'll always remove his entries when it's clear to me that it's him - that's the only way to deal with him. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:42, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I's a shame that the only regular source of feedback concerning bad articles about marginal companies comes from a banned editor. I think we need a mechanism to deal with articles like that. But paying Wikipedia editors to deal with these low-priority, low-interest articles is not the solution. A far better idea is to tighten up notability criteria dramatically. Coretheapple (talk) 19:31, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Some editors are paid, some editors are not. Nothing will change that. Eric Corbett 19:40, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

But you can reduce the incentive, and make paid editing far less of a plague than it is now, by providing less opportunity for paid editors to "do their thing." The way to attack the problem is to identify where the paid editing problem exists, and it seems to be in articles about minor companies that Wikipedia can easily do without. They are a burden on volunteers and far more trouble than they're worth. Tightening the notability guidelines could be done without causing the kind of big ideological battle that comes from other forms of derailing the gravy train. Instead of blowing up the tracks, stop manufacturing the railway cars. Coretheapple (talk) 19:47, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

A good part of the paid COI problem isn't with companies at all, but with contemporary biographies. If we tighten rules for companies, we will simply push the editing towards BLPs of the movers and shakers of those companies, with redirects aplenty. It's like trying to squish an air bubble trapped under a sheet of linoleum... If you mush here, it will pop up again there. Carrite (talk) 21:06, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

No, this would simply be reducing the opportunity to corrupt Wikipedia. As I've pointed out before, this isn't a social problem like poverty or drug addiction. True, if you tighten the notability criteria for companies/people you will still have paid editors, but it will be less serious of a problem. Now we (or, more accurately, they, the Foundation and Jimbo) have the worst of all possible worlds. Lax article criteria and hungry flacks and paid editors, including some administrators as we've seen. These people love the money they get and become really emotional and a little nutsy when their place on the gravy train is imperiled. I was viciously attacked by one admin/paid editor on his talk page recently; NPA means nothing when the wallet is at stake. (Don't bother looking in my contributions; it was someone I haven't interacted with in many months and barely remember.) Coretheapple (talk) 21:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

The 2014 Johannesburg Wiki Indaba

I am a leading contributer on the Afrikaans Wikipedia (3000+ articles and approaching 50,000 edits). Why does people like me not get a automatic entrance to the Indaba? Why must we go through a time consuming process? Surely after my 5 years of hard work my credentilas should be above board? This is a big principal matter to me. Oesjaar (talk) 06:37, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

What is an Indaba? Would it help if you gave a link to a page about it? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:08, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

FIFY. —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 20:59, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Indaba is the Zulu word for Conference. Oesjaar (talk) 09:29, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Tim, but none of the conferences listed on that page appear to have anything to do with the WMF or Jimbo? So perhaps Jimbo does know exactly which conference Oesjaar is talking about - or perhaps he doesn't - but I certainly don't. Wikimania 2014? The recently concluded conference in New York? A WMF-related conference in South Africa or even Holland? Something else? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 12:07, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

A newly created account disapproves strongly of Wikipedia

Editor blocked as a vandalism-only account --NeilN talk to me 12:33, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Wikipedia has become a fucking joke full of abusive editors and admins. No one cares about creating an encyclopedia anymore, all they want to do is push their own POV for their pet projects and bully editors they don't agree with. Someone needs to just shut Wikipedia off and call it a massive failure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scoobydoobee (talk • contribs) 12:10, 12 June 2014‎ (UTC) Yes, yes. Now what's your fix for it? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:18, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Standard English ?

The wording in 'see also' … … 'describes the current state of affairs on the English Wikipedia as it regards Jimmy Wales.' Seems unclear at least, possibly incorrect in UK English. Also tiny quibble, most of the content on the linked page is 'history of role/anomalies of role' … … is the italicised phrase standard US English?Pincrete (talk) 19:06, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's not brilliantly phrased. Make it better if you like. Formerip (talk) 19:10, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the nauseating and cowardly remarks made by Wikiconference USA attendees

I hope those attendees of the recent Wikiconference USA in New York who were discussing LilaTretikov and Wllm behind their backs, suggesting that the WMF's new ED should dump her partner, or banish him from the WMF world, are proud of themselves. "Multiple influential people", says Kevin Gorman. If any of them are reading this, I'll eat my hat if they have the spine to identify themselves in public and stand behind their grotesquely inappropriate comments. — Scott • talk 20:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Grotesquely inappropriate is exactly right, under any circumstances. – SJ + 00:51, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

I was present for the conference and heard no such remarks at all. What is the source for this gossip? Did you attend the conference, Scott? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:25, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Is anyone else getting "PirritSuggester" malware ads after accessing the Wikipediocracy site? I just did a system restore going back 3 weeks, and it seemed to get rid of them, but as soon as I access Wikipediocracy, the adware starts to appear, and my privacy settings show a huge of cookies being added. I'm seeing the same thing on wllm's personal blog. adnxs.com and pirrit.com seems to be the more intrusive ones, adding links and ads in the middle of text I am trying to read. —Neotarf (talk) 21:22, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Nope, never had anything like that from either site. 'Course, I use Firefox... 28bytes (talk) 21:35, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

So do I. And I have Windows Essentials enabled. This is something new. —Neotarf (talk) 21:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Nope. Must be somewhere else you've been. John lilburne (talk) 21:43, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, I'm getting it now on other sites, where I might be expected to use a credit card online. <sigh> —Neotarf (talk) 22:00, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

• /Sigh - sad to see this come up here. Wllm, none of my emails to you were unsolicited except the very first which you responded warmly to, and I'm disappointed that you chose to post a chunk of an email from me related to sensitive issues publicly. To those wondering, yes, I did send Wil an email where that was part of a longer chunk. I don't want to say what he posted was 100% accurate because I haven't compared them side by side, but it can probably be assumed to be. I would have responded to your post on the talk page if I had seen it, but haven't been monitoring the talk page regularly as I'm only now finally fully back to having internet access, being thoroughly in the bay, etc.

I have never tried to meddle in Wil's relationship, except to point out to him that some of his actions were actively sabotaging the impressions movement members were forming of Lila in her first few weeks on her new job, and by asking him to reconsider how hard and how fast he was diving in to certain controversial areas. Though now restored to internet access, I'm pretty much going to stay away from this thread except to say that I think Lila's performance so far shows that she holds a lot of promise as a replacement for Sue, something that took a bloody hard search to find. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

And why would it be any of their business, and why would it be any of your business to play tattletale and convey idle gossip? John lilburne (talk) 21:45, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like we could all use a bit more clarity here, Kevin. Do you mind if I release all of the emails you sent me? Could be either on-wiki or WPO, up to you. ,Wil (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes Wil, I do object, and for a pretty simple reason: doing so is not in the interests of, bluntly, anyone. You've already picked out about the worst sounding quote you could've in terms of effecting my reputation, let those who enjoy drama bask in that while they must, instead of drawing anything else in. I do have a couple things to point out: my email to you was not unsolicited, and my response to your request to not interfere with your personal life was to clarify that that was the last thing I wanted to do, emphasize that you had brought up a *lot* of points that needed to be addressed sooner or later, invite you out to dinner to meet in person and hopefully in the process convince you that I did in fact have your best interests in mind, and start talking about how to make productive change while stressing that not everything could be addressed instantly. Do you want to watch the world burn because fire is pretty, or do you prefer construction? If you want something constructive to come out of your engagement with Wikimedia, that can only happen if you engage with Wikimedia's community in a different way than you have so far. Please note that I'm only responding to pings from Wil and a handful of others in this section, rather than monitoring it proactively. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:03, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

"If you want something constructive to come out of your engagement with Wikimedia, that can only happen if you engage with Wikimedia's community in a different way than you have so far." "Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy." Imbibe, imbibe! Say the words!Dan Murphy (talk) 23:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Kevin, I don't think that quote was designed particularly to affect your reputation; though the best thing to do with offensive, ridiculous gossip is to stop it at the source and not pass it on. Repeating awful things that others have said is not quite as bad as the initial insult, but still hurts. As Wil seems to have been offended, an apology would not be remiss. – SJ + 00:51, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

If, as appears, tasteless remarks were made, I am not sure that one helps alleviate the tastelessness by publicizing them extensively. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:20, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

NYB, here's where I think you and I fundamentally disagree with how to handle matters like this. There is a good reason to hold people to their words and deeds. If we just sweep this stuff under the carpet, then Kevin's exactly right: the Wikimedia community tolerates this kind of behavior. I'm not interested in damaging the Wikipedia community or its reputation- just the opposite. I want this kind of stuff to stop. And it won't stop unless we admit we could have done better and learn our lessons well. So, I propose that we own our mistakes, learn from them, and better ourselves. And we should encourage others to learn from mistakes. If, for example, Kevin were to apologize to me and Lila, I would consider it a sign of strength, not weakness, and I would tell him so. ,Wil (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Wil: I've sincerely apologized to Lila, multiple times, over situations related to our interactions. When you expressed concern that I was trying to interfere with your personal life, I emphatically stressed that I had absolutely no desire to interfere in your personal life. (And, except for introducing myself, I have not sent you a single unsolicited email. If you took offense at me relaying how people viewed your behavior: I'm sorry, but sincerely hope you reread that whole line of emails to find and consider the point I made within them. I doubt leaking every email I've sent you would hurt my reputation to a greater degree than the initial offensive nugget you posted - but it would hurt likely hurt both your standing and Lila's, so I hope you have the sense not to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevin Gorman (talk • contribs) 02:41, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Accepted. This is where we could use some practice, however. An apology that follows the pattern "If *, I'm sorry, but *" is a weak apology. I simple "I'm sorry" is much more effective. I'd very much appreciate a chance to accept a strong apology from you, because I believe that it is warranted. But I'm not about to force it out of you; if you don't truly regret what you've said, then I'd prefer you don't apologize at all. And, Kevin, sincerely, you can stop worrying about my reputation. It will build naturally as I do what I believe is right. And, if you haven't caught on to this yet, I really don't care that much what people think of me. I'm interested in their ideas. And I've found no lack of good ideas voiced by good people here. I'm making a lot of friends and enjoying myself. I'm gonna stay the course. If you have concerns about Lila's reputation, I suggest you take it up with her. ,Wil (talk) 04:19, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

• This food fight is getting pretty silly. (1) Kohs shouldn't have been banned from WikiconNYC14 at all. (2) If there was a legitimate reason to ban him, it should have been stated. And it still should be, he's waiting. (3) The conference organizers owe him $5.30 and an apology, in my opinion. All the rest of this is so much noise. Carrite (talk) 23:44, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

  Off-topic for this thread, but yes. People running events can set whatever guidelines they like, and can choose their attendance list to realize the type of event they have in mind; but this should be clear up front. – SJ + 00:51, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

  Sj's right. It's OT, but there is a common theme here. It sounds like there were lots of learning opportunities at WikiCon USA. No biggies. This kind of stuff happens. I think if we practiced apologizing and forgiving, we would all move on and do it better the next time.

  I can guarantee one thing, however; if one chooses to hide their missteps and waste everyone's time- or, worse yet, reputations- by trying to save face, I'm not the only one who will persist in holding everyone accountable. But make no mistake, I do it so diligently because I don't want to have to do it next time. ,Wil (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

• I'd disagree, with that, Brad. If such remarks were made that Scott alleges in the original post, they should be publicised here, and if they are as offensive as has been suggested, the offenders swiftly removed from any position of authority or importance. (And, to be honest, anyone in authority who didn't do anything about it / didn't condemn it, possibly including people further up this thread). Black Kite kite (talk) 23:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Would someone please Rev Del this thread? It's entheta that draws attention to a potential trouble source who's under the influence of suppressive persons, and I'm sure the sole source of Wikipedia has more important things to attend to. Wikipedia is a safe space. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:28, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

@Anthonyhcole: Didn't you mean to say "Wikipedia is a safe space opera"? ;) ,Wil (talk) 02:21, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

User "comments"

What do you think about user comments like this, Mr.Wales?

"Users with ridiculous grudges against Wikipedia are given endless slack - which they very often tie in a noose and hang themselves." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.230.3.89 (talk) 22:11, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it's an interesting variation of the English expression "give him enough rope and he'll hang himself". --Carnildo (talk) 23:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

It's curious: I explicitly asked Mr.Wales about his opinion, yet another user thinks he either is Mr.Wales himself (loss of reality) or he thinks he has a right of overriding importance to respond before the asked person has replied...Odd manners, but we're quite used to it.--37.230.3.89 (talk) 23:55, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

What is really interesting about this statement is that it is completely distorting the truth (cause quite a few Wikipedia officials are definitely not at all giving any kind of slack or "enough rope" but quite the opposite, they tend to kill all opposition once anyone dares to pipe up) and secondly, but more importantly, it shows the condescending and despiteous manner in which quite a few officials look down on other users (often times just because they aren't able to tolerate a different opinion).--37.230.3.89 (talk) 23:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

So how do you think users with ridiculous grudges should be treated? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:31, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Klout?

Has anyone ever talked to Klout about adding a network connection to Wikipedia? If we're interested in getting more editors and more/better contributions from those editors, it seems like it would provide a nice incentive. ,Wil (talk) 23:43, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I am not familiar with Klout beyond what is stated in our article about them, so I don't know just what you mean by "adding a network connection." But I will say preemptively that it would be a mistake to have any more incentives for anyone to maximize the sheer quantity of their edits to Wikipedia, as opposed to the quality and usefulness of their contributions. So any collaboration with that site should bear this in mind. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:47, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Have either of you read The Circle (2013 novel)? Klout reminds me of that book. Like Wil, I'm interested in considering outside the box ideas. Like Brad, I'm nervous about a metric that seems geared more toward quantity than quality. Quantity is easy to measure, quality a bit tougher, and even though I personally work in an area that needs quantity, I think Wikipedia as a whole needs to think how to pivot toward quality. --S Philbrick(Talk) 01:10, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

@Newyorkbrad: Klout measures online influence and is very popular among internet thought leaders who tow around lots of followers to whatever site they post on. I do agree about quality. But the best metrics for quality come from the feedback of other users. For example, influence on Wikipedia might be measured in how many people watch your user talk page. To incentivize quality, one might count thanks instead of contributions. And it wouldn't hurt Wikipedia to incentivize thanks, either. :) Of course, mechanisms have to be built in to handle gaming the system; in this case socks could really distort a score if sock-like behavior isn't somehow discounted in the algorithm. This is my point in asking about Klout; to do it right for Wikipedia, they would almost surely need our help defining the optimal algorithmic behavior.

@Stu: I connected my Wordpress blog to Klout. Do you have any idea how that connector happened?

@Sphilbrick: Also agree with you on the pivot to quality as we reach a sort of article saturation- on en.Wiki, anyways. Haven't read the book. Just might do soon. ,Wil (talk) 02:36, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

"Internet thought leaders" are often such mostly in their own minds. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:46, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Oh yes, someone asked Jimbo about this a while back and he registered or looked at his klout and commented on how he thought they based his number. I was interesting enough that I was curious and registered as well. I forgot all about it until I got a notification about my "klout" number a few months ago.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:52, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Memories are short here! Jimbo "barely even understands" Klout. - 50.144.2.5 (talk) 12:27, 13 June 2014 (UTC) (one of 1 million Xfinity WiFi hotspots)