User talk:Jimbo Wales

"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, less often lately but still 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)

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 don't think it's all that difficult. First, "one reliable source contradicting lots of reliable sources" isn't a very useful way of looking at things. We don't weigh such matters by mere counting. And it is not really clear what the COI consists of here, other than in the broadest sense that all subjects have a COI about themselves. But that doesn't seem particularly relevant here. I can't think of any reason why she might be lying about this, but I can think of lots of reasons why something in the press might go uncorrected and might get repeated several times. But finally - whenever we have a situation like this where the available evidence points in different directions and we just aren't sure, we have the clear option of simply not including it until we learn more. We don't have to say they were married, we don't have to say they weren't. There are words like "partner" which cover both cases.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:31, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Although it doesn't seem applicable here in this specific situation, I can think of a bunch of examples where formally (aka legally) being married could definitely result in COI for the person saying there was never a legally-binding marriage: probate/inheritance (avoiding debt or retaining sole ownership of assets), children/custody (several variations on this theme), and in some cases questions of royal succession. To be clear, I don't think any of these apply to the specific article-talkpage being discussed here, but I do think we should be careful to imagine the corner-cases here. Sometimes common sense is not quite sturdy enough ground to walk on, especially if a billion-dollar inheritance or control of a large emirate (or just custody of the six-year-old) are at stake. As for language, the use of ambiguous partner is a possibility, as is the phrase 'together' -- but those uses ought to be footnoted with a sentence or so explaining what the WP:SOURCE *actually* said ("married"/"husband"/whatever) and explaining that although 'together' at the time no formal wedding-ceremony may have actually occurred. 75.108.94.227 (talk) 03:55, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

From WP:BLP - Living persons may publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Such material may be used as a source only if:

it is not unduly self-serving; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; the article is not based primarily on such sources. MOMENTO (talk) 09:05, 20 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)

Momento: Claiming you have not been married to person X is a claim about a third party. And even if you IAR that away, you still have one self-published reliable source versus lots of non-self-published reliable sources. (Jimbo: wouldn't undue weight say that you have to accept lots of reliable sources that say X over one reliable source that contradicts it?) Ken Arromdee (talk) 03:53, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

My comment above was in reference to your comment that "the subject saying the opposite is just a self-published source with a COI". Firstly, BLP allows for self published material to be used as a source. And secondly, you have provided no evidence of a COI. Editor 75.108.94.227 has given examples of possible COI but says "I don't think any of these apply to the specific article-talkpage being discussed here" and nor do I. Unless someone comes up with a reliable source that provides a COI, it's irrelevant and can't be used as an argument to dismiss Ms Scacchi's self published comments.MOMENTO (talk) 09:27, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

For "is", read "is, according to the people editing this". I don't think it's a COI, but it's been called one as an excuse for not using it. Ken Arromdee (talk) 13:41, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

"Claiming you have not been married to person X is a claim about a third party." No, it is not. The claim that they were is. They say that claim is false.--Mark Miller (talk) 10:16, 21 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)

Only the 3rd of those is much use really. Johnbod (talk) 04:09, 21 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)

The only actual personal friend of mine mentioned in that article is Jared Genser. Cherie is an acquaintance, but it would be presumptuous of me to claim more.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:07, 20 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)

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)

Um, WP:PHONEBOOK?  :-)     (That's also implicit in pillar one, methinks.) Plus maybe WP:DOX applies, depending on who they are asking about contacting, and how exactly. I think that article-talkpages should be, 99.4% of the time, conversations about improving the article (prose and sourcing). *Sometimes* questions are an implicit indicator that the article needs to be improved, such as questions about what-does-this-convoluted-paragraph-mean, for instance. The correct response is to try and rewrite the prose in question, to make it easier to understand, clarify the ambiguity, or whatever prompted the question. Sometimes questions about sources are helpful, too, such as does-anyone-know-an-archive-URL-because-this-ref-is-a-deadlink.

  But generic questions, should be politely moved over to WP:Q (or to the most appropriate sub-venue thereof), rather than answering directly on the talkpage. If the question has a brief answer, giving the answer and *then* saying "but next time please use WP:Q if you don't have a specific suggestion about improving Elvis which is what Talk:Elvis is typically used for", or something along those lines, is prolly optimal. p.s. Although I used to think there ought to be a namespace something like Forum:Elvis or maybe FreeForAll:Elvis where random questions/comments/chitchat could occur, more recently concerns about policing copyvio and BLP in such a namespace (not to mention WP:NICE enforcement) began to give me heartburn, so I no longer believe that WP:NOTFORUM is that problematic for the 'pedia. There are plenty of social networking websites, after all, and there are usertalk pages where broad latitude is permitted. p.p.s. Does this mean I get to be a policy-Furies-member-in-good-standing?  ;-)    75.108.94.227 (talk) 03:39, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Someone wanted an example, and a bit off-topic information about a certain religion later helped me in a different article. And when questions appeare on talk-pages, then I think it may be a call for better explinations. I don't think it's that hard to imagine. Boeing720 (talk) 13:57, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Forgot - the talk-page rules are very differently controlled. If the talk-pages must be 100% impovement suggestions (and formulated as such), then all article small talk ought to be removed. I just don't see that would generate a general improvement. But in an article about for instance a Spanish robbery in 1930, if someone then asks "How much was a Spanish Pesteta worth in US Dollar at that time ?" - is to me a kind of signal, that a smaller improvement is called for regarding the currencies. Boeing720 (talk) 14:21, 21 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)

Aside from anything else the WMF doesn't really have the type of exciting HQ that the other major websites have.©Geni (talk) 02:15, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Oh please. The Whitehouse would be on lockdown with a clock in a briefcase like that. No Courthouse would let it in and it is not something he could take on an airplane. His lack of forthrightness is what lead to his legal problems. The Boston marathon bomber had a standard pressure cooker so there is not a lot of tolerance. If he drew a picture of a gun, no one would have blinked an eye at an arrest. "See something, say something" shouldn't be undermined by this nonsense. He's a kid that made a mistake. --DHeyward (talk) 02:24, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

^{(late comment)} President Obama has invited him to the White House. I'm sure the president fully expects to see the clock when Ahmed visits. It's a tiny little circuit board -- not attached to anything that could go "boom" -- the school's reaction had nothing to do with what it was that he made, but was a kneejerk reaction likely fueled by knowledge of his heritage. Etamni | ✉ | ✓  09:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I will paraphrase a comment I saw on Facebook. It's clear that they did not think this was a bomb. They knew full well that it wasn't a bomb. If they thought it was a bomb, they would have evacuated the building. They would have stayed far away from it. They would have called the bomb squad to defuse it. They did none of those things. They put him in an office. They called the police. The police put the clock into their squad car and drove with it, and the boy, to headquarters. They wouldn't have done that if they thought it was a bomb. Everyone involved knew full well that this was not a bomb.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:19, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is clear that they didn't think it was a bomb – but they seemed to believe the kid wanted them to think it was a bomb, and they kept claiming that even after questioning, arresting, and releasing him, and they suspended him from the school. —BarrelProof (talk) 11:03, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Of course not. There was no explosive. The question was why he disassembled a clock and arranged it in a briefcase in such a fashion which he he refused to answer. If he drew a picture of a gun shooting his teacher, no one would think the picture was actually a gun. This is what the clock represented and he didn't provide answers to why he did it. There was no class assignment for briefcase clocks. The Columbine kids set the tone of zero tolerance and the truth is, he's getting a pass because of his name. If you don't think so, build a clock like that and try getting into a Courthouse, the Whitehouse or a plane with it. --DHeyward (talk) 14:48, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Pencil case. Not brief case. Small box -- the picture being distributed misrepresents the size (to try and make it look more threatening than it was, no doubt.) Also, it did not have visible wires -- it was just a small box with a digital display, which is to say, a CLOCK. The cops opened it up to make it look more threatening, again. Of course to anyone with half a clue it looks obviously harmless when opened because it's a circuit board and some wires which only says "bomb" if you are utterly clueless and have never bothered to open up a single home electronic. The kid was on the robotics team throughout middle school and no doubt brought electronic bits to school with him all the time (because robotics club, DUH) and he was just starting high school. He brought it in to show to the science teacher, which he did, and it wasn't his idea to show it to the English teacher -- she just wanted to know what was making noise in his backpack. He was asked why he did it and he told the truth -- "I did this, I thought it was cool, I wanted to show it off, it's a CLOCK." And you could definitely get on a plane with this -- you can get on the plane with a laptop if you open it up and plug it in to show it's a laptop. Ahmed would have been asked to plug the box in, it would have worked as advertised (counting UP not DOWN!) and it would have been passed through. Nothing in it looks remotely like an explosive on a scanner, so it would have been fine. Of course you're a Gamergater, so facts, logic, and common sense mean nothing to you, but thanks for continually providing proof of that! PuceGoose (talk) 17:22, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

What this guy just said. People like DH really show their biases with comments like the above. It's as if someone opened up their alarm clock or PC and shat their pants. If you're that uneducated/ignorant and paranoid, you've no business educating children. Dave Dial (talk) 17:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

On the initial inquiry - I live in London, so it wouldn't be my place to invite a stir into the offices of the Wikimedia Foundation. I agree with other comments that however we might feel about the case, it isn't really within the scope of our usual work to do this. I would say that as the months roll on, if Ahmed writes something interesting about the experience, he'd make a very interesting speaker on a panel at a conference. But since this has nothing to do with Wikipedia, and indeed, nothing to do with the Internet really, I'm not sure there's a good fit for Wikimania.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:19, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

And one more comment: this is so clearly a case of BLP1E that it is obvious to me that the article will be deleted. We may as well get started on that process now, eh? (Oh, duh, I just went to do that and saw that it's already nominated, yay!)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:26, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

If you really think that the page will obviously be deleted, you haven't been around AFD much. Many articles about passing news events that will be forgotten in a year easily survive AFD these days, especially when there is an opportunity to make a political point or confirm our prejudices (particularly about Southerners). Gnome de plume (talk) 10:36, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

BLP1E might be a good argument for saying the title of the article should be changed so that the article is presented as being about the incident and its aftermath rather than about the student. But it's not a good argument for deleting information about the incident from Wikipedia. I believe there is currently no separate article about the incident. —BarrelProof (talk) 10:42, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I don't disagree with that. The point is that the *incident* is notable. But about this boy, we have no way to write a quality *biography*. Virtually nothing is known about him (partly because he's just a kid about whom there isn't a lot *to* know) as a person. The main thing we know is this one incident.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:09, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

• Aww, thanks Jimbo for suggesting that he'd make a very interesting speaker on a panel at a conference. But arguably, one could say that Ahmed has more to do with wikipedia than any of the other internet giants that invited him, since the others are not primarily about the acquisition of info whereas wikipedia is. This is because Ahmed's primary passion is invention and the sharing of his technological knowldedge, which sounds very similar to the founding principles of wikipedia. Kleinebeesjes (talk) 10:56, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Re "This is because Ahmed's primary passion is invention and the sharing of his technological knowldedge, which sounds very similar to the founding principles of wikipedia." – Wouldn't that be OR? In Wikipedia, we present other people's published technological knowledge. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:44, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

All he did was take apart an alarm clock and put it in a case that can easily to be wired to a bomb, he didn't invent anything. Raquel Baranow (talk) 21:14, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

What amazes me is that the Republican position seems to be, clearly and unapologetically, that people of Arab descent should realize that anything they do is likely to be viewed as an act of terrorism - therefore they should be put in jail for criminal threats unless they realize that because of their racial appearance they are not allowed to do anything unusual that might potentially be misconstrued. There is something very Jim Crow era about that. Wnt (talk) 03:17, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I didn't realize he was of Arab descent. Does he know this? What amazes me is how vitriolic the left becomes when they can inject "-isms" into any event. This American high school student assembled a device that looked like a threat. Google "student gun school" and you'll see any number of zero-tolerance stances including a second-grader that nibbled his pop-tart into a gun shape (suspended) or high schoolers that took prom pictures off-campus with fake guns (suspended). The truth is that religion, ethnic background and gender had nothing to do with it but because it's silly season, politicians are making hay of it. Any high schooler that did that would have faced the same scrutiny and many have faced punishment for far less. --DHeyward (talk) 03:38, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Do we know whether Ahmed is an editor? MarkBernstein (talk) 18:53, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

"Quote="

You once wrote: It should be noted though that extended quotes, properly sourced, are not generally a violation of copyright. ... We have never, to my recollection and knowledge, had a legal complaint or threat of any kind about a properly sourced quote. Does that extend to using the quote= parameter in the citation templates? Does a properly sourced quote of a sentence or two, of the exact wording used by the original author represent, a copyright violation to you and the Wikimedia Foundation? There is a strong opinion that this represents a copyright violation putting Wikipedia at legal risk, with talk of stripping them all from Wikipedia. We do not know what source material will be available in 100 or 1,000 years, and the original source material anchors the meaning, and prevents semantic drift as people reword articles. The original source may say that the person "lived near Fooville" the next editor may add "place_of_birth=Fooville" to the infobox, and the next editor may reword the text "born near Fooville" then "born in Fooville" then "born in Fooville, New Jersey". We make incremental edits all the time, thinking we are making the text more accurate, but we may be adding certitude, when there was none in the original text. For obscure, but notable, people from the 1800s and 1900s we may only have one or two original texts to garner information from, an obituary and a short entry in a biographical dictionary. See, for example, George Fletcher Chandler and Basil Macdonald Hastings. I have just been banned from using quote= because of a fear of copyright violation. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:08, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Can you show me specific real world examples that concern people? I think this concern is ludicrous, and if your reporting is accurate (sometimes, there is another side to the story!) our policy should be strongly pushed in exactly the other direction.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:21, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Of course, there is another side to the story. This editor has a very long history of editing against consensus regarding copyvios. Arbcom found on March 13, 2013 that "Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) has been responsible for adding or linking to copyrighted content, including both text and images in various forms, to Wikipedia since 2005 (Fram's evidence, Carrite's evidence). A substantial number of these additions have been found to be in violation of applicable policies, and have resulted in a block in 2006, two Contributor Copyright Investigations (CCIs) (one for images and another for text), and a community-issued topic ban from creating new articles." The envelope pushing behavior, which goes back 10 years, continued and resulted in clear consensus in favor of this additional editing restriction at ANI. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:00, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok. So this restriction is more about this particular editor's particular behavior than a general policy direction against "a properly sourced quote of a sentence or two, of the exact wording used by the original author"? I won't comment on this particular editor's restriction without more information, as that would be presumptuous of me. But I will say that if we think we can't quote a sentence or two in a footnote, to make crystal clear why we say what we say about something, out of a fear that such a quote in a footnote (citation template) might be a copyright violation, I think we've gone down a very strange path not supported by evidence.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:06, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Been here a long time and looked at tens of thousands of articles. Can't ever recall a quoted sentence being taken out of a footnote because of copyright concerns only. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:10, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Me too, which is why I'm puzzled a bit about the current discussion and sanctions.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:39, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Long story short: 1. There are Wikipedians who are anti-"Fair Use" fanatics and the "quote=" parameter is based upon the American copyright law exemption for fair use. It is, however, ill defined — how many words out of how big of an article is okay? During Richard A. Norton's CCI case there were in fact "copyright violations" rung up against him for nothing more than excessively long "quote=" quotes in his footnotes. That is a true fact. 2. There are legitimate copyright concerns with some of RAN's early editing and any future copyright violations whatsoever are going to get him indeffed from WP. In light of (1.) above, he needs to steer far, far away from anything remotely smacking of copyvio. It's in his long-term best interests as a Wikipedian to get rid of the unnecessary "quote=" glosses from his footnotes, which are nothing but trouble in the making. Carrite (talk) 05:59, 21 September 2015 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 15:00, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I am one of the top 100 creator of new entries, each week I devoutly write short biographies based on the Library of Congress images from the public domain Bain collection. You can see my last 300 new entries on my user page: User:Richard_Arthur_Norton_(1958-_)#2015. I have two years of backlogged material. The current ANI was an attempt by one of my colleagues to prevent me from accumulating biographies in my user space. I am blocked from adding the content to mainspace until I certify that every one of my previous 10 years, of more than 100,000 edits, or so, are free from copyright problems. It has since been reduced to "making significant progress" on the certification, I am assuming the means 51% of my previous edits before the restriction is lifted. Some of my earliest edits used large chunks of copyrighted text and minimal referencing, compared to the current Wikipedia standard. I have since rewritten them, or others have long ago written over those earliest entries. By 2006 or so my current minimalist biographic style developed: lede, birth, education, marriage, death, and legacy. I don't see it as a wise use of time to spend the next 10 years certifying the previous 10 years of edits, when the egregious early material has already been rewritten by myself and others. My use of the quote parameter has been found to be contentious, and today it was banned as a copyright violation. In the previous ANI using the quote from a 1910 New York Times was used as an example of my continuing copyright violations. The use of properly sourced snippets of text has been upheld by United States case law and does not appear to violate any current Wikipedia rule, other than the current ANI ruling. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 23:51, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

As I said previously, and as you confirm with your recent remarks here and elsewhere, you persist in editing against consensus, despite massive but unsuccessful efforts by countless editors to persuade you to comply with consensus. You insist on your right to quote extensively from copyrighted material despite clear consensus that your quoting is excessive and contrary to policy. I happen to be an editor who uses attributed quotes slightly more than average, especially to impart "local color" or to convey the flavor of strong emotions. I might be expected to be your ally here. But when other editors object to my use of quotes, I am quick to trim back and paraphrase, preserving only the most useful and evocative quotes. On the other hand, you are stubborn, unrelenting, argumentative, persistent and shockingly unwilling to accept clear consensus. You use direct quotes compulsively when paraphrasing serves just as well. That is why you have onerous editing restrictions and why I don't. It is on you. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:43, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I think you've kind of missed the ball here, Jim. Richard's description of his errors is essentially on the mark: during the middle years of the last decade (2005-2007 or 2008) he would sometimes copy-paste from websites without paraphrasing or correctly footnoting. A Contributor Copyright Investigation takes only three five instances to initiate and instead of sampling to isolate the problematic aspects of editing and addressing those, the entire editing history of the involved editor is made part of the case, to be investigated one article at a time. RAN, being one of the most prolific editors at WP, inevitably made for a gargantuan case for the already overworked and deeply backlogged handful of CCI volunteers, some of whom wanted to take him for a long walk on a short pier even though his truly problematic editing methods of the early years were already recognized and henceforth avoided. A truly short-sighted ArbCom decision requiring him to self-police his own old massive editing history before making new starts in mainspace (since there is no way in this or any other universe that the half dozen or whatever hardcore CCI volunteers are ever going to finish his now-four-year-old case) has placed RAN in a Kafkaesque position of bureaucratic limbo. As soon as he cuts down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring the Knights of Ni may (or may not) allow him to start WP articles again — all he has to do is police his first 150,000 or whatever edits, calling copyright fouls on himself. It's an idiotic expectation. RAN is good folks and remains a prolific content creator for the encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 05:47, 21 September 2015 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 06:13, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Tim, I did not endorse any overly stringent requirement that RAN ought to police every single one of his past articles. But he could do a far better job making a good faith effort of it, to show that he gets the message. What I endorsed was the recent restriction at ANI, which you are the one who proposed. Now, we have RAN making an extreme pendulum swing, arguing insincerely that citing the complete title of a newspaper article ought to be considered a copyright violation. That is tendentious hogwash, which indicates to me that he remains a problematic editor in 2015, not just in the 2005-2008 period. He is simply unwilling to recognize consensus and comply with it. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:34, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

• And as I have argued, make an objective rule rather a subjective one. Restrict all quotes to a single sentence, or even just three words. Restrict all New York Times article titles to the first sentence. While "short phrase" article titles cannot be copyrighted, the New York Times ones such as: "Gen. E. A. M'Alpin Dies At Ossining. Former Adjutant General of New York Stricken at His Country Home in His 69th Year. Long in National Guard. Tobacco Merchant and Republican Leader Owned Land on Which Hotel McAlpin Stands." It would not constitute a "short phrase" because it may contain original expression. "General E. A. McAlpin Dies At Ossining" would not be copyrightable as a headline since it states non-copyrightable facts under the "short phrase" rule. By the constraints being imposed, I am not sure if even New York Times full article title can be used in Wikipedia. Codify the rules so they are enforced objectively. All of these rules should be codified by the Wikimedia Foundation if we want something stricter than the current Google snippet ruling at Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 05:57, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

While formal codification would make better sense than leaving things open to interpretation, the best solution would be to eliminate the "quote=" parameter altogether from the citation template. It is unnecessary and it results in cumbersome, clogged, overlong, unreadable masses of text in lieu of proper footnotes. Carrite (talk) 06:06, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Or, alternately, RAN could just understand that Wikipedia is a collaborative environment with rules based on the consensus of the community and comply with that consensus - just as everyone who wants to edit here must. The community has made a point to make only extremely limited use of non-free content. The reason given is that while it may be fair-use for a non-profit educational institution like Wikipedia it may not be for others who might want to mirror our content. Obstinate refusal to comply with community consensus on the minimum use of non-free content is a much greater issue here than quote=.

Some of the biographies RAN has written have more text in quote= than in the body of the article cf. User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Edoardo Ferrari-Fontana, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Edward Hinkley Plummer, User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Edward Sims Van Zile and User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )/Elaine Virginia Rosenthal and that is just four of the first six I opened in the E's. Those articles look more like they are just vehicles for the quotes. Jbh^Talk 07:07, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

• An excellent example: "Edoardo Ferrari-Fontana, Italian-born opera singer, died at his home here Saturday night. He was 58 [sic] years old. ..." The source has an error in stating the person's age. The next person to edit may change the age to what the New York Times, thinking that is the correct one. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:16, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the practical illustration of why even though Richard may well be 100% within American copyright law in using the "quote=" parameter, there's gonna be chirping about it from the Anti-Fair Use Krew and that he needs to be far, far, far away from that controversy. (By the way, your html has a defect that has caused everything to go italic...) Carrite (talk) 10:06, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Fair use is notoriously tough to discern as there are no metrics or limits written into law. In practice we experience its boundaries through case law and precedents. Instead, we have a patchwork of best practices and guidelines. However, we have come a long way in recent years for documentary makers and libraries through group efforts by academics and lawyers, such as the CMSI fair use best practices). We may want to explore this at some point so that Wikipedia/Wikimedia is not working alone in isolation, but instead draws a line in the sand with our interpretation, and not have uncertainty hanging over our fair use stance. I know for a fact that the fair use best practices for documentary makers has been a real breakthrough for independent film makers who were previously afraid to dip their toe into using even a small part of commercial footage in their work. -- Fuzheado | Talk 10:32, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

(@Carrite: I only see italics in the NFCC blue link. If something in my post is messing with your display please feel free to remove any <em> tags or whatever is causing you problems. Same for anyone else having display problems.) Jbh^Talk 13:00, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I think there is a good argument to be made that, in some cases like in the four articles I linked above, the material in the quote- parameter is not fair use. Because it duplicates and expands on the paraphrasing in the body and the material often comes from obituaries there is no transformative use - obituaries are biographies. Since large portions of text are extracted in relation to the obituary it harms the potential market of the original. For instance why but the NYT archive of the obituary if the substantive material in it has been copied verbatim into the Wikipedia biography. This is a greater problem when the quoted text exceeds the prose text of the article. These issues seem to fail the fair use or at least call the material into question. Jbh^Talk 13:52, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Clearly there is an argument to be made about whether "quote=" glosses in those specific articles are copyright clear or not — I don't find it particularly compelling but that's neither here nor there. In practical terms, the fact that there is an argument is sufficient to prohibit RAN from going down that path. The AN/I involving him which recently closed forbids him from using that parameter in the future. So as long as he adheres to that (and I've got no reason to think he won't) we should be done with the matter. An RFC to eliminate that parameter for everybody would be fine with me, I despise it from the standpoint of aesthetics and functionality. Carrite (talk) 15:16, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

I do not think it is a good idea to get rid of quote= for everyone. I have not seen any indication it is generally misused. I agree that if RAN abides by his restriction the issue is done. I am concerned that immediately after he was notified of the restriction he started this thread and he has also has not commented at the ARCA thread. I really want him to comply it would be a loss to the encyclopedia if he were banned but I can sadly see it going that way. Jbh^Talk 16:21, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

• Jimbo and anyone else commenting here who may not be aware, there is an open request for clarification regarding RAN's arbitration sanction at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ). As that was initiated on the 14th and this discussion on the 20th (when comments by myself, Seraphimblade and Yunshui (the only arbs to have commented at that point) were not immediately favourable) it might be an attempt at forum shopping. Thryduulf (talk) 14:02, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

"It is never forum shopping to let me know about things. Could we please stop dehumanizing people by making that claim?" — J Wales. Writegeist (talk) 15:41, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

• The purge has started (rm copyvio) "|quote=Basil Macdonald Hastings, author and playwright, died here today after a lengthy illness. ..." Again I have to ask, does the Wikimedia Foundation consider this to be an illegal copyright violation putting Wikipedia in legal jeopardy? Or is it an example of an option used in a small number of articles for creating a robust referencing system that can be used after the the original source material is no longer available. We always assume that source material will always be around, The New York Times archive was originally hosted by ProQuest behind paywall, then it was fully available at the NYTimes.com site, then it was behind a partial paywall again. That was in a 10 year period, we have to think of what will be available in 100 and even 1,000 years. If the source material is no longer available there is no need to delete the reference as a dead link because the snippet is preserved in the citation template. Imagine if Google lost the snippet case and was ordered to delete all that they had scanned. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:58, 21 September 2015 (UTC)