User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Request, though many will find controversial if you did, but hope you at least consider (Monkey redux)

I formally request that you, as founder (or co-founder whatever people insist upon), perhaps could consider using your influence, wisdom, perhaps even direct powers that you may still voluntarily possess, to cause a change on the decision of the monkey photo we have discussed in the thread above. You seemed, perhaps, to be open to the idea that while legally the WMF has the right, that morally the decision may not have been and that more consideration should be taken. I am wondering if you are willing for a... debate? RfC? Or just Wikipedia's version of amicus briefs be given to you and perhaps you and the WMF could take a second look on moral and ethical instead of legal grounds on whether perhaps we should do, what in my humble opinion is the right thing to do. I'm sure a lot will argue here you have no grounds or power to do any such thing, but the decision at Commons and various comments, attitudes, and responses by some in the Community have truly dispirited me and this was all I could think to do, to feel like I'm at least trying to do the right thing, in my mind.Camelbinky (talk) 18:39, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Could you stop beating on the already dead WP:HORSE already? The legal opinion of WMF is in and seriously, this debate is getting just plain ridiculous. WMF is legally in the right and indeed might have their own horse in this race because protecting public domain images is one of their own interests. They're one of the only organizations I know that constantly put their money where their mouth is on subjects like this. Tutelary (talk) 18:42, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

What law school did you go to? And you want to talk about putting their money where their mouth is, has the WMF actually done that in this case? Given their budget and need to allocate wisely I doubt this is a huge priority to spend everything and anything.Camelbinky (talk) 20:07, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

This horse is far from dead. It is possible to be legally right and at the same time to be completely morally and ethically wrong. It appears to me that camera owner in this case has been greatly harmed by a legal "opinion". To me it looks like the WMF has no idea if the are embarrassing themselves or not by not even considering what is the "right" thing to do. Nyth63 18:59, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Morally, we have the right to read whatever we want, write whatever we want, ignore all tyrants who dictate any limit on that for any reason, and await the SPA/RIAA S.W.A.T. teams with AK47s at the ready under the jihadist skull-and-crossbones banner of the Cathach of St. Columba. Wnt (talk) 21:09, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

In other words, Wnt, your position is that we should renounce any legal or ethical restrictions on our content at all. No BLP policy against libel or invading privacy; no honoring copyrights (if someone wants to post the full text of a book published last year, tough); no excluding child porn or photos taken by sneaking into a bathroom—no rules at all.

If that is really your view, you are merely a common troll, and your participation here is dangerous.

If that is not really your view, then your post is a useless piece of rhetorical exaggeration, and you should learn to think before typing.

In either case, you are not a serious participant in this conversation. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:18, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not the one who started with the "moral" arguments. I'm well aware that the legal standards are what matter because the legal action is the threat to WMF. If people want to argue law then let them argue law, but don't start with this "the law doesn't require us to delete this, so let's be moral, because not to be moral the way I want would be illegal!" That's not serious conversation, though it is an extremely common tactic around here of late, a time-wasting loop-the-loop that truly deserves dismissal. Morally, I admire everyone over the history of the Internet from Usenet on who have made it possible to simply transmit information and never mind what it is. All your censorship exceptions need to be dealt with other ways - by teaching people to look for reliable sources, by stopping employment discrimination against women who have revenge porn circulating, by making law enforcement actually find the people who are molesting children instead of jailing random nerds who were running file sharing software a picture passed over afterwards. That's what's moral. If you want to come argue law, then stay on that topic. Wnt (talk) 13:59, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

"The legal opinion of WMF is in "

Can you please link to that, for the sake of clarity.

Also, if that opinion is "A monkey cannot hold copyright" then that is still failing to address the question of whether the photographer can hold the copyright. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:34, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Well the dilemma, here, seems quite deep. The WMF is of the opinion that legally the image may be hosted. The editors have apparently decided it will be hosted, to the apparent disgust of others but apparently those disgusted are unable to use regular process to get it removed. For the WMF to now take the editorial step of removing the image on non-legal grounds, it basically must use an out-of-process action. Whatever the justice of this particular matter - does the WMF becoming uber content editor make good sense? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:31, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes. One possibility would be to conclude that while the legal opinion is there is no copyright issue, the situation is close enough to the line that it would be undesirable to test it. Another possibility would be to conclude that it is ethically undesirable to host content, at least absent a high degree of shown need, in the direct face of an entirely plausible request for deletion by the creator (or at least, someone intimately involved with the creation). And, importantly, the fact pattern here is sufficiently eccentric, as shown by the truly bizarre nature of some of the hypothetical comparisons that people have offered, that no broadranging precedent would be created. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:36, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Your first possibility, appears to be a legal position (don't test it) - of course they seem to have already decided against that but presumably they could reverse course; your second position appears to be in the nature of site editorial content policy (eg. "our content policy is need in the face of complaint") - the WMF making one off ipsa dixit editorial site content policy does seem like a far reaching precedent. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:56, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

There have been occasional Office actions in the past; an admitted difference is that those have been obscure while this one would be widely publicized. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:03, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Right, but as I understand specific to Office Actions, there is a line to maintain: this, and no further - legal judgement but not editorial judgement. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:11, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

To answer the specific question asked, I have no intentions to intervene here at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:28, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Then this discussion should be closed. Nyth63 04:21, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Anent "copyright" and "being legally able to publish":

[1] gives an example of a deficient copyright under US law enabling the publishing of material without the proper owner's consent.

Being "legally able" to do something is not the proudest reasoning known to man. Collect (talk) 19:19, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I have a hard time making sense of that article, but let's be clear: if there was no copyright renewal for Lord of the Rings then we absolutely should host a copy of it. We host copies of many things for which copyright renewals weren't filed already. You can say we shouldn't be proud of being 'legally able', but what thing in the world is nobler than freedom? What purpose is more fundamental to WMF than distributing the freely available content it can? You could say it's "morally" pirate to copy something that wasn't renewed, expired 75 years ago, or 100, or 1000, or was taken by a monkey, whatever, but what morality could there possibly be in extending the arbitrary bans of copyright whichever way you happen to think of? Wnt (talk) 14:08, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

No -- not "renewal" the copyright was never taken out in the US - so when Houghton Mifflin imported too many copies without registering in the US, it lost copyright under US law. Tolkien made substantive changes so Ballantine could issue a properly US copyrighted version -- which is now the version sold around the world. That time, the US public made known its belief that one ought not steal the work of others. Collect (talk) 14:33, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, if it's legal to post the original version now, we should post it. Is it? Wnt (talk) 17:14, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

We don't post complete texts on Wikipedia, so this discussion need not continue, thank goodness. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:13, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Wnt, you might try Wikisource. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:00, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

For God's own sake, please tell me you didn't suggest that. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:36, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I'd already thought of that, though I had to recheck their policy; I just got side-tracked by a beguiling article from the late 1700s over there (as he describes it, modified smallpox has quite some literary potential, I think...). But I still need more convincing that the original version is truly public domain in the U.S. at this moment in time. Wnt (talk) 23:57, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

As I feared, the Ace version of Lord of the Rings is part of the massive body of material taken (not stolen, of course!) from the public domain via the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994. [2] Now, even more than two decades later my understanding is that URAA is still a legal 'gray area' with no one really understanding how it will play out, because after all that is just the blink of an eye on a legal timescale. Commons and the WMF are already in the midst of an argument over deletions of URAA images, as I recall. But I'm not feeling very hopeful at this point. With copyright extensions, treaties (if you think URAA was bad just wait for the secret schemes of the Trans-Pacific Partnership), cockamamie legal theories like for Happy Birthday, university libraries that have made all their resources proprietary, locked up behind passwords (even the card catalog), libraries subject to exorbitant subscription rates for being libraries, not allowed to simply collect journals from public donations and put them on the shelves ... today's U.S. seems as eager to destroy the public domain as people like Ben Franklin once were to build it up. And Wikipedia is, for now, a rare exception to that. Wnt (talk) 16:07, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I am evading a block but I am not a sock for which I was blocked Self Reported to ANI

This is already being discussed at WP:ANI, it doesn't need to be spammed here whilst that is continuing.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I got blocked for starting a SPI and accused of being a sock, Whose Sock???? Calling me a sock after I started a SPI was a convenient excuse to block me by User:Chillum. I am no sock and Chillum has never presented any evidence. I am fighting the abusive treatment of an IP which is all to familiar. Stating get an account is a cop out that does not address the abuse of socks and lack of AGF. 0 I started an SPI about an article I came across that was around since 2006 and deleted and salted after a few attempts by User:RGloucester and some new accounts like User:Jobrot which is a SPA that states they are "noob" but then first edits in December 2014 in a discussion to delete the article using very sophisticated alphabet soup. Clearly not a noob and the edit analyzer shows a remarkable number of edits with the above sock master even though the sock only has a few hundred edits of which most show up in the edit analyzer with RGlocester who avows to be a Marxist on their talk page. The subject cultural Marxism in an modern American use does not say nice things about Marxists or cultural Marxists. It was nominated for deletion and theatrically argued for deletion by RGlocester and then a new SPA shows up arguing for the same thing out of no where. I do acknowledge it may be a meat puppet recruited by the sock master but a meat puppet is to be treated the same as a sock per WP:SOCK. I was accused of pretending to be new by Chillum but he fabricated that and accused me of being a sock and then blocked block me based on his ridiculous claims. I previously argued against User Talk:John Foxe for COI and his previous use of a sock. That will demonstrate that I always use an IP to edit and not what Chillum falsely accused me of. And John Foxe edits on behalf of Bob Jones University a very politically conservative fundamentalist school. That demonstrates I go after both extremes of the political spectrum. Cultural Marxism in an American sense reflects a conservative use of the philosophy. It was a valid article with 9 years of existence that was salted for Marxist ideological reasons. It is the worst case of WP:PUSH I have ever seen and a complete failure by involved admins. One reasonably would question if they had COI or in my opinion acted foolishly. If you got the time look into the salted SPI about RGloucester and check out the case I made. It demonstrates meat puppetry at the best and a sock puppetry in the worst. The edit analyzer and Jobrots contributions are very clear. [3] It needs to see the light of day and not be immediately salted without examination. Again a foolish or malicious move by an admin. Thanks for your time 172.56.6.142 (talk) 10:16, 23 February 2015 (UTC) This note has also been posted at WP:ANI where it is being addressed. Liz Read! Talk! 12:48, 23 February 2015 (UTC) In Depth Highlights 1. A fight (not a discussion) to delete Cultural Marxism article initiated by User:RGloucester a self avowed Marxist. The article's modern American usage negatively portrays Marxists and big government control as a form of Cultural Marxism. The term has been around some time and is currently seeing a resurgence to describe big government or a nanny state. I found that out using google. The term is notable and its modern rendition is much different than the article it was merged into and the history shows many editors brought that up. The article is deleted and salted after a prolonged war but it was save and placed on several other web sites decrying abusive practices at Wikipedia. I found them when I googled the term. A new account User:Jobrot shows up claiming to be a Noob on their talk page and then edits their first day several times to delete the article wiki lawyering with sophisticated wiki alphabet soup language. I will later begin reviewing the closed AFD fight and I am shocked at the level of discourse concerning an article that is notable, well sourced, and that article that has been around for 9 years is deleted. There are claims in the AFD about socks and I begin looking into account histories and discover user Jobrot. I run the editor analyzer on all involved parties and only two accounts have a very high interaction. Here are the results: [4] User:RGloucester who started the AFD and the new account have almost all their edits in common and they both are strongly arguing for its deletion and subsequently on the related new drafts especially the new Draft:Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory which tries to use a great deal of negative ideological sources to paint the use of the term as a crazy fringe theory by right wing nut jobs. 2. User:Jobrot history shows an SPA account only working on Cultural Marxism drafts and the redirect Frankfurt School. User:RGloucester starts another AFD [5] to delete a new Draft:Cultural Marxism but is unsuccessful. Chillum States in the new AFD: I would support deletion then. Too soon. Chillum 19:55, 18 January 2015 (UTC) He is the same admin who has suspended my account for starting: 17:46, 22 February 2015 Chillum (talk | contribs) blocked 172.56.15.36 (talk) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (Obvious sock puppet is obvious. See deleted contribs. Logged out user. I am not logged out as I have never had an account. Chillum accuses me of being a sock for starting a SPI. Chillum never does a SPI on me just cast an aspersion to justify blocking me. That is an abuse of admin privileges and he assumes no good AGF. I am wondering about his motive as to whether he is paranoid of IP's, resents IP's or is acting maliciously because he disagrees with my edits to the original article. He also salted the original deleted article that I have now used (found when researching Cultural Marxism with google, check it out) as a starting point and improved. 3. I attempt to work on the article under a slightly different title Cultural Marxist and I am unaware of the draft at the time. I add much new material with many reliable sources here:[6] In the middle of working on the new article I am reverted by DD2K who states:where the Hell is the protection to this? here: [7] I am unaware he has done this while I am researching and adding to the article until I try to submit again which comes up as an edit conflict. I work around and improve article but I have lost much of my previous work and write this in the edit summary: (Improving references and adding a few, still working on article that is already much different and is undergoing much, discuss on talk page and please do misuse speedy delete to eliminate dissenting schools of thought) That is my only revert. DD2K puts a speedy delete tag while I go back to researching and working on the article. DD2K then does his second revert of everything on the article except his speedy delete tag and then requests page protection. DD2K has clearly been watching the page and reverts 2X to my 1X. I place a notice on DD2K's talk page for blanking the page. I check his contributions and see that he has requested page protection and I go there to argue against it stating: User:DD2K nominated the article for speedy deletion then immediately deleted it without any discussion. I was working on a substantially different article than the last known article. here:[8] I add more to the page protection here: [9] I argue that I am substantially improving the article. I lose and the page is protected and DD2K has only edited in the draft article since then, here is his contributions: [10] 4. I go edit some other articles but I decide to go back and start snooping around to see why all the bugaboo about the article, I find the draft and edit there instead here: [11] I am reverted again within 45 minutes by User:RGloucester. [12] Compare the two articles. It becomes clear there is some ownership issues going on here and the level of article improvement is irrelevant. I never reverted there. No edit war. 5. I go to the draft talk page to post my concerns about an article that has been ignored for 2 weeks until I show up. It is clear there are ownership and Push issues. I post this here: Article has been vandalized back into a WP:PUSH political diatribe "Amazing, no one has work on the article for 2 weeks and I spend hours adding sources from subject matter experts and RGloucester shows up and simple reverts to an agenda pushing political diatribe article that is designed to advance a left wing agenda. RG also fought long and hard to eliminate the real article because it did not fit their brand of cultural Marxism. The more neutral editors have all left because of the tendentious editing WP:TEND. More evidence that Wikipedia has become more extreme in promoting left wing ideologies and cannot be trusted as a source for anything political. The project relevance will continue to decrease if balance is not restored. Just compare the one RG reverted to and the one I did. RG eliminated info boxes, references, noted experts and replaced it with a political rant. I have no doubt that when they get the article to fit their politics (left wing cultural Marxism) they will be ok with putting it back up. It was there for years and after constant demands they got it deleted and salted as well. But a google of the title Cultural Marxism will bring up the preserved article and some very interesting commentary about what happened and where this project is headed. The current article is in no way encyclopedic and is now only an political diatribe to grind an axe. 172.56.7.197 (talk) 22:47, 21 February 2015 (UTC) I also post in reply to Jobrots commentary: Jobrot-So it seems this is an American phenomena that Europe (the apparent origins of the movement) view with apt derision whilst the rest of the world is for the most part indifferent. --Jobrot (talk) 11:16, 14 February 2015 (UTC) Me- It is not amazing that an American political philosophy that criticizes Europe's drowning in Cultural Marxism and Europe's downfall and current has been status that are only a shadows of what they once were does not want to talk about it. Europe's downfall is illustrated as what happens when countries are greatly influenced by the far left (Cultural Marxists} and what America will become as the yoke of political correctness (Cultural Marxism) suppresses the people. 172.56.7.197 (talk) 23:00, 21 February 2015 (UTC) Less than an hour later DD2K reappears and deletes both of my posts as I challenged his speedy delete and page protection on the page I originally began editing earlier. It appears as tit for tat?[13] (Reverted to revision 647604569 by Jobrot (talk): Rv -- ffs -- This is not a forum for political rants. We all know it is generally best to leave talk page comments alone. I reinstate my post and state this in the edit summary: Have you read the posts? It just does not fit your ideology so you delete comments about improving the article, recuse yourself if you cannot apply commonsense. So far everything I have tried to add has been deleted by some of those previously involved in an ongoing tendentious edit war. Yet later I will be accused of edit warring. Ironic 6. I am reverted again by a hit and run editor (they never came back to the talk page) so I give up for 10 hours (I got better things to do) and do not reinstate my talk page commentary. I return and remove this rant using the same basis as used against my post. [Cultural Marxism': a uniting theory for rightwingers who love to play the victim] Personally I believe the appeal of the Cultural Marxism theory is that things like, Feminism, Gay Rights and Civil Rights have become somewhat sacrosanct. In many spheres of life it's not really considered socially acceptable to criticize these movements (and doing so often garners emotionally visceral reactions and rhetorical vitriol). It would be much easier to explain this all away via a communist plot indoctrinating everyone, but unfortunately the reality of these movements is a lot more emotionally messy than that. --Jobrot (talk) 07:42, 20 January 2015 (UTC) "If that is not a soap box statement then clearly my statements were valid as well. Jobrot restores himself Jobrot (talk | contribs)(Undid revision 648309581 by 172.56.15.36 (talk) it seems we have a vandal IP.) User:Jobrot edit history shows a SPA account only working on Cultural Marxism drafts and the redirect Frankfurt School. Jobrot poisons the well by calling me a vandal IP. 7. I began more looking into the history of those involved by running edit analyzer. Something seemed amiss and there were other statements to that affect in the AFD. Two names exhibited an amazingly similar editing pattern. That is the AFD initiator User:RGloucester and User:Jobrot a self described Noob who says they did not know what they are doing but on their first edit appears in a very contentious discussion about deleting an article and using some sophisticated wiki terminology. Cleary not a noob which Jobrot later admits in the ANI I started about myself and those involved in this fiasco. Jobrot and RGloucester both furiously argued to delete and salt the article. It looks very suspect and the analyzer supports that so I start an ANI where I lay it out in depth. No reasonable person would question whether I am detailed oriented or not based on my edits. I also notified many of those who seemed very involved in the AFD as they would have great interest in a meat puppet being used to eliminate an article including Chillum and another admin. Both parties suspected of being socks or at the least puppets are informed. 8. The SPI is quickly closed within 3:20 hours and deleted by User:Mike V here: [14] I am then blocked by Chillum here: [15] 17:46, 22 February 2015 Chillum (talk | contribs) blocked 172.56.15.36 (talk) (account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (Obvious sock puppet is obvious. See deleted contribs. Logged out user.) Chillum accuses me of being a logged out user of which I am not. Why did he do that? Chillum had closed the AFD and salted the article. Chillum would later state that I edit warred which I did not and the long response here makes it easy to see that is also a false accusation. I point out Chillum's action to everyone involved and start an ANI about me. This is when the real circus begins. Chillum repeats his lies and then bans me again for bringing all this up because I evaded his unjustified ban based on based faith and no evidence. I reasonably questioned Chillum's motives as they seem rather suspect. Whether he is attempting to cover up his original bad faith block or something greater I do not know. Things heat up after several exchanges and several more lies from Chillum stating I was edit warring and editing logged out. Nothing surprising there. Many others come in to the ANI. One admin lays out the issue pretty well but he is mostly ignored, I thank him for being fair and he in no way praised my actions but he had the balls to address Chillums short comings in all of this. Chillum and some others continue to attempt to block me from speaking up which is an exercise in futility. I will not be silent about being blocked for starting an SPI. That is what this all about. 9. Jobrot does something very decent the day after I start the SPI when he realizes the point I made and restores my talk commentary.' I believe that says something good about him to be fair, I am assuming good faith. Jobrot states: Jobrot (talk | contribs) (Undid revision 648261825 by Saddhiyama (talk) Reverting back even further in the interests of having an open discussion.) I just noticed this now as I left the talk after being reverted again. It was however the day after I started the SPI investigation. Up to that point everything I did was reverted in this contentious article discussion that is full of political push. I never exceed 3RR and mostly did only 1RR but somehow I became an edit warring sock. I used the talk page to address my concerns but was repeatedly reverted by those who had practiced tendentious edit warring here for a long time. My posts that were restored after I brought attention to my block at ANI have received quite a bit of discussion which was my intent. 10. Another commentator wrote this recently after my original post was restored by Jobrot here [16] Raquel Baranow (talk | contribs)(→‎Article has been vandalized back into a WP:PUSH political diatribe: agree with the IP) Raguel states: I totally agree with the IP. I've been following this since it was mentioned on Jimbo's Talk Page. (As you know, the original article was deleted through "consensus" and then restored by Jimbo.) I became aware of the right-wing use of the term from reading Anders Breivik's Manifesto and think it's an important concept. I also consider myself a Marxist because I believe in eliminating money but I'm not a cultural Marxist and disagree with the redirect to the Frankfort School, this should be a stand-alone article. I'm glad someone is volunteering their time to do something about this. Raquel Baranow (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC) She recognizes the differences in the use of the terms. This encyclopedia project was here to be reasonably inclusive and cover notable topics. 11. Why do the editors who wanted to delete the article fight so hard in editing it. That seems strange. Why spend time trying to improve something you argued had no relevance? I believe the intention was to delete an article because they did not like how it was written as it offended their ideological beliefs. That is my opinion and others have their idea as to why the article that stood for 9 years was deleted. One things for sure is that there was a great deal of POV going on both sides but that is no reason to delete an article and there was no consensus to be deleted so it should of stayed. The salting was also a very poor decision. Talk about trying to hide information. Thank God someone saved it and posted elsewhere. They are making a great deal of justified negative comments about Wikipedia over this AFD. This an extremely bad example by many involved including admins. My intention is to inform here. Banning my IP is not a concern of mine at this point. It will hurt Wikipedia more than me if this type of ideological motivated deletion continues. Besides all that I need a break as all my free time has been dedicated to this over the last three days and even time I should of been taking care of other things. I am bold and determined as I spent much of my adult life as a Marine and not easily intimidated. I am tenacious as a bull dog when I feel passionate about something. Chillum brought the worst and the best in me by pulling that admin stunt of his. SEMPER FI Jimbo! 208.54.32.236 (talk) 06:10, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Transfer of a Conversation with Admin Weldneck (very professional and rational), It concerns the abusive atmosphere many IP's Receive Regularly if They Know to Much

ANI I started to have my actions and Admin Chillum's actions scrutinized

I started the ANI so others could look at the block I received for starting a SPI. Chillum blocked the IP I submitted the SPI with. I have a cellular IP and it changes frequently, that is how cell towers serve many customers. Chillum specifically said I logged out from an account and was a therefore a sock. What account did I log out from, what evidence was there? Did he start a SPI on me? No he just used a convenient excuse to block me. It was malicious at best. I believe he has a low level of respect for IP's and was not AGF. He has made up lies after that to defend his block. He says I edit warred. That is a lie. Show where I did that? The only thing I have done is turn off my device for 5 Minutes to get a new IP to respond to the ANI I started. Why did I start it? So his actions and my actions would be scrutinized. I could of walked away but I am tired of the abusive atmosphere here towards IP's. I will stand my ground on this one. I started the ANI and I will participate in it and see it out. The hell with the catch 22 when you have been maliciously abused by an admin. 172.56.38.47 (talk) 18:09, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Hey WeldNeck, I left a post at Jobrots page and I am no longer seeking a SPI. It has plenty of merit but if it is a sock or meat puppet I like Jobrots attitude better than the sock master. It could be a friend or even a sophisticated sock but it is no longer my intention to pursue it. My main concern is the abuse from Chillum and all the lies he has been telling to cover his tracks. He makes up stuff or misrepresents it by twisting the facts. His reason he posted on the account he blocked is that I was editing logged out and a therefore a sock. I have nothing to log into as I will not register due people like Chillum. Besides that it would be ok to log out to start a SPI if they thought they would face retaliation and considering User:RGloucester is involved that would be likely. It is your call about the SPI but it does not matter to me anymore. There are so many editors with sock accounts and friends battling for them what is a couple of more. 172.56.8.17 (talk) 19:27, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

If you feel the evidence is strong enough to warrant the SPI then go for it, I certainly think there's something to it. Just because everyone does it doesn't mean we should let people get away with it. WeldNeck (talk) 20:18, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

• I think the abusive atmosphere here by some admins towards IP's does much more damage to the project and I have to pick my battles. I originally started the SPI which was deleted and then Chillum who was deeply involved in the article came along 5 hours after I started it and blocked my account here: [17] Chillum wrote: Per our sock puppet policy undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project. Logging out to file a complaint against another user qualifies as such. It is clear from your knowledge of events that take place well prior to your edit history that you have prior history here. It is also clear you are using more than one IP to edit war and act disruptively at Draft talk:Cultural Marxism. If you wish to appeal this block please log into your regular account to do so. Chillum 17:48, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

What account did I log out from? Having knowledge makes me guilty? Having cellular service that randomly changes IP's is now a crime? Discussing on a talk page about a bias and push in an article is now forbidden? Reinstating my deleted comments 1 time is an edit war? Making false allegations about someone who is an IP is accepted practice?

What is troubling is User:Chillums amount of lying to cover up after I self reported myself at ANI to get the matter scrutinized. The evidence speaks for itself but so do the reactions. It seems there is little accountability for admins abusing other editors especially the IP editor. There is probably a process to take this higher/further but very few know about it and are willing to go there. The catch 22 of being abused and then being blocked so you cannot make a report without being accused of evading a block is severely flawed as well. I have let enough admins know so at least their is more information about it.

Thank you WeldNeck for looking into the matter of the original SPI. The evidence is strong and I believed it deserved more attention. I would of been ok with the SPI going nowhere after the process which was very short and deleted, why? The clear abuse of someone who started a SPI has become a bigger issue for me. I did not even know about Chillum's block until I went back the next day to look at the SPI. My IP had already changed when I turned on my Cellular device. Chillum has tried to use my changing IP as evidence. That has no merit as cellular networks continually change IP's to allow more people to use the network than they have IP's allocated for. Take your cell phone for example (same type of network) and google "my IP" and then turn it of for awhile or go somewhere and google "my IP" again and it likely changed. The bigger the population of people the more likely it will change faster. I could of said oh well to Chillum's block and went on about my business and no one would of known or cared.

However there are people out there who use an IP that does not regularly change (unless they unplug their modem over night) who have been targeted by an abusive admin and I stood up for the community. It is possible Chillum thought I fell into that category and would be an easy target to abuse. Maybe he acted maliciously due to his involvement in the very controversial Cultural Marxism AFD. Maybe he has an dislike of IP editors or is paranoid about them. I do not know his reason and it does not matter so I fought against the abuse and false allegation. I forced the issue rather than just walking away which would of been easy. I knew I could fight him at ANI as blocking my IP is pretty much a waste of time unless admins are willing to go nuclear and range block millions of cellular users. That is unlikely to stop someone who has other access and knows how IP's are assigned. I pointed that out to Chillum on his talk page in a smart a$$ way to prevent such a meat head move on his part that would do a lot of collateral damage. I was successful in preventing that.

I have been very determined and sometimes a little to much of a smart a$$ towards Chillum as he has been towards me. Chillum's lying, false allegations and twisting to cover his a$$ did not bring out the best in me at all times. However as an Admin Chillum is the face of Wikipedia and he needs to exercise better judgment and that is my reason for not ignoring it. 172.56.32.8 (talk) 03:10, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Jimbo for letting this see the light of day here and for being accesable. Here is a link to the SPI I started that was deleted in three hours and then deleted so no one else could see it. [[18]] This investigation was started to investigate RGloucester and suspected sock or meat puppet Jobrot. 172.56.21.218 (talk) 05:04, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

How many times are you going to post the same thing on different talk pages? This was already discussed at ANI. Chillum 06:08, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Disclosure issue

Jimmy, could you comment on a situation? If an organization hired a consultant with a proprietary area of practice (one that they sort of have a "name trademark" in doing -- like Google is practically associated with "contextual advertising", or like Apple is practically associated with "portable media player"), to do research that results in a report that finds that the organization is the world's best/biggest/fastest-growing entity in that area of practice, I understand that there's nothing wrong with that. But, what if the organization's employees also create and author a new Wikipedia article about the area of practice, using primarily the consultant's white paper as a reliable source, then promote the research results with a press release that links back to the Wikipedia article about what it is that they're supposedly best/biggest at -- and none of the organization's employees disclose any conflict of interest in their authorship of the Wikipedia article. Is that a violation of the Wikimedia Terms of Use clauses about disclosure? Do you feel that the organization has behaved ethically? Looking forward to your response. - WilmingMa (talk) 20:52, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Participatory grantmaking, mayhaps? --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:55, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

This is certainly a convoluted restating of a discussion going on at Wikipediocracy about WMF's "Participatory Grantmaking" and allegations of a paid self-congratulatory propaganda offensive relating to that. Carrite (talk) 21:39, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

As usual, I find hypothetical questions like this to be unsatisfactory. Please give actual information so that people can evaluate it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:23, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, Jimmy. I thought that if I put the scenario in hypothetical terms it would enable you to respond sort of generally about what constitute ethical practices for employees at large, rather than be put on the defensive to try to "cover" for your Foundation. There is a story you can find on Google that should summarize the "actual information" that you requested. - WilmingMa (talk) 15:34, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

That would not be my style. I prefer to speak plainly and directly, and that's much easier to do when we have clear facts. As I only now know what you are referring to, and know nothing about it, I'll have to look into it before I can comment sensibly. I can speak in the abstract, of course, that the ethical principles which I think apply to all organizations in terms of their editing of Wikipedia apply in the extreme to the Wikimedia Foundation itself. It would be impossible for the Foundation to take a leadership role on the issue if they did not adhere to the strongest possible standards themselves, including my "bright line" rule. I can say that before knowing what is even being alleged here, because that is at the level of principle.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:28, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

http://wikipediocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=6068 --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:41, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Gregory Kohs's Examiner.com article is a lot easier to read than a forum thread, but since it can't actually be linked to from here I suppose a "soft redirect" will have to do. The WMF has an unfortunate habit of holding cozy relations with firms it contracts research to, but this is the first time I've seen WMF staffers actually create an article for a firm, and then link to the article from the WMF blog (google "citogenesis" and "wikiality"). --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 09:25, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Giving Jimbo a chance to respond, once he's had time to have a look into it. - 50.144.3.133 (talk) 13:48, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia have an article about a Wikipedia article?

Please have a look at this collection of links to sources. http://www.markbernstein.org/Feb15/Press.html When doing so, please notice that there is enough there to create a new Wikipedia article about a notable Wikipedia article. All you'd have to do is summarize these sources into an article about the referent Wikipedia's article about gamergate. In the future, if there is enough published in WP:RSes specifically about specific Wikipedia articles, more articles about much-written-about Wikipedia articles could also be created.

Thoughts? Chrisrus (talk) 04:41, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

It's been suggested that I should explain about the above link. If you would, please look at this collection of links by scrolling down just a tiny bit and clicking on the names of sources, here: http://www.markbernstein.org/Feb15/Press.html. The first one is "The Guardian". Each one links to another publisher's article about Wikipedia's gamergate article. That article in itself is apparently notable, and so we could base an article about it from those articles.

Thoughts? Chrisrus (talk) 06:28, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

Isn't it more about the controversy? Wikipedia has articles on several controversial events in its history.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:19, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

There's no particular reason to change the usual inclusion standards. There are at least two articles that're essentially about Wikipedia articles, Henryk Batuta hoax and Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident. WilyD 08:29, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

What if Wikipedia's article on the Gamergate Controversy is itself covered substantially in reliable sources, say by people complaining about self-reference in Wikipedia? Then we could have a Wikipedia's article on Wikipedia's article on the Gamergate Controversy and so on ad infinatum. In all seriousness, there should be an article provided substantial and credible sources exist. --Jakob (talk) 15:58, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I recall a science fiction story about a digital encyclopedia that had indices, then an index to the index (index²) and so on for several iterations. And then they discovered an error ... one thing about Wikipedia, we've abolished the index (thank God, as they were usually unhelpful).--Wehwalt (talk) 17:28, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

I actually think an index (not to articles but for guidance of Wikipedia editors) would be very helpful. I've raised this point before but it did not get any traction. Coretheapple (talk) 17:39, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Editor's index to Wikipedia and Book:Wikipedia: The Missing Manual.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:05, 24 February 2015 (UTC)