User talk:Jimbo Wales

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A little birdie chirped your name. Drmies (talk) 15:02, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Overseas threats to editors and how to deal with them

Your input, or, for that matter, damn near anyone working for the foundation, would be welcome at WP:ANI#Telstra, Australia IP vandalism. John Carter (talk) 15:36, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with those calling for a phone call to Telstra to seek their assistance in dealing with the problem. I also agree with blocking the entire ISP if that becomes necessary to get their attention, although I suspect that's not really going to be as effective as a phone call. I'd suggest that we do that (and threaten to go to the press, and go to the press if they still don't respond) only as a last resort. ISPs need to be responsible about cutting off customers who are engaging in massive abuse.

I think we might want to step back and reflect on the current process for handling such situations - they are rare, but there should be a clear and straightforward and accountable way for the community to escalate to Foundation staff.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:54, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

But *who* should call Telstra? The WMF? Or you? Or, are you leaving it all to me?? Huldra (talk) 18:56, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Huldra As I said in a response on ANI contacting the ISP is definitely something that we are looking into as one of the options. We are definitely not leaving it just to you. I have found, however, that the victim also reporting can be very useful (it isn't an either/or thing and they sometimes take multiple reports or a report from a victim more seriously then from a 3rd party) and so would not only say that you reporting to Telstra could be useful but I'd also recommend that you report to your local law enforcement if you feel threatened so that they can make a report in their system either for investigation now or followup later if contacted by other authorities. Jalexander--WMF 19:34, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Jalexander-WMF Thank you for your reply, but I am *not* going to report this to my local police. As I have explained before: "Besides the fact that I live in a country where English is not any of our official languages (we have two), I am not an admin, and all threats are rev-delled. So, I could go to the police, and tell them that this is a rape threat against me and here they want to kill me, ...both comes from an IP at the other side of the world, writing in a foreign language (for my local police), ...and both edits are now over-sighted, so I´m sorry, they cannot see it! Yeah, sure. I would say I have a larger chance of winning jackpot in a lottery, than getting the police to act on such a report." In addition, it is the very good point User:SlimVirgin brings up: the fear of outing. "Huldra" is not an uncommon nick to use online (which is why I didn´t get a SUL-account until this spring), Now, it is bad enough living through abuse-edits like this, and this and this,....but how to you think I would feel if my RN was abused in the same fashion? And I second SlimVirgin´s question; why cannot *anyone* give me a clear answer: who will contact Telstra, and when? At the moment it looks like that "hot potato" everyone is quick to pass on. Huldra (talk) 21:20, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I can understand how it might be preferable to have police be contacted by the victim, who, honestly, probably is in general the best person to file police reports. But I can also understand that there might be a problem with the victim, in this case, not being able to present evidence. And the law in your country might not be able to be as protective of your real name than you might want. Personally, I might myself opt for an admin in Australia, or an editor in Australia with admin assistance, who can revdel the offending messages, going to their local police, maybe with copies or whatever of all the threats and, maybe, a complaint from you, maybe sent as a wikipedia e-mail, regarding the matter as the victim complaint. But, I honestly have no clue about international law and international crimes and all that rot. James might know better if such might be workable. John Carter (talk) 21:33, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

We certainly can not, and do not wish, to force anyone to report something they don't want to report. The WMF will always attempt to do whatever we're able to do to protect community members (and the public) whether they report or not however I do think it is important to point out that it is an incredible help and that it is not uncommon to face walls where police are unwilling to act without one. Both the WMF and the oversighters (and, where simple deletion is in question, administrators) are able to release copies of deleted information for abuse investigations to the victim, to the police and to 3rd parties where needed. I'm sorry Huldra, these types of attacks suck, and as someone whose had death threats for my Wikipedia work for more then a decade now (long before I was staff) I completely understand your frustration. I will certainly tell you that I'm looking at multiple angles to try and help (including the fact that I'm in the office now at 3pm on a Saturday looking into it) but I can't make you promises on when results will be shown and I can't tell you that I contacted [Telstra (or X)] at Y time and Z date. I know that's not what you want to hear but I don't do that for anyone and I can't do that here. As I've said before I think the likely hood of a physical threat is very small in this case but the reality of the large emotional toll and abuse that the constant attacks cause is very real. Sadly that makes it more difficult, law enforcement and ISPs are much more likely to respond to credible threats of physical violence but it is not impossible and we are doing everything we can to try and help. We've been successful doing so in the past and I am confidant that we can be successful doing so again, it isn't easy but it's important. Jalexander--WMF 22:10, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

John Carter Honestly for reports like that it really depends on not only the laws of the country in question but the responses of the local law enforcement. It's hard to make a blanket statement (it's one of the reasons we like to work through the FBI attache's in the embassy ourselves where possible because they know the local environment). Usually they are going to be more open to it if the victim is the local one coming to them but that certainly isn't always the case and it's often worth a try. Jalexander--WMF 22:12, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

@Jalexander Is someone in the WMF keeping a log of the abuse from Telstra IPs? How many occurrences have there been this year? When was the last? Is anyone in the WMF considering restrictions on the Telstra IPs to prevent further abuse? Such restrictions would be unprecedented (I think), but it's time the WMF walked the walk on supporting the community. Johnuniq (talk) 02:05, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Very little of the Telstra IP abuse has been reported to the foundation (Huldra reported some of it a couple weeks ago and today we were pinged) so keeping a long running log has been difficult. That said a good portion of my Saturday was spent gathering a lot of that information (there is certainly much more that could likely be gathered, I'm mostly waiting to hear back from a couple reports to know what they'll need if anything more first) and taking actions in behind the scenes. I believe that the WMF has been walking the walk on supporting the community for quite some time and that support has ranged all over the map from legal funds to help community members fight long term abusers locally to global bans to criminal and civil action that the WMF supports directly to ISP reports and ISP action and much more. However, unfortunately, I can't sit here and list each case and what we tried to do and the results and I'll likely never be able too. Even in this case if the abuser was sent to a jail cell for years I'd never be able to publicly say anything (and at least some people would probably think the same person was doing other vandalism). I still wish we could do more as every case is still a resources balancing issue but It's a fight we've been winning and I think that the importance of supporting the community is becoming clearer and clearer to both the WMF leadership and the community.

Some of that started when CA (Community Advocacy) was part of LCA (Legal and Community Advocacy) and Geoff agreed to provide legal support for users who were sued and then we were allowed to consider Global Bans and help to investigate long term abuse (each of these cases taking 1-200 staff hours to fully investigate). Still at the time it had to me Philippe (who was also responsible for a lot more) and me (when I wasn't doing other work) along with a sporadic hours from other CAs. Now I'm the first Manager of Trust & Safety we've ever had, with my position less then a month old, and we hired a new staff member a couple months ago who has experience with both on and off line abuse and now reports to me spending the majority of her time helping with T&S investigations. Others in CA are also working on the question of online Harassment and how to deal with that both from the WMF standpoint and the community standpoint (Patrick is running that, you can see some of the initial research on meta but there will be more, including a community consultation and survey, later this year). There is a lot to do, but I'm optimistic that there is a knowledge that there is a lot to do now and that the resources and will to do that are slowly increasing. Re: restrictions on Telstra IPs I think those are significantly better to come from the community, we can help with the offline stuff (and occasionally some of the online stuff) but where editing is going to get locked down for large swaths I think the community usually needs to be the one who does that. I'll never rule something out but that's my default position. It wouldn't be completely un precedented (there have been a couple other LTAs which have gotten close either here or on other large wikis/globally) but is certainly very rare. Jalexander--WMF 07:17, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

As you know, the community has a significant number of editors who would never agree to any kind of restriction for a variety of reasons ranging from "not a problem, suck it up" to "liberty requires that all editing is open". I do not know how much abuse from those IPs has occurred, but if it were ongoing and could not be stopped after consultation with the ISP, the WMF needs to step up and resolve the situation with technical measures, and put up with the storm. Many of us do not like being part of a community where individuals can be picked off and harassed in the ways described. Obviously Telstra will ignore everyone and there are only two remedies: an IP restriction or a court order. The former would get Telstra's attention. The latter is not going to happen even if Huldra were to unwisely report the matter to her local police—unwisely because that would invite accidental disclosure of her personal details. Thank you for the explanations and the resource guide link. Johnuniq (talk) 08:31, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I am alarmed by this notion of blocking Telstra to try to force them to act against the vandal. Just a couple of weeks ago we were in very much the opposite position - saying that the Russians are crazy to block all of Wikipedia to try to force us to censor information about the production of charas. I feel like any precipitous action ("Wikipedia blocks much of Australia over a single editor") totally undercuts our position on anything like this. Though this is a matter of personal guesswork, I doubt a troll who threatens to rape or kill anyone who reverts him is even as much of a risk as an article about a kind of hashish (at least, not when it says some people mix it with tobacco, which is a dangerous drug) So are you going to make a personal apology to Putin and Roskomnadzor, admit that they hold the proper balance on human rights? God I hope not. So we should explore our alternatives - abuse filter alerts, a cadre of volunteer editors, people to explain and belittle his incessant threats, but not censoring Australia, and absolutely not appeals for prosecution [at least presuming there are no specific, plausible threats being made that actually put an editor in real fear for his well-being; unfortunately I cannot be fully informed here because everything is being deleted]. That country's censorship and surveillance of communications is a crime against humanity, and we should neither validate it nor become collaborators with it. Wnt (talk) 11:57, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

All multiple/long term threats of violence/death/rape are plausible until you can identify the person or group making those threats. There is no way to know if the offender is indeed in the same part of the world as their IP address is nor is it impossible for a person to travel if they are fixated on causing harm. Anonymity is the best defense for the victim at this stage so the idea presented earlier about going to the press to force Telestra 'deal with it' is misguided at best. In my, non-expert, opinion just range blocking all of Australia would be much preferable to the 2+ weeks trauma that has been caused to a known person who has been subject to this kind of attack many times not to mention the possibility of unwanted press attention because this is going on on Jimbo's talk page and it is a bit newsworthy that it took two weeks to get the foundation engaged in the matter.

If there must be a risk of news coverage let it be for Wikipedia blocking Australian IP editors to protect an editor from death/rape threats not about how it took two weeks to get the WMF engaged and how the problem is still on going. The first is arguably good press that focuses on the WMF the second is bad press that focuses on the victim and has a much greater chance of them being outed. Outing being the the worst possible outcome. Jbh^Talk 13:04, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

On ANI someone said that the vandal threatens essentially everybody who reverts him. A threat against the whole world isn't really a threat at all. This kind of random trolling is annoying, but if people stand together it doesn't have to be unbearable for any one person. But if the outcome here is to undermine Telstra's efforts to preserve whatever is left of the privacy of their customers, that is unbearable.

More to the point, if your administrative model depends on tracking down and punishing any poster anywhere who makes random threats, then you are locked into a model of universal, ceaseless, Orwellian panopticon. You might track down this vandal and find out he's accessing from libraries, so then you have to demand that every library keeps long-term video archives of everyone accessing its terminals. You might find out he's wardriving for Wi-Fi, and then you have to have undeletable logs mandated in the operating systems of all the 'private' computers hooked up to the Internet, so for example, you're saying Linux should be illegal, because some Richard Stallman types might be roaming around outside of jail, letting people wardrive and access the Internet without knowing who they are. Do you want Linux illegal? Don't start down a road unless you want to end up where it goes! Wnt (talk) 14:04, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

They also make it very clear at ANI that the victim of this abuse is a regular target of such abuse, that it could have been someone who had done the same thing to them before and, if you read some of the stuff the victim has been subject to that this relates to ARBPIA. Yet your take away is that 'the vandal does this to anyone who reverts them', that is not the key take away even if that statement was made.

I do not know where you get your distopian panopticon from my comments so I have no response to it. If you want to expand on that subject please do so on my talk page where I would be happy to discuss it. Jbh^Talk 14:33, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm in Australia and a Telstra subscriber. I'd support hard blocking all Telstra IPs if Telstra doesn't act soon and responsibly on this. That would oblige all Wikipedia editors who are Telstra customers to switch, if they have the option, to another provider. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:45, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I haven't followed this case that closely, but AFAIK at the moment it's been mostly just IP editing. Perhaps they will move on to accounts after a soft block, but I think we should deal with these things as they come, although not taking too long to do so. I think we should also concentrate on the need for protection. We want to do our best to stop this behaviour, so soft blocking the necessary Telstra ranges isn't unresonable. This would have the effect of stopping anonymous editing from a lot of Telstra customers, and perhaps when combined with media attention would help to get Telstra's attention, but that shouldn't be the primary purpose of the block, rather that we need to do what we can to stop the highly problematic editing. And while it's resonable for customers to consider whether their ISP is able to provide a suitable level of service, including whether their abuse department is sufficiently on the ball to stop them being banned from everywhere, ultimately as long as we our policy is to allow IP based editing where possible, again we should be banning on the need for protection, and not because customers should be switching if they can. Nil Einne (talk) 17:08, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

If they don't immediately end their relationship with the abuser or if they unduly delay handing over the abuser's identity to the police, then preventing all of Telstra's clients from editing here is a protection measure. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:18, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Your idea is lunacy. It would be lunacy with some positive features, since the Australian editors would work together to develop and document effective workarounds for anyone to edit despite all blocks and bans of any variety. Nonetheless, it would so badly undercut our position that Wikipedia might go directly into its final collapse. This is not the first time that you've tried your best to destroy our ideals, nor will it be the last. Wnt (talk) 23:45, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Your ideals, singular. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:58, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Quite frankly if it really comes down to a choice between protecting the personal safety of a registered Wikipedian in good standing versus soft-blocking half of an entire continent's IP users, the only sane choice is to protect the editor and to hell with the ISP. Make it Telstra's problem if they're not responsive to reasonable requests. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:57, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

• And yet there is a huge double standard at play here. Some otherwise quite sensible wikipedians above are suggesting collective punishment on Australians due to the transgressions of one person, yet are the first to hide behind anonymity to avoid responsibility for their own edits. This is really a non-starter. You will not convince (of all people) Australians by force. People tend to pull together when under attack as a group. You will not convince Telstra by threats (you are not their customers, they are not required to pay any attention to you). Media attention of a block of a significant part of a predominantly white western-democratic country is not going to be favorable to wikipedia (see previous cases of large geographical blocks on the Register). The only way this will actually get resolved is by reporting it to the authorities both locally and in the home country of the harrasser. Australia the UK and the USA all have large well funded cyber crime authorities who actively take online threats seriously. Telstra will *not* provide information on one of their customers (it would violate data protection laws) without a court order. If the WMF wants to actually *do* something about it, making a formal complaint to the police for *each and every threat* is perfectly feasible. The WMF has millions, literally fucking millions of dollars sitting around that it could be spending on actively making the encyclopedia a nicer place to edit. Hiring one or two people full time on even a basic wage (plenty of people need/want jobs!) to fill in the required harrassment forms, log the information, chase for updates from the relevant authorities etc would be a drop in the ocean of their cash reserves. I have actually taken action against harrassers overseas (Texas sheriffs resolved my issue in about 2 weeks!) and its just a case of finding the correct legal route to apply pressure. The WMF has money to burn and could easily support this. The neverending torrent of abuse some editors get is unbelievable. Its been how many years and no end in sight for some long term vandals, despite the admins, editors, WMF, arbcom etc knowing who they are, their address etc. About time the WMF put their donations to work on something more than badly planned & executed tech upgrades that no one wants. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:20, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I have been told (off-line) by an Australian that there is very little chance of the police in Australia doing anything *unless* I give up my anonymity. There is *no way* I will do that, for one very good reason: if you knew my RL name, it would take seconds, minutes on the internet to find my home address. (And the way my society function: I cannot change that.) Do you *really* think I will risk giving that to my old friend,..or any of his copy-cats? So after 5 years of rape- and death threats he gets as an award: my home address!

Eeeeh, I don´t think so.

I have been told we stand a better chance contacting https://www.tio.com.au Jalexander-WMF did you know about them? Could you please tell me if you have contacted them, or Telstra? You don´t have to tell me here; you have my email-address.

Also, understandably, the fact that edits have been oversighted makes the case more difficult, however, oversighted edits *can* be made "viewable", again, can´t they? If so, I hereby give permission to do that..(if my permission is needed) Huldra (talk) 22:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm dismayed that WMF haven't even told you if they've contacted Telstra, and haven't bothered to ask how you feel about un-hiding the abuse. I assumed when you went quiet it was because they were dealing with you by email. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:13, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Only in death does duty end, it's unfortunate you had to deal with that on your own. Let's see how it plays out when Telstra is faced with the WMF and the Wikipedia community. I'd have hoped to hear by now, though, that they've severed their relationship with the abuser (assuming the WMF has actually contacted them). --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:20, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Huldra While I'm not completely comfortable with undeleting the comments regardless (I still think it causes harm to have them up, and not just to you) I would not stand in the way if community members decided to do so. I do believe that's best within their realm however and not within the WMFs decision (My understanding is that it would be allowed within the privacy policy). I'll contact you by email re you other questions. Jalexander--WMF 01:30, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Jalexander-WMF, thank you for your reply, and I confirm I got your email. You are sending the ball back to the "community", but from what I can see: I´m not sure the community here will ever make any decision. In which case nothing will be done.

I repeat: un-hiding the abuse (temporarily) is fine with me, if that is what it takes to stop it. I marked the abusive IPs with @@ on the WP:ANI thread. Is there any specific person/department I should ask to get this done?

I´ve been taking this for quite some years, so I´m sort of getting used to it--to the extent that one ever can get used to it. (And so is everyone else in the I/P area who is not considered "pro-Israeli" enough). The problem is basically that we are not getting any new editors, they are scared off. Btw, Wikipedia is the only place I have ever been threatened with rape -or murder -in my life. (And I have been on the net for more than 20 years).

Anthonyhcole, I "went quiet" on the "dramah"-boards...as it was week-end, and I did not expect the WMF to be very active then. Also, I personally really don´t like spending too much time on these boards; I had to get back to my relaxing little "gnoming" (like this; which is what I absolutely love doing), cheers, Huldra (talk) 23:55, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Huldra, has the WMF contacted Telstra? Has the Telstra IP stopped abusing you? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:48, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Anthonyhcole Frankly; I don´t know much more than you. I have asked the WMF to say publicly *if* there is no response from Telstra, as I think that is the only way we can get consensus for range-blocking. On the positive side, I can tell you that the last week or so has been without any new threats. If this is because the vandal saw the WP:ANI thread (And he did: 120.144.134.25 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RDNS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)) and got "cold feet", or if it is due to Telstra intervention: I really don´t know. But from my long experience with compulsive vandals like that: the only thing that stops them permanently is outside intervention. Btw: I never heard back from Telstra. Huldra (talk) 20:35, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. For what it's worth, I think the WMF should heavily pursue Telstra on this and ensure they end their financial relationship with the abuser. WMF have just received five stars in this year’s Who Has Your Back report from the EFF. Who here believes they've got this editor's back? Do you believe they'll have your back should you find yourself in her situation? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:02, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps there is a technological way to deal with this? Some kind of filter perhaps? Etamni | ✉ | ✓  20:59, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea, but if we had a filter which stopped any Telstra IP making any edits to an article under WP:ARBPIA, then that would probably do the trick, Huldra (talk) 21:24, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

.....and right on track, just after the WP:ANI thread is archived here...they are back.... as

• 101.160.24.251 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 101.160.42.204 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log) : edit-line: ‎Bomb Al Aqsa:
• 101.160.156.92 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 120.144.13.240 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• 121.214.46.106 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · http · block user · block log)
• ...naaaah, nothing serious...just inciting a religious war with the edit-line: "Bomb Al Aqsa"-claims...does anyone care? Naaah, probably not. Huldra (talk) 23:41, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Editor test

I only just heard about Ballotpedia from Larry. It uses Mediawiki but is the opposite of the wiki concept, namely it vets editors and all submissions are carefully reviewed. I was fascinated by the editor test. I wonder how many editors here could pass it. It tests a mixture of wiki knowledge (e.g. templates) and simple grammar (what is a comma splice). I don't think it would go down well here! Peter Damian (talk) 14:06, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

It's a pity you cannot just take the test and receive your score. Or possibly I did something wrong, because having completed the test I was immediately taken to a new tab window requesting me to email my test results to Ballotpedia without my even knowing how I had done, which seemed a bit stupid. Especially since filling in your name and email address is mandatory data to be entered (these are required fields indicated by a red "*") in order to even submit your test answers in the first place. Even though some of the questions were a bit Ballotpedia-specific (I too was unaware of this site until I read your comment above, so I have never visited it) the only question that made me stop and think was the optional DPL-related one WRT ballot measures because I thought it had to do with disambiguation. The wiki knowledge and grammar questions were a breeze IMO - and should be for anyone with a university degree to their name. Of course, I may have got the answers wrong, which is why letting you know your score (whether you subsequently wish to edit Ballotpedia or not) would have been more useful - and in some cases, a possible "wake-up call" to those taking the test. — not really here discuss 16:06, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

The 'dangling modifier' question is slightly tricky, but not that tricky. Peter Damian (talk) 14:11, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

There should have been more questions on the test such as this one IMO. — not really here discuss 16:06, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

In my opinion comma splice and dangling modification aren't really matters of grammar--they're style. To each their own, of course. Drmies (talk) 02:33, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

See Modifier Placement.—Wavelength (talk) 19:12, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Comma splice, perhaps. Danglers are just poor logic and poor thinking, no? Peter Damian (talk) 20:06, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Comma splicing, dangling modifiers and any other grammar matters are only considered style in the sense that we will normally say of someone who consistently writes in an illogical and imprecise manner that they have a "poor grammatical style". Such a polite euphemism doesn't mean that proper use of grammar is purely a stylistic choice when writing. There are very good reasons why we have rules of grammar in every human language and observing them is NOT a matter of choice. Grammar rules are designed to prevent the construction of sentences whose meanings are unintentionally multiple (i.e., ambiguous) or misleading in other ways. The ultimate purpose of grammar rules is to make the writer say what they mean more precisely thereby improving their level of communication to the reader. The fact that when the rules of grammar do get mildly violated (such as someone using a colon when they should have used a semi-colon) the intended meaning of the writer is still entirely clear, or that Grammar Nazis and other pedants often make an annoyingly big fuss over such inconsequential occurrences, does not mean that the use of good grammar is optional or simply a matter of style. — not really here discuss 18:17, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

"observing them is NOT a matter of choice" because rules. Oh, wait. --JBL (talk) 00:07, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Three of the questions are sort of Ballotpedia-specific. Their rudimentary citation format isn't very interesting, but the question about mw:Extension:DynamicPageList is interesting. If you search "dynamic page lists" on Wikipedia you'll find remarkably little discussion of it, mostly positive; apparently Wikinews and Wikibooks were using it, at least as of 2008. I've wanted to see a way for Lua scripts and other things to access category lists, but I never knew this feature was conceivably available (though it wouldn't do that now that access to processed page text was removed). Wnt (talk) 15:22, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

So that's what that question was about. I'll have to go research that topic. But that was an optional question (the only one on the test) so I'm guessing that whatever your answer to that question (or even whether you skip it) doesn't affect your eventual score; which Ballotpedia are never going to tell you anyway. You are only going to find out if you scored higher than the minimum 83% if you receive an invitation to become a guest editor at Ballotpedia a month or so after you took the test. Bizarre. — not really here discuss 16:06, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Possibly some potential or actual editors are aware of (and embarrassed by) their area(s) of incompetency. (Compare John 3:21.) Fortunately, performance can be improved for closer conformity with acceptable standards, although some editors might prefer to revise the standards to match their performance. (Compare 2 Timothy 4:3.)

—Wavelength (talk) 19:12, 14 September 2015 (UTC) and 21:53, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

"WikiGate"?

I wanted to bring this to your attention, Jimbo, in case you hadn't already seen it or the tweets by Michael Eisen discussed therein. It seems his issue is that as a result of WP:TWL, people will add links to paywalled articles in Elsevier journals that not every reader of Wikipedia will be able to read. Everymorning (talk) 16:58, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

So just like JSTOR etc then, or dead-tree books "that not every reader of Wikipedia will be able to read". There has never been a suggestion that WP should be exclusively sourced from the open access internet, and the many articles that actually are tend not to be our best. Johnbod (talk) 18:18, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

That. Where have you got the idea that we shouldn't be sourcing from sources that one has to pay to read (or "books", as we used to call them)? ‑ iridescent 18:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree. I think "WikiGate" is a pretty inflammatory thing to say. And the argument really just doesn't hold much weight once you examine it in depth. There is a kernel here that I do think matters - when there is a choice between equally valid sources, we should tend to favor the more free ("open") ones.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:31, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

As much as I would like to wage war on the corporations that force scientific authors to put their articles behind paywalls as a condition of being published, Wikipedia isn't the place to do that. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:25, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I respect Eisen, but Wikipedia needs to cover unique content that is locked behind paywalls. We should always add accessible sources where possible, and if there is a surfeit of sources we should reach for the open ones. But kicking at publishers to try to punish them for making it easier for editors to get some of their data to the public is not what I want. Wnt (talk) 21:33, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

What on earth is wrong with allowing us to verify sources? The inability to access academic full text is a major issue in several areas of medicine on Wikipedia. Guy (Help!) 21:43, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

There is a difference between being able to verify a source and being able to verify it quickly, online, and free of charge. Wikipedia:Verifiability#Access to sources clearly indicates that some sources may not be easy or free to access, but that does not disqualify those sources from use by Wikipedia. As Jimbo stated above, we should favor open access sources when available, but for many subjects good quality open access sources do not exist. Trying to impose an open access variation of FUTON bias will not help Wikipedia in its goal of building the encyclopedia. --Allen3 ^talk 21:56, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

There are still libraries full of printed books which aren't available full-text on Googlebooks or elsewhere, and bound volumes of older journals which aren't available online, and access to these materials has always been difficult for many readers of the encyclopedia, through geography or access restrictions. But this material is all perfectly valid as references for WP articles. Not every source has to be online, open-access or not. PamD 22:01, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there is a difference between being able to access it and being able to do so readily. Initiatives like this allow our editors to verify claims made based on cited sources, which claims are, historically, not always a fair or accurate reflection of the actual study. Most public libraries do not stock specialist scientific journals, that tends to be restricted to academic libraries. I think it unlikely that editors will go mining these resources to find papers to cite, it's vastly more likely that they will be used for verification of content already based on them. And that, to my mind, is unambiguously positive. Guy (Help!) 23:26, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Far be it from me to defend Elsevier, but this is at most a marginal issue. People with the expertise to skilfully interpret academic literature are likely to have access through their institutions or other sources. A token number of free subscriptions isn't going to have a big effect on Wikipedia's coverage. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:43, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I think a lot of people with access to the service have it via their work position, which may mean that many of the people using it to edit Wikipedia with academic sources may be slacking off at their dayjobs. Cla68 (talk) 01:51, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

At least they're not playing Candy Crush. Everyking (talk) 06:15, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Public outreach and education is a significant facet of many academic jobs, so we're actually hard at work, not slacking off. WilyD 06:42, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

"People are likely to have access through their institutions". Well, maybe not in the long run. Also, Eisen is not saying that we should disregard Elsevier articles, but that we should not provide links to their paywall. Cheers, Stefan64 (talk) 07:34, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it's likely mostly uni students with journal access, who I can only assume outnumber academics on Wikipedia, and (for some courses at least) have absurdly large amounts of free time that can be spent editing Wikipedia.Brustopher (talk) 14:20, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Well I used to sign up to Open University courses in part so I could use the library in support of WP editing. QuiteUnusual (talk) 07:34, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I have a very hard time taking anything seriously that uses the "gate" suffix. Chillum 14:08, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

• Much ado about nothing. We're doing a summary of human knowledge, not a summary of open source and public domain knowledge. Whether there are links in footnotes or not is minor, so long as the information documented by the footnotes is accurate. Those swashbuckling sorts who deeply care about this matter might might consider going Aaron Swartz with single pages of copyright documents posted to Archive.org with an attached claim of fair use as a stopgap. Carrite (talk) 14:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Hmm, we could encourage editors who linked to paywalled resources to be more liberal with quoting the relevant passage as a service to readers. That sounds reasonable in any event.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:40, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Agree - as a service to readers, but also as a courtesy to other editors and anyone reviewing the article for WP:DYK, WP:GA or WP:FA. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 16:00, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

It should be noted though that extended quotes are generally a violation of copyright. I have many times had to delete quotes that were too long. Looie496 (talk) 16:17, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

It should be noted though that extended quotes, properly sourced, are not generally a violation of copyright. I'd like to see a few examples. We have never, to my recollection and knowledge, had a legal complaint or threat of any kind about a properly sourced quote. There could be exceptions such as quoting the entire lyrics of a poem or song in a single block quote, but that isn't what we are talking about here. We're talking about a block quote of a passage from an academic paper published behind a paywall by Elsevier. I find it very hard to imagine a serious legal issue with that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:28, 15 September 2015 (UTC) Addendum: Just wanted to be clear, my request for a few examples is sincere and simple. I'd like to study this issue more before I go around making blanket recommendations. Could you start a new section here so we can discuss block quoting more extensively from paywalled sources? Some examples that you removed on the grounds of copyright violation would be a great starting point.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Just Elsevier? Sometimes I quote non-public stuff behind the NY Times paywall. Also the New York Public Library has generous online access to all kinds of proprietary databases. Coretheapple (talk) 17:38, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

This seems like rather a silly suggestion, as anyone unable to check the source would equally be unable to verify the accuracy of the quotation. Eric Corbett 17:44, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

If we are limited to click-and-see sites, we can pretty much forget about any serious work on scholarly subjects. But block quoting (I hope you mean commented out) is a considerable burden. Not all these sites can be copied and pasted. To say nothing of if I'm summarizing four or five pages of online source for summary style, I can't very well reproduce four or five pages! Even if commented out, that probably goes beyond fair use. What I generally do when the (rare) question comes up is offer to send a copy of the document, if it's online and emailable, or at the least a screenshot. Really, alleged offline sources are much more difficult to verify than online sources behind a paywall, and we use offline sources routinely. If necessary, you can use the Resource Exchange to find someone with access, who can check for you, with these online sources. You're much better off than if it's a print source and Worldcat tells you the nearest copy is in the municipal library on Bora Bora.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Eh there is a fair bit about. Running searches on say doaj can throw up some interesting results from time to time.©Geni (talk) 00:33, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Jimbo, you might be interested in an ongoing Arbcom clarification request and AN/I thread relating to this question. Current consensus seems to be against including such quotes as a general practice, but as always, consensus can change. --Amble (talk) 20:50, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Michael Eisen really ought to be tending his own orchard right now. I'm all for open access, but as being implemented by some it has a clear flaw: the lack of distinction between the archivist and the publisher means that there is a gigantic conflict of interest. A few weeks ago we were talking about a PLOS ONE paper about Wikipedia articles that was basically undergrad-level research, and they were supposed to be the 'flagship' of the open access movement. And at the other end of the scale, we have things like this. The result is that it actually is not very safe for us to cite open access journals right now, because we could be citing some spam paper that was robo-published. What we actually need is to have 1) archivists: standardized platforms where anyone can publish and be reliably guaranteed permanent availability of their work online, that are open to everyone, and 2) publishers: independent academics who review and publish lists of the best recently archived work because it is the best work, without receiving fees from any interested party. Until we learn to set up that kind of 'kosher kitchen' for academic publishing, we won't be in any position at all to wipe out the copyright disease. Wnt (talk) 21:54, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

These free subscriptions have been invaluable to editors who patrol recent changes to our medical articles. Nothing will stop people using paywalled information because, too often, that's where the best material is, and it's important that the patrollers can actually verify those contributions. Committing to use only free and open publications would work diametrically against our intention to provide the reader with the highest quality information. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Another "open" question

And a blind ideological commitment to open software here would work diametrically against our core mission, too. Where good proprietary solutions are available off-the-shelf I hope WMF is leasing or buying them rather than building them from scratch. What is the WMF's position on this? There appears to be a bit more wheel-reinventing going on than is strictly necessary, but I wouldn't really know. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Not an option. To be a free encyclopedia, Wikipedia has to be designed so that anyone can mirror it, for free. Any reliance on a proprietary 'solution' means giving the proprietor control over who can run Wikipedia where and when. Wnt (talk) 11:06, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

This doesn't sound right to me. Or perhaps I'm missing something. Couldn't I fork Britannica (disregarding the copyright for now) by copying the articles and media across to another site that uses free software? Why would the source site have to be free software before I can suck it onto my site? -- 16:56, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Ah. I'm conflating "mirror" and "fork". I guess by mirror you mean take our software as well as our content. Well that's not exactly important, is it? We're (at least I'm) here to provide free knowledge, not awesome free handmade software. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 11:56, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I am not familiar with their product, but it is entirely possible that Britannica uses a proprietary video delivery mechanism that would be difficult to replicate on an open-source mirror. Certainly one can imagine that if the Template: mechanism were copyrighted and could not be directly copied, any ripped-off Wikipedia articles would be full of impenetrable computer jargon, spiced with parameters that readers wouldn't be able to interpret with certainty. This might also be true if the manufacturer simply went out of business and stopped updating their software to run on the newest servers. The medium is the message - proprietary medium, proprietary message. Wnt (talk) 19:55, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Block Quoting

Jimbo suggested a new section to discuss the issue of block quoting more extensively.

I'll start by linking a discussion I started in 2012 Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_32#Use_of_quote_parameter_in_footnote_-_a_proposal_to_provide_better_guidance

Unfortunately, it stalled, but I started with what I immodestly think is a decent summary of background and issues.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:08, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

A point also worth mentioning is that the Wikipedia rules for usage of materials subject to copyright are more conservative than might be allowed by strict application of copyright law. This is deliberate. The borderline between acceptable usage and non-acceptable usage is gray. If we simply instruct editors to follow the law, we will find some editors pushing close to the limits and we will find ourselves defending lawsuits. Even if we win them all, we lose. Our goal isn't to be in a position to win lawsuits, it is to be so clearly not in violation that copyright owners are not even tempted to sue.

It is almost certain the case that we could allow longer quotes than we currently do and still be within the law, but if we opt to allow longer quotes I would want legal advice from the Foundation to help ensure that we are not creating a legal risk.

It is also my personal opinion that material used within a hidden quote, not visible to the ordinary reader unless they know where to look, might be viewed differently, from a legal perspective, then the exact same amount of material prominent in an article. Not everyone agrees with my position, so I wouldn't push it unless we got legal support for it, but if we got legal support, we might justify longer quotes in certain situations.

As always, input from our copyright expert would be helpful. @Moonriddengirl:.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:24, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, at least to my eyes, except in perhaps a very limited number of situations, I like the idea of keeping our rules for block quotes reasonably stricter than those of the law itself. Doing so helps ensure that we don't face any legal objections under current law, and reduces the risk of our suddenly being in violation of a changed law, should such changes ever be instituted. I am not entirely sure what is meant in the above in the discussion of a "hidden quote," however. John Carter (talk) 20:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

John Carter - Example of hidden quote. The first ref is the usual, the second contains the hidden material, which is not viewable by the casual reader - edit to see it.

Blah blah blah

References

Specific example New York House of Refuge

• Before trimming quote
• After trimming quote
• discussion of issue --S Philbrick(Talk) 20:53, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

• I personally hate the "quote=" parameter of the citation template. Hell, let's be frank, I hate citation templates — there's nothing they do that can't be done better with regular footnotes within [ref] [/ref] tags... The "quote=" parameter renders footnote sections almost entirely illegible in a really obnoxious TL;DR way (see above)... I don't think there is the slightest copyright concern with them under American law, but there is a small and fanatical Anti-Fair Use krew that loses their stuff over such things and I don't mind making common cause with such people over the matter. Blow up the entire "quote=" parameter and every manifestation of that parameter across En-WP — that would be a double plus good result. Carrite (talk) 00:28, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

This was the occasional misuse of a useful feature. Obviously, well integrated text is preferable to block quotes when it gives us the freedom to express the same facts in our own editable, non fair use requiring way. However, there are many instances, e.g. polemic political statements, where a source may be notable and eloquent, making its position absolutely clear in a way that readers want to know, but Wikipedia, trying to rephrase it to meet our style, would make a terrible butchered rehash of every sentence into which personal bias easily introduces itself. "My opponent is a thief, a braggart, and a vagabond, not worthy of your vote" ==> "Bloggs questioned his opponent's respect for private property, suggested he embellished on the truth, and harped on his transient residences in the years preceding the election, calling on voters to find more worthy options." (I exaggerate in this in that we aren't debating a quote this short, but very much the same thing can happen with longer text) And then it becomes a political WP:OR fight - was he saying the opponent is accused of disrespecting private property because of his tax policy, or that he is dishonest because of his parliamentary tactics? Should we omit the text altogether, hiding it behind some platitude that "Bloggs denounced his opponent harshly" that then is accused of making Bloggs sound extreme without giving his side of the story? No, we should always give the subject of an article his say - a chance to be heard in his own words justifying his opinions the way he did. Sometimes this is really embarrassing to him and his friends want it cut out, sometimes it is embarrassing to his opponents and their friends want it cut out, but either way there's nothing like the horse's mouth. Wnt (talk) 18:50, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Two thumbs up to what Wnt wrote above. NPOV means representing information from a neutral perspective, not sucking all possible meaning out of something so that it is neutral simply because it no longer says very much. It's neutral POV we are after NOT neutered POV. It is always better to directly present all relevant sides of an issue (with the inclusion of short pertinent quotes from each side if possible) - so that the reader also fully connects with the various differences of viewpoint (and is subsequently left to make up his own mind now that he has been better informed of the facts by Wikipedia) - than to stand back and present a removed and neutered MOR summary of the issue as if the article authors are the only ones with any perspective on the issue at hand. The "|quote=" parameter in the "cite" templates is an important tool in an editor's toolbox that better enables him/her to achieve such neutral rather than neutered POV reporting. — not really here discuss 19:38, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

In his "discussion of issue" text, Sphilbrick mentions three possible determinants for whether the length of block quoted text is appropriate:

• (1) the length of the excerpt relative to the length of the article in which it is placed;
• (2) the length of the excerpt relative to the original source (e.g., an excerpt from a short poem may need to be shorter than an excerpt of a longer poem);
• (3) the length of the excerpt when used in the body of an article versus the length of the same excerpt when quoted in a footnote or cited reference.

There is merit in both (1) and (2) IMO, but (3) seems to be somewhat of an irrelevance. From a potential copyright infringement basis I don't think it would matter whether the infringement occurred in the body of the text or in a footnote or cited reference. If the quoted text is not too long relative to the length of the article - and satisfies (1) above - and is also not too long relative to the length of its source - and thus satisfies (2) above - then it should not matter where it appears in the article, in the main body of the text or as part of a footnote or cited reference. The tricky bit, of course, is determining the correct threshold for what is or is not "too long" in cases (1) and (2), but that is what any effort in this area should focus on better defining / clarifying. Case (3) is just a distraction. — not really here discuss 19:38, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

You and I are an agreement that the first two points are relevant to copyright and the third is not. However, I brought up the third point (your numbering; in my original, it is the "second general question") in a different context. I wondered whether the location of a quote in the body of an article versus a footnote had any relevance when considering how long a quote we might want from an editorial standpoint not a copyright standpoint. I still think it is a point worth considering, although of far less importance than ensuring that our rules are clearly in compliance with copyright law.--S Philbrick(Talk) 00:13, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

The gorilla in the room

Jimbo says the sample should be weighted to popularity. I agree. Why don't we make it simpler still and start with the article with most page views and work down? Each version should be assessed using the methods that reviewer assistants to the editorial boards of journals use to assess suitability. Then compare assessments.

The gorilla is not the weak content highlighted by Smallbones, it's the reason for it. People register for Facebook because it's personal to them. Similarly, they register for Twitter for the ability to message their friends. Wikipedia is not personal - it's altruistic. That's why the registration model doesn't work. Larry Sanger is a big supporter of registration to write an article and it's the cornerstone of Citizendum. Check "recent changes" in Citizendum and they are few and far between, and mostly by the same person.

The hook for Wikipedia is "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit". But when people visit the site and try to write about something that interests them and they are knowledgeable about they find they can't. Or rather, they can but then have to wait about six months while the journal decides whether to publish. Get serious, folks. This is not the way to do it. Of course there need to be safeguards. Every worthwhile enterprise gets vandalised. But we have pending changes to get over that. So let people start articles within pending changes which will switch off as soon as the text is edited by an autoconfirmed editor (i.e. vetted). See discussion and explanation at en:User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 193#New paid editing scandal - How many more will there be until we take serious action?. This kills two birds with one stone - marking Articles for Creation historical also ends the ability of sockpuppets to dangle the prospect of immediate publication in front of people in return for money. 109.159.90.194 (talk) 10:11, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

This continues the discussion at User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 194#Making the Wales method work. 78.145.31.93 (talk) 13:25, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I see my user name above and a link to a discussion I started, but I'm having difficulty relating the above comment to anything I addressed or proposed. The pending changes suggestion and making AfC "historical" are not something I've personally considered enough to make any suggestions here, but I'm not necessarily against it.

I have been working on an exploratory data analysis comparing random articles vs. their versions from 2 years previous and almost have enough data now to make some suggestions on how to properly do an analysis of the question "Do Wikipedia articles improve over time?" It's been time consuming and I should state that anything I come up with is not a "scholarly study" but just an exploratory data analysis. I have made a mistake or 2 along the way. I am almost ready to say something like "neither the quality-class system used by Wikipedia, nor the quality measure I proposed are useful in measuring quality differences in articles over time." But that doesn't mean that we can't come up with a quality measure that would be useful. In fact, if anybody has experience using bots to collect data, I've got a few ideas on what data to collect so please contact me on my talk page if you think you can help.

I plan to make an organized write-up of my exploratory analysis, and hope to put a link here on Monday. Until then any comments would likely distract me from the work I need to do first. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:21, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Wow that's amazing. When I recently mentioned the concept, I was immediately snarked at for things that I didn't say plus an extra allegation that my proposed sample size was too small to be scientific (which of course was not remotely close to being relevant to what I was saying). So - I love that you say up front that what you're coming up with is not a "scholarly study" and encourage you to persevere anyway. It's a first pass look at an interesting concept. I'd love to hear about the mistakes you made along the way, too.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:32, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I applaud your initiative in doing this analysis. May I suggest a small modification if it isn't too late? If you choose random articles from Wikipedia you have a selection bias. Given the breadth of Wikipedia, it is likely that this bias is not a serious issue, but it will leave the study open to criticism. It can be easily overcome; randomly choose topics from another source such as Encyclopaedia Britannica, then study the topic as covered in Wikipedia.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:40, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it pretty clear that Encyclopedia Britannica has a much worse selection bias than we do. Even so, I like this idea too.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:23, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, wikipedia might suffer from heavy bias towards "male geek" topics and sports— a large amount of content is devoted to popular culture. If you were to really examine the scope of topics wikipedia actually covers though I believe the overall coverage is pretty phenomenal, and clearly far, far broader in scope than EB. I wonder how many articles Britannica has on Cambodian soups or Faroese ferries for instance. Obviously we need to greatly improve in world coverage and if you stub most articles you'll find several red links in turn, but the scope of topics we've achieved to date is still impressive, certainly far broader than others have managed to compile. So the figures would be interesting to see but might not truly reflect what wikipedia actually has to offer, which is vast, and continually improving all of the time. I'm not sure if you were to highlight our weakest areas it would prompt any serious response, people tend to edit what they are interested in. If the foundation were to sponsor anti systematic bias drives though and actively get people to work on the weak areas though that might start to make a difference.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:56, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Why does EB have a 'selection bias'? Obviously it is meant to be a repository of knowledge, so it is biased towards knowledge, in that sense. Otherwise, how? Peter Damian (talk) 18:28, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Google fundraising banner

File:Google donations banner 17 Sept 2015 Australia.PNG

Nice to see Google being good.

Given the value we're adding to Google (and the page-/banner-views their "knowledge graph" is taking from us), perhaps they could be induced to run banners for us and match donations to Wikipedia dollar-for-dollar. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:35, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Interesting idea... Just as a side note, I'm not convinced that the knowledge graph is taking pageviews from us. The evidence is mixed. And intuitively, take a look at these search results: Google search for 'duke of wellington'. In addition to the first link, we have a link on the right hand side, as well as there being links to 6 search terms, all of which have Wikipedia links above the fold.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:00, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia is losing clicks from me. About half of the Google searches I do where I'd normally click through to Wikipedia, I don't need to now because what I want is in their "infobox" (mostly scraped from Wikipedia). And that's not remotely compensated by the number of times I click a link in their infobox. Not a big sample, I know. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:12, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Does it matter? We're not funded by Adsense—why does it matter if the reader gets their information from the Wikipedia page or Google's executive summary, provided they're getting the correct information? ‑ iridescent 14:21, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

If Google gets better at answering searchers' questions on their results page fewer and fewer people will need to come to Wikipedia. The fewer people that use us (directly) the harder it is (longer it will take) for the WMF to raise the annual budget from banners hosted on Wikipedia. From the readers' perspective, it's all good. From the fundraising perspective it matters. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:27, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

You are absolutely right that "pageviews" is not a metric that we care about to the same degree that an ad funded website would care about. But it does matter for a couple of reasons. First, we want to have a healthy community - editorship has been stable-to-declining for a long time, and if more and more people just get tidbits of information (that we helped assemble) from other places, but don't visit Wikipedia, they might be less likely to join the community. Second, we do depend on pageviews when it is fundraising banner time - fewer pageviews means fewer people are prompted to donate. Given what a tiny tiny percentage of our pageviews show banners each year, there's plenty of room to up that - but I don't think any of us really relish the prospect of having longer or more intensive banner campaigns after such a long period of being able to manage with shorter and less intensive campaigns.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:28, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Taking "loss of potential editors" as a potential issue from Google's snippets, wouldn't an obvious approach be to ask nicely for Google to include some sort of note suggesting that people join/edit/whatever? Haven't thought it through, but seems plausible. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 17:28, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

There are many possibilities. Lila and I have discussed. Basically I think we need to take a slow, relaxed, and data-driven approach to the question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:27, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

"Wikipedia's lamest edit wars show why the site is amazing and infuriating"

vox have released a piece concerning mostly edit warring with commentary by Andrew Lih. It is more of a reflection of Wikipedia culture than Wikipedia itself, as relatively few people contribute to the site compared to those who use it. --Rubbish computer 19:14, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Who do you believe, me or your reliable source?

Talk:Greta_Scacchi

Summary. Person claims to have never been married. Wikipedia editors refuse to believe her and instead go to the "reliable sources". Also, the person talking about her own marriage has a conflict of interest. It's hard to figure out exactly what these sources are but checking the related talk pages suggests that these are references made in passing of the "her and her husband are doing this" type that are easily explainable by the "reliable source" not bothering to research things they say in passing.

(I accidentally posted this in BLPN which is where I got the information from....) Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:17, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Not that clear. "A graduate of the Lee Strasberg method acting school in New York, 22-year-old Leila George is Scacchi's daughter with American actor and Law & Order star Vincent D'Onofrio. Scacchi had been in a five-year relationship with the musician Tim Finn ("A very nice and civilised partner") when she met D'Onofrio on the set of the Gillian Armstrong film Fires Within and fell - plummeted - in love. Their relationship was tempestuous; Scacchi left D'Onofrio twice before their wedding, and turned down the role in Basic Instinct that was later offered to Sharon Stone partly to appease him." [1] Can you find any retraction? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:50, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

That source doesn't seem to imply that they actually were married, right? It says Scacchi left D'Onofrio twice before their wedding - usually when you do that, the wedding is called off. The way I read it is that a wedding was scheduled twice, and a breakup happened twice before the wedding could take place. If there are wedding photos, or news coverage of the wedding, or a wedding record in an official document, then sure. But if this is the evidence that people are putting forward to claim there was a wedding - against the insistence of the subject of the article, that's super lame.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:38, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Addendum: With a bit of reading and googling it seems that some reliable sources say that she married him, but there are no quotes from her or him saying that (that I have found), and there is a very clear denial of it by her, in a reliable source. And a denial by him (via a cryptic tweet, admittedly). I think it's pretty clear that in these circumstances there is not enough information to include it - no reports of the actual wedding, etc., a clear denial that there was a wedding, and reporters casually saying they were married without actually offering any reason why they are saying that (like, a quote). We also don't have enough evidence to say definitely anything as strong as "Despite media reports years later saying that they were married, they weren't." But the NPOV approach here has to be to not make any claim at all - the evidence is confused.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:12, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that the reporters saying that she married him are "reliable sources", but the subject saying the opposite is just a self-published source with a COI. And having the subject say it once in a reliable source doesn't really help, since you just have one reliable source contradicting lots of reliable sources and if you weigh those the lots of reliable sources should win. We need to have a way to weigh direct statements by the subject as more important because she is the subject and should know better, not less important because she has a COI and most of the times she says it are self-published. Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:32, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

I suggest looking at the updated discussion at Talk:Greta_Scacchi#Never_Married and Talk:Vincent_D'Onofrio#Protected_edit_request_on_1_September_2015. Abecedare seems to be handling the situation well. --Bob K31416 (talk) 00:00, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I think we should have some kind of WP:Fix my article FAQ to deal with this sort of stuff, so I took a first stab at it, but it needs work. I just want to tell people - you're famous, so publish the truth somewhere more reliable than a brand-new Wikipedia account! Wnt (talk) 20:49, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Potential for growth

If 100,000,000 speakers of the English language are competent enough to contribute content to the English Wikipedia, and if each one of them will contribute one article of acceptable quality, then Wikipedia will gain 100,000,000 articles. (According to User:Emijrp/All human knowledge, there are enough available topics to accommodate that number of new articles.)
—Wavelength (talk) 01:46, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

The glib answer is that most of those articles would be deleted within 24 hours, not least because however good the quality, just because a new band exists and the author asserts it is the most exciting new thing on the Chipping Campden grunge scene, the fact that they haven't yet signed a drummer or played their first gig means that it will be deleted {{A7}}. More broadly, this is a crowdsourced site, and we achieve quality not by individuals each contributing one article, but by multiple individuals improving articles between them. As for the 100 million people with the competence to contribute, that figure may or may not be true, but competence is not the only requirement, we also need people to be sufficiently altruistic to donate their time here for free. ϢereSpielChequers 15:27, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Whatever. What we really need is not new articles, but improvements to all the poor articles that have sat virtually untouched for years, many receiving high views. Johnbod (talk) 15:54, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Editors can improve articles found via WP:BACKLOG and WP:DUSTY and WP:SPVA.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:40, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Maafushi Prison

This prison is currently involved in a case between Cherie Blair (friend of yours Jimbo?) and Amal Clooney through Mohamed Nasheed. It's a politically sensitive area and could probably use an expert in law/human rights to further expand it but it needed to be started all the same. I suspect though that many of the existing sources will be biased against it as it's become a sort of staple for human rights abuse reports which form a lot of the sources documenting it. I think we need to be careful with what is said and avoid discussing torture and barbarism too much!♦ Dr. Blofeld 10:34, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Talk-pages

Of cource the primary use of these pages must deal with the article in question. But having said that, I also feel that we must not build a "Berlin Wall" against for instance general questions regarding the topic which the article covers. Sometimes questions or general explinations are of benefit for Wikipedia as a whole, I think. Thanks Boeing720 (talk) 11:58, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Re "Sometimes questions or general explinations are of benefit for Wikipedia as a whole" – How about an example? --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:40, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

In the old days people were asking questions by typing them into the articles. To stop that the Reference Desks were set up. 86.149.11.139 (talk) 18:12, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

A basic question about a topic should always be welcome on the talk page, if the article doesn't say. The Refdesks are useful to gain a wider audience, or when a question is so specialized that you know that the answer shouldn't go back in the article even if you have it in hand. But people who try to claim that Wikipedia is "not a forum" so you shouldn't ask how tall it is, how many people died that day, what the yearly budget figures are, etc... they are definitely doing something worse than useless. Wnt (talk) 20:56, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

No, we have enough trolling on the ref desks, let's not encourage that to spread to article talk pages in any way. You may not like it, but WP:NOTFORUM is policy. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

But what's a "forum"? The answer is incredibly subjective. I don't see why we should discourage editors from saying "How tall is this building?" when they can make the article-improvement comment "we should say how tall this building is." I think it is truly odious that Wikipedia will host endless reams of editors Wikilawyering and accusing one another in some kind of passive-aggressive sumo policymaking contest, but what people say we need to get rid of is a question about the actual topic of the article! Wnt (talk) 21:10, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Because we'll get questions like, "How do I contact celebrity X?", "How do I get out of ticket I get because of an illegal speed trap in Podunk, Nebraska?", "Will director Y read my script?", "I think Z has disease N because of symptoms a, b, c. What do others think?", "Why are people stupid enough to vote for X?". All these are real (paraphrased) questions I've encountered. The data generated by the ripped-out Article Feedback Tool will also give you an indication of what will happen if NOTFORUM is relaxed. People participate here because they want to write/maintain encyclopedia articles, not act as a trivia answer desk. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:41, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

You can say those questions aren't related to improving the article and need to go somewhere else. Except... well, the first one actually is valid; the article can include some types of contact information, or you can explain why certain other types may be outside of Wikipedia's purview; either way, the degree of contact data that the article has can be rechecked. The last can be rephrased with some reference to WP:N, but then we can indeed ask why analysts said people voted for the candidate. Yes, such questions impose some ballast, but it is much easier ballast to carry than the policy Furies. Wnt (talk) 23:16, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Ahmed Mohamed (student)

Jimbo, I would really appreciate it if you could follow on Mark Zuckerberg's footsteps and invite Ahmed Mohamed to the Wikimedia Foundations headquarters in SF. It would be a nice gesture in support of bright students and educational attainment and aspiration for other young people who may feel discouraged. Thank you. Kleinebeesjes (talk) 14:46, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikimedia doesn't make a general policy of inviting such students to its headquarters. For instance, Wikimedia didn't invite the kid who was arrested and suspended for writing a story where he shoots a dinosaur with a gun, even though creative writing is a mark of "bright students and educational attainment".

Inviting him sends a message, therefore, that Wikipedia believes that this case is different from all the other cases of kids who've had school administrators overreact to them. This is a message that Wikimedia has no business sending. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:48, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Please note that this writer claims the clock can be purchased from Radio Shack. I don't know whether the claim will stand up but it would certainly be wise to let the dust settle a bit before extending any invitation.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:37, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

His treatment was outrageous but it's not actually connected with Wikipedia. Facebook and other IT companies have an interest in keeping their workers' wages down, and the supply of H-1B visa applicants from countries like Pakistan up, so denouncing his arrest is of more direct relevance to them. Wnt (talk) 21:03, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

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