User talk:Jimbo Wales

Had to share..

Thought you might like this. This is what my instructor wrote on a recent microbiology assignment:

This was a comment in the instructions for a homework assignment by my college microbiology instructor-I didn't do what he said since I edit some of these articles myself and so know that they are reliable! 9/2015

I didn't follow his instructions because I edit microbiology articles and know they are typically pretty reliable. Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 20:35, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

@Barbara (WVS): This can be tricky. There's a difference between using a source, citing it, and relying on it for literature research. Outside of Wikipedia, sourcing is usually considered best when it is most direct: a cite to a key primary research paper is often better than a cite to a specialized review, which is better than a textbook, which is better than an encyclopedia. (there are some exceptions for meta-analyses and certain high-grade reviews) And because a fact from Wikipedia should always cite its source - or not be trusted - there is never a good reason to cite Wikipedia directly. Besides, versions can change at any time, and the citations can become useless. So seeing "Wikipedia" listed on a student paper is always going to raise hackles - that's not a matter of quality, but of how you do things. Additionally, professors want to see that students are skilled in multiple methods of research. Wikipedia is a neat tool, but it's a crapshoot, so they'd like to see that you can use more thorough search methods. Wnt (talk) 10:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

I completely understand your response and I could probably quote it myself. But what is quite humorous is that the instructor knows that I write for the encyclopedia and never quote it directly in any of my class assignments. As a Visiting Scholar, not quite an Ambassador, I am promoting the encyclopedia-so it is even funnier. No, of course not, no one should quote Wikipedia word for word-plagarism still applies to the writing of college reports, wikipedia or not. I'll probably end up giving a presentation at the University of Pittsburgh at some point and will use this photo as a visual aid. Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 10:42, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

If you know so much about editing Wikipedia, why do you use an additional line and an additional indentation, just to sign your Talk posts? That seems like a non-standard practice, to put it kindly. - 17:44, 5 October 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:558:1400:10:B008:1D04:A6A:5216 (talk)

Wikipedia is a good starting point for research into any subject, including medicine. However, the instructor would have been rightly annoyed to read a series of essays which had been copypasted from Wikipedia.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 06:10, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

But the articles usually include a list of sources you can go to and read for your sources. Nothing wrong with finding the sources through Wikipedia, just don't us the Wikipedia article itself as a source. Nyth63 13:11, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, for educational purposes there actually is something wrong with finding the sources this way, which is that you're potentially eating someone's bias. After all, we do have POV-pushers who manipulate articles, and for more esoteric topics we may omit a whole perspective simply by negligence. You'd often like to see the student be able to say that he researched his paper like a Cochrane review, with comprehensive evaluation of everything in PubMed or the like. Of course, sometimes a Wikipedia article will catch some idea that your "complete" search missed because you used the wrong keywords... I would be fond of the notion of prospecting quickly on Wikipedia, then following through with systematic searches when you know they find everything interesting you've found that way. Wnt (talk) 17:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Perpetual punishments

Do we really need perpetual punishments? I am now blocked from even contributing articles in draftspace. I add about 300 new biographies a year to my draftspace, since being blocked from writing mainspace articles. Read some of them ... don't these people deserve to have their stories told? No one else is writing them, they will be ignored by history. I am still in the top 100 for article creation, probably in the top 10 for biographies. Why have we become so doctrinaire? The people being punished are the one's whose history will not be told. They deserve better. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 07:13, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I note that "Statement by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )" is conspicuously empty in the Arbcom discussion. Why didn't you say anything in your defense there? That discussion has been going on for weeks. This post here amounts to "I'm too awesome to be banned" and is not going to do you any favors.--Atlan (talk) 08:31, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Probably because he wasn't notified of the motion until today(and didn't expect anything negative out of the case).--Müdigkeit (talk) 08:42, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Really? Pretty much every single time RAN has gone/been taken to a noticeboard he has ended up with harsher and more restrictive sanctions. He was notified he was before arbcom and he should have expected negativity since he has been completely unrepentant in his blatant disregard for the community consensus on his editing. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:58, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

He was notified of the amendment request on 14 September. The motion comes after the discussion, so that he was only notified of it today is no excuse for completely ignoring the discussion.--Atlan (talk) 09:19, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, Richard, but looking at this as an outsider it seems to me very much as if the problem here is that you have failed to respond to thoughtful feedback and people trying to help. You keep writing problematic articles until eventually you're stopped altogether, and now you say these articles won't be written, but, well, that is pretty much the point. Guy (Help!). Warning: comments may contain traces of sarcasm. 09:27, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As someone who AFAIK has never interacted with you, looking at this case it seems that you're missing the point of the restriction. You complain that the motion is going to prevent you creating articles, but that appears entirely to be the purpose of the restriction, since too many of the articles you create are considered potentially problematic. You were notified on 14 September and didn't make any attempt to defend or explain your actions, so you can hardly blame the arbs for assuming that that the reason you're not defending your actions is that you can't. ‑ iridescent 09:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

When they take action it is a fait accompli, my arguments would have been as welcome as they are here. Going through 10 years of edits to show they are copyright free is designed to be a 10 year prison sentence, more now that I have less time to contribute. As pointed out multiple times, my earliest edits from 2006, where the problem existed, have long ago been corrected by me and others. If copyright problems still exist in Wikipedia, if quotes need to be trimmed to a single sentence, we need a bot to flag them or auto-trim them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 13:07, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

At least there, your argument would have been timely, rather than after the fact. Part of the problem is that you don't acknowledge that there is a problem. You have, for 4 years now, persistently denied any wrongdoing and a refusal to cooperate with editors trying to clear your CCI backlog. Do you have any idea how this thread alone reflects on you? You basically state that: this topic ban is stifling your genius; the real victims are the people you write about; everyone else is wrong and there isn't actually a problem; and if there is a problem, build a bot to auto-solve it. It comes off as arrogant and disdainful.--Atlan (talk) 14:00, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Huh? "As pointed out multiple times, my earliest edits from 2006, where the problem existed, have long ago been corrected by me and others." This has been pointed out by me, and others, at the original ANI, at the clarification, and above, and here again now. How is that "arrogant and disdainful"? Putting a green check mark next to 167,573 edits (since reduced to substantial, I am assuming 51% of the edits) one by one over the next 10 years serves no purpose. Addendum: As Carrite points out the original CCI requires me to put green check marks next to 60,000 edits now reduced to 30,001 (substantial, I am assuming > 50% by at least 1). The futility is that those edits have long ago been written over with 10 years of emendations and additions. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

There is an open case at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification and Amendment#Clarification request: Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) that is still under discussion. R.A. Norton, might I suggest that you join that discussion? --Guy Macon (talk)

The real story

A Sept. 2015 ANI decision actually solved the last remaining potential problem with Richard's editing, his use of quote excerpts as part of the "quote=" parameter of our citation templates. The Nov. 2013 amendment to his ArbCom case was clarified with a new flag and the procedure for moving his new starts in his user space clarified. And then Beyond My Ken ran to ArbCom with a clarification request there and they responded by doubling down their restrictions upon him, effectively ending his ability to make user space starts. Why? Wikipedia's Contributor Copyright Investigations process does not scale and there are insufficient volunteers to parse RAN's first 60,000 edits one by one for copyright violation — during the wild west days of WP (2005-2008), RAN did some copy-pasting from websites, pasted in blocks of copyrighted text hidden behind <! --- flags for paraphrase while he was writing, and used what some deemed to be excessively long "quote=" glosses in his footnotes. These are his sins for which he is being eternally punished...

ArbCom, understanding that CCI is woefully short of volunteers and time, has mandated that Richard himself police his old editing for copyvio before they deign him able to make new starts again. This is a low value, idiotic mission that would gobble up a minimum of one year of his volunteer time to do properly. They don't care that it is an unreasonable requirement, they demand him to obey on bended knee with hat in hand — a satisfaction which he has not given them. So, encyclopedia be damned, rational solution of his editing shortcomings be damned, they're shutting down his new starts and doody doo on him. (gavel slams) "Next case!"

This is a prime example of an encyclopedia builder being run through the shredder by Kafkaesque bureaucrats. And nobody cares because, well, he churns out stubs of arcane individuals from the 1910s and 1920s rather than FEATURED ARTICLES.™® Richard, I'm sorry that people are so stupid about this. Carrite (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Rather than just complain, why don't you help him go through the old articles and remove the copyvios. Some people just complain, others actually do things. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Rather than make snippy comments, you might check the edit history of RAN's user page and RAN's talk page, where you will see that I have been doing just that with the current material. Some people just make flippant and ignorant comments, some people actually do things. Carrite (talk) 15:33, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

As for the ancient stuff, I've made my views on that clear in the current Amendment hearing: "...an abject waste of time..." that will never be fixed by anyone ever, nor should it because it is small potatoes as copyvio in the first place and buried under years and years and years of revision and editing by others in the second place... Carrite (talk) 15:36, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

'Copyright violations' is used, as it has *always* been used in relation to you, in reference to your willing disregard for wikipedias copyright policies. So no, it is unlikely that the phrase 'copyright violations' will stop being used in relation to you, until you clean them all up. If you dont like it, you know where the door is. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:52, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Huh? This is Wikipedia copyright policy from the founder, Jimmy Wales: "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." He has never retracted the statement. I think you are just trolling at this point. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:02, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

RAN doesn't "willingly disregard" copyright law. He has a fairly excellent understanding of it. He was a sinner during his earliest years at WP (coming here in 2005) and has been a bullying victim for a long time ever since, as you are illustrating with your really unfair characterization of his work. Carrite (talk) 16:18, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Not really, I took a look through his userspace earlier today in order to comment at Arbcom. Picked 5 articles from the 500 drafts there, the same issues go from 2006-2015 (in fact drafts in his userspace edited *today*). If I have time on the weekend I can always go through and cull all non-free content and remove all quote= - but I suspect he would scream blue murder. But ultimately, I (nor anyone else) should have to do that. He should be doing it himself. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:23, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Another big "huh?". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:32, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, OID, you're blowing smoke on the need for "quote=" removal, as a 15 second glance at the material above the line should indicate — I've been systematically removing all such material and am continuing to work to get the rest of the 2014 starts compliant with the September 2015 ANI decision. As for use of "non-free content," I've run into maybe two or three block quotes, one of which wasn't properly set up with a segue, which I fixed. But in general: that's a bunch more smoke that you are blowing. Of course, you may feel that your sample of 5 is somehow more reflective of the population than the 300+ of his pieces that I have touched so far. Power to you if that's the case, figure out how to replicate that and you will be able to make a lot of money for having revolutionized the science of statistics. Carrite (talk) 16:44, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I was curious about the claim of there being the makings of 500 new starts showing on RAN's user page and counted. So far this year he has made at least minimal starts showing on that page for 254 Wikipedia articles; the number showing for 2014 was 201. Now, not all of these are going to be able to meet GNG — what Richard has been doing is starting with the Bain Collection of public domain photographs at Library of Congress, selecting arcane news photos, and doing very, very basic investigation via old articles in the New York Times, for the most part. Raw skeletons of articles are thus built. One of his starts I recently took to mainspace and fleshed out is Timothy Healy (trade unionist) — just showing that as an example of how RAN's very basic starts can potentially be fleshed out by content writers. For the record, I now have 345 of his starts compliant with the (late) September 2015 ANI decision in his case and am picking away at the rest at the rate of about 20 a day, as time allows. Carrite (talk) 18:28, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

• Jimmy Wales: "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." So please do not use the legal term "copyright violations", they are properly sourced quotations, that some people feel should never be used in Wikipedia, including Carrite, who is vigorously opposed to them. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Yep, Richard, I hate them — aesthetically and functionally. I don't think they are examples of copyvio, but the fact that some people do (as you know from some of the so-called "violations" rung up against you at CCI by Anti-Fair Use Fanatics) should have steered you far, far away from "quote=" glosses... You've gotta stay out of every grey area with respect to copyvio and WP's even-more-stringent treatment of copyrighted works and this is one of them. Aesthetics has nothing to do with it; saving you from yourself for The Project has everything to do with it. best, —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 16:13, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't get it. If RAN's edits from a certain era around 2006 have copyright problems, there's a simple way forward. RAN declares a date after which he says he made no significant copyvios; his adversaries get a few weeks to search for any one counterexample. If they fail, we then accept the edits after that date are issue-free --- at least, they're surely at least as issue-free as edits from any new IP who signs up! Now to do this we must recognize, as I was saying in the last discussion along this line, that in general there's no copyright issue with having a few sentences in a quote parameter - that nonsense has to be nipped in the bud, because Wikipedia needs extended quotes for its scholarly functions. In other words, RAN's edits from after some cutoff date, whatever that may be, have to be compared to the same standard as anyone else's; otherwise people argue his case by playing tug of war with the goalposts. Now once we've found a way to save what material we think is good, the unpleasant part is that all the earlier edits either have to get hand checked or be sacrificed en masse, within a fairly short term, because we actually want our articles free of copyright issues. But there's no reason why this whole process has to degrade into ever more adversarial positions if the underlying problem behavior has been brought within community standards. I should add that that is one of Wikipedia's long term problems - people are always putting extra rules on problem editors, knowing that these untested rules may be impossible to follow, and that merely arguing over them will poison the admins against the person so affected. It is a very deliberate plan to fail that keeps getting implemented over and over again. Wnt (talk) 17:39, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Here's my suggestion, which I first made during the November 2013 Arbcom clarification proceeding: The requirement that RAN should be expected to self police his first 60,000 edits for potential copyvio should be set aside. His prohibition on new starts should be amended as follows: for a 12 month period RAN should be allowed to make a reasonable and limited number of new starts in mainspace, say 5 per month. These will be carefully scrutinized by his enemies for copyvio, most assuredly, and any instance will be met with wailing and crisis. If RAN commits copyvio in these pieces, he should be banned to Antarctica as a net negative to the project. If he is able to create these pieces without problems, he should be allowed to resume his work as a fully productive Wikipedian. As for CCI, his now nearly 4 year old case should be closed, unresolved and unresolvable (CCI does not scale to somebody with more than 600 starts and 60,000 edits — and RAN is way, way beyond that now...). CCI has more important cases to work upon now than picking through the lame editing of 2006... I additionally add: I fully support the Sept. 2015 ANI restriction, which mandated informational flagging of his user page starts, for a regularized system of transfer of those pieces to mainspace, and for a prohibition of RAN using the ^%^*^%*^$#$ "quote=" parameter, which is the source of much of the latest grief. Carrite (talk) 18:42, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

The number of foundational copyright violations discovered at ANI, which would be subject to speedy deletion, can probably be counted on two hands. Of these, there is the example Tadahiro Sekimoto, which has subsequently been completely rewritten. The problem is minor, the solution you propose is draconian and grossly excessive and would impact the work of literally thousands of subsequent editors. Carrite (talk) 18:54, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

@Carrite: I don't really understand your proposal. If we accept a significant number of post 2006 edits without scrutiny, why should we be specially scrutinizing or limiting editing he's doing now? If he actually cleaned up his act some time ago (apart from any violations of special rules that only applied to him), there's no real reason to have him under special restrictions now.

However, if it's true that if the problematic edits really were a very small proportion, we really should put the case aside entirely. Wikipedia is always open to a mixed bag of IP and new editors who really don't follow copyright or other policies very well. The threshold for an established editor shouldn't be perfection, just to be better than that. Wnt (talk) 02:51, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

It's straight out of Kafka. It takes 5 demonstrable copyvios to open a CCI case; once opened the methodology they use is to place entire edit histories under review and to work through these "cases" article by article, flagging or fixing content. This works for an editor with a dozen articles and few hundred edits; not so much with 650 starts and 50,000 edits. With probably a dozen or fewer CCI volunteers who work at it with any regularity and a case backlog that goes back 5 years (and counting), the "Norton Case" is clearly an unsolvable problem using standard CCI methodology. The (terrible) solution that ArbCom decided upon was this: as soon as RAN reviewed his edit history, calling copyright fouls upon himself and fixing things as he went, he could start articles again. Until then, he could edit other people's material in mainspace but could not make new starts.

Of course, for a content person, the starts are a very, very important part of the process, so the restriction severely attenuated RAN's usefulness to the project. The job of reviewing his old edits one by one is too big for a dozen people to get done in six months. Working fast and sloppy, maybe RAN could make a significant dent in a year. But basically, all these so-called big violations were small potatoes. I remember one example in which he copy-pasted a local church's history page from their website without proper attribution/paraphrase. Another big example was when he hid a huge chunk of copyrighted text behind <! --- tags so that he would have it in front of him as he paraphrased. Well, you click SAVE and that becomes part of the viewable history of the piece — copyvio!!! He was getting reemed for his "quote=" footnotes, being too long, being excessive in number, being relatively too long for the amount of original text on the page. All completely subjective calls, zero percent chance of exposing WMF to liability, well within American copyright law — but called copyvio! Another thing he did from time to time was copy pasting of old, out of copyright texts with inadequate footnoting. Tons and tons of this sort of low grade ticky-tack shit. (If anyone thinks I'm making this stuff up, go back and look at his edit history yourself in his CCI case — Wikipedia:Contributor_copyright_investigations/20111108.

Well, guess what? Richard can be a grump. He doesn't like being pushed around. He fucked up, he knows he fucked up, he made a half-assed effort to help clean up some of the early stuff, but he's not gonna spend a year or two of his life hunting for narwhals with a flashlight and a fireplace poker. His bad edits are part of the sheetrock which has subsequently been spackled and textured and painted over three times by wave after wave of subsequent editors. It's a slow and extremely low value process finding bad edits from 8 or 10 years ago. He's not gonna do it. CCI is not gonna do it. Nobody is gonna do it. But ArbCom and CCI are gonna have their pound of flesh from him — no new starts until he cuts down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring...

It's a completely stupid situation. Carrite (talk) 06:38, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

• It was instigated as a punitive audit. It started when I opposed another editor at an Article for Deletion debate. It led to a heated debate and it was followed by a punitive audit at both Wikimedia Commons and at the English Wikipedia. It was a classic Nixonian maneuver, very clever. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:44, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Henry DeWitt Hamilton (February 26, 1863 - August 18, 1942) was the Adjutant General of New York starting in 1912.

Maybe someone could add a picture describing what was the job, in 1912, of the Adjutant General of New York (apart from sometimes sitting on a chair)? Does that person was more or less influential than the Head of any other branch of the New York's administration ? Do we have a picture of the Head Plumber of New York sitting on a chair (or even plumbing in any way) ? Pldx1 (talk) 08:57, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

WP:GNG "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." If you want to emend the GNG so that chairs become a part of the requirements, start on the talk page of WP:GNG and work toward consensus. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:42, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

definitely not going to let Wikipedia become a PR platform

@Jimbo Wales: I noticed that you were interviewed for the Times. The Drum summarizes it as, you are ' “definitely not going to let Wikipedia become a PR platform” which he stated would be “so against all of our values”.' This sounds excellent, but I can't get the Times article itself unless I pay 12 pounds. Any comments here? Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:27, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

To get an answer from Jimbo Wales, please go to our shopping cart and pay a 6 pound fee. Oh, wait... :) --Guy Macon (talk) 15:50, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

That's a very good sentiment, but I would respectfully suggest that Jimbo follow up by urging the WMF to take stronger action than it has to date to ban the practice. I believe that volunteer action in that regard is important, but also a waste of time unless the WMF does more than it has to protect the project's brand identity. Coretheapple (talk) 16:35, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia as a PR platform is already covered by the rules. So what do you mean by "stronger action" to prevent it? Etamni | ✉ | ✓  03:21, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

• More resources for, and action from the Legal department for a start. MER-C 11:01, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

• Publicizing our rules about WP:NOADS, WP:PAID, WP:COI to the general public. If folks don't know that they are not allowed to buy an article, they'll continue trying, and be prey for the most unethical of paid editors.
• Letting admins and ArbCom know that they are expected to enforce our rules, or at the very least not interfere with enforcement by others.Smallbones_(smalltalk)

The steps outlined above are good for starters. Also I'd suggest that the Foundation's board members and its paid employees act scrupulously to maintain a "cleaner than a hound's tooth" position on COI, lest they be subject to criticism from the usual, albeit laughingly hypocritical sources. Coretheapple (talk) 16:10, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

• The obvious step would be to make the Bright Line Rule official WMF policy. I believe the board could just vote and pass this - it's really just an extension of the board's policy on not accepting advertisements. In this case, it would just be "what do we do when companies put in ads anyway" and there would have to be some teeth behind the BLR, e.g. lawsuits. Or, if they want to go the route of changing the Terms of Use again, I'll predict that this would pass by 80%-20% again. It really is a simple to understand rule and nobody should worry about whether it will pass. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:15, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

True, but as I've been saying for some months now, this is fundamentally a brand identity problem, not one that should bother ordinary editors all that much. If the Foundation won't act, what of it? No skin off my rump. I find paid editing annoying, but it is not a life or death thing for me. It is for Wikipedia, but I just volunteer here. Coretheapple (talk) 20:11, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Remember too that the Bright Line Rule is no the be-all and end-all. There are ways around it. On this very page some months back we have an administrator talk about how he was paid by some guy who was the subject of an article, and got someone else to perform the edits that guy wanted. Voila! No bright line rule violation. Also we have had situations in which paid editors have essentially drafted articles outside of mainspace and gotten friendly editors to post their edits. That received a lot of publicity in BP. Again, it all comes down to brand identity and how the people most affected (Jimbo, the Foundation) feel about such things. If they don't like it, it is within their power to do something about it. The "community" is far too unwieldy and divided on this, as well as far too uninterested in COI issues, to pull the Foundation's chestnuts out of the fire. Coretheapple (talk) 20:19, 6 October 2015 (UTC)