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Who on the WMF Board of Trustees bullied/threatened James Heilman?

Mr Wales, it is with great regret that I come to your talk page to have you address this issue.

James Heilman (Doc James) has now published the October 7, 2015 email from him to the WMF BoT. You can read that email at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2016-02-03/In focus. I am, however, more interested in James comments relating to November 7, 2015 (emphasis my own):

The board approved the Knight Foundation grant. I supported its approval following pressure which included comments about potentially removing members of the Board. Assurances were provided that the Knight Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation were on the same page regarding the grant.

During this whole debacle I have found that James has been very upstanding and there is no reason to doubt what he is saying. I believe that he was indeed threatened with removal from the BoT if he did not cave in and support a motion that he had very serious misgivings about. Your "utter fucking bullshit" response to James' earlier comments is noted, and on the evidence now in front of us your response is simply not credible.

Just recently the WMF conducted a Harassment Survey due to harassment of editors on WMF projects. One would never have thought that this harassment also extends to the BoT members being bullied by fellow BoT members.

My question for you Mr Wales, is: Did you at any time place pressure on James in relation to the Knight Foundation grant by way of threatening his removal from the BoT?

A succinct yes or no answer would be appreciated. 189.8.195.2 (talk) 04:13, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The very idea is ridiculous. Based on everything that I have seen from the rest of the board, this is a complete impossibility. I am specifically checking with every board member to try to get some idea of what, if anything at all, this accusation could be based on, and I have so far come to a preliminary conclusion that it is a flat out lie. If I do find out that any board member made such a threat, I will be astonished. The discussion of the Knight Grant, except in James' fantasy misrepresentation of it, which was fully refuted to the degree that -without any pressure or coercion of any kind - James himself moved that the board accept and voted in favor, was not in any way controversial with the board nor the kind of disagreement that would have in any way led to any concept that someone should leave the board. Given James enthusiastic endorsement of the grant at that time, as is clear in the voting record but to which I can also attest based on his words and behavior in the meeting, it is mind boggling that he expects anyone to believe this nonsense now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:40, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Well to address the last question re 'nonsense' (ignoring the truth of it or not): He would reasonably expect the community who voted for him on the basis of his trustworthiness, past record etc, to believe his statement absent evidence to the contrary. Given the wider community's feelings and generally adverse relationship with the WMF, that is a pretty good expectation. The question could be turned around to 'Why should the WMF (by extension the board) expect anyone to believe them?' Well, given the history in the last few years, there is no reasonable basis to expect the community to trust them over one of their own. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:58, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
At 22:15, 13 January 2016‎, the Administrative Assistant of the Legal Department of the WMF put in written that "On December 9, 2015, the Minutes were approved by the Board of Trustees ", with a link to https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2015-11-_06-08.
But this page was only put in written at 01:42, 14 January 2016. Therefore one cannot see what was the formal immuable document that was approved on December 9, 2015 by 8 members of the Board (James Heilman among them) while two were not present. In between, the page has been renamed, and some links edited.
It remains that, according to all the versions, from 2016-01-14 to nowadays, "Pursuant to the Gift Policy, the Board voted to approve a gift from the Knight Foundation after a motion by James seconded by Denny". So that story of 189.8.195.2 should be rewritten either into The approval was falsified or into Not only JH was threatened to the point of voting the grant, but in fact, he was threatened to the point of introducing himself the vote in favor of the grant". And the trust question becomes: how much does one need to distrust the WMF in order to trust this kind of story ? Pldx1 (talk) 11:44, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-03/In_focus several questions left unanswered by WMF Board...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:27, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
@Only in death: You know that James wasn't the only community-appointed member of the Board, right? You know that he was not the only "one of their own" on the Board, given that there were other community-appointed trustees, and other Trustees with a background in the community? MartinPoulter (talk) 16:26, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, but those are irrelevant to the question of why Doc James would expect the community to believe him. Its relevant to the question of why those board members might expect the community to believe them, but since the info coming out of the board has been less than transparent, they might need to take a firm position before anyone can start to believe it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:42, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Although I am rather bemused why anyone is asking Jimbo who threatened Doc James, instead of asking Doc James... It seems rather pointless. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:53, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm glad to see people finally getting to the meat of the matter... unfortunately, these first vague statements still leave a tremendous amount to the imagination. The statement about "pressure" above can be taken many different ways - it doesn't say who is pressuring who, which "same page" they were on, etc. So we can have a situation where James is telling the truth that he heard and Jimbo is telling the truth that it never happened, simply because what people are saying is so damn vague.
The notion that WMF could get into searching is ambitious and interesting, and it also needs a lot of skepticism. A lot of people want to be Google and aren't. I get the feeling that James' actions could present a sense of division on the board that could scare off donor money, but I'm not convinced that a sense of division, in the context of open debate and discussion, wouldn't have more benefits than a forced unity.
So far I see no allegation in that above discussion that the Knight Foundation did anything but offer money to support an idea Wikipedia came up with (apparently a pet project of Jimbo Wales for years) on the basis, presumably, that new independent mechanisms of "knowledge acquisition" are in the public interest and improve the research, relevance and reach of journalists. If the Knight Foundation has done, or is suspected of doing, anything untoward, the burden is on User:Doc James to explain what. Otherwise, it would be a step in the right direction if Doc James and another board member, such as Jimbo, could work up a joint statement they could sign explaining that the Knight Foundation did nothing wrong here and that their support of Wikipedia is immensely welcome, regardless of whatever office politics is going on at the Wikipedia end. Wnt (talk) 16:55, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Whoa, hold on a second. There is no "pet project" of mine involved here in any way whatsoever. James included my work on Wikia search in his timeline as a complete and utter irrelevancy. There is nothing at all about the Knight grant which is in any way related to or suggestive of a google-like search engine. He's been told this multiple times, he has had access to all documents, and he knows that it isn't true. I had nothing to do with the grant, other than in my capacity as board member reviewing both the presentation to the board about the work being done on 'discovery', so the idea that I've pushed some kind of google-competitor search engine is a total fabrication by James. He continues, in my view, to violate the trust that the community placed in him by making things up (or hinting at them falsely) that simply are not true.
You wrote "The notion that WMF could get into searching is ambitious and interesting, and it also needs a lot of skepticism. A lot of people want to be Google and aren't." Both of those things are true in a sense, but they are also not relevant to this situation. To make this very clear: no one in top positions has proposed or is proposing that WMF should get into the general "searching" or to try to "be google". It's an interesting hypothetical which has not been part of any serious strategy proposal, nor even discussed at the board level, nor proposed to the board by staff, nor a part of any grant, etc. It's a total lie.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:21, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
OK, I believe you here - though I'm not sure that Doc James didn't/doesn't honestly believe the implications he made in his Signpost article. Vagueness is the enemy here. It is a damned shame that Doc James didn't have this discussion with the rest of the board on a nice public wiki page where we could all try to make sense out of it, before any action was taken against him - it appears to me there's too much confidentiality, not nearly enough communication going on. But I'll grant that his implication that this grant was an extension of Wikia Search seems a little far-fetched to me as of yet ... though I'm still totally unclear on what the Knowledge Engine actually is and whether it's something I'd like. At this moment I still have scenarios in mind that range all the way from my daydream of a sort-of-competitor to standard search engines where you type in common phrases and get human curated responses from a big crowdsourced database, to a sinister notion of spying on users that I explore below. I honestly have no idea what it is - the FAQ and related documents just don't make it clear to me. Wnt (talk) 16:45, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Evidently James was behaving in gadfly role, which was not appreciated. In this instance he appears to have questioned the Foundation accepting a grant, which would understandably rankle the board. If he was threatened or menaced he should substantiate that. Frankly, while not nice, such behavior is not considered improper board conduct. I have to say that this airing of dirty laundry doesn't make anyone look all that good. It's hard to understand why any nonprofit would turn down a grant it has already applied for. Coretheapple (talk) 17:20, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
No, this is not correct. I'm unaware of anyone being "rankled" by his questions about the Knight grant. Discussion about grants and whether they should be accepted is routine, and this discussion about the Knight grant fitted into that category. James had some wrong ideas about the grant, these were corrected, and he then supported the grant. The later suggestion that he only did so under pressure is a brand new story for which I know of absolutely no evidence.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:15, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
To clarify I do not believe that the Knight Foundation did anything "wrong". The WMF pitched a project they wished money for and were awarded some funds. The issue I had is with those who made the pitch without there first being community awareness and discussion.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:29, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Do note that the emphasis in the article on seeing the Knight Foundation grant, and bits like the $250,000 Knight's Grant is the emerging part of a Trojan iceberg, tend to give the wrong impression. Whatever internal dissension goes on at Wikipedia, the people involved have a duty not to drag an innocent third party through the mud with them. I also see from the comments there that you also don't blame the discovery team. The problem that this raises is -- if you have a group of developers who want to work on a Google-like search, and a nonprofit that wants to fund their salaries to work on it, then what exactly can the community or a good administrator add to that situation, except maybe some matchmaking services before prudently removing himself from the honeymoon suite? Wnt (talk) 21:11, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I guess first would be verify that we have a group of staff that want to work on a Google-like search engine. And as most of the project will be funded by general movement funds, a movement that supports paying for the rest of it.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:29, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
There is no group of staff, no executive, and no board members who are supporting "work on a Google-like search engine" - that is a complete fiction.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:15, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
If I understand correctly, the issue with the grant is essentially that it is a sort of policy laundering, like the way countries have managed to enact lunatic intellectual property laws via the TPP deal? And the reason why you want to see the text is to find out what Wikipedia is trying to obligate itself to as part of the deal, perhaps even things the Knight Foundation wouldn't have demanded on their own? Wnt (talk) 07:38, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
There is no issue of 'policy laundering' and there is no issue of obligation. The things that have been agreed to do for the grant have been published! Go read it. It's really very uncontroversial.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:15, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
I've looked at the material from [1], and so far I'm not aware of a complete list of all things WMF agreed to. If you are thinking of something more specific, some of us might have missed it.
A question of my own regards whether the statement in the joint press release, "With Knight support, the Wikimedia Foundation has begun six months of deep research, testing, and prototyping on user search habits and practices on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.", refers to the kind of survey that came up at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Quickserveys. In that case, I find it alarming that for no obvious reason Wikipedia is sending 'randomly' selected users to Google, under the Google Terms of Service and a special privacy policy that allows sharing of "raw data" with "service providers". However, I have no familiarity with the internal workings of WMF and whether "Readers" and "Discovery" are related teams, or would share this funding and objective. Now maybe I'm a little fixated on this one scenario, but it really bothers me to think of Wikipedia readers being dumped into Google scripts that track their session and what pages they're reading. I know everybody does it - when even sites like 4chan intrude Google scripts into their interface I tend to assume that Google has become a sort of de facto internet registration policeman, using its special access to Firefox and of course Chrome browsers to track those 'anonymous' submissions more effectively than other companies. But I had hoped Wikipedia wouldn't do it! How is it developing free software to write a MediaWiki module that relies on Google Forms? Who is this information really for? Wnt (talk) 15:36, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

We know have some evidence regarding what we were and likely still are proposing to the Knight Foundation. The document is here. A few key passages include:

  • "Knowledge Engine by Wikipedia will be the Internet's first transparent search engine, and the first one originated by the Wikimedia Foundation"
  • "a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy public information on the Internet"
  • "would users go to Wikipedia if it were an open channel beyond an encyclopedia"
  • "federation of open data sources"
  • "proceed with the search engine project as deliberately as possible - which is what the Wikimedia Foundation is doing"

User:WMoran (WMF) went so far as correcting the Discovery FAQ here on November 5th to clarify that the answer to the "are you building a new search engine" question was not "no" but "we are not building Google". Of course we are not building Google. That product has already been build by someone. And than User:Peteforsyth corrected the question to match the answer on Jan 9th.[2]

It however does appear to me that we are building a search engine. Or at least the Knight Foundation appears to think so. I do not know how to reconcile these documents with Jimbo's statement "nothing at all about the Knight grant... is in any way related to or suggestive of a google-like search engine" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:07, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

So it is a search engine but one unlike Google's. I wonder what features about it make it unlike Google? ϢereSpielChequers 22:48, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Hurray! I'm glad to see a detailed source document here. At first glance, I love this proposal. Its call for "upending the commercial structure" by "public curation mechanisms for quality", "transparency, telling users exactly how the information originated", protection of privacy, etc... this is great. The writers of the proposal even cite the possibility of "third-party influence or interference", making me feel like they share a little of my paranoia. That said, however, it actually does back up the case for policy laundering. It says that "Changes to any specific line item in the enclosed budget greater than 5% should be approved in writing by the Knight Foundation" ... and the budget is not $250,000, but $2.44 million! Including $586,000 for "team leads (Dir, VP, UX, PM)" - I'm not quite sure what some of those are, and I know that in the age of income inequality such things don't seem unusual, but I can't help but think that you could hire 200 senior undergrads for a summer and leave the decision-making to some Wikipedia RFCs or a worker's committee, and come out way ahead. So I see why Doc James could be concerned. In any case, it is good to see the two of you gradually coming toward what you should have had all along - a public debate of the facts until the situation, good and bad, becomes clear to all. Wnt (talk) 22:50, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Never mind, I just put it back to "a new search engine" which is far less wordsmithy. Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:34, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes and as I previously stated I do not have a firm position on the idea itself. What I did not agree with was the WMF moving forwards without a discussion with the movement. When I was involved with re starting Wikivoyage as a WMF project we did so after open discussion.
Also the 2.44 M figure is only for the discovery team itself and only for the first phase of the project. It does not include the next three phases or the costs of other teams such as fundraising, legal, community engagement, ED time, etc. It would be good to see current estimates for all four phases. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:59, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
very informative[3]...Jimbo wales there seem to be some contradictions in regards to prior statements...IMO (comment/clarify)?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:34, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
  • One can also compute: , unit = 1K$. Maybe San Francisco should be moved to some place where wages are lower. China ? Pldx1 (talk) 08:58, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
To translate that to English... assuming you're saying there are 289 WMF employees, and 10 non-leads working on Knowledge Discovery, the total salaries paid are expected to be $36.89 million yearly. I see $58.7 million in projected WMF expenses here, but if there's a breakdown for how much of that is salary I missed it. I have no real knowledge of these things, but I suppose that a top-quality programmer could command over $140k in salary. But this would be a deal only if he spends his day closing bugs and proposing and building good features - if these people spend more time administering, writing reports, giving talks, and decision-making, that would be a different case. I honestly have no idea what they will be doing. My main concern about hiring decision makers is that they make decisions, and generally speaking, I think we the editors don't like it when they do that. There is a long list of decisions over the past year or two that we really didn't like, and it's easy to feel that we, as unpaid volunteers with no special skill, could make decisions at least as good as those made by the highest-paid executives. So why pay them?
And even measured as programmers, well... it's donated money. I feel like WMF should come up with a salary scale that looks like they intend to hire the best woman for the job. If the only qualified applicants they get actually are women, great, we needed more of them. :) Also, while moving to China is a bad idea (it's hard to administer an encyclopedia you're not allowed to read, and I shudder to think what WMF would pay in rent in Shanghai), there are parts of the Third World where WMF could set up with great fanfare. Flint, Michigan, for example, or Detroit (I shan't send them to Pine Ridge though, lest they get hit with a BDS campaign by morally outraged Israelis). Imagine the buzz that could be fed when people say that Michigan, once the home of mass-produced cars, would be the home of mass-produced knowledge. Wnt (talk) 14:45, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
If you discard Shanghai as being to far to the West of SanFran, we can stop halfway. Suncheon/Yeosu would be a great place: skilled people and technology are allready there, and you can even rent the Expo Grounds for Wikimania. Pldx1 (talk) 15:06, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Well, not in my opinion. Even apart from loss of content, it could take many person-years of effort simply to get a legal version for South Korea together at all, let alone one with an edit history. I think any transnational moves might as well be complete recreations from the CC-licensed content. But while a change of country is doubtful to me, it's not immediately obvious to me why a separate Wikipedia project like a search feature couldn't be set up in a different, cheaper US location that would emphasize the democratic nature of the project. I mean, there is or should be no special library access, no tightly guarded proprietary code, no non-public data required to write up a search feature like this - you just need to convince a few people who can code to live and work cheaper so they can be part of a noble enterprise. Wnt (talk) 16:47, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm not knowledgeable enough to have a valid opinion on this, but it feels like its a move either in the wrong direction or with the wrong partner. Nocturnalnow (talk) 03:07, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Grammar Nazi or just Grammar Idiot/ vs Good Faith Contribution

Yopie rewerted good faith contributions as "poor English", however the contribution [4] wasn't as awful as he said. if Grammar Idiots like Yopie will good faith contributions as "poor English". many articles would not be written or improved. e.g. the articles plated mail, kastenbrust, mirror armour did not have perfect language, but they were not reverted by Grammar Idiots like Yopie (Idot (talk) 01:41, 12 February 2016 (UTC))

For years, numerous interesting edits have been reverted by other editors in thousands of pages, so I guess the solution is to ask editors such as Yopie to just reword for grammar rather than making total reverts. However, using the term, "grammar NAZI" (etc.) is not helpful in discussions with them. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:52, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
I have reminded Idot of our policy on NPA at their talk, advised them that they should have discussed the edit first instead of coming here, and asked them to strike their comments here. Fences&Windows 10:10, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
it IS NOT the solution! I don't think that he is the only user that do such things, and I don't think that he did such thing only in this problem => so it is the global problem! it is not the problem of only two users in one article only! it is the problem that continually kills Wikipedia as discouraging editors and it is an awful disincentive from editing Wikipedia. if any your's edit could be reverted just by weak excuse of "not perfect grammar" many editors will not waste time neither for editing Wikipedia nor for arguing with someone who could be called "troll", but anyone who call 'em as "trolls" will be punished (Idot (talk) 17:00, 12 February 2016 (UTC))
Like it or not, WP is at a stage of development in which our readers expect at least passable grammar. It is hard to contribute in a non-native language at a high level. If good grammar is impossible, you will need to make friends with a more experienced English-speaker to help you out. Don't get mad, just accept the situation and work to fix the problem. Carrite (talk) 17:51, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
As my wind energy professor in the 90s said: Bad English is the language of science! If you are not that good in written english, prhaps yiou should start with your editing on the talk page and let some native speakers have a first peek at the changes. Grüße vom Sänger ♫ (talk) 09:38, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Many other cultures seem "poor English": We also have the problem with the thousands of IndoPak articles, and their alternative grammar ("Is this the problem you be having?"), so there needs to be more tolerance for other phrasing of text. I had an entire edit reverted (of several changes) because I forgot the European date format "9-11-2001" means "9 November" while 9-11 in the U.S. means "September 11". We really need to focus more helpers on recent-changes patrol to "revise" not "revert" all awkward changes. I can confirm thousands of reasonable edits are reverted, while much "possible vandalism" remains, and then those hack edits get altered by wp:Bot edits hiding the syntax errors of the vandalism. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:10, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

A matter of trust

The following is my personal opinion. Give it whatever weight you think it deserves based upon my reputation.

As an outsider looking in, I am seeing two incompatible stories, one from James Heilman and another from Jimmy Wales supported by the rest of the board. IMO the stories are too different to be a simple difference in interpretation. So, who do I believe? Well, there are two individuals involved who's public actions and decisions I have been following closely for many years -- Jimmy Wales and Guy Kawasaki. (I simply don't know the rest of the individuals involved very well.) In a nutshell, both of them have earned my trust. I believe, based upon the evidence available to me, that both of them are honest, truthful and are working in the best interests of Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:31, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

The reason for the sacking is more or less irrelevant. The fact is that the majority faction, with two of its members fast approaching the end to their terms, took quick action to remove one of Wikimedia's democratically elected representatives from the board. No new election was held to replace him, but rather the 4th place finisher (a previous member of the board who was defeated seeking reelection) was unilaterally appointed to the board. All this is within the formal rules of the board. None of this is reflective of the principles of democracy, openness, or fairness. Jimmy Wales is probably a swell enough guy although I've never met him or any other principal in these events. But fundamental principles have been violated here. That's the bottom line. Carrite (talk) 18:11, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
completely agree w/ Carrite--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:45, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
User:Guy Macon have posted these details above. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:23, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
I have expressed no opinion as to whether "fundamental principles have been violated here". My comments only address the fact that I am seeing two incompatible stories and don't have the facts needed to tell which is true. I am sure that the details that Doc James posted regarding the Knight Foundation Knowledge Engine Grant are accurate, but the two stories I am seeing differ as to the relevance of the Knight Foundation Knowledge Engine Grant to Doc James being removed from the board. Given the lack of hard evidence, all I can do is decide who I trust. Others will have to make that decision for themselves. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:41, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
What, specifically, do you see as incompatible stories? I'm not seeing anything that's blatantly incompatible regarding facts. Sure, they have differing opinions. Doc's story is that he does not know why he was voted off the board, and the board has not specifically told him why he was voted off the board. Jimbo's compatible story, I believe, agrees with this in that the board has not stated, publicly or privately, any reason beyond some vague "lack of trust". Doc has speculated that the reason for lack of trust may have something to do with the Knowledge Engine, and Jimbo has basically said that that's a bad guess on Doc's part. Doc is not a mind reader; he can't know what Jimbo and the board are thinking. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:35, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: I should say "in part" to do with "Discovery", the other part(s) of the reason(s) may be about something unrelated, and Doc and the board might even more or less agree about the "other reason(s)", which (my guess) may have something to do with unhappy staff in San Francisco. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:39, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
For what it's worth, nobody has ever called me a "fucking liar" or publicly disputed the theory that Dr. J became embroiled in internal politics in San Francisco. Still just a theory, but I think one that is supported by the circumstantial evidence. Carrite (talk) 21:34, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Trust doesn't really work with the blind men and the elephant. You need to listen to the details from all parties, reasonably assuming that no one is out and out lying, to have any chance of glimpsing the truth. Wnt (talk) 22:20, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

How does one address the following two statements:

Jimbo Wales was sent a version of these documents in October. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:36, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Well that gets down to the most interesting question of all, which is what the hell is the Knowledge Engine really and what does it actually do? When we're at this level of vagueness it is entirely possible that it both is and is not a search engine; indeed, to be worth funding for $2.5 million it really ought to meet both criteria. Rightly or wrongly, WMF has committed itself to the Knight Foundation grant, it will pay this money, and it has expressed a desire for community involvement. So the community might as well get involved and try to figure out how to make this work before the professionals make a complete hash out of it. :) Really, your status is in no way diminished by your dismissal - before, you only had the power to rubber-stamp votes or be swept out whenever inconvenient; now, you seem better able to get the documents and discussions you wanted than you were then. So please, Doc James or WMF, somebody point us to or start a Wiki page(s) where we can look over the nitty-gritty of this project and put in our two cents on it. Wnt (talk) 22:55, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Yah thanks User:Wnt. By the way the ticket price is in the 10s of millions supposedly. The 2.5M you refer to is just the first of the four phases. Each of the next three phases are more expensive I beleive. Also by the way we are about 12 months into phase one currently. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:31, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
The nitty-gritty page for discussing this is perhaps mw:Talk:Wikimedia Discovery. Best I can tell this "phase one" is the "research" phase and no real development has started yet. They are just running some A/B tests and various experiments. So this is a "search engine", but it is a big f-ing lie to call it a Google-like search engine. It is intended to fill a need that none of the current commercial search engines fill. And we need to keep a lid on the details of the "big vision of the tardis" because if Google knew what we were trying to do, then they might do it quicker and better than we can, and we don't want that. We had to fire Doc because we did not trust him to keep a lid on the details if he found out, and he was getting too chummy with the developers so we didn't trust that beans wouldn't get spilled where Doc could see them. My take, based on what I've seen so far. Basically we're being asked to trust that this project is worth doing and achievable, without being able to know specific proprietary details that, if leaked would risk Google or Yahoo competing with us, though we aren't competing with them. Meanwhile I'm frustrated that few projects from the community wishlist will see development resources any time soon, even the relatively small, easy, incremental enhancements. I suppose I'm heartened to see my personal favorite "easy project" has been pegged as a good candidate for volunteer developers to work on at the Jerusalem Hackathon. So I'm left hoping that a volunteer takes it on. It's something that's been in phabricator for years. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:12, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
"Re: "We had to fire Doc because we did not trust him to keep a lid on the details if he found out, and he was getting too chummy with the developers so we didn't trust that beans wouldn't get spilled where Doc could see them. My take, based on what I've seen so far", perhaps I missed something, but I have seen zero evidence of Jimbo or anyone on the WMF side of things agreeing that removing Doc James had anything to do with the Knight grant. Everyone seems to be taking his word for it.
That being said, there is a discrepancy between what Jimbo is saying[5] and what the WMF agreed to[6] -- a discrepancy that may or may not have anything to do with Doc James being removed from the board. Regarding the discrepancy, I trust Jimbo not to say things that he knows to be untrue or things that he doesn't know are true or not. Although he has not actually commented on any of this publicly, if he ever does I trust Guy Kawasaki to do the same. On the other hand, I have personally seen the WMF say things in official documents when they have no idea whether they are true. See User talk:Jimbo Wales#Lesson from the past for details. When you see any document from the WMF describing anything having to do with software that they have not released yet, you can safely assume that the document was written my marketing with zero input from the actual software developers. In this case, the actual wording of the document[7] was written by some lawyers at the Knight Foundation, which gives me even less reason to believe that it is a technically accurate description of some software that hasn't been written yet. (I have other issues with the Knight grant, but that would be a further digression from the matter of trust I am addressing bat the moment.)
In the case of Jimbo telling me one story and Doc James telling me another, I have good reason to trust Jimbo, and no particular reason to trust or distrust Doc James. In the case of Jimbo telling me one story the WMF telling me another, I have good reason to trust Jimbo and good reason (see above) to actively distrust the WMF. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:36, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
@Wbm1058: This is the most convincing explanation I've heard so far, one which allows for both sides to be both reasonable and truthful in what they've said. In general, the one justifiable rationale for secrecy is living in an oppressive society - and a society with patents is an oppressive society. I imagine though if this has been going on for twelve months, and if it really is something either threatening or valuable to the company, that Google has probably already been plastering the wall with paper - it seems like nowadays there is no idea too obvious to patent, and having volunteer editors do this and that are ideas. Maybe you even have some counter-patent to file. But I feel like the secrecy is like a toddler trying to sneak around the living room when his parents are standing on the other side of the kitchen counter. Google is in a better position than anybody to have an AI go over every bug, every software library you looked up, cross-correlate it with lists of sites you visited, until they get a good picture of where you're headed. How are you people going to avoid getting hit for a multi-year period? My gut feeling is still that you should have just written up an RFC, hacked together a prototype, got something in public before they could make it all formally illegal for anyone else to do. But-- I'm not the expert here, and indeed, some trust may be unavoidable. Wnt (talk) 11:39, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

December editing numbers soften

I've just noticed that the editing numbers are up for December 2015 in THE USUAL PLACE. While Dec. 2015 continues the trend of marked improvement over previous-year statistics (with the 3,269 Very Active Editors showing at En-WP topping the figures for Dec. 2014, Dec. 2013, and Dec. 2012), the number showing is actually somewhat soft — with the total in the 31 day month of December failing to top the total for the 30 day month of November. The number is something like 154 people short of what would ordinarily be expected. Over all projects, this softness is even more pronounced, showing a 7% decline over the short month of November and (barely) failing to hit the December 2014 total. German WP was down by about 80 people over the previous year and French was down by more than 100. This marks the first time in 12 months that the count of Very Active Editors for all projects combined has failed to advance over same-month figures for the previous year.

It is unclear what caused the hiccup in December editor count. Over all projects the hiccup shows a Very Active Editor decline of something like 10% from the expected number — there was something significant that happened. Carrite (talk) 16:47, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

I think we need to double the number of recruiters we have out in the field. The globe is a large area to cover though. Liz Read! Talk! 20:34, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I think epidemic Own, (usually by 2,3,or 4 embedded editors), is a huge and widespread problem and turn-off, especially when reinforced by attached administrators. Its not by intent, which makes it even more of a problem, I think. I'd like to see some sort of objective audit of our most read articles, especially BLPs, to see what evidence of "Own" exists. I could be wrong. Nocturnalnow (talk) 01:18, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Is there anything to indicate that would be different in December last year as opposed to November? However serious or otherwise our wp:Own problems are I'm not aware of anything that would have changed the situation in recent years. ϢereSpielChequers 06:35, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm trying to rack my brain what big event happened in December that would have turned off a really huge percentage of core editors. On En-WP we had a vibrant ArbCom election with heavy participation. I don't think there was a software rollout that would have put off a big section of the old timers and don't remember any big controversies with WMF. The Heilman sacking didn't come to Dec. 28 — which would have been too late in the month to impact morale and editing output in a measurable way. The simultaneous drops on De-WP and Fr-WP are huge, perhaps that has to do with some software change there. It's a bit of a mystery. Carrite (talk) 04:44, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
It is a "December Dive" that we haven't really seen in previous years. The January numbers should be very interesting when they are released. Carrite (talk) 14:46, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
  • I've been collecting stats for the last few months since my signpost article to test out a couple of theories of mine. December was not as good a year on year growth as the previous few months, so it could be that whatever gave us the 2015 rally is petering out. One of the many theories for the 2015 editing rally was that it started in December 2014 with some work to speed up saving of edits, so December 2015 would be the first month where we are comparing post speed up with at least partial post speedup. Another thing is that November was a five Sunday month and that may have helped make it an unusually strong month. Now it used to be that peak editing was in the week, I think Weds. But my suspicion is that the rise of workplace filtering software and monitoring of internet use has reduced worktime volunteer editing, though obviously not worktime spam editing. If I'm right, and very active editors, those who save over 100 mainspace edits a month, are more active at weekends, then a bit of the November spike will simply be that November 2015 had four Saturdays and five Sundays whilst December had only four weekends. January 2016 is again a five Sunday month so maybe it will help show the pattern. Though if the WMF er misfortunes have demotivated or distracted core editors we might see Jan looking less healthy than the double digit year on year growth of July to November 2015. ϢereSpielChequers 15:51, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Interesting theory. Carrite (talk) 23:22, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Having looked a bit further back I'm not so sure about the weekend effect, I think that needs to be looked at over a longer timeline. Two other things: I seem to remember one of the vandalfighting bots having some downtime in recent months, obviously if that got a few of the old hands to fire up Huggle for a session we'd expect an activity spike. But the big difference is in the number of new accounts, Dec 2015 seems to have been the lowest figure since November 2005 - a decade earlier. New accounts generate edits from regulars, even if only to fix typos and revert stuff. The slow down in growth of very active editors could be a consequence of the low number of new accounts. Not sure what could be driving the lack of new accounts, possibly some new IP range blocks, or maybe the new reader view of Wikipedia in Firefox? If so we should be seeing a big drop in account creation by Firefox users. ϢereSpielChequers 06:35, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
This theory is way out there. But I read an article awhile back that suggested social media, not talking about Wikipedia, obviously, is having a literally dumbing down effect. The article referenced a study that measured brain activity after kids went to a "no gadgets allowed" camp for a week compared to before they went. Brain activity, the thinking and creative part, increased when the kids were away from the gadgets for a week. Perhaps the world's population is going through a "dumbing down" because of social media and that is decreasing the interest in engaging in Wikipedia editing which is a thinking and pro active as opposed to a passive, reactive activity?? Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:12, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Hey, if social media is not only distracting but also not listing WP pages as much in search-results, then that would strangle WP usage, and hence reduce new editors. So check if pageviews are likewise 7%-20% lower than prior Decembers, as for example Google Search had been source for 50% of incoming WP pageviews. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:39, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I've heard that described as "Screenagers with damaged attention spans." a more AGF way of terming it is that the rise of the smartphone and to an extent tablets is turning wikipedia from an interactive site to more of a read only one. But I'm not aware of any short term change in that process that would explain the oddities about the December 2015 figures - a change in the way Facebook treats search would do it, but has anyone seen that recently? That said we have a longer term trend, whether the underlying level of editing is now above or below the raw editing peak of 2007, the ratio of editors to readers has become uncoupled, and our editor base is rapidly greying. ϢereSpielChequers 14:56, 13 February 2016 (UTC)


Other WPs low Dec 2015 but U.S. elections raise edits

The edit-counts for many languages in December 2015 are 7-14% down, as much lower than November, as also among 5-99 edit-counts (see: stats-table >5 edits). However, beware the strong December edits for enwiki might be high due to the primary season of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election (as seems the case every 4 years) for the Iowa caucus or New Hampshire primary, while the underlying edit-count might also be weak as most of the other-language wikipedias. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:59, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Even the En-WP number is soft, given the fact that it is a 31-day month up against a 30-day month. The numbers you cite for 5-or-more-edits show Dec. 2015 was the weakest month for the entire year and represent a number that didn't even get to the 2014 total (whereas of late we have been trending way up and blowing away same-month totals running several years back). On top of that there are a couple Wikis showing really big hits and there is probably a reason for that out there. We'll see if January straightens out. I personally suspect Visual Editor is a factor. I wonder how hard it would be to do A/B testing of the two editing systems on De-WP or one of the other non-English WPs showing a big hiccup. Something is up. Carrite (talk) 23:04, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
VisualEditor usage rare: On enwiki the VE edits are ~4% while the German dewiki shows VE only ~0.6% (for tag "Markierung" as "Visuelle Bearbeitung"), as German VE usage is 7x less. Hence, VE is just not a significant factor anywhere. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:41, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes we can rule out V/E as the explanation or even a significant part of the explanation for the 2015 editing rally, that has to involve the classic editor. But I wouldn't rule it or some other technical tweak out as an explanation for December's unusual stats and especially the drop in new accounts. ϢereSpielChequers 10:21, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Wow, VE is the default on De-WP and the usage rate is that low? That should tell somebody something — but I'll bet they are perceiving the problem as one of marketing rather than drawing the obvious conclusion... Carrite (talk) 12:56, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure DE had defaulted to V/E in December, it certainly isn't now. I've just checked and if you log out on DE you get the classic editor, if you look at preferences "6,237 users are trying this feature". I could sort of understand if they are defaulting new accounts to V/E and leaving IPs with the classic editor, but from what I see of DE wiki today that isn't happening ϢereSpielChequers 15:21, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Edit-conflicts still need 2-line separation

This is just FYI about same edit-conflict problems as years ago. I have just confirmed how wp:edit-conflicts will still occur if 2 editors modify consecutive lines (and the second editor SAVEs before the first editor) in the MediaWiki software. This means it is still good practice to insert blank lines between some talk-page responses (when busy replies are expected), to allow editors to insert replies either above/below an intervening separator line, as a 50%-50% chance to allow concurrent, interleaved edits without triggering an edit-conflict. This is the same rationale for teaching groups of students to put blank lines between the sentences in a group-developed page, so that editors can change separate sentences without edit-conflict; otherwise, 2 consecutive sentences/lines cannot be changed by interleaved edits (1st editor rejected if 2nd editor SAVEs before 1st) but rather requires a blank separator line between those sentences to allow group-editing in any sequence order. To make matters worse, any end-of-page newline or blank line of spaces will still be auto-removed when the edit is SAVEd. So to recap:

  • WP MediaWiki software still requires 2-line separation between interleaved edits.
  • WP MediaWiki software still removes a bottom blank line, to encourage edit-conflict with next topic added.

If a bottom blank line were retained, then editors could choose to insert replies either above/below that blank line and 2 edits could be interleaved (2nd SAVEs before 1st) if they choose separate "above" or "below" replies. I am still not convinced that WP should demand the 2-line separation, and I think students should each be allowed to edit consecutive lines without triggering an edit-conflict. Hence, the developers should still change the WP software line-separation from count=1 to "=0", if that would not cause problems in some rare cases. Plus, remember some people thought edit-conflicts were a "good thing" because it let them know other editors were active on the page, as if the software could not warn them during edit-preview of recent SAVEs to the same page. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:12, revised 19:28/19:40, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

This is an issue worth trumpeting. Edit conflicts are one of the biggest problems on this site, not for us regulars who by definition are the people who have learned to handle them, but to the many bitten newbies who have an edit conflict and leave. There are several proposals on phabricator for reducing edit conflicts, some were on Bugzilla for years. Unfortunately I suspect too many developers see this as a good way to keep out non-programmers. It saddens me that less important projects like Flow, AFT and mediaviewer had resources that could have been more usefully used to reduce edit conflicts. ϢereSpielChequers 20:03, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Do we know how edit conflicts are handled from a mobile device? I've had edit conflicts on my iPhone (I think while using the Wikipedia app, but I'm not sure anymore), and they meant I basically had to make the whole damn edit all over again. Talk about discouraging. Drmies (talk) 03:03, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I have huge respect for those few editors who are able to edit from a smartphone, my own thumbs are too large. I'm assuming that you get edit conflicts in the same way but without some of the workarounds that traditionalists can use. But you raise a very good point, in the age of the smartphone resolving more edit conflicts is more important than ever. ϢereSpielChequers 09:39, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Some users write with a stylus on their phone-screens because their "thumbs are too large" to avoid numerous typos on the tiny phone keypads. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:02, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Edit-conflict in mobile phone Desktop-view: For simplicity, I have been editing sometimes using the mobile phone "Desktop-view [x]" which shows the typical edit-conflict differences screen, but I was changing about 20 cite templates, and knew the other editor was adding sections plus also revising earlier text, so I re-edited a 2nd time then got 2nd "Edit conflict" (of course), but re-edited less on 3rd try which SAVEd ok. So that's when I realized an edit-conflict resolution could save the non-conflicted lines then could say, "Saved but changes to lines 39-40 not saved due to edit-conflict -- see diff". Remember in general, to Show-changes just before Save-page to look for unexpected differences and perhaps copy-paste to the phone cliptray for re-edit. -Wikid77 (talk) 04:29, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
This is the first time I've seen this: <!--reply above/below this line--> while editing and figure it has something to do with this thread. However, it doesn't make any sense to me - do I edit above that line or below it, or maybe both? Maybe flip a coin? Just confused. Smallbones(smalltalk) 04:55, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
At a guess this could be down to section editing. If two editors are editing in different sections then the software can cope without an edit conflict - hence the importance of encouraging newbies to edit by section. If you would have had an edit conflict but you then ditch the changes you were going to make in the section that someone else had changed then that should save part of your edit and prevent the edit conflict. I can see how to do that from preview, not sure how to do it from the edit conflict screen. My preferred solution is to leave the tab open where you have the edit conflict, open the same article in another tab and fire up the copy paste buttons. I could probably do that on a tablet, but not sure if possible on a smartish phone (maybe this varies by smartphone?). Of course the problem with both techniques is that they are not intuitive to newbies, unfortunately the WMF doesn't publish stats on edit conflicts let alone edit conflicts that lose newbies. If they did collect such stats it would be a complete shock to some people, and if I'm right it would make resolving more edit conflicts the number two IT priority after keeping the servers running. ϢereSpielChequers 09:39, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
My own view is that this is merely a symptom of the bigger issue: building a threaded discussion system that retains the essential "wikiness" that is our strengths does not strike me as particularly hard. The notion that 15 years later, you still have to type '::::' and similar to respond in an indented fashion, is ridiculous. Similarly, virtually all edit conflicts go away once we abandon the notion that a talk page should be a plain wikitext page underneath.
What do we need? For the maintenance of civility and helpfulness, we need a discussion system which keeps track of individual comments (like any message board software) but allows people to delete other people's comments, to edit other people's comments, all with at least the same level of responsibility tracking. As a bonus, support for 'hiding' threads (as we often do with the 'hat' and 'hab' templates) rather than 'deleting' them - because sometimes that's the desirable thing to do. A lesser bonus feature that we have now, which I could do without but which others may prefer be kept, is customized signatures. But why should I, as a person joining a discussion, need to see (as the closest handy example) that WereSpielChequers signs using color #CC5500? It would be fine (but not that important) to keep even that level of functionality, but what is the point of having to edit everything raw?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:28, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
See below: "#Plain talk-page needed to show markup, templates, tables". -Wikid77 (talk) 06:58, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Re: "My own view is that this is merely a symptom of the bigger issue: building a threaded discussion system that retains the essential "wikiness" that is our strengths does not strike me as particularly hard. The notion that 15 years later, you still have to type '::::' and similar to respond in an indented fashion, is ridiculous. Similarly, virtually all edit conflicts go away once we abandon the notion that a talk page should be a plain wikitext page underneath". With a lengthy background in software development, I agree entirely with that. I know some of us like to edit raw markup (I do - but then I still like the Unix vi editor), but software that obliges non-technical users to use any form of markup just to make a comment (in 2016!) is, to be honest, incompetent software. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:27, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Edit conflicts don't only take place on talkpages. I'll concede that some do, but busy active talkpages are not the best places for finding newbies. I would bet that many editors get edit conflicts on talkpages after they have learned to resolve them in Mainspace. My worry is more for the newbies who haven't yet learned to resolve edit conflicts, and in mainspace this isn't a wiki markup issue, if anything editors using the visual editor are more vulnerable to edit conflicts than those of us who use the classic editor. Last time I looked V/E was slower than the classic editor and didn't support section editing, the first of those means that V/E editors are likely to be the losers in edit conflicts and the second means they will get more edit conflicts. ϢereSpielChequers 19:39, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
See below: "#VisualEditor overrode edit-conflict years ago". -Wikid77 (talk) 06:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
On article pages it's harder to resolve, because comments on talk pages are discrete entities where article pages edits are not. But even with that, I've had massively more edit conflicts on talk pages than on articles pages - because the way talk pages work tends to attract multiple people to the same section at the same time, which tends to happen a lot less frequently on article pages. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:51, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, but typing a bunch of colons is the least of my problems, and I doubt that it's that that drives editors away. Also, this wasn't--as far as I know--a discussion about what happens on talk pages; we're an encyclopedia, and it's editing article space that should be facilitated first. Let me reiterate: having an edit conflict on a smartphone (but again, this may depend on the application), in my experience, means the entire damn edit is lost. You can't copy and paste from the "your text" screen into the other screen; on my iPhone, I don't even know how to copy and paste from a screen within a screen to begin with. More than once I've just abandoned an entire edit. User:WereSpielChequers, the champion of mobile editing is Cullen328. Drmies (talk) 02:13, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Drmies, when I encounter an edit conflict, I just use the back arrow on my Android HTC One smartphone, which returns me to the edit screen before the conflict. I copy my comment or other content, return to the talk page (or article), open the edit window, paste in my content, and quickly save. That almost always works for me. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:32, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
"and I doubt that it's that that drives editors away." It's never just one thing that drives people away, it's the compounding of several issues that at some moment make someone give up. It's not one piece of trash in the street that makes you decide to move, but if people turn your neighborhood in a trash pile they will certainly move if they can afford to. And way before that, new people will no longer want to move INTO the neighborhood. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:38, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Once someone has adopted editing here as a significant hobby or part of a hobby then I'd agree that it takes multiple minor irritants before a single straw is enough to drive them away (occasionally people get hit by whole haystacks but that is a different sort of departure). Edit conflicts can be the despair of some well established editors, one of the most useful lessons I ever gave at an editathon was to show a fairly experienced editor how to deal with an edit conflict. But for newbies things are different, and a single bad experience in someone's first few edits may well drive them away. It should be easy for the WMF to research this - unfortunately there are no public logs to test the theory that this is one of our biggest barriers to newbies. ϢereSpielChequers 10:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Re: "you still have to type '::::' and similar to respond in an indented fashion", why do we need a completely new and different talk environment to solve that little problem? Right below where I'm typing now I see:

Sign your posts on talk pages: ~~~~

which automatically inserts four tildes with one click. Why can't there be a Reply button beside that, which with one click inserts the appropriate number of colons needed to start an indented reply to the previous text above the current cursor position? Wbm1058 (talk) 20:44, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

In many situations that's actually the wrong behavior. I occasionally encounter editors with a shocking amount of experience (ten years or more) who still don't get WP:THREAD and think that every new comment on a talk page should be indented one level more than the last, regardless of to whom it replies. It's particularly problematic when they 'fix' my already-properly indented comments. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:03, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Absolutely. It's not the technical way of choosing the required level of indent that's the problem, it's having to think about that the requirement exists at all. Talk pages should have a "reply to" option for each existent comment that just does the reply correctly, without the user having to consider any technical details, and without edit conflicts - and nobody should ever have to even see a colon. Bulletin board software has been around for how long? It does not present edit conflicts simply because it is not trying to squeeze conversational interaction into the wrong model of a plain text file. Surely Wikimedia software devs can manage something that BBS managed more than a decade ago?! Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 23:53, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I believe that BBS's have been around for more than 20 years. Nyth63 02:50, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

VisualEditor overrode edit-conflict years ago

I hope VE still forces that edit-save to overwrite the other user's edit (even though I dislike elitist tools), because imagine the pain if a person used VE one hour to put tedious keystrokes and then saw "Edit Conflict" to redo all those keystrokes during an additional hour. The only kind choice was to force VE to wipe-out the other user's entire (but faster) edit. Does VE still overwrite the other user? -Wikid77 (talk) 06:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

It would make sense if the system could do something clever, such as preferring a newbie edit over an edit marked as minor when the two were in conflict. It would need to say so in a tag on the edit summary, but I could live with that, and an awful lot of my edits are marked as minor. But we can't simply prefer newbie edits over those of regular editors as to do that would sometimes lose a lot of good work in order to prefer some vandalism. There's also the issue of synchronicity, it is one thing to get an edit conflict when you save and have an opportunity to resolve it, quite another to log on and discover your last edit was reverted half an hour later because it conflicted with some all caps spam from a newbie. ϢereSpielChequers 10:04, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't understand the envisioned scenario. In case of an edit conflict, why should VE lose anything that I've typed? I can see a number of easy solutions, none of which would involve losing someone's work!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:54, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Google Docs allows multiple people to edit the same document at the same time. You see each other's cursors and what the others are typing. Jehochman Talk 13:56, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Indeed but my personal dreams are much more modest than that. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:10, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
The Google Docs system described above does without partition tolerance (See Brewer’s Conjecture section below), which they can get away with because the document is in a single place in the cloud, and because Google's design assumes that both editors have a high speed low latency connection to the cloud. Wikipedia, on the other hand, needs to work through a satellite phone or from a third-world village sharing a dial-up connection. Wikipedia cannot do without partition tolerance. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
EC @Jimbo. If one person wants to change the sentence "the Earth is spherical" to "the Earth is an oblate spheroid" at the same time as someone else wants to change it to "the Earth is flat" you are going to get an edit conflict. Currently we get loads of other edit conflicts that could be resolved, including a newbie adding their second sentence and someone else tagging the article as unsourced and someone else adding a category. Most Edit conflicts could be resolved by various suggestions made on Bugzilla and phabricator over the last ten years or so. @Jehochman But the possibility of edit conflicts is always going to be there if we have a batch editing system, Google docs works by every key depression going live. Our system enables our edit filters to intercept a lot of vandalism and prevent it going live, it also means that people don't publish their submission until they have had a chance to preview it, and for readers the article looks like it isn't currently being rewritten. Changing to a Google docs style way of working would be a big and interesting change that has more repercussions than just changing the concept of edit conflicts. ϢereSpielChequers 12:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
@Jehochman: Wikipedia might match the technical ability of Google Docs, but I fear that purely social factors would frighten the developers ... or press them to make intolerable compromises. Basically, consider if Shaheed in Iowa edits a page at the same time as Mujahid in Very Southern Turkey. The two type various proposed changes to the list of terrorist incidents in 2016, then delete them because WP:CRYSTAL... Wikipedia would face great pressure to record the editing as it happens, rather than only the saved edits. If people resisted, I'd hazard a guess we would have legions and legions of trolls materialize to make harassing live revisions at editors and mess with the sections they're typing until someone gave in. And once the editing is recorded, well... that honeypot is sweetened by the possibility of trying to use the typist's "hand", the rate at which he types various keys, to try to track and identify him over the internet. Occasionally someone would hit function-C instead of control-C on a link, then accidentally paste in a romantic letter he would much have preferred to keep private, and that would go in a Wikipedia database. Etcetera. Now if people could stand firm, say hell with it, it's not the duty of every single site on the internet to be part of the spy establishment, there used to be thousands of unbugged rooms and unmonitored connections in the world, and if that means some terrorist gets away with something once or twice, well, the tree of liberty needed watering - well, that would change the world, or rather, interfere with those who have been changing it for the worse. But I don't see many people doing that, so perhaps it is for the best really if the progress of technology grinds now to its final halt. Wnt (talk) 19:26, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Brewer’s Conjecture

I am going to try to explain why "No edit conflicts" is theoretically impossible.

The CAP Theorem, otherwise known as Brewer’s Conjecture, was formally proven to be true in 2002[8]

Wikipedia is a distributed system. If you try to edit a Wikipedia page while I try to edit the same page, our two computers are a distributed system. If there was one computer somewhere watching what keys we each hit and constantly updating our screens, that would be a different story.

We know that, in any distributed system. you cannot provide Consistency, Availability. and Partition tolerance. You have to pick two and lose one.

Right now we do without availability -- the property that a request to edit the data will always complete. When I click the Save Page button after writing this, the write may fail and give me an edit conflict message.

We cannot do without partition tolerance. You and I are not using the same computer, nor are our computers in constant communication. Wikipedia needs to work through a satellite phone or from a third-world village sharing a dial-up connection. Wikipedia cannot do without partition tolerance.

We could provide guaranteed availability by dropping consistency. If you and I both edited a page at the same time Wikipedia could accept our edits and show each of us a different version. Not a workable idea, but it is at least theoretically possible.

What we cannot do, no matter how hard we try or how clever we are, is to provide Consistency, Availability. and Partition tolerance at the same time. Consider you and I reading the same Wikipedia page. If we each edit the page, our two versions become inconsistent, thus forfeiting consistency. If we could communicate we could get back consistency, but by doing that we just forfeited partition tolerance. Or Wikipedia could stop one of us from editing and instead give us an edit conflict message, thus losing availability.

See http://ksat.me/a-plain-english-introduction-to-cap-theorem/

--Guy Macon (talk) 18:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Why isn't there an article about it in Wikipedia? I know the answer. Someone needs to write one. Obviously if it is known as Brewer's Conjecture, it was conjectured before 2002 by Brewer. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
In this way it was correctly known before 2002, unlike the proposition known as Fermat's Last Theorem, which is really Fermat's Last Conjecture or Wiles's Great Theorem. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
We can't have Zero Edit Conflicts. We could tweak the details of how we handle edit conflicts. The current process encourages editors to push edits through, which appears to provide availability but can actually result in loss of the conflicting edit. I personally have found that it is easier to copy my intended edit to Word and back out of the page being edited and try again, but the software asks me if I really want to leave the page that I am editing, when I haven't even succeeded in editing it. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:16, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
While we cannot have what the WMF once promised ("No edit conflicts, ever") we can do far, far better than we are doing with our presents system, which from the standpoint of software engineering, is extremely crude and hacked together. Alas, there is no way for those of us in the Wikipedia community who know how to solve these sort of problems to help the WMF. We just get stonewalled.
We do have a (poor quality) article on this at CAP theorem. The CAP theorem was first presented the year 2000 by Eric Brewer as the keynote at the Proceedings of the Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing. In 2002, Gilbert and Lynch presented a proof, and in the 14 years since nobody has figured out a way to get C, A, and P at the same time in a distributed system, so even if the proof is flawed from a practical standpoint it is impossible.
For those who are new to this concept and want to learn more, I recommend:
--Guy Macon (talk) 00:15, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
As stated above, I agree with User:Guy Macon that, first, No Edit Conflicts Ever is a utopian dream (and "utopia" means "no place"), but, second, our present way of handling them is much worse than is necessary. Perhaps the developers fail to improve the existing handling of edit conflicts because they are trying to figure out how to get No Edits Conflicts Ever, looking for utopia, rather than looking for a practical solution. The present interface encourages editors to push edit conflicts through, which can blow away the conflicting edit, and discourages editors from the practical step of backing out and re-applying the edit. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:32, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
That was one of the drawbacks of Flow, it was used to justify freezing attempts to improve the talkpage system, such as by recognising "#" and "*" as section breaks in terms of handling edit conflicts. There is always an opportunity cost to white elephants and abortive misinvestments. WMF software investments have been a case example in why evolution outperforms revolution in software development. ϢereSpielChequers 21:02, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Ah, flow... I tried so hard to convince them that they were on the wrong path, and as usual was stonewalled. I suspect that the reason why the technical details of Knowledge Engine are being kept a secret is so that people like me can't do what I did with Flow and Brewer’s Conjecture. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:46, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Lesson from the past

To see an example of how the WMF handled a similar problem, see Wikipedia talk:Flow/Archive 4#No edit conflicts? and Wikipedia talk:Flow/Archive 4#Brewer’s Conjecture. Key quote:

"[The WMF] wrote -- in the main document that presents Flow to Wikipedia -- that they think the final product will accomplish something that is not theoretically possible. Not just hard. Impossible. Perpetual motion impossible. Turning lead into gold impossible. Traveling faster than C (speed of light in a vacuum) impossible."
"Alas, this has an unfortunate implication. Anyone describing what they hope Flow will do must have at least some vague idea of how it will work. If I asked them to explain auto-signing, they would be able to give me a broad outline of how they plan on accomplishing this. Something like "user clicks on save button. Flow looks up the users signature. Flow appends the signature to the post. Flow appends the current time and date to the signature. Flow saves the comment." If you can't do that, you have no business editing the main document that presents Flow to Wikipedia."
"Nobody at the WMF (or anywhere else for that manner) can describe the steps that they hoped will get us "No edit conflicts ever" because no such sequence of steps exists or can exist. So unless you think that someone at WMF is a liar (which they are not) or stupid (which they are not), the only reasonable conclusion is that, in their zeal to market Flow to us, they wrote "Current plans indicate that there will be no edit conflicts, ever", which is impossible, without having any idea how to do that. And asked about this, they claimed that they do know how to do this impossible thing. That is a COMMUNICATIONS problem. And when I asked WMF to please address the communication problem, I was accused of claiming that they are here to "destroy everything you love" and "here to build something in a vacuum for the sake of riches and power". Then they accused me of violating WP:AGF!"

It has been well over two years, and as far as I can tell nothing has been done to address the communication problem I described on that page. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:45, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Yes but a discussion system is different from an article system. You can have a discussion system with "no edit conflicts ever" because you do not have two agents trying to lock the same item non-atomically.
Sure attempts to be the first to reply to X can fail, but there is no reason you cannot commit a second reply - even while the first is in mid-process.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:18, 13 February 2016 (UTC).
Under the Flow proposal, administrators can edit other people's posts, and there exists more than one administrator, so the following scenario is possible:
User1 posts the following message under Flow:
Correcting an obvious error in a URL is allowed on Wikipedia, so two administrators, AdminA and AdminB, both notice the error in the above and each opens up an edit window so as to fix it. They come up with this:
AdminA version:
AdminB version:
They both save and then the promised but undefined no edit conflicts ever magic happens.
Which version gets posted? Last one saved? Or does Flow have a checkout / lock system so that one of the admins can't open an edit window? If so, can the first admin prevent editing for 24 hours by not checking in / unlocking? One thing that we know is not possible is "No edit conflicts, ever". --Guy Macon (talk) 22:43, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Plain talk-page needed to show markup, templates, tables

Again, many users want these plain-text talkpages to show the use of markup wikitext, parameters in wp:templates, and styles in wp:wikitables. Long-term, it is much easier to teach newcomers the plain-text talkpage format (with ":::" indent) and then someday discuss how "#::" indents underneath an auto-numbered line without resetting the line-counter back to 1. It might seem easier to have a special talk-page system, but after a few weeks, many new users would resent having to then learn the plain-text talkpage to ask about markup questions, template examples, and wikitable columns, etc. That is why wp:edit-conflicts in these talk-pages should be auto-merged as much as possible. -Wikid77 (talk) 06:58, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Ugh. I don't agree. This doesn't even seem remotely plausible to me. We have to keep talk pages sucky, because everything else is sucky too?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:57, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I like the Wiki-code editing paradigm for talk pages. I may be an extinguishing race, for all I care less than 10% of our current editors like it that way, and I have no problem with that. Let's keep oriented to the future.
Another paradigm for webdiscussions is that of forum-like software. I'm sure many editors would be intuitively more accustomed to that, so that may be an advantage. I have some doubts though. Last year we had an invasion of Reddit-people, accustomed to that kind of forum software for discussions. The thing didn't go well. Of course, they came here to Fight For A Cause, they couldn't get adapted to the way Wikipedians discuss article content, and ended up in WP:AE-like dungeons more often than not. Now here's the interesting question: if our discussion flow would have been more forum-paradigm oriented, would that have run differently? And if so: better? Or: worse? Maybe there are some advantages for the current talk page technical arrangements when discussing the improvement of article content? Or not? A scenario where regular editors to Wikipedia content would be run under foot by people more versed in "winning" forum discussions could be imaginable. Would that be a disadvantage (thinking about Geshuri's "next generation of editors, contributors, and users")? Have we retained any of that group of fresh Wikipedia editors (that came for a Cause, but maybe decided to stay longer)? Would that have been different if our discussions were formatted differently? And would that have been better? Or worse? ...
Anyhow I don't think either Wiki-discussion old style, or importing a forum software with minor adjustments (just enough to make it work on the site) would work optimally. So the discussion platform software would need some specifications that are probably unique in its kind, groundbreaking, or whatever.
I don't know: has this ever been written down? Jimbo maybe has a clear picture of what such software should and shouldn't do, how it should be inserted in our present structure with namespaces and their associated "talk"-namespace pages etc. If this has been written down, is there a place where we can find it? Or is it here the place to start summing up characteristics so as to get a more complete picture of what we may be heading towards? Tx for giving some sort of overview if possible! Also don't know to what extent VisualEditor would be an answer to this, or is that unrelated to these prospects? --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:03, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't know - ideas like this have been bounced around for years. To be clear, what I'm talking about could be implemented with a minimum possible fuss.
One of the things that forum software like reddit doesn't allow is for everyone to moderate everyone, with a clear path of accountability. So I agree with you completely - just importing some existing forum software with minor tweaks wouldn't really do what we need it to do. My idea summed up in a sentence is something like this: have the software keep track of individual comments and indention levels, and leave everything else more or less unchanged (including the bit where you can edit other comments using either wikitext or visual editor).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:24, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Here's an idea that could be implemented with a minimum possible fuss, and has the software keep track of individual comments and indention levels. We're all familiar with the "[edit source]" links appended to each section heading, that initiate an edit of that section. Add similar "[reply]" links that are appended to each signature on a talk page. When "[reply]" is clicked, an "edit section" is opened on the section with the comment that it being replied to. In addition, the cursor is positioned on a new line immedately below the line with the "[reply]" that was clicked, and colons are automatically inserted at the start of this new line so as to indent the reply one level inside the line with the "[reply]" that was clicked. – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:06, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
@Wikid77: I tried to write something last year to give a one screen intro on basic talk page editing for newbies. It is at User:Jbhunley/How to edit talk pages. Anyone is welcome to improve it, I wrote it just as I was figuring things out so there is definitly room for improvement. The goal was to create a document that would explain the basics in about one typical browser screen of text / less than two minutes of reading. JbhTalk 16:29, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Reddit is meant as a profit engine and entertainment forum, but its model of upvoting and (especially) downvoting would be deadly poison to Wikipedia. Reddit doesn't care if people promote some posts shilling their products and cover up those they disagree with - but we should. For example, recently a network of paid editors was exposed that had been trying to shake down companies for money to get their articles not to be deleted. Deletion is the one kind of "downvote" we have and it was abused there, but imagine if every statement were at similar risk! Picture you go on Wikipedia to say that your company is being misrepresented, and within a couple of minutes it has the Lone Downvote of Doom that prevents almost anyone from reading it. Wherever you go, more downvotes accrue ... meanwhile, an email comes to you saying that for a fair price, you can get all your comments upvoted by a network of professional Wikipedia assistants! Wnt (talk) 20:17, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

It seems every other talk-forum software has some benefits but also terrible risks, including non-portable to the other MediaWiki-based wikis. I think we could focus on a few enhancements, such as some simple edit-conflicts being auto-merged, while still compatible with the separate wiki projects out there. For instance, I can edit the wikitext here and quickly count over "90" comments posted to this talk-page right now. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:11, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Better diffs are key to avoiding edit conflicts

I've used tools like ClustalW and BLAST, which solve issues similar to edit conflict on a much vaster scale, accurately aligning the conserved regions between multiple genes or even thousands of genomes almost instantly. So I feel there is no excuse at all for 90+% of most edit conflicts, where the server should be able to take the two submitted versions, compare them, and establish regions of conserved homology where it can do homologous recombination between the submitted and current texts. If you add a word to the beginning of a sentence and I add a word to the end of the sentence, there's no reason why the software can't combine the two for an accepted edit.

Then the software can have a safety feature, reporting back the unified changes and have you sign off on them, at least when they are close to one another. For each section there can be three to four radio buttons: computer-combined text, their text, my text, and a customize button that opens a subpage with an upper and lower text area only for that non homologous segment. The computer-combined text should be the default, except when it can't do the recombination because you literally typed a different word at the same spot as the other guy.

Note that there should be no reason why an edit conflict should not automatically be resolved when a paragraph (or other snippet of text) is moved and extensive revisions done throughout the section, provided that substantial homology can be found in the text at the beginning and end of the paragraph with your edits confined to a section in the middle of it.

But the key to all this, to ending edit conflict, is that the "diffs" have to be better. Right now you open up a diff and more often than not it has entire paragraphs misaligned, even though their order has not been swapped in the original. Making that display better is a good thing in itself, and it is the first vital step to make progress toward ending edit conflict in general. Wnt (talk) 09:57, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

The above improvement is so blindingly obvious that one has to wonder why it wasn't done years ago. There is absolutely no reason why I can't fix a typo in the first word of a sentence at the same time Wnt fixes a fix a typo in the tenth word of the same sentence with whoever saves last being given a one-click option to accept both changes. Another blindingly obvious improvement would be to allow me to search for "A = B" without getting every instance of "A B" in the results. If needed, I could create a page where I, Wnt, and a few others here who understand software development could make a list of a hundred such obvious improvements. The WMF wouldn't have to do any actual work to make the improvements, either; they have plenty of money and there are some really great software developers they could contract the work to. Alas, I have shown on multiple occasions that it is absolutely impossible for any software improvement I or anyone else suggests to get to the point where the Wikimedia software developers evaluate it and together we have a discussion about whether to implement it. Oh sure, there are a few dozen places where I can post such a suggestion and either get stonewalled or end up in a discussion with someone who has no ability to actually make the change, but a substantive discussion about the merits of the proposed change with someone who might actually say yes and do it? Not gonna happen. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:17, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Incompetence in everything everywhere is epidemic and getting worse by the minute. Flint Michigan is just the beginning, I fear, of terrible results of such incompetence. Its almost gotten to where the only things that are worth trying to get done is what you can do yourself. Consensus driven projects are maybe the last best hope of promoting and encouraging competence. Nocturnalnow (talk) 01:30, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps we need more volunteer-developers to provide the personnel needed to explain, implement, test and deploy the software to auto-merge many wp:edit-conflicts. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:55, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

I am a volunteer-developer who is willing to explain, implement, and test software. I have found it to be impossible to start a discussion about any change I might suggest. I even tried suggesting a small and noncontroversial change (speeding up page load times by using a Unix Newline (LF) instead of a DOS linefeed (CR+LF) in the HTML we serve). As I expected, I was unable to get into a conversation with anyone who had the ability to understand what I was talking about and/or the power to either tell me "no" or to make it happen. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:08, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't claim to be a software developer, but I do think we could generate good ideas. I suspect part of the problem is that when you have people who are well paid (potentially) working alongside volunteers, careerist considerations are going to overshadow the tasks at hand. I'm not sure what the best way is to improve that social dynamic. Wnt (talk) 21:16, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I wonder if skype would help with the communication? Bit of a personal touch? Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:33, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
I must mention that my wife thinks all employees who deal with people outside their workplace could benefit from a "feedback rating". This would encourage competence and appropriate attention being given to inquiries and suggestions from stakeholders who are trying to improve something the employees are tasked with. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:58, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Again weave merge and diff3

I searched to find the June 2013 discussions about considering "weave merge" and improving the merge utility called "diff3" to allow changes to adjacent lines. See talk-page archive: "User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_136#Status of edit-conflict technology". -Wikid77 (talk) 14:55, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

BLP violations across multiple language Wikipedias

An issue has arisen re BLP violations related to the Bad Aibling rail accident article. Victims names have been inserted into the article in violation of BLP. I've nuked all instances that I am aware of on en-Wiki, but have no way of fixing this on other wikis. Are you or the Foundation able to exert any influence in this matter. Issue is being discussed at WP:AN#How to handle a BLP violation?. Mjroots (talk) 22:47, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Update: articles at cs, fr, nl, ru, fi and sv Wikppedias have been oversighted.
Articles at es, pt, uk and vi Wikipedias still to be oversighted.
If any editor is at least at lvl3 in those languages, please find the equivalent of WP:AN in that language and file a request for oversighting.
I have asked one admin at each of those languages who is en-3 or above, and active, for assistance. That admin may not fully understand the situation. Stewards have declined to assist in this matter. Mjroots (talk) 22:53, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
All violtions across all Wikis now nuked. Mjroots (talk) 19:28, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Meanwhile note ~150 on trains, 11 dead, 82 injured

I am not seeing names but rather wrong numbers of people noted for the trains. Based on German WP, "Von den etwa 150 Personen in den Zügen wurden 11 getötet und 82 verletzt; darunter 20 schwer" ["Of about 150 people in the trains, 11 were killed and 82 injured, of those 20 severe"]. So check the numbers in each language. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:27, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 10 February 2016

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 05:28, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Status of Watchlists and Bot edits

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T11790

I have found the Phabricator entry titled "Watchlist doesn't show earlier normal edits when hiding bot edits or minor edits" as phab:T11790. The status shows "Assigned To None" even though "Priority High" and the dates show replies from June 2007. I wonder which Bots are the most-likely to hide the user edits. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:38, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

There is a gadget that will resolve this problem. I rely on others to remember the exact name, location and author. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:29, 16 February 2016 (UTC).

Wikitext editor awesome Preview of references

Finally we have a massive improvement in the wikitext source editor; I noticed today how an edit-preview of a section of an article (or talk-page) now shows auto-section "Preview of references" to proofread those section cites without having to append a test-mode {Reflist} template. This is the type of editor improvement we've been discussing for years now. I can't even count the edits where I accidentally saved a 2nd test-mode {Reflist} and had to re-edit a page again simply because I had wanted to preview cites before SAVE to ensure "only one edit to fix problems", and so the actual result of checking cites in preview had been the horrific duplicate cite list after section edited, as the "inverse consequence" of a careful update to fix all key details. Hence, this new feature, "Preview of references" is such a massive improvement, I can't yet calculate the benefits provided, and the number of cite re-edits avoided. Who do we thank next? -Wikid77 (talk) 13:36, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree, this is a major usability improvement. Now if we can only get watchlists fixed so that bot edits stop hiding meaningful edits, my cup will runneth over! Looie496 (talk) 15:21, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
See below "#Status of Watchlists and Bot edits" to discuss what to follow next. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:38, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
This happened some time ago an it is great! Also if you save without {{Footnotes}} the footnotes still show. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:31, 16 February 2016 (UTC).

Debbie Does Dallas

Jimbo, I know you are a big advocate of freedom of speech and a tireless opponent of censorship. With that in mind, I would like to relate an issue I have encountered here on Wikipedia. "Charade" is a 1963 Stanley Donnen movie starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The movie is now in the public domain and has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The movie is embedded in Charade (1963 film) so that readers may choose to play it right in the Wikipedia article. "Debbie Does Dallas" is a highly successful 1978 pornographic movie that is possibly the best known porn movie of all time. The movie is now in the public domain and has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The movie was embedded in Debbie Does Dallas so that readers could choose to play it right in the Wikipedia article. For reasons I do not understand, an edit war broke out over whether or not to redundantly link to the movie directly on Commons or simply link to the Commons category. This has resulted in the article being locked and some very odd arguments being made on the talk page. My impression is that the reluctance to include the movie relates to the content of the movie, not policy. Do you have any thoughts on this? Right Hand Drive (talk) 17:37, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

It's pretty clear that that particular discussion is not going to settle anything. It was written with a fundamental misunderstanding of how embedding works. The question of embedding this particular movie in this particular article will remain. I'd like to hear Jimbo's opinion on it. Right Hand Drive (talk) 16:12, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
First things first. Editorial decisions are in an entirely different conceptual category from censorship. Censorship always involves force or the threat of force - for example, the threat of a fine or jail time for publishing something. Deciding not to publish something, or to publish in one way rather than another, is not censorship.
Having said that, there are very good editorial reasons why we might choose to handle certain controversial or potentially controversial content with some wise delicacy. Without declaring what I think we should do in this particular case, I can say that it seems quite clear that valid objections are possible and that citing WP:NOTCENSORED is, as is so often the case in content discussions, pretty much irrelevant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:16, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Comment Self-censorship may apply to the assertions above. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:10, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for your thoughts on this. The NOTCENSORED guideline may be poorly named, but I think that it would only be appropriate to invoke its spirit in this situation. Having a copy of the movie in the article about the movie seems quite reasonable to me. The movie does not play unless and until the reader clicks on it. Some people may be offended by the content of the movie, but they should not be surprised at that content, since they are reading an article about a pornographic movie. Right Hand Drive (talk) 00:02, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I think people would quite rightly be surprised that Wikipedia embeds a pornographic movie in an encyclopedia article. I daresay it will be the first time in the history of mankind that such a thing has ever been done. One way to think about this is: what is the upside? And what is the downside? I see virtually no upside other than making it 1 click instead of 2 clicks to watch it. That's not very important. But the downsides I see are many. First, some people may be surprised when a stray click launches a pornographic film on their computers. If you do that with the sound up and then leave your desk at work, the consequences could be unpleasant. I'd prefer that if people are going to get a pornographic film, that they very explicitly take action to make sure that's what they want to do - 2 clicks has merit here. Second, it is very easy to imagine a really stupid press story or campaign against us about this. "Wikipedia embeds porn movies in article content" gives people entirely the wrong impression of what we are about. Why invite that?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:11, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry Jimbo, but no one should be surprised that Wikipedia embeds a pornographic movie in an encyclopedia article. And it won't be the first time it has been done. For one thing, no one seemed bothered when I re-added the movie to Debbie Does Dallas in September. It wasn't removed until people started edit warring over a different issue. That article gets about 1,000 hits a day, so it seems unlikely that no editors noticed the movie was there. More importantly, there is a longstanding precedent here in the article about pornographic movie A Free Ride. That article has had a hardcore pornographic movie embedded in it since 2012. It is a considered a "good article". I don't see how Debbie Does Dallas is any different, except the movie is in color. Readers of an article about penises should not be surprised to see penises on Wikipedia. Readers of an article about a pornograohic movie should not be surprised to see a pornographic movie on Wikipedia. Right Hand Drive (talk) 14:32, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
"no one should be surprised that Wikipedia embeds a pornographic movie in an encyclopedia article"? I would be astounded to find such a thing in any encyclopedia, but does that just reflect my lack of experience of Wikipedia? MHAN2016 (talk) 00:49, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
If an encyclopaedia has an article on a pornographic movie then I doubt many would be surprised that the article links to a free copy of the movie. Or rather the surprise should be more that such a recent movie is out of copyright, and that the encyclopaedia has an article on a pornographic movie. Not that an article links to the subject of the article. ϢereSpielChequers 09:48, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I know a fair amount about encyclopaedias in general, and other works of reference, and think you have it backwards. If this film is culturally significant it would have an entry, whether it is regarded as pornographic or not. (Lady Chatterley's Lover was long deemed obscene, but I would assume it is covered here.) But a reference work is not the same thing as an anthology, compendium or data dump. Do bear in mind that the discussion is not about "linking to" but about embedding as content in. MHAN2016 (talk) 11:07, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I suspect we have different attitudes as to what "embedding" means. If the proposal was to have a clip of the film in the article in such a way that anyone reading the article had the clip played to them then I would regard it as more than linking and in this case would be opposed. But as long as embedding means readers "may choose to play it" then I don't see it as that different to an external link. OK it is in the article itself rather than the external links section, but that doesn't seem a big difference to me. Is there more of a difference between embedding and external linking than where we put the link in the article and how prominent it is? ϢereSpielChequers 11:34, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
For me, more relevant than "embedded vs not embedded" is the more practical question of "how many clicks to view the content". I would suggest that protecting people from a stray click (which happens quite often, and more so on mobile in my experience) launching a porn movie is a good thing. In our technical context, the simplest way to do that is to link to the film on commons so that you have to visit commons and then click on the play button. Another approach would likely be vehemently opposed by the POV pushers who want to push porn everywhere as some kind of bizarre "free speech!!111" campaign, and that would be to have a warning message upon that click.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:41, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Jimbo, it has occured to me that perhaps your earlier very strong comments were sarcastic ("I daresay it will be the first time in the history of mankind that such a thing has ever been done") - were they? Did you take a look at A Free Ride which has included a pornographic movie in the article since 2012? Can you explain why Debbie Does Dallas is any different? Right Hand Drive (talk) 16:31, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

JW's position is quite correct as far is goes. Beyond that, I can imagine a great many good arguments against keeping a copy of Debbie Does Dallas on our servers and embedding it in a Wikipedia/Wikimedia website. In my view, though, we shouldn't necessarily be keeping a copy of Charade on our servers and embedding it our article either. The fact that the film may have fallen into the public domain through inadvertence and a technical error on the part of a corporation that held the rights does not, in my view, justify denying the creative personnel on the film the rewards of their creativity that might otherwise be earned by them through more conventional dissemination of the film. Once again the maxim that not everything lawful is the right thing to do comes to mind. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:15, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with this, and it takes a different approach than I was thinking about. I was thinking about the particular difficulties of hosting pornography versus hosting a very conventional film. Newyorkbrad's position is broader and interesting to me - the question is, should an encyclopedia host full length movies at all?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:11, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
One problem is the odd conceit that anything can or should be "the sum of all human knowledge" which some appear to view as "anything that has ever been done, or recorded, or written about should be in the project in its entirety." As I have opined before - the goal should not be to include every factoid or image or movie extant, but only to keep a summary of that which will be useful to readers in 50 or 100 years. Thus we need not make decisions just on moral grounds (which, to be sure, should be considered), but on the practical and proper goals we should have. Which is not "everything we can remotely cram in, no matter its utility or value." Collect (talk) 14:06, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
It *may* be educational to learn what some people have done with cucumbers and electric toothbrushes in their spare time. I won't bore you with the details, but some people have uploaded the photos to Commons in considerable quantity. It was inevitable that Debbie Does Dallas would be uploaded to Commons if it is not copyrighted, setting off the inevitable argument that "Commons/Wikipedia is not censored." My main interest was how DDD came to be out of copyright so early, and apparently this was the result of a court case in 1987.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 14:47, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree that an encyclopedia should not be hosting a full length film, whether pornographic or not. An encyclopedia is not "anything that has ever been done, or recorded, or written about." Peter Damian (talk) 15:52, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
The remit of Commons is broader than just needed on Wikipedia, it also supports wikitravel etc. That said I'm not sure whether the film is educational, but could it possibly be mined for non pornographic soundbytes, clips and stills? At least one of the actors in it has a bio here without an image, another could do with an image from earlier in their career. Presumably we'd be OK with soundbytes and cropped stills from the movie being used to illustrate articles provided the clips were not pornographic? ϢereSpielChequers 20:17, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Whatever we decide about the individual cases of Debbie Does Dallas or Charade, we should not decide on a one-size-fits-all-rule that potentially removes all useful, non-controversial video that is squarely in the public domain from Wikipedia articles like The General (1926 film) or Princess Nicotine; or, The Smoke Fairy. Gamaliel (talk) 20:55, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
That's right, good selective judgment can and should be exercised; not a lazy all inclusive rule. Nocturnalnow (talk) 01:19, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

"Primary sources" angle

  1. Primary sources angle for Commons and Wikisource: there's no doubt in my mind that Commons and Wikisource will host entire primary sources as they do now, whether these primary sources are books, pieces of music, films, reproductions of paintings, autograph or printed scores etc. From this angle: the higher the quality and/or resolution of the file, the better, and also: the less it has been tampered with (photoshopping or whatever) the better. I see only a few reasons for not having a particular primary source at Commons/Wikisource: that is, apart from unsolved copyright issues (which is and remains a definite no-no for inclusion in any WMF project), when an external source does better in stability (of the link), accessibility (e.g. no pay-wall), and quality (resolution, but also other aspects, e.g. text search possibilities, etc.). An example: Entr'acte (film) presents an external link to the movie, but it is (currently) a dead link: for this external link instability it would have been better to have a copy of the work (assuming public domain copies can be had) at Commons. Another example: currently commons hosts an entire book (facsimile in multi-page PDF format) of File:Ermisch Das alte Archivgebäude am Taschenberge in Dresden.pdf: in this case it is reasonable to ask oneself: what is the added value when the same book is hosted at http://digital.slub-dresden.de/en/workview/dlf/88001/1/ ? – maybe there is a slight inconvenience for non-German readers as the second webpage writes "Erscheinungsort" where Commons implies the book was published in Dresden in the "Description" field of the template. So the only reason for not having this book at Commons is imho a minor accessibility disadvantage (for non-German readers), as for the other criteria things seem more or less equal (hosting at the SLUB website being presumably stable, etc)
    • For File:Debbie Does Dallas.ogg: the file is kind of low resolution, but (without searching too hard for it) I don't see a more stable, more accessible link to a higher resolution version of the film being on offer, so I don't see much problem to keep the file at Commons (it being in the "ogg" format can be considered an accessibility advantage anyhow).
    • Other filters for what is kept or rejected at Commons/Wikisource (notability, self-promotion, common decency, etc) would best be sorted out at Commons/Wikisource. I support Jimbo's efforts to not let Commons degenerate into a porn site, but doubt File:Debbie Does Dallas.ogg would make a good poster child for that continuing effort.
  2. WP:PRIMARY angle at en.Wikipedia: as I had written at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 125#Should we move full-length movies from article space to Commons?, the Debbie Does Dallas article had and has some problems. My remark there "...about how it got in the public domain somewhat over a decade after its release: the info on that is rather sparse" has been handled with a new section Debbie Does Dallas#Entry into public domain, which is surely a step in the good direction, but overall the article is still a bit on the short end of WP:PRIMARY's "... be cautious about basing large passages on [primary sources]": I still see at least two entire sections of the article apparently being based on primary sources exclusively. That the plot of the film is apparently entirely unrelated to whatever "Dallas" mentioned in its title (see last paragraph of the intro) is probably one of the most remarkable features of that plot, but afaics unreferenced. The article currently gives the impression that no secondary sources ever saw anything remarkable about any aspect of the film's plot –I suppose in that respect the movie is rather run-off-the-mill– yet Wikipedia deems it necessary to add a 8-paragraph section about that plot... in which case I'd refrain from adding more primary source material in the form of of a thumbnail visible when using the [[file:...]] format for presenting the link. When given the choice, I'd largely cut down on the redundant plot description, and use the [[file:...]] format for the link, showing a thumbnail, instead. But anyhow, as long as cutting down on primary source material isn't done, I'd not use that type of link to the file.

As far as common decency is concerned (avoiding "in your face" for aspects relating to human sexuality in an encyclopedic context), I'm all for that, for instance a kid coming home from their first guitar lesson, having picked up the word "fingering" there, and type it in the Wikipedia search box to find out what it means not automatically arriving at the fingering (sexual act) topic is something I supported in the past. In this case however, once one has read past the Debbie Does Dallas intro, explaining this is an article about a pornographic movie, then I don't see a single click to start showing that movie, further down in the article, as problematic in the context. As for the hyphotetical kid seeing their first porn movie, I'd be rather sympathetic towards the idea that could hyphotetically be File:Debbie Does Dallas.ogg in an on-line encyclopedia, than whatever other clip or movie on whatever other site. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:04, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

The section on the copyright status of Debbie Does Dallas actually uses a primary source (a legal decision) as its main reference. The article could use some work, but that seems secondary to the discussion about embedding movies. Right Hand Drive (talk) 16:20, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
The rewrite of the PD history showed, in fact, that the The Hollywood Reporter article is the "main" source for that content, not the primary source material derived from the court document.
I think I'm entirely correct in trying to refocus this to the over-all quality of the article, instead of non-discussions about WP:NOTREPOSITORY, WP:NOTCENSORED, WP:SOCK and whatnot that have lost whatever tangential importance they might have had to this topic in the handful of separate places where this topic is and has been discussed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:14, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. It looks like you are right. I would be pleased to see this article improved, but the discussions we're having came about because people objected to including the movie in the article. I'd like to see it added back in or at least have someone present a reasonable policy-based argument for not including it. There are now three layers of misdirection happening (talk page, Village Pump, and WP:NOTRESOURCE RFC). I thought that the reasonable thing would be to include the movie unless there was a reason not to include it, not the other way around. Let me ask you the question I've put to Jimbo - How is Debbie Does Dallas different from A Free Ride, which has had an embedded pornographic movie since 2012? 23:29, 7 February 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Right Hand Drive (talk • contribs)
Re. "How is Debbie Does Dallas different from A Free Ride" — I think you've answered that question yourself somewhere else before: A Free Ride is a WP:GA article, i.e., according to Wikipedia's standards its quality is "good". By comparison, until recently, Debbie Does Dallas was a meagre excuse of an article to show a low quality porn movie. Hence my insistence on improving the quality of the article: including the primary source with the [[file:...]] tag will have become a non-issue by the time the article itself is top notch.
Let me be clear: I've set up articles where I lumped together some primary sources fair and square before providing much content for the article (I'm not too proud about that kind of work – it can be found here), but that can simply not be done for more sensitive topics like porn movies. --Francis Schonken (talk) 23:53, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
It is ok to embed a little known pornographic movie in a "good article" but it is not ok to embed a historically significant pornographic movie in a not very good article? I don't understand the logic of that. The movie is what it is, regardless of how bad (or good) the article is. Right Hand Drive (talk) 00:11, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, but there's the issue of balance: primary sources overpowering solid article content (based on secondary sources etc) gives a bad balance. When the article is about an almost completely forgotten hymn, that bad balance may be an intermediate step that is "stable" for some time, when the article is about a porn movie the bad balance will have become untenable within months.
At policy level this is expressed by WP:PRIMARY's "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." — Or you may prefer the same idea spun out into an essay (which I wrote long ago): Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a tertiary source, containing for instance "Illustrations and primary source material should not overshadow content based on secondary and tertiary sources". --Francis Schonken (talk) 00:22, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Thinking it over I just proposed to promote Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a tertiary source to guideline. Ideas (here or at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is a tertiary source#Current discussion)? --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:27, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Let's delete Wikipedia just to be nice

@Newyorkbrad: You say "The fact that the film may have fallen into the public domain through inadvertence and a technical error on the part of a corporation that held the rights does not, in my view, justify denying the creative personnel on the film the rewards of their creativity that might otherwise be earned by them". How is this different from the creation of Wikipedia? There used to be a rule -- if someone wants to have access to information about all kinds of topics, they pony up the $900 for a big set of Encyclopedia Britannicas. Wikipedia came in and trashed that market. "Sure, just because it's lawful doesn't mean it's right". You see the problem is, in our affections many of us had this notion that we should side with the reader who actually comes to our site wanting to learn something. This is a mistaken, radical, terrorist line of thinking. We need to understand that the world is run by a few men, and whenever we make it easier for a person to learn something, do something, see something without putting up whatever small disposable income he has to the purpose, we are denying a king carnivore his rightful meal. Because our readers, they are just mute flesh waiting to be devoured; to be taught and molded with only such facts and experience as it takes to be permitted to be a blue dishwasher, if that is their designated purpose, and to be phased out and sent to the camp should ever those with money run out of blue dishes to be washed. So we should see your wisdom, recognize that everything in Wikipedia that lets people look up random data is just a bunch of mental wankage, a cruel diversion of resources for which we must answer to the Ticktockman; we must delete it and leave it for Responsible Authorities to dole out that information and make the profit to which the laws of the cosmos entitle them. Wnt (talk) 18:48, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

@Wnt: I regret to advise you that someone has hijacked your Wikipedia account and is using it to post preposterous idiocy in your name. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:30, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Without getting into whether I was thinking the same thing, what exactly is the difference between deciding not to point readers at public domain movies or Rorschach blots or whatever in order to prop up some heir-of-an-heir's profit stream, and deciding not to write an encyclopedia because it detracts from offline paid scholarship? Every time someone reads a Wikipedia summary, that's money snatched from the hands of writers who might have sold more copies of their copyrighted alternatives. One uses the sleazy loophole that someone who is required by copyright law to file a renewal has to file a renewal; the other uses the sleazy loophole of fair use/academic commentary to summarize and quote data from other sources.
All sarcasm aside, Wikipedia has always properly been an instrument against copyrights. It is meant to show that people can work together to build something awesome, without special knowledge or access, provided only that they allow each other to do so. It is not meant to be the be-all and end-all of encyclopedias - that zenith awaits the day when copyright is consigned to the dustbin of history, and people finally breathe free and work together as one grand collaboration. This requires an economic realization beyond copyright, one that makes it feasible for authors to write without controlling who reads what is written; not a hard one really. Wnt (talk) 19:44, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Since individuals no longer have any privacy, then it somehow seems to be reasonable that the products/work created by individuals should also no longer have any privacy. And anything not private is public ( or can be at any moment; e.g. Wikileaks ). Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:44, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Editorial discretion on Wikipedia, like good judgment in most of life, is a matter of balancing. Perpetual copyright would be stultifying to a culture and I would never suggest that we think in those terms. But for a society to reject all intellectual property rights would be equally stultifying, because it would deter the creation of much that ought to be created. Copyright law is where a society seeks to balance between these two principles, although I readily grant that for a lot of reasons, no legal code always gets the balance right. And US copyright law has become the starting point for analysis of rights issues on Wikipedia, partly for obvious practical reasons and partly because it saves us the trouble of grappling with issues that have already been through through extensively by others.
This is a broad topic and I don't think this is the place for a purely theoretical discussion, but if your premise is that the free culture movement should reject, in principle, the very idea of intellectual property rights—grudgingly accepting only the limitations that would be directly enforced against us at the proverbial barrel of a gun, and longing for a hypothetical day when no such limitations exist—then suffice it to say that I do not agree with you. (Am I right, incidentally, that some of the same people who push to construe other people's IP rights as narrowly as possible so that we can use their material on our projects, are among those who complain when a republisher ignores the license's attribution rules?)
And for those of us who do believe that, within limits, copyright laws do serve valid and useful societal functions, my point is that it is neither necessary nor satisfying to impound into Wikimedia policies the strictest letter of copyright law, particularly where IP rights are being disputed or have been inadvertently lost on the basis of legal (not wikilawyered) technicalities.
Put differently, I agree with you that the success of Wikipedia and Wikimedia comes from our decision to collaborate with one another in sharing and co-creating and collating free knowledge. But it is a voluntary collaboration: there remain limis, both legal and ethical, on how much collaboration into our project we can impound from those who have not chosen to participate with us. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:54, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
About 20 years ago I read where Scott McNealy said; "There is no privacy, get over it." I'm thinking the same thing may be said about copyright pretty soon. The crushing of licensing laws by Uber and AirBnb and the tacit acceptance of China's infringements seem to be pushing in that direction too, I think. I'm not saying I like any of these changes. Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:54, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Newyorkbrad, I don't have any difficulty understanding that the idea of editorial discretion. User:Smallbones gave two examples which I think were obvious poor judgment in their part, but we are talking about embedding a pornographic movie in the article which is itself about that movie. And, as I keep saying, there is a precedent for this. I'll ask you the same question I've asked Jimbo - how is Debbie Does Dallas any different from A Free Ride, which has had a pornographic movie embedded in it since 2012? Right Hand Drive (talk) 23:50, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
So you're telling me that we are supposed to honor every last jot and tittle of copyright law, and then, honor whatever "ethics" you make up on the spot. This sounds like the Bundy school of "what's mine is mine, what's yours is mine" interpretation of the public domain. You're incorrect in saying that copyright law is the only way to reward content creation. Copyright law is just a sort of tax farming, a mechanism that seemed approximately workable when books were very expensive to produce, but which now is clearly inferior to other methods of awarding compensation to authors that don't require limiting distribution of a work. But here we see a more fundamental aspect even than its economic inefficiency - this goes back to the origination of the copyright scheme as a method of government censorship; as a way to place books under control of a limited set of publishers. The claim that housing this movie is "unethical" isn't really rooted in concern that the porno producers aren't making enough money to keep them making more. Rather it represents this sixteenth-century idealism that if there just isn't a public domain and a few rich publishers control what gets printed, then their concern for their reputation and future privileges will keep them making conservative decisions about what anyone is allowed to read. But I do not believe in that idealism or those ethics, not even a little. Wnt (talk) 03:17, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
So the synopsis version of your comment Wnt is "Embed the video to stop conservative values WP:CREEPing back into society"? Support! Especially for 'Mericans [FBDB] I'm honestly baffled as to your response and I currently think that you've either turned in a very civil and smart Internet troll recently, or you need to clarify yourself in simpler language – I'm leaning to the latter but ... well, the above is just plain unintelligible and screams "red herring" and "straw man". Conciseness means that we will understand your point. Then you can back it up with rhetoric which we will possibly read before responding. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 06:26, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I wasn't reacting only about censorship the film, but to Newyorkbrad's far more expansive and far more damaging notion of not including PD material to be "nice" to the (not) copyright holder. (Unfortunately there is someone else making this argument on one of the other three talk pages where this issue is being discussed, though I forget which now) This reminds me of similar "moralistic" crusades like the push to censor Rorschach test several years ago. I am tired of seeing copyright being treated on one side like an unbreakable sacred wall at the foot of which we see people like Aaron Swartz sacrificed on Moloch's altar, yet on the other like it is a mere technicality with no weight whatsoever. I say if you sign a copyright transfer you don't own the movie, if you get sued in court you don't own the movie, so if you don't bother to renew a copyright... you don't own the movie! Wnt (talk) 11:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Wnt Now you've got me really engaged. The way the feds hunted down Aaron Swartz and pushed him over a cliff is an example of how these copyright laws can be applied in very selective and politically motivated ways by some U.S. law enforcement control freaks is the best point you've made. It is similar to letting crazy people get automatic weapons whenever any laws which are not absolutely required for health and safety are in effect in debatably non-democratic countries. I am ashamed to say I had forgotten about Aaron Swartz. That was worse than the old racist church burnings because it was carried out by government officials. Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:38, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Self-censorship is can be a slippery slope

When you've lived as long as I have, you've seen many, many awful things done to innocent people which were/are well known by media who apply/applied Self-censorship which indirectly perpetuates the awful behavior. The child abuse by some priests is just one example, another was the apparently well known for years by Washington media,the serial sexual use of underage pages by a Florida Congressman. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:20, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

These things have nothing to do with what we were talking about. No one is supporting political censorship of Wikipedia. But not every decision not to include some piece of information on Wikipedia is a bad thing. Every day we delete articles because their subjects aren't notable enough. Do you call that "self-censorship" and believe we should eliminate the deletion processes? We don't (or shouldn't) include in Wikipedia information about borderline-notable people that infringes their personal privacy without an encyclopedic purpose; we don't (or shouldn't) include trivial information that distracts from what is important about the subject of an article; we don't (or shouldn't) reuse material whose use would infringe someone's copyright beyond fair use, although we do our best to find another way of presenting the information where we can. "Slippery slope" arguments, while given greater credence in First Amendment like contexts than others, are generally weak arguments, because almost any action could be characterized as the first step on a slippery slope to something. Ruling out good actions, out of concern they could in the future be extrapolated to bad actions, is a declaration that one lacks faith in the decision-makers. And to call every exercise of Wikipedians' collective editorial judgment "self-censorship" is to substitute an epithet for reasoning—a common fallacy that I wish I did not see any more. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:05, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I struggle to see the essential difference between what I would term sound editorial judgment (an implied good) and what nocturnalhow would characterise as self-censorhip (an implied evil). They are sides of the same coin. And actually this is enshrined in policy since WP:NOT says we are not an indiscriminate collection of information, and even the notoriously militant Commons community has no compunction about deleting an endless succession of entirely correctly licensed pictures of penises. Guy (Help!) 22:16, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
I did not communicate well. I am not calling every or even any exercise of Wikipedians' collective editorial judgment "self-censorship". I already said above that good selective judgment can and should be exercised; not a lazy all inclusive rule. Indiscriminate collection of info would be an all inclusive process/rule. And political censorship is not on the table in this discussion, I don't think. I am saying that there is such a thing as self-censorship, that it has been applied sometimes by media when it should not have been, and that it can be a slippery slope. I changed the wording above to replace "is" with "can be". When it comes to this film, I actually watched it earlier today and I think it is not important enough to make access difficult or have a big discussion about. Also, parents have the responsibility of overseeing what pops up on their children's computers from all the social media and educational sources. If we start trying to help them do their job, that just enables them to do a less capable job, imo. Nocturnalnow (talk) 23:51, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
Yesterday I sent a retired science teacher a fyi link to Thought experiment. This is part of his response; "On another note, Wikipedia provides a wealth of valuable information for humans. We are very fortunate to have access to a website loaded with this kind of valuable knowledge and information." Not sure why that's relevant, but feels like it is somehow. Nocturnalnow (talk) 02:23, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
More nonsense. Censoring movies like Debbie Does Dallas *is* political censorship - it's politics of the worst kind, the politics of limiting what types of expression people feel safe to offer. To say that women shouldn't be allowed to show their breasts in film is little different than saying that people shouldn't be able to talk online without the NSA watching them. They're both arguments about speech, privacy, and propriety. But the only true propriety is to allow people to research what interests them without making them feel hunted and bullied. Wnt (talk) 03:26, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Everything is politics according to Thomas Mann. I think censorship or politics is not the primary issue here nor throughout our societies. The primary issue is poor reading/listening habits; e.g. none of the people promoting censoring DDD seem to have noticed Right Hand Drive's comparison of DDD to A Free Ride in the context of the DDD being embedded is something new as theorized by Jimbo. None have answered his question about "what's the difference" either.
And NewYorkBrad seems to have missed Jimbo's claim that "Censorship always involves force or the threat of force - for example, the threat of a fine or jail time for publishing something. Deciding not to publish something, or to publish in one way rather than another, is not censorship." which was the primary reason I brought up Self-censorship, to inform. Good communication requires taking the time to read or listen to the actual words of whoever one is communicating with, and that does not happen as often as it needs to if we are going to really communicate. These same bad listening and reading and scattered thinking habits are hindering our ability to deal with even a simple, almost childish, matter like Debbie Does Dallas; see how ridiculous it is? But at least its funny. And, Wnt, you are a good listener, imo.Nocturnalnow (talk) 04:59, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Well, the issue is, as has been said elsewhere above, whether the primary source overwhelms the article. It's generally not practice to include full length movies - it seems that is because it's too much padding to a text article, because other than to the synopsis/plot section it is not directly making the article's points (and even then only in specific part) - it does not provide its own critical commentary on itself, nor its own cultural or legal commentary on itself. Now perhaps, you could make the same arguments for not providing a short movie, but because they are short the issues are not joined to the same degree, and the effort at curation and editing the short to make the article's points may not be worth it. As to the "slippery slope", it rather runs downhill in the other direction because it is easier to add everything from the undifferentiated mass of information than it is to curate and edit-out, which takes sustained careful thought and effort in creating a tertiary source. It is also easier to then say every act of a person's expression is an act of self-censorship. As for making "safe expression", that's not the purpose for creating a tertiary source, which by definition is curated expression. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:51, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Every single thing Alanscottwalker says makes perfect sense to me, especially that it "takes sustained careful thought and effort in creating a tertiary source." As he says, and Jimbo and NewYorkBrad have alluded to,this would be a demanding mission; to "curate and edit-out" the ever increasing quantity of incoming film material.So, now we have 2 additional questions. Assuming there is a consensus to take on the mission of curating and editing out, what would be the next step and is it even possible from a time and individual editing resource standpoints? Nocturnalnow (talk) 16:34, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
And what if the choice is between hosting porn or people having access to wikipedia? Some countries block sites that host pornography, or require an age verification system. Wikipedia may choose to ignore such laws, but local ISPs have to comply with court orders, and all it takes is one person to file a complaint and a judge to agree. Wouldn't be the first time, what was it on the russian version, a method to make hash? Prevalence (talk) 06:17, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
See censorship of Wikipedia - if you click on the "Cannabis smoking" link in that article you'll get to the Russian article, and as you see, it is not as threadbare as the Russian government originally seemed to demand. Because Wikipedia is continually edited, it is impossible to say that the article was unscathed by the threats, and the agency claimed it had been modified sufficiently when it decided not to block Wikipedia; but certainly it should not be taken as a precedent for surrender. The problem with this sort of issue is that whatever you don't fight on Bataan you'll fight on Corregidor, or in Sydney if that's what you prefer. If you pay ISIS a million now, they'll have ten times as many hostages on ransom next week, and if you censor an article on cannabis smoking today, you'll be censoring articles that put Putin in a bad light the month after. If you won't embed a frame with a porn movie, they'll come back and tell you you're not allowed to illustrate those vestigial penis spines some men have tomorrow, or to have the movie anywhere the day after that. Wnt (talk) 10:17, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

What a poorly chosen flagship !

The Righteous Fighters Against Censorship could have chosen a better battleship. Under-age looking cheerleaders encountering over-age Babbitts lead to a movie that is more about power than about sex. Using 352x240 resolution doesn't help. How to solve the controversy about the Stony Brook University Library without recognizable details ? And finally, the obvious de-synchronization between video and soundtrack suggests that either the Encyclopedists that are building the temple of All the Knowledge under Heaven are unable to resync a movie, or aren't judging the script being worth of their care. Pldx1 (talk) 14:30, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

You tempted me to google for quotes from the film.
Debbie - "Oh Mr. Greenfeld, you're so strong."
Mr. Greenfeld - "That's because I eat my Wheaties everyday."
I can see why some might find the script not particularly worthy of synchronization.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:31, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
It is unfortunate that the synchronization is off, but that can be fixed. It is easy to mock the silly dialog, acting and plot in this movie, but the importance of this movie to contemporaneous American culture should not be underestimated. "It is regarded as one of the most important releases during the so-called 'Golden Age of Porn', and remains one of the best-known pornographic films," according to the Wikipedia article. My quest here is not to fight against censorship but to address the hypocrisy and double standards of removing this movie from the article. Why is it ok that anyone can watch the movie on Wikimedia Commons but can't watch it here? Why is it ok to have the movie embedded in French Wikipedia but not ok to have it embedded in English Wikipedia? Why is it helpful to embed a copy of Charade in the article about that movie, but not helpful to embed a copy of Debbie Does Dallas in the article about the movie? Why is it ok to have a hardcore pornographic movie embeded in A Free Ride, but not ok to have it in Debbie Does Dallas]]? Right Hand Drive (talk) 17:33, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I believe your questions have already been answered for the most part, but for convenience I'll give my own answers. Note well, of course, that this page is a place that I hope is helpful in the community chewing over interesting and difficult questions, rather than a page where policy is set. The final resolution here is in no way up to me.
  1. Why is it ok that anyone can watch the movie on Wikimedia Commons but can't watch it here? In the minds of many people, embedding a pornographic movie in an encyclopedia article is a highly surprising thing to do, whereas linking to it somewhere else is not particularly surprising in this modern day and age. There is the additional issue, which I have raised more than once, that we should take care to not subject readers to unnecessary risk of something bad happening due to an accidental or stray click. Having the movie on commons rather than embedded does virtually nothing to prevent people who really want to see it from going over there to see it, but does a lot to prevent people who don't want to see it from accidentally playing it.
  2. Why is it ok to have the movie embedded in French Wikipedia but not ok to have in embedded in English Wikipedia? I personally think the same "one click" argument applies there as well as anywhere else. But it is also perfectly fine for different language versions of Wikipedia to take reasonable care for the needs of their readers, and to note that even within the realm of NPOV, those needs can different significantly. Finally, the entire decision making structure of Wikipedia means that consistency across languages is never going to be trivial - that one language has decided one way is not an argument in favor of another language having to decide the same way. This is particularly true where reasonable people may differ, as in the present case.
  3. Why is it helpful to embed a copy of Charade in the article about that movie, but not helpful to embed a copy of Debbie Does Dallas in the article about the movie? Again the "one click" argument leads us to a different conclusion. If you're a college kid surreptitiously reading Wikipedia on your phone with your parents in the room, then a stray click on a Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn movie isn't likely to cause you any embarrassment. The same can't be said of "Debbie Does Dallas". If you really want to watch it, of course it should be easy enough. But you should be warned appropriately.
  4. Why is it ok to have a hardcore pornographic movie embeded in A Free Ride, but not ok to have it in Debbie Does Dallas? I don't think it is, for the most part, and I'd like to see consistency here. But I will note that there is a distinguishing feature - A Free Ride is silent, and so accidental embarrassment is much less likely in case of a stray click.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I hope that you will recognize that these answers are not insane. You may not agree, and as I have said, this is an area where reasonable people may differ. But I repeat that I see very few downsides (and you haven't mentioned even one) to hosting it on commons only, and several downsides (which you haven't addressed at all) to embedding it. You seem hung up on the 'consistency' argument, but that argument fails because the film is different and so can and should be treated according to its own nature. So I recommend not climbing the Reichstag.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:08, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
The movie doesn't start with a porn scene - a single click gets you to a legal notice, title credits, and fairly ordinary scenes of cheerleaders on a football field. It is more than two minutes until the women hit the showers - and while some people might say they are 'surprised' to see such a thing, we should note that lesbians in high school are expected, nay compelled to view fairly similar scenes in person. So at least that scene is not unusual, or shouldn't be, by even conservative educational standards; and it's a fair shot across the bow for anyone still claiming to be surprised.
It may not be a good example, but we have to defend Wikipedia's content where we see it challenged. The people climbing the Reichstag (or burning it) are the ones pressing for policy changes at WP:NOT to make it officially rather than just unofficially a call to delete useful content from articles. I do agree though that we should have a higher-quality version of this film. Wnt (talk) 18:56, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Two whole minutes, eh? I mean, if it were only 90 seconds, that would be "surprising", but that extra 30 seconds makes it a whole different story. Seriously though, I don't think that's really the point. There is nothing wrong with making people click twice and/or give an "adult content" warning before they see something they may not want to see, or as Jimbo points out, they may not want everybody else to hear. (I actually would make it "AND" a warning, and if someone wanted (just for the sake of consistency) "two clicks" for "Charade" as well (but without the warning), I wouldn't have a problem with that either.) This would not be an issue of "defending Wikipedia's content" - the content would still be available. Neutron (talk) 19:50, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I see a slight intellectual paradox in such readiness to install extra clicks in the DDD matter while zero interest in a Rfc suggesting just a more prominent positioning or maybe requiring 1 click to our privacy policy so Readers will know how the policy applies to them. Its only natural I suppose but should we not be as interested in alerting people as to what they are about to be exposed to when they read our product as we are in what they are exposed to with other companies' products? Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:21, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
I never saw that RfC before, but it looks like your proposal did get some interest - from two people who thought it was unnecessary. If it makes you feel any better, I have made proposals on Wikipedia that went over like a led zeppelin myself. As for your analogy between avoiding a single-click launching of a full-length pornographic film and providing more prominent placement for the privacy policy, the connection is not immediately apparent to me. Neutron (talk) 22:47, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
Jimbo, I don't think your answers are "insane". I'm certain that as reasonable people we can disagree without becoming hostile. I agree that having a warning before the movie would be a good idea, but I don't think there's any way for me to do that. Nor is it done on other potentially offensive content (there's that dounle standard again). You cite an example of someone accidentally starting the movie playing, but that does not seem to be a serious concern. The movie can be stopped with one click or tap. The page can easily be closed. The browser can be closed. The phone or computer can be turned off. As people have pointed outm there is no objectionable content in the first few minutes of the movie, so there is ample time to take whatever action is necessary. And while there is a tiny risk of the movie being started accidentally, is that how we decide what content to include? Isn't there a risk that someone will accidentally load an article about sexuality which contains images of nudity while at work? Your argument about the embedded pornographic movie in A Free Ride seems specious. You have twice said that people would be surprised to find pornographic movies embedded in Wikipedia articles, yet when it is pointed out to you that this has been the case for years now, the best you can do is suggest that it is "different" because it is silent? I think people would be surprised by what they see, not by what they hear (or don't hear). Despite what you have said, I'm still seeing a double standard here. Right Hand Drive (talk) 05:21, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Ok. I've said my piece. You don't seem to be interested in listening, so I'll stop talking.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:58, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
I listened, I just didn't agree with all of your points. Right Hand Drive (talk) 22:33, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

RfC about pornographic movie in A Free Ride

Jimbo, based in part on your comments here, I have started a "request for comment" about the hardcore pornographic movie that has been embedded in A Free Ride since 2012. I hope that this RfC will clarify how editors feel about having pornographic movies embedded in Wikipedia articles, so that perhaps we can have some consistency between A Free Ride and Debbie Does Dallas. You are, of course, welcome to participate in the RfC. Thanks. Right Hand Drive (talk) 00:23, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

This is what is known as disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Johnuniq (talk) 00:54, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
I think of it more as providing a coherently formulated neutral question at an appropriate venue using the structured mechanisms provided for gathering editor input. Let's agree to disagree. Right Hand Drive (talk) 04:23, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
I gotta agree with Johnuniq. Right Hand Drive, your point of view is reasonable but the Rfc process was not best next step, imo, the discussions you participated in here are constructive, imo. Just my opinion. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:51, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
The discussion here seemed to be finished. The discussions elsewhere were based on misunderstandings of policy and practice. They also seem to be finished. I could sit around and wait for nothing to happen, but instead I'm using the RfC process as it is meant to be used. If you and Juhnuniq don't like it, I guess I will have to live with that. You are welcome to particpate in the RfC if you have something left to add. Right Hand Drive (talk) 22:15, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales - not intending to reopen this debate but I have a related technical question about embedding porn in a WP article and whether or not child protection features on browsers would actually catch it on WP or would it end-up forbidding a child access to ALL of WP? Thanks, --Atsme📞📧 18:53, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

This is a valid question that should enter into our deliberations. I'll note that a fair number of the extreme pro-porn faction might view this as a positive thing - i.e. if the use of child protection features leads to the blocking of all of Wikipedia, then people will tend not to use those features. My own position is more moderate.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:56, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes sir, and I would think it might also effect WMF with regards to the Knight Foundation's grant for their Reach*Communities*Knowledge strategy, particularly with regards to how it relates to all academia below university level. O_O Atsme📞📧 23:21, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
The movie's been there for over three years. If this was a concern, we'd know about by now. Right Hand Drive (talk) 23:34, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for bringing that up as it may possibly coincide with the disconcerting reductions in reach, retention and credibility which is at the crux of the Knight Foundation grant the WMF just accepted. When unnecessary additions negatively effect readership and encyclopedic value/credibility - well, Houston, we have a problem. Also see [9] which is what we don't want to happen. There are already major concerns regarding academia from the highest levels on down which I've attempted to demonstrate at WP:Project Accuracy. It would be devastating to lose what "reach" we already have because of something as simple as an embedded porn video in lieu of a simple EL....unless of course the intent is to change WP's focus and readership? Atsme📞📧 23:50, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that video is likely responsible for the Gender Gap, too. Right Hand Drive (talk) 00:05, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment I came across this BBC article earlier today. This could have ramifications for Wikipedia if it hosts or embeds porn on its site. I am not sure how UK legislation would impact on a website hosted in the United States, but the article hints that non-compliant sites could be blocked by ISPs. I honestly think this will end up being a foundation decision rather than a community one. Betty Logan (talk) 14:08, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Now there's a can of worms. Good info to know, Betty Logan I have a feeling that lawmakers in quite a few countries, not just the UK, won't be quite as willing to accept WP:NOTCENSORED as readily as some of our editors. It will also be interesting to follow the argument for why "Debbie Does Dallas" and other like films should be embedded in WP articles. Educational value, perhaps? Imagine a 10 year old little girl who keys-in Dallas cheerleaders in a Google search wanting to learn more about becoming a cheerleader, and somehow ends up at the WP article, "Debbie Does Dallas". Another consideration is Pornography by region which shows large chunks of nations where pornography is illegal or restricted. Are there any stats confirming whether or not WP is allowed in those areas? I would imagine either WMF or Jimbo Wales would know if inclusion of pornographic material in our articles has hampered WP's reach in certain areas. To say these are real concerns is an understatement. Atsme📞📧 23:36, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

DDD has a music soundtrack from "Group Activity Light/Group Activity Heavy" an incidental music album by the group Midas Touch, published by Standard Music Library, a subsidiary of Bucks Music Group. As such it is likely that the soundtrack is not public domain. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:30, 13 February 2016 (UTC).

If it is from the Standard Music Library, it is most likely royalty-free music, but more research would be needed to determine whether or not this means that it is also copyright-free. Bucks Music Group's article appears to have been copied straight from their website. Right Hand Drive (talk) 04:53, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
I have rewritten page "Bucks Music Group" +sources to avoid copvio, and thanks for noting similarity to web About page. We'll see if the copyvio Bot finds any similarity now. Thanks again. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:52, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Very, very sad

I am not logging in to make this comment as I reset my password to a random one which I no longer have access to. As I promised Brad, I would no longer participate in Wikipedia, and I have remained true to this. But I am coming to your talk page to warn you: what is happening in the WMF is extraordinary and you, and many on the WMF Board, are destroying the good work of literally hundreds of thousands of people through your secrecy, dissembling and lack of transparency.

You and Lila have broken the trust and goodwill of many honourable people of good character. I can only urge you to think long and hard about recent events. I have nothing further to add. If your response is abusive, so be it. If you are angry with this message, then consider why I would write these words. If you believe my words are worthless, then that is your decision. But I cannot say nothing, and whilst I would normally privately contact someone in these circumstances, the recent events in the WMF and the way it has affected my good friends and long standing, trusted Wikipedians convinces me to say these things openly.

Should you care enough to want to verify my identity, contact Liam Wyatt. I hope you heed my warning.

Chris Sherlock - Ta bu shi da yu 203.217.45.196 (talk) 14:53, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

[just to say: Chis wrote to me off-wiki to confirm that this message was indeed written by him. Wittylama 15:46, 16 February 2016 (UTC) ]
  • Well, Chris, the good thing (at least in this instance) is that you don't have to have an account to edit. The Project is much more important than the sum of its problems, which includes especially the cancerously-growing organization in San Francisco which makes hay off our work. Rest and recharge and come back strong and be sure to take advantage of off-wiki opportunities for criticism and identification and correction of abuses. There is no glory in self-immolation, there is only the struggle. —Tim Davenport /// Carrite (talk) 16:04, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
"off-wiki opportunities for criticism", how mysterious! WO is not a four letter word. Liz Read! Talk! 22:08, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
I have found that the best way to not participate is to not participate. I'm just saying.
"In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade;
And he carries the reminders, of every glove that laid him down,
or cut him till he cried out, in his anger and his shame;
'I am leaving, I am leaving', But the fighter still remains..."
--The Boxer by Simon & Garfunkel
--Guy Macon (talk) 00:37, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Why do people complain so much about Wikipedia? The content is free to use. Grab a copy and set up a better version with a better working environment. As soon as somebody does that, the editors will leave here and go there. Jehochman Talk 01:58, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

trolling
@Jehochman: Here is an English translation of the above post: "I am a worthless sycophant who has nothing to contribute but a slurping deference to you, oh holy Mr. Wales! I will prepare the Flavor-Aid at once, Jimbo Jones! Xoxoxoxo, Jehochman." 2600:1000:B017:2537:D81A:412E:5F8B:707F (talk) 02:17, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
Dear anonymous coward. You are a chicken. If you had even a drop of courage you'd sign your real name. If you have something important to say, be loud and proud. Jehochman Talk 12:14, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Anne Frank

Jimbo, as you are possibly aware, the Anne Frank Fonds holds the copyright of all Anne Franks writings, and the original version (mind you; not later versions) has probably fallen in the public domain since 1 January 2016 in the Netherlands (where the work was created and published). It was posted subsequently on Dutch wikisource, where it was removed about a month later by the Foundation, with a reasoned and proper explanation.

It is however annoying, as no real harm was done in the US-sphere (how many people would be able to read this in Dutch in the US) and because of the role the diary plays as a symbol of the cruelty of war and the power of people. It begs for the question whether it's not about the time for the foundation to consider moving its seat to country with a more reasonable copyright law. I am not suggesting to hide out on a small island with a favourable regime, but thinking more along the lines of Canada, Australia or an EU country. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this matter! L.tak (talk) 23:54, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

The US has excellent free speech protections that would definitely outweigh any tiny advantages this country or that might have with respect to copyright law. The US also has the helpful legal exemption of "Fair Use" of copyright materials — which remains grossly underutilized by Wikipedia thanks to the manic obsession of some with "free culture" as the alpha and the omega rather than creation of the best possible encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 05:46, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Fair use-like systems as well as free speech protections are important indeed, and also that should weigh in in any possible/hypothetical decision. I have the impression however that is not a unique US quality and also available in legislation of the countries I named. Our BLP policy serves to protect individuals against libel etc and that is also the main exception to free speech available in the legislation of many of those countries... L.tak (talk) 06:33, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
At least in the UK, "fair dealing" is significantly more restrictive than fair use. Also by leaving the US we would lose the ability to use US Government media, because these are public domain only in the US. BethNaught (talk) 08:12, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Wikimedia Sealand. Gamaliel (talk) 05:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm thinking of a Wikipedia logo-shaped island off the coast of Dubai. Liz Read! Talk! 22:15, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
Copyright extension is a terrible thing, but it doesn't directly affect fresh encyclopedic text. Its relevance is to Wikimedia Commons. Extra Commons in multiple countries are a good idea, provided the lawyers can defuse "contributory infringement" arguments. But in the opposite situation - if the Diary were PD in the US and not PD in Germany - Wikimedia Commons currently would remove it as a "courtesy", without any law requiring it to do so! The first step is to have Commons stop being "courteous" and start using whatever capacity it does legally have.
There is no substitute for actually ending the copyright system and actually setting up a new way to fairly compensate authors and inventors that does not rely on the bogus concept of "owning" other people's rights to copy and use information. If this case rallies us against the next "inevitable" copyright extension - a giveaway to heirs who have been controlling material for a hundred years - that will be an accomplishment. Wnt (talk) 10:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
  • The Anne Frank case is example of 'Copyright Calculus': Fortunately, book The Diary of Anne Frank has been widely placed in world libraries, plus film adaptations, but meanwhile the restrictions with the complex copyright rules provide users a good example of needing "copyright calculus" to decide the copyright years. Many users will have difficulty trying to judge a copyright status. -Wikid77 (talk) 12:43, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
As the Wikimedia movement has wholly independent legal organizations in multiple jurisdictions it seems to me that a good solution would involve chapters. As others have pointed out, the US is one of the best jurisdictions for the project overall, but there are flaws which we should be able to work around.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:39, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Practical use of AI in Wikipedia

It has been interesting to see AI used to generate small articles from Wikidata, into many different languages, as finally a type of "Micropedia" of short articles. However another valuable use of AI would be to extend wp:edit-filters, on a per-article basis, to "watchdog" the information being edited inside pages. For example, the page on U.S. politician Jeb Bush could use a rule-based system to reject false mention as an "avid rock climber" or false phrases about "wanted to be a film star or actor" but retain "Florida Governor" or similar crucial text, while also rejecting some more-complex forms of vandalism. Perhaps by use of an inference engine, then the recent-changes patrol could be assisted by deterring the worst edits from being saved. I am thinking a simple scan for risk-words could be used to trigger the more-time-consuming analysis by inference rules, so the overall edit-time would not be increased unless troublesome text was first suspected in the edit. The key is to have different edit-filter extensions for major articles, or categories of articles. Currently, we see some hack edits left for days/weeks (or months) due to the overwhelming oceans of information being amassed in pages (perhaps wp:data hoarding in many cases). Hence, WP has reached superhuman levels of copyediting, and many users just cannot cope with the data-verification workload. Automation of efforts is becoming mandatory, beyond wp:AGF, because formerly correct data has become outdated, such as with smart auto-population templates to automate the update of many thousands of town pages. Also I often see articles with just dozens of cites when, clearly, hundreds of sources would be needed to back the text. We perhaps could have AI analysis tools to estimate how many footnotes would be needed to support a page, or a list within a page. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:11, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

We have never coped with the data-verification workload. There are many good ideas there, but there are also deep problems, relating to NLP, community bias and gaming the system, as well as the shallow ones of actually getting suitable development out of the WMF or getting authorization to use the technologies to do these things.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:13, 16 February 2016 (UTC).

Use better AI techniques to detect copyvio pages

As I remember, some close paraphrasing of source texts can slip past copyvio Bots, and perhaps a better Bot could be developed to parse key sentences to detect paraphrasing. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:18, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Knowledge Engine (Wikimedia Discovery project)

In my opinion, the page at Knowledge Engine (Wikimedia Discovery project) has some serious WP:NPOV and WP:OWNERSHIP problems. I would appreciate more eyes on that page. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:40, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

ok, I will lend a hand starting tonight or tomorrow. Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:55, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
I will take a second look. Thanks. QuackGuru (talk) 21:57, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

@Jimbo: Jimbo, in the context of having a somewhat accurate view of what KE is while editing the Knowledge Engine (Wikimedia Discovery project), is this description of KE that I thought of reasonably accurate? Its an attempt to provide a state of the art non-commercialized way to search for publicly available information. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:23, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Never mind; its maybe not cool to be talking to you about this while I'm editing the article. Nocturnalnow (talk) 15:58, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Censorship versus "editorial decisions"

You wrote above that "Editorial decisions are in an entirely different conceptual category from censorship. Censorship always involves force or the threat of force - for example, the threat of a fine or jail time for publishing something. Deciding not to publish something, or to publish in one way rather than another, is not censorship." I think in this context this article from The Intercept that just came out is enlightening. It describes how the ever-increasing censorship in Russia relies relatively little on the state apparatus, which vastly multiplies its force through a hierarchy of capitalists. The fear that a distributor might be targeted prevents it from buying it, which prevents a publisher from publishing it - or if they do, they blank out pages with "political censorship" based not on the decisions of a government agency, but their own abjectness. Of course, we've seen a similar structure in the U.S., where North Korea's token threat against The Interview (2014 film) was sufficient to intimidate a few large movie chains, and the company scarcely made its production costs back. I doubt they (or many others) will be covering North Korea anytime soon. (You can say one is law and the other is terrorism, but I think there is not so much as a mark of punctuation to distinguish them legally, morally, or practically) Now I'm not saying that Wikipedia is able to stand up to every possible threat when it is unmistakable what will happen, or even when the risk is real and the cost significant. But if there is a pattern of social bullying going on that leads to the marginalization and outright erasure of certain types of content, and the mode of censorship being used relies on that bullying to make it happen, then Wikipedia shouldn't cheerfully go along with it, knowing that the effect of its surrender will be to become the agent of state censorship, to put others at greater risk, citing remote fears all the while pretending that this is simply a voluntary decision. To slave away under the guns of an occupier is excusable; to resist them, heroic; but to take the initiative to collaborate with them "voluntarily" to avoid unpleasantness -- never. Wnt (talk) 20:40, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

While I agree with you on the principles you espouse here, I don't think most of the cases of people crying 'censorship' around here are actually examples of it. Usually a cry of 'censorship' happens when someone with a very obvious POV that they want to push at Wikipedia isn't allowed to do it by the consensus of thoughtful people who are bending over backwards to try to be reasonably accommodating.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:53, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks - in most cases, I can agree with that. There are some others though that make me worry. Wnt (talk) 00:00, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
You can be right that people are trying to be "thoughtful and accommodating" and at the same time User:Wnt can be right that there is a contagious chilling effect.
Editorial decisions have to be weighted by more than notability, NPOV, UNDUE and verifiability. We need to consider self-preservation, to some extent. Also common humanity and decency. But we fool ourselves if we believe that these don't taint our work - and indeed bring moral costs of their own.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:26, 16 February 2016 (UTC).
Censorship at Wikipedia works like this: You want to explain what Holocaust deniers think by referencing a Holocaust denier. (This is something I know a lot about.) Holocaust deniers believe it is impractical or impossible to exterminate thousands with louse disinfestant (by dumping it through holes in the ceiling rather than using a blower/opener/heating apparatus like the kind used in the Zyklon B disinfestation chambers) and Diesel exhaust (Diesel exhaust has nominal amounts of carbon monoxide). I think you can understand why this reality is against the law in 14-European countries. Raquel Baranow (talk) 14:41, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm afraid I don't quite understand your point with respect to Wikipedia. Without inviting a full discussion of Holocaust denial, could you lead me to a discussion of the issue you are talking about?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:28, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
It looks like Raquel Baranow was taken to RS/N over whether a "far-right" newspaper could be cited as a source for the death of a person mainly known for "far-right" beliefs.[10] The reference, in Willis Carto, currently stands. I think that is the correct call - WP:RS lists many criteria for whether a source is reliable, but having the right beliefs is not one of them. Context matters, and while I would dismiss them as fringe in some argument over whether Koreans are better than Tibetans, I would credit them as a stable, well known news source when it comes to reporting on the death of a well-known Holocaust revisionist. I think that there is a very valid issue that some people on Wikipedia try to censor racism outright. For example, User:Drmies currently has posted "I block for racism. Racism is not tolerated on Wikipedia." at WT:Reference desk, where racist trolling has been debated. I believe this is tremendously counterproductive because something cannot be true unless it is falsifiable. Only if racists feel free to make their argument, and see it demolished, can they be refuted. A field of study placed under the alleged protection of government censorship will stagnate and devolve, because the details of the facts don't get properly scrutinized.
It appears that the case of the diesel exhaust may be an example of this. There are some "far-right" sites like [11] that allege that it is impossible to kill animals in the time it reportedly took Nazis to gas Jews with diesel exhaust. Nizkor puts up a decent defense that it is possible here, citing such issues as the density of packing of the humans in the vans vs. animals in the experiment. At the center is the original study, "The toxicity of fumes from a diesel engine under four different running conditions"; and as said, it depends on the conditions. If the air intake is partly blocked, they are more deadly; even so, as the revisionists point out, some animals survived more than 30 minutes. The tragedy is that when discussion is criminalized, people get distracted from the key treasures of such a debate, which to me, look like that if you can find wreckage of one of the old vans, you might be able to check directly whether the fuel mix had intentionally been made too rich, based on residue in the engine or whatever, and that if not everyone died, then there should be occasional corpses in the mass graves that show signs that someone did a little tidying up to fix what the engine missed. Proper, free scholarship is needed to keep mining the facts, and anti-revisionist laws have hampered that while the evidence gradually rusts away into uselessness. Wnt (talk) 14:32, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a place for doing scholarship; I think that's a pretty fundamental misunderstanding. Just out of curiosity, and given that Jimbo's talk page is usually a free-speech zone, why put quotation marks around "far-right" in reference to a site aimed at "refut[ing] the Holocaust hoax"?

Don't answer that, cause the quotes are silly, but let me just say that I think it was pretty clear what I meant, and that the burden is on you to explain what this edit does to foster an atmosphere of collaboration and research on our beautiful project. Oh, wait, you can't see that--because it's incredibly offensive stuff that should not be in an article. Let's just say it said what the editor's other said, except that it sounded like it came out of the mouth of a Southern slave owner circa 1850. And I am not supposed to block for that? Falsifiable my ass--that has nothing to do with blocking for racist trolling. Drmies (talk) 15:01, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Good block.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:26, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
My implication with the quotes was that the newspaper and recently deceased person might be described in harsher terms, but I did not want to run afoul of BLP by using them when I really hadn't done my homework to find out.
As I am not permitted to read the edit you cite, I don't have an opinion on it. If you blocked for vandalism or blatant POV-pushing in that edit, then that is not what you said when you said you block "for racism". An editor should be permitted to have slave-owner beliefs, but intentionally misrepresenting what the available sources say about a case would be quite another matter. But again, how can I know? You take we the editors out of the process of even auditing what you do, tell us that you're blocking for racism and no other reason, then criticize us because we don't know why you do what you do, or think you did what you said. Wnt (talk) 16:54, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Run for admin and you'll know. In the meantime, please don't misrepresent me. I'm not blocking anyone for having this or that belief; I'm blocking for edits that are made--in this case, racist edits. I'm not that bad an admin, Wnt. Drmies (talk) 18:49, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I endorse that block. The edit was pure hatred, nothing even remotely contributing to the discussion. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Wnt, here is another one for you--here's your troll, I believe--that is, the person who some may argue is trying to start a scholarly discussion at the Reference Desk: What are the strongest arguments against the existence of gas chambers in national socialist Germany? Drmies (talk) 20:32, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
@Drmies: I'm relieved to hear you say you don't block just for belief. Note though that the argument you commented in, saying that you block for racism, was one that started off with the general claim that "racism is not tolerated on Wikipedia". And, apart from the question of whether the poster is a troll, there's no reason why we can't give a straight answer to what he wrote, pointing to Holocaust denial and listing "strongest" arguments, together with the reasons why they are unlikely. Note that in scientific terms, "6 million" is not even a number -- it is only meaningful when we say six million plus or minus X. Which means there will be best arguments for "minus X", and some kind of probability distribution for what X can be. I think that it is better to let people take on answering such questions, rather than administering them away, because until we know what X is, we don't even know what we actually believe. There are many social situations where questions like that might best be answered rudely, but the place we set up specifically to answer questions shouldn't be one of them. Wnt (talk) 21:58, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Critical Mass

It's interesting to read above that Jimbo occasionally uses a Boris bike. I'm a subscriber too and used one most recently for the London Critical Mass ride at the end of January. Critical Mass, as an institution, is very like Wikipedia – decentralised mass action which is exciting and lots of fun. Has Jimbo been on a Critical Mass ride in London or San Francisco, where it started? The weather's not so good right now but it would be a good experience later in the year. The Boris bikes are good for this because they are heavy-duty and comparatively safe. Andrew D. (talk) 18:05, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

  • I once rode a bike through SF, before I moved to the US and gained more critical mass. It was wonderful, and I'm waiting on Jimmy to get me a paid position out there. I assume we're talking six figures. Drmies (talk) 18:51, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
. . . or walk on critical mass day. It is fun to watch, too. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:09, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I've not ridden in a Critical Mass event. I'm not actually a subscriber because I have only used the bikes rarely. However, lately I've been getting more fit (I've lost maybe 20 lbs since last summer) and I've been thinking of riding to work more often.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:37, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

The Signpost: 17 February 2016

Re:OpEd; I am laughin' my ass off. Great work! Its about time we all lightened up :) Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:46, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
The comments about it have been rather approving but I think it's too much. A well-placed obscenity can be powerful in making a point but having them sprinkled so freely throughout the whole piece distracts the reader from the content and the argument that is being put forward. Liz Read! Talk! 22:53, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Unblock for me

Hi.

I 3.5 years ago blocked from Turkish Wikipedia by admin Mskyrider 1. And I want return to Turkish Wikipedia. And i sent messages and e-mails to any Turkish admins but they are no answering to me. A lot of puppet account slander to me by them 2-3. And they are ignored me.. Can you help me?

____
1- https://tr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C3%96zel:G%C3%BCnl%C3%BCk&page=Kullan%C4%B1c%C4%B1:Aguzer&type=block
2- https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategori:Vikipedi:Aguzer_kullan%C4%B1c%C4%B1s%C4%B1n%C4%B1n_kuklalar%C4%B1
3- https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikipedi:Denet%C3%A7i_iste%C4%9Fi/Dava/Aguzer_2

There are only 50 minutes between blocks. First block: 1 month. Second block: 6 month and, Third block: Endless. in 50 minute! and 3.5 years ago.
-Writer: User:Aguzer 22:57, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

  • Perhaps contact more Turkish WP admins: I am not sure Jimbo's command of Turkish language is enough to thoroughly discuss those issues with the admins in Turkish Wikipedia. However, the admin-count there shows "{{NUMBEROFADMINS}}" as 25, so perhaps among those 25, there will be other active Turkish admins who could help review your block status. -Wikid77 (talk) 16:21, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
  • No, no, no.. I sent messages and e-mails to a lot of Turkish admins and stewards. Stewards can't help to me. And Turkish admins ignored me. Only Jimbo can help to me. -Writer: User:Aguzer 19:44, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
I am unable to help you.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:26, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

More on edit-conflicts

(continued from "#Edit-conflicts still need 2-line separation").

This is a 2nd thread about wp:edit-conflicts, to allow the 6-Feb-2016 thread (above) to archive within a week. Years ago I had discussed edit-conflict merge in Bugzilla, but now we should track phabricator entries because this year perhaps the wp:developers will be able to reduce edit-conflicts in wikitext edits, beyond VisualEditor (VE) just overwriting the prior user edits. Because still fewer than 5% of enwiki editors use VE, then the other 96% use wikitext edits (& reverts) which can hit edit-conflicts. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:25, 11 February 2016 (UTC)

Confirmed VisualEd overwrites intervening edits

Although it can be dismal to any users who lose all their intervening changes to a page, the VisualEditor (VE) still overwrites the prior revisions (without warning), and the VE users do not lose their keystrokes (no "edit-conflict" nightmare for them). See diff6163, where visual-edit of top line of section "Hints" also overwrote/undid prior edit to lines 4+5 in that section. Fortunately, VE is only used in ~4% of edits, so the likelihood of VE overwriting the prior interleaved revisions is still small. Otherwise, perhaps warn other editors, when people are editing the same page with VE, how those VE users gain priority in SAVEing their edits, even if rapid users had made hundreds of changes meanwhile in other sections of the same page. All intervening changes (to the same section of the page) are lost without warning when the VE edit is saved, but there can be attempts made by VE to edit-merge with the interleaved revised remote sections. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:55, updated 20:48, 12 February 2016, added diff 21:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

What happens when two visual editors are in conflict with each other. Visual editor "A" opens an article and begins editing. While "A" is working on their extensive changes, visual editor "B" makes some quick spelling corrections, not in a section "A" is working on expanding, and saves their edit which they started after "A". Later "A" saves their major change; does that revert "B"'s spelling corrections? An interesting test to run. Wbm1058 (talk) 18:27, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Correction: There seems to be an edit-merge of remote sections from each editor, and so both edits can be saved together in some circumstances. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:48, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
That sounds serious. We've had problems in the past where V/E bugs made newbies using it look like vandals and get treated as such, I thought those had been fixed. If V/E is resolving edit conflicts with editors using the classic editor by losing the edit someone had just made then I suggest you raise it, with diffs, at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. ϢereSpielChequers 22:18, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

In terms of priorities, because VisualEditor (VE) usage is still below 5%, then the chance of VE overwriting an interleaved edit is very rare, and I would rather focus attention on the wikitext source edit-conflicts instead. Adding more feedback for VE would likely bolster the illusion of wider interest there, and instead we really need to improve the wikitext editor, where many users feel Wikipedia has made no major improvements in like 10 years (and the SAVE-button legal notice or wp:Wikidata doesn't register with them as "awesome innovation"). Of course the same could be said for Google Search, with the same tired list of search-results, with no major option for alternative interface (and Google Doodle does not count as "awesome enhancement"). -Wikid77 (talk) 01:40, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

Dear Wikid77 If V/E has a bug so serious that it makes some edits using it look like vandalism then it is important either to fix it or disable V/E. So I would really appreciate it if you would back up your assertion with diffs. I understand that reducing edit conflicts, especially in mainspace, is obviously a more important initiative than FLOW, AFT, MediaViewer et al. But this isn't an either or situation, there are resources to do both, and your very useful comments on Edit conflicts in Mainspace risk losing credibility if you claim to have spotted such a serious bug in V/E but won't furnish diffs to support your assertion. ϢereSpielChequers 10:30, 14 February 2016 (UTC) ϢereSpielChequers 10:30, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
Well, VE overwriting a prior, interleaved edit would be very rare, but see diff6163, where visual-edit of the top line of section "Hints" also overwrote/undid the prior edit meanwhile to lines 4+5 in that section, rather than edit-merged both changes as the wikitext source editor would have done. -Wikid77 (talk) 21:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

First of all, VE doesn't edit by Sections

  1. VE is disabled on all talk pages
  2. VE edits by whole pages. If you click on an Edit Section link, the whole page is open for edition
  3. When editing whole pages, the second saver wins (whatever VE or WikiEdit)
  4. When editing by sections (i.e. both users editing the same section with WikiEdit), conflicts are taken into account.

More details at User:Pldx1/Overwrite. Pldx1 (talk) 13:54, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

  • Well, when editing whole pages, a 2nd user can edit-save ok, but the first editor will get edit-conflict if the changed lines were within 1 line of each other. Otherwise, both edits will be edit-merged around 2-line separation. This is the Scenario: Bob edits page, then Alice edits & saves ok, but Bob tries to save changes to adjacent/same lines and gets Edit-conflict screen. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:38, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Let us recal what was the exact receipe, as described in Section 5 of the above mentioned page.
Section 5: Edit (later, everything) wins Edit (former, everything) ==
  1. Somewhere, Bob opens a whole non-talk page
  2. Somewhere else, Alice opens the same whole non-talk page
  3. Both have access to the whole page
  4. Bob modifies Section 5 and saves the page (no message displayed).
  5. Alice modifies Section 5 and saves the page ALICE (no message displayed).
  6. Alice wins (modifs by Alice remain, modifs by Bob are gone, look at the diffs).
Scenario 5 : tested OK. Obviously, if the receipe is changed, one should not be surprised if the result is changed either. Pldx1 (talk) 16:05, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

False edit-conflict when none but self-edit

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T28821

I have recently seen another alarming "Edit conflict" screen when I was the only edit. This situation is logged from January 2011 in Phabricator as entry, "Edit conflict appearing when there is none: self-conflict in section edit not suppressed" (phab:T28821). The status is "Assigned To None" with "Priority Normal" but one-edit conflicts have still appeared 5 years later. The comments listed in Phabricator indicate the software sees identical, echoed edit transactions which only differ by timestamp, and someone advised to just ignore the timestamps and simply not issue an Edit-conflict screen in such a case (because the edit SAVE actually was performed and the Edit-conflict screen was an after-the-fact alarm). Although suppressing the Edit-conflict screen might seem a "cover-up" of software bugs which issue the 2nd echoed edit-transaction, the overall goal is to not issue a false alarm but rather stop it (by suppression for now). I have written much software (and some templates) which used cover-up (or bypass) tactics until the underlying bug[s] and performance bottlenecks were found/fixed years later, and I cannot remember any downside to simply stop the unwanted symptoms now, and fix the root problems some years later. This is a classic example of "Perfect is the enemy of better" (or improved "good enough") until underlying bugs can be fixed later. -Wikid77 (talk) 17:12, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

(40 minutes later) I just got another false edit-conflict when actually SAVE of copyedit to update 3 cites across whole-page "List of Major League Baseball players suspended for performance-enhancing drugs" where the Edit-conflict screen listed the differences with the prior revision but had saved my edit (no need for false alarm of "Edit conflict" because there was none, and the edit was saved). I am thinking the ultra-fast SAVE might be faster than edit-conflict comparisons, and so the edit-conflict software might need to delay perhaps 1 second and re-check the revisions. Note the extra delay would only occur when preparing the edit-conflict screen, not during every SAVE operation. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:04, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Fixing fast edit-overwrites may re-allow false self-conflict

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T58849

I have read more WMF Phabricator posts, among ~90 reports about edit-conflicts, and found T58849 has spanned over 2 years to fix fast edit-overwrites in a race condition (to catch them as actual edit-conflicts), but as a result, seems to re-allow the recent self-conflicts as false alarms. It seems more wp:developers are needed to fix all types of edit-conflicts (among multiple scenarios) and find a way to suppress false self-conflicts but still catch quick edit-overwrites as real edit-conflicts (to combine by edit-merge, merge3), in this complex multi-user system. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:29, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Recall weave merge and diff3

This is another subtopic to remember the June 2013 discussions about considering "weave merge" and improving the merge utility called "diff3" to allow changes to adjacent lines. See talk-page archive: "User_talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive_136#Status of edit-conflict technology". -Wikid77 (talk) 23:30, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Key factors in why edit-conflicts not merged

Thinking back to 2013, there was talk that edit-conflicts could not be merged because if 2 users add text at the same line, then a judgment call would be needed for how text should be joined. Anyway, here is a recap of some major issues:

  • There are already long-term bugs in the edit-conflict software, as an indication of how difficult to fix.
  • The current diff3 edit-merge utility could be changed to allow count=0 between edited lines (to allow adjacent-line edits) but that might allow peculiar combinations which were not really adjacent lines.
  • Any plan to auto-merge edits will need to face 2 editors modifying the same line and how to judge the combined outcome.
  • A plan to stack new text in LIFO (last-in, first-out) order, such as 2 replies stacked after the same post, has been debated as allowing misleading impressions about the nearby new lines, asking if worth the risk.
  • Another possibility would be partial (quick) edit-merge of remote sections, and ask user to accept loss of changes in conflicted lines (but save non-conflicted portions of the edit).
  • Perhaps an edit-conflict option in Special:Preferences could be activated for users who make many large edits and need conflict assistance.
  • File-diff synchronization has been noted as a factor which obscures finding and merging changes to adjacent lines (once a line is modified slightly, it can diff as being an added line while the original is treated as a 2nd deleted line (not seen as just 1 line modified).

Those above-listed issues reveal some of the difficulties which have thwarted improvements to the edit-conflict software. It is a double-difficult task: technical challenges to juggle busy users already make bugfixes a quagmire, and the need for judgment calls at same-line edits will require some intense high-level design decisions. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:30, 15 February 2016, plus more 08:42, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

We could resolve a lot of edit conflicts with some fairly simple changes. Treating threads that start # or * as separate sections and not treating the addition of a category or a template as a conflict with an editor adding a sentence would help. OK that would sometimes mean that an article was tagged as uncategorised or unreferenced seconds after that ceased to be true. But would that be as serious as having an edit conflict and losing a newbie edit? I don't think so. OK we would still have some edit conflicts where two people tried to change the same sentence or reply in the same thread. but a big improvement is better than the status quo and more achievable than perfection. ϢereSpielChequers 21:36, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
That's an excellent point about '#' or '*' as separate, if fixing the general edit-conflicts is too hard at first, then perhaps the wp:developers could fix many problems by focusing on conflicts at "*" bullets or ":::" indented lines as special-case exceptions which can be auto-merged easier with other nearby lines. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:21, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

My concerns

I am not greatly concerned about the "knowledge engine" kerfuffle -- it seems like the sort of confusion and infighting that happens in every organization. And I certainly disagree with people who think that improvements in (internal) search are not needed, or that improvements to the efficiency of the servers are not important. But there are two issues that badly need to be addressed by the BoT:

1. No adequate explanation has yet been given for the dismissal of James Heilman from the board. I can think of reasons why giving a full explanation might be problematic, but the fact remains that an elected community representative was removed without a clear rationale. That's a situation where a backlash is inevitable, and probably will continue until a better explanation is given.

2. Even more important, there are strong indications that the leadership of the WMF has lost the confidence of a substantial part of the staff. There are always going to be malcontents, but this seems to go well beyond the level that might be expected. I hope that the BoT is paying attention, and I hope that it will intervene if the situation continues to deteriorate.

Looie496 (talk) 18:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Believe me, this issue has the board's full attention.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:48, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
should not have had to come to this, that is why transparency is important--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:08, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

An issue with Wikia

@Jimbo Wales: (pinging wales) I thought this was the right place to say it. Whenever I try to make an account on Wikia, it says "Sorry, we're not able to register your account at this time." Is this intentional or just a software issue? Happened to me on 3 wikias over more than 1 year. 96.237.27.238 (talk) 21:20, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

@96.237.27.238: It sorta sounds like a bug to me. If you haven't already, you might consider making a report here, where I expect you'd get a fast response. I, JethroBT drop me a line 00:24, 22 February 2016 (UTC)


Thanks for WMF resources to improve MediaWiki software

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T121469

I see now in Meta:2015_Community_Wishlist_Survey/Results, the WMF Community-Tech task for "Improve diff compare screen" is planning for Spring 2016 to investigate the diff-line display (which is also an underlying problem to edit-merge some types of wp:edit-conflicts). Both issues are within the Top 20 requested issues (diff is #2, and edit-conflict detection is #20 when recounted internally, from position #21). Although the November 2015 survey was a quick scan of user ideas, it has revealed some major issues to improve, for both WMF developers & enwiki users. There is already talk about extending wp:CS1 cite template {{cite_web}} to link page numbers by separate url parameters (as issue #24, "Make it easier to cite different pages from a book as one reference"). Thanks again. -Wikid77 (talk) 19:11, 18 February 2016, revised 01:01, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

My preference would be to redirect the $2.5m Discovery budget (about 10% of the engineering budget I believe) into hitting these Community Tech ideas. II | (t - c) 07:35, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Now we need to clarify diff features: Even with the current WMF Community-Tech budget, we as community members need to help specify the requirements, to handle diff changes in long lines and resync at partial lines with matching text. Otherwise, the wp:developers could struggle for months to determine what is really wanted as better features for our editing. -Wikid77 (talk) 13:35, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Could start with a default to ignore irrelevant white-space changes. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:52, 22 February 2016 (UTC).
I have wondered if talk-pages could auto-append a bottom blank line before checking for wp:edit-conflicts, then a bottom reply/section would not conflict with another reply appended opposite below/above that same blank line. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:50, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Other knowledge engines

Wolfram Alpha is a surprise to me. Are there others? Nocturnalnow (talk) 21:02, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Interesting interview. Nocturnalnow (talk) 22:08, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Wolfram Alpha has been around for years now. Google had Knol but it didn't last very long. Liz Read! Talk! 22:55, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Parsing text seems ok but multi-word search better: I did get direct results for "When <whomever> born" but other questions got limited results. For example when asking, "Where do the White Nile and Blue Nile converge?" then Wolfram Alpha only detected the 2 rivers, but our typical wp:wikisearch noted Battle of the Nile and 2nd result was page "Confluence" with excerpt "Khartoum, located at the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile, and so wikisearch found the answer as "Khartoum" very quickly in this case. -Wikid77 (talk) 15:50, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
    • I have always preferred Google over our internal search when accessing Wikipedia. Indeed, searching for "Where do the White Nile and Blue Nile converge" in Google and limiting it to en.wikipedia.org yields Khartoum as the first result. The excerpt in Google search even says: " ... The location where the two Niles meet is known as 'al-Mogran' ... " (Google is smart enough to search for synonyms such as "meet" for "converge" here; our search isn't. Google also fixes typos in search terms). One of the premises behind Knowledge engine, then, is correct: we have the content, but our own search algorithm sucks. Whatever you think about the Knowledge engine, we should fix the good old search box. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:29, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
      • Well, I think Google Search has pre-stored the search-results for like 50 million questions, as when I started entering another "unique" question as, "How long does sunlight take to reach Mars" (~12 minutes), then Google auto-completion had already suggested Pluto, Earth, or Mars among the predicted questions. I wonder if the wp:wikisearch system could pre-store so many search-questions in that manner. -Wikid77 (talk) 01:50, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Libel suits against editors

Jimbo is this still the final word on the subject of either the Yank Barry suit or the general issue of editors being sued for libel? An issue concerning the article just arose at COIN, and personally I wouldn't touch an article like that without being unequivocally held harmless by the Foundation. Coretheapple (talk) 15:35, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

That's just a comment by me, but I think it's still accurate. Policy still remains at: this page. I wish there were a way to say more, but I'm sure you can understand that "unequivocal" assurances wouldn't be wise, as a contributor given such an assurance could then act with unjust impunity. Certainly it isn't something that we could promise to all contributors at all times, because then we'd end up in the bizarre position of defending a troll using Wikipedia to libel or harass or whatever. Basically, the Foundation does generally "have our backs" as long as we are behaving appropriately, and the track record of defending volunteers is very good. I am personally proud of that track record, and will push the Foundation to do more in any case where people feel that they haven't done enough or haven't done the right thing.
Having said all of that, I totally respect that the threat of malicious litigation can be real in some cases and even with support from the Foundation, it would be time consuming and scary and annoying to say the least. And so in those cases, it's completely valid for some contributors to simply steer clear. Sad but an artifact of a litigious world in which malicious plaintiffs are insufficiently discouraged from their bad faith actions..--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:38, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I think it would be illuminating, helpful to volunteers, and also perhaps reassuring to have some hard data disclosed periodically on litigation against/subpoenas of IP data of Wikipedia editors - aggregate numbers per year, but the more specific (which articles and editors were involved) the better. If, for instance, there was only only libel suit and one subpoena in a particular year, that's good information to have and support the position I've seen expressed here that the problem is overblown. If, on the other hand, there were a dozen or fifty or whatever, that would be more a matter of concern. Clearly suits on the public record can be disclosed at a minimum. Coretheapple (talk) 14:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Do you have homeowners or renters insurance? If you do, your insurance in many states will cover you against lawsuits related to volunteer activities. (Call your insurance agent to find out.) Those who have no insurance most likely have no assets. There aren't too many people running around suing people with no means to pay. Lawsuits are expensive. This worry is over-rated. Jehochman Talk 16:10, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
Not in this instance. And yes, I have a homeowners insurance and no it does not cover for libel/slander and yes I have assets. Coretheapple (talk) 16:15, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
It depends what state you are in. Each state has its own insurance regulations. I would not count on Wikimedia or anybody else to defend you. Best bet is to have your own insurance. That way you know exactly what protection you have. You might ask your insurance agent if there's a rider available or an umbrella policy. Presumably you make comments on other websites too. A defamation claim can arise anywhere, not just on Wikipedia. If you leave a negative review on Yelp, is Yelp defending you? Probably not. In 2014 Yank Barry pulled his lawsuit against the Wikipedia editors after 30 days. His lawyers said they would re-file, but they never did. I just checked PACER. Jehochman Talk 16:25, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
If you knowingly make a false or defamatory statement, most insurance policies will not defend you, period. Ask your agent - but you may need an "umbrella policy" as a minimum. Even if you are "only a volunteer", alas. Collect (talk) 16:33, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I actually did explore that with my insurance agent some time ago, and covering of libel and slander would require purchase of a costly "umbrella" policy. I did a little online research just now and the answer is not clear. Obviously one shouldn't hesitate to make ordinary edits to Wikipedia articles just because of libel issues. However, in this instance, when there is an article subject who has sued editors for libel in the past, I'm not touching it without an assurance of being held harmless by Wikipedia, the Foundation, or whatever. Coretheapple (talk) 16:36, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
Umbrella policies aren't that expensive, at least in my area. The cost is a couple hundred dollars per year and it offers extra protection against any sort of liability, such as auto accidents, slip and fall, etc. Of course no insurance will cover you for intentional misdeeds, but presumably you aren't intending to do something wrong on purpose. A good insurance company will defend you, but if it is later proven that your action was intentionally malicious, there is potential that they could ask for reimbursement. As a practical matter, most cases settle before trial, and that's that. The best thing is to contact a licensed insurance agent, explain your situation, and make sure you have coverage for any and all exposures, including stuff you post online. Jehochman Talk 17:40, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
Well what's a frivolous expense to some of us isn't so frivolous to others. There are also deductibles, impact on one's credit rating, premium increases, not to mention of course the enormous waste of time, annoyance, inconvenience, loss of anonymity, and a host of other reasons being sued for libel isn't a walk in the park. But putting that whole "insurance" thing aside - I think it is a total red herring - more importantly, I object to the "Yelp" analogy I've seen employed. The dynamic is different on Wikipedia. Here people monitor certain articles, engage in discussions on article improvement, etc etc., and there is much more involvement, a totally different order of magnitude than some casual bulletin board or place where you drop in to rate a restaurant. Coretheapple (talk) 15:06, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
The "libel trolls" (not to be confused with Internet trolls) who threaten Wikipedia editors know very well just how complicated the matter of personal insurance protection is, and they know that a prudent editor won't rely only on his umbrella policy. Also, the trolls don't plan to cooperate with the insurance company by suing for $900,000. They are almost certainly planning, if they sue, to sue for more than $1 million, knowing that $1 milloion is the usual limit on umbrella policies in the United States, and they know that they are trying to threaten to bankrupt the editor. They know that, in the absence of WMF backing, they will be able to suppress criticism. Only the WMF can address the threats of "libel trolls". Robert McClenon (talk) 19:27, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Another thing I'd like to know from Jimbo is the policy on disclosing user IP information to libel plaintiffs. Like my initial query, this one really warrants a response from Jimbo or someone with direct knowledge, pleasant as this discussion is otherwise. Coretheapple (talk) 18:19, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
The policy is here. I am not a lawyer and so it would be foolish for me to try to be more specific. If you have more specific questions, I recommend asking the legal team.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:42, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes I did notice that. That seems to be the standard policy. The question is how it is put into practice. Coretheapple (talk) 14:52, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Pretty well, as far as I know. The contributors who have had to go through it tend to say things like Carrite did, above: "I found WMF Legal to be helpful". Fortunately, as a matter of empirical fact, the number of cases is generally quite small. Ah, I just remembered the best source in terms of reporting on past cases: the transparency report. As one example, 23 requests for user data, 0% cases of information produced.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:23, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Good! I trust there is data for earlier periods? Coretheapple (talk) 15:29, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I clicked on the "Wiki version" link at bottom and got this for 2014. Wnt (talk) 17:07, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Over a year ago I was made the subject of a subpoena by a cold fusion company over a comment I made about a WP article on Wikipediocracy. Fortunately for me, I never once touched the article that I was commenting about and that they were suing over, I only expressed support for the editor attempting to maintain NPOV on the piece dealing with the very litigious company. They were trying to locate the main editor and were using me as part of their fishing operation for him, as nearly as I can determine. So, yes, it can happen easily that an "offended party" can go after a Wikipedian of good intentions and whether they have deep pockets or pockets at all is irrelevant to them, and yes, this issue is important to me because I've stared into the abyss, and yes, it is very important for WMF Legal to affirm in no uncertain terms that they have the backs of any volunteer acting to maintain NPOV in good faith when faced with a frivolous lawsuit. (In my case, I found WMF Legal to be helpful — not willing to touch anything I did or said off site, understandably, but seemingly very much in the corner of the person that was actually being chased by the litigant. Still: we need formal assurances, in my view.) Carrite (talk) 18:24, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
If you have a suggestion for how the formal policy should be changed, in my experience WMF Legal very much wants to do the right thing and very much wants to be reassuring - but within the bounds of not promising things that would bind the Foundation to defend bad actors.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:42, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm pretty cynical about formal statements of policy and more concerned with actual practice. A million dollar dedicated reserve in the WMF budget, an explanation of the foundation's position by the head of WMF Legal to the Signpost or some such making it absolutely clear that they have the backs of good faith NPOV editors and then actually stepping up strong and hard the first time that something comes up is really what I would like to see. They don't need to spend a million bucks a year on legal defense, mind you, they just need a ready reserve of that amount or more and to be ready to roll out funds on short notice from that reserve. I doubt that a formal policy would bind the Foundation to either on the one hand support a bad actor or on the other hand do the right thing in defense of a good actor. It is more a mentality and keeping A LOT of powder dry. Just being ready would scare away many of the legal bullies of the world. Carrite (talk) 16:44, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
You're right about defending bad actors. I'll think about it and post a suggestion. But I think that a formal policy would deter lawsuits. The subpoena stats indicate that there is already a good, tough practice on those. Coretheapple (talk) 16:35, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
@Carrite: Did you receive help from "WMF Legal" or was it Mr. Gunn at Cooley? - 2001:558:1400:10:640B:E470:4459:1DEB (talk) 14:31, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
My recollection is that my dealing was a woman on the WMF payroll that was part of the legal department. I don't recall her name. Carrite (talk) 16:32, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Carrite. - 2001:558:1400:10:C835:56BA:DEA1:A485 (talk) 18:03, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm curious as to why this would be relevant. If WMF Legal directly assists with staff lawyers, or retains outside counsel with a special competence, what difference does it make?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:42, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
It was relevant to me, because I was contacted by Mr. Gunn regarding the very same fusion company, and I decided not to fully cooperate with Mr. Gunn. I made this decision in part because I felt that Rule 3-200 of the California bar may have been strained by Mr. Gunn's interaction (earlier) with the Wiki-PR company. - 2001:558:1400:10:C835:56BA:DEA1:A485 (talk) 18:03, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I find it amusing to hear people say "oh, if you don't do anything intentional you'll be fine." Libel suits routinely accuse people of intentional misconduct, as opposed to mere negligence, no matter what has actually happened. As for "having one's back," the more specific and necessary thing in such situations is to hold one harmless. I imagine that the Foundation may not have that as a policy, in which case my policy is to avoid articles in which the subject has sued Wikipedia editors. To me that's just commons sense. Coretheapple (talk) 18:32, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
I go further than that. I not only will not edit a page with a subject who has sued a Wikipedian, I won't click APPROVED on a Pending Changes page. This is a really huge legal problem with the Pending Changes system, as nearly as I can tell — if a person clicks APPROVED, they may well become responsible for the malicious or bad editing of others. Carrite (talk) 18:48, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
I would only exercise that kind of caution in an article that had already been the subject of litigation. Even if I had an umbrella policy or whatever, it should be noted that such policies often carry steep deductibles, and a claim would boost premiums. Just not worth it to edit a high-risk article when the subpoena policy is inadequate to protect Wikipedians, and when there is no clear declaration holding Wikipedians harmless. Coretheapple (talk) 21:51, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Jimmy, how would you feel about tagging the articles of subjects (people, businesses or groups) that sue Wikipedia or Wikipedia editors with a link to the lawsuit? I think the public should know if there's a situation where Wikipedia or its editors may have been pressured. Such transparency may help discourage such lawsuits. Jehochman Talk 16:14, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

That's a very good idea. Sort of the way takedown notices appear in Google search results. Coretheapple (talk) 16:22, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Or perhaps a notice from the Foundation on article talk pages? Coretheapple (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, on article talk pages, like the old "this article was mentioned in the media" template. Drmies (talk) 16:56, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
User:Jimbo Wales asks what the WMF Board or WMF Legal can do. The answer, in my opinion, is to state, as a policy, that they will pro-actively review threats to sue Wikipedia editors, and, in cases where it is clear that the threat is being made in order to have a chilling effect, defend the editors. I agree that there are cases where a particular editor is a bad actor and should be thrown under the bus by the WMF. However, the apparent current position of the WMF, which is to do nothing about legal threats other than blocking editors, amounts to a policy that editors will be thrown under the bus. Whether they are defended and held harmless or thrown under the bus should be decided in advance, so that editors who edit an article where there have been malicious threats to sue for libel can edit without fear. As it stands, the subject of any article can lock it down by a malicious legal threat against editors. That isn't right. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:51, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree. See my suggestion below. Coretheapple (talk) 17:58, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
While help in defence is certainly good, the foundation should also make suitable use of Anti-SLAPP lawsuits to provide some deterrence against frivolous and nuisance lawsuits. This may be less of a problem in "loser pays" legal systems, but it may be critical in e.g. the US. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:29, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

WMF policy suggestion

How about something like this:

Wikipedia relies upon voluntary contributions for the continued existence of the project, and good-faith contributors need to feel confidence that they can enforce Wikipedia policies without harassment by subjects of articles and other outside forces. Therefore, in the event of libel suits and other legal process involving editors, the Foundation will defend and hold harmless editors who, in the Foundation's judgment, are acting in good faith in enforcement of Wikipedia standards and policies.

--Coretheapple (talk) 17:58, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

That's not a bad policy suggestion. I suppose there might be some tweaking about "good faith" editors, maybe "when it is clear to the WMF that the editor is acting in good faith."
I definitely agree with some sort of notice on the talk page of the article, but we can go further with an enwiki policy. Something like "If editors of an article have been subject to legal harassment and cannot continue to edit the article in good faith for fear of prosecution, then the article should be deleted." With exceptions of course. The idea is that many people want a Wikipedia article and some want to dictate what it should say. The proposed policy would just say "We don't play that game." The exceptions would be about major articles that we "have to have" or people game-playing to try to get an article deleted. Smallbones(smalltalk) 18:09, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I think that any connection to deletion would be problematic. I know of at least one instance in which an article subject (a really litigious individual, though he hasn't sued Wikipedia) would love to see his article deleted as it reflects the news about him, which is almost entirely unfavorable. Coretheapple (talk) 18:36, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree that something like that is in order. I would add that occasionally, when it is obvious to the Foundation that the subject/owner of an article is resorting to malicious threats of lawsuits, the Foundation should provide that judgment in advance of any actual lawsuits. (Otherwise editors will still be intimidated.) Robert McClenon (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

Existing libel defense policy

The existing policy is located here. I don't think it goes far enough. It says

As a general rule, editors, photographers, and other contributors are responsible for their own edits and contributions, and, for that reason, as a general matter, they are responsible for their own defense where a legal action related to their edits or contributions may arise. Contributors should be aware that litigation is a possibility, and they should avoid placing themselves in situations beyond their individual tolerance for risk.

Note what I've put in boldface, as I think it is important. Basically the official policy is "you're on your own, sucker." Then it says

The Wikimedia Foundation does not routinely offer financial support to editors, photographers, or other contributors who find themselves in litigation. In certain unusual cases, the Foundation, in its discretion, may consider helping to find financing to pay for a legal defense or to assist in locating pro bono counsel when a contributor has been named as a defendant in a legal action. Such an undertaking may be possible in cases that raise significant issues relating to free speech and that advance the mission "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

It then says "WMF would give consideration, for example, to requests involving issues" that "raise significant freedom of expression questions that affect the Project's ability to be a neutral source of information, such as true and verifiable statements that are censored under local law (e.g., foreign laws that prohibit truthful information unfavorable to the government)," "would expand significantly the breadth of content that would fall under the public domain (e.g., art in public domain); or Would reinforce the enforceability of the Creative Commons and similar free-content licenses (e.g., that Creative Commons license is valid)."

So we have an odd situation here. In practice, it seems that the WMF has a pretty good track record at least in dealing with subpoeanas. Actual libel suits, not clear. I don't see any stats for that. But the policy itself is weak, does nothing to discourage libel suits. It tells libel plaintiffs: if you sue our contributors, we probably won't step in to defend them. Yes we may, but once the libel plaintiff looks at that list of exceptions he'll feel reassured. Yet actually finding out who to sue, via subpoenas, seems to be difficult; most subpoenas over the years (none lately) have resulted in IP info turned over. Lesson number one: never use your real name in editing articles on corporations/people! Let them subpoena you if they plan to sue. Lesson two: the WMF needs to beef up its policy on defense of contributors. Coretheapple (talk) 14:37, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

The flip side is that if they strengthen the statement, it may encourage more suits because there will be an appearance that Wikimedia might pay settlements to get contributors off the hook. About 90% of lawsuits settle before trial. Do we really want to encourage more suing? I think the best thing we can do is increase transparency. If somebody sues Wikimedia or a contributor, place a big warning label on their article stating that legal pressure has been applied which could impact the content of the article. Readers should know about that situation. Jehochman Talk 16:38, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
  • My take is that the written policy above is entirely inadequate. There needs to be a firm statement of some sort that WMF intends to stand behind any good faith editor attempting to maintain NPOV by assisting with their legal defense. "Go Ahead And Sue Them But Leave WMF Out Of It" is the message I get from the current policy. I believe the reality is better than that, which is more important than the words. Still, I would like to see a strong statement, backed by a strong and well-financed structure, most importantly backed by strong action when necessary. Carrite (talk) 17:52, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes the impression I get is that the purpose of this statement is not to defend Wikipedia against libel plaintiffs, but against contributors seeking redress against the Foundation in case they are sued. I couldn't disagree more with Jehochman that somehow taking a strong stance to back your contributors somehow will encourage people to think they'll get monetary settlements. I don't think it will have any impact on that equation. If the WMF is worried, it can state that as policy it does not pay money in settlements. Coretheapple (talk) 19:10, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree with User:Coretheapple and User:Carrite. The policy essentially says that the WMF won't do anything, which in turns is a policy that means that the WMF is encouraging malicious persons to hold articles hostage by threatening libel suits. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:36, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I started the original thread linked above, which was actually "hatted" by Jimbo with the comment that "commenting publicly on ongoing litigation is strongly advised against." I realize this is a conventional wisdom, but I don't feel like random Wikipedians should feel inhibited about commenting on lawsuits that they are not a party to. I will probably never know if my little critique did anything at all to persuade the lawyers or their client to withdraw the lawsuit, just as I'd never know if it had somehow encouraged them if they had gone through with it. But my feeling is that when we throw up our hands and say something is a matter of law, which is to say, a matter of money, we give up our main advantages. Whenever we want to stick up for a good faith Wikipedian, we should do so with the confidence that we are many and the opposition few, we are powerful and the opposition weak, we are right and the opposition wrong. We are a community of independent thinking people. Some will stand up for the person sued by writing freelance articles, in social media. Some will want to donate for legal expenses after all. Some will empathize with the plaintiff and grind off any less defensible points in the article, limiting future damage and perhaps earning some goodwill. Others will go off and dig into the plaintiff's background, looking for potential advantage. We may stick up for the person sued by getting them a job with WMF itself (I'm thinking this was a factor in User:Doc James' election). We shouldn't underestimate the diversity and creativity of our response, with each person playing a small role of his/her own choosing. We should never be content to be herded out of the way so that the professionals can fight it out on their own, for two reasons: because the professionals could lose, whereas we will never accept defeat; and because professionals make their career by winning, while we are perfectly content to see a matter quietly drop. Wnt (talk) 20:48, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

I have several opinions:

  1. Articles where the subject has sued Wikipedia or its volunteers need to be tagged for transparency. The world should know that the subject is suing and have a link to the lawsuit so they can read it.
  2. Editors should get their own insurance, sufficient to protect their assets. Don't rely on Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia may provide assistance.
  3. Wikipedia should defend good faith editors, and should avoid the encouragement of lawsuits that may occur if settlements are paid too frequently. If Wikipedia sees a stream of such lawsuits, they will become experts at defending them. This is better, and cheaper, than leaving editors to figure it out themselves.
  4. Wikipedia should make every possible use of anti-SLAPP legislation to deter lawsuits. Jehochman Talk 20:57, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
It isn't feasible for editors to get their own insurance, sufficient to protect their assets. Umbrella policies in the US normally go up to one million dollars. Libel trolls are not stupid, and know this, and will sue for two million dollars (not an absurd amount in principle), and let it be known in advance that they will sue for more than one million dollars in order to destroy the editor. Without the knowledge that Wikipedia will generally defend the editor, and will file anti-SLAPP countersuits, libel trolls will know that they can hold articles hostage. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:06, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
How many lawsuits have you worked on? Things don't work that way. Insurance is very good and anybody with assets should have it. Getting sued for Wikipedia participation is a minor risk compared to the larger, more common risks of driving a car or owning property. You shouldn't be so worried. Jehochman Talk 04:37, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
I'd suggest that insurance arguments get it backwards. The Foundation should have libel insurance and that should cover good-faith contributors. I understand that the Foundation does not have libel insurance. That's its decision, but shifting the litigation risk to contributors is not the answer. Coretheapple (talk) 21:14, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't if there is insurance available that does what you are asking. The Foundation can insure themselves and their employees, but I don't see how they can insure thousands of unidentified contributors to the site, located around the world. Insurance is a regulated product where the agent has to be licensed in the jurisdiction where its sold and used. Jehochman Talk 04:37, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Actually insurance to cover "volunteers" is common, widely available, and used by many non-profit organizations. Check your local AIG, CIMA, and a huge number of other insurance companies. Wikipedia/WMF might differ in that one is looking at individuals who are not identified except to WMF/Wikipedia and where the coverage would be one more about deliberate libel rather than accidental injury, but the insurance is still there. Nonprofitrisk.org states:
The most common liability policy purchased by nonprofits is the commercial general liability policy. CGL covers against claims for:
  1. bodily injury (someone suffered an injury),
  2. property damage (someone’s property was damaged),
  3. personal injury (offences for libel, slander, defamation, or malicious prosecution), and
  4. advertising injury (libel, slander, or copyright infringement due to advertising activities).
Does this elucidate matters a bit? Collect (talk) 14:16, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that's helpful. What I had in mind was perhaps the WMF being insured and listing volunteers as "additional insureds" if allowed by the policy. Coretheapple (talk) 14:52, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Tagging for transparency?

I just wanted to focus on a point @Jehochman: raised about "tagging" articles that are the subject of litigation. I assume this means a notice, in the main space or on the talk page, alerting editors that the subject is suing or has sued editors. I think this idea makes a lot of sense. We can wait from now till doomsday for the Foundation to improve its position, add insurance, or whatever, but this is something the community can do. Of course, to do it comprehensively, the Foundation would have to disclose the existence of such suits. Coretheapple (talk) 15:09, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

There is only one active federal lawsuit where Wikimedia is a named party. It isn't about defamation at all. Jehochman Talk 23:21, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm sure that many if not most are filed in state courts or overseas. I'd like to see WMF provide full disclosure of past and pending suits. That would help not just in terms of tagging but also allow update of Litigation involving the Wikimedia Foundation, which is way out of date. I see that there is a suit by Louis Bacon in London,[12] which resulted in court permission to obtain identities (IP addresses I imagine) of Wiki editors. But the denouement is not known. The Bacon article has nothing past 2011, and neither does the Foundation article. Editors have a right to know about all this. Google Wikipedia and libel and you'll see quite a bit on how Wikipedia and its editors are vulnerable to libel suits.
I do hope that Jimbo acts on this and doesn't just ignore this conversation in the hope that it will be archived and the whole thing just goes away. Coretheapple (talk) 14:18, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
That Louis Bacon article can use some eyes, by the way. I see from the talk page that the subject has had some concerns over it in the past, but that editors may have bent over backwards a bit too far in removing material. If that lawsuit is still pending I can see placing a tag on the talk page there. Coretheapple (talk) 14:43, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
The Yank Barry case was of course not Federal. The Subpoena for SmackBot's real identity (Helpful Pixie Bot I suppose) was not federal.
The situation is of course complex in the US where there are so many jurisdictions, but there are generally reasonable laws in place, which provide for slightly less onerous situation for editors where subjects are in the public eye.
One thing that might very well be worth some legal time is getting an opinion on the difference between talk-page discussions and article text.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:38, 22 February 2016 (UTC).

Community participation in CTO candidate evaluation

Jimbo, will you please support allowing the community three weeks to provide feedback on the top 5 CTO candidates before a final decision is made, with Signpost, Chapter, WP:CENT, watchlist, and/or banner announcements when they are ready? EllenCT (talk) 16:07, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Gosh, no. I don't think that would make for a sensible or useful hiring process at all. The CTO position is a highly technical position and not something that voters would be well positioned to give feedback on. It is a professional job, not a political position. The right thing to do is not to have community feedback on the candidates themselves, but on the technical direction of the software and on the job requirements.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:21, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
How about as a question-and-answer period without any voting allowed? The job description indicates that the CTO is delegated decisions about which technical options to pursue, so this would give us the opportunity to see whether the candidates can explain their choices in ways that support the enhancements that the community needs as opposed to harboring divergent plans. Are you suggesting that the very limited number of hiring managers available for C-level positions have shown that they have the competence to evaluate that specific aspect of CTO candidates by themselves? EllenCT (talk) 17:15, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
Now that is a fine idea! Not only would the answers be illuminating, but it would select for candidates who are able and willing to give straight answers to questions asked -- something that is not particularly valued in other organizations. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:52, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
This doesn't happen all that often, but on this point I agree entirely with Jimmy. It is possible that a community member with specialized knowledge that would be particularly useful to reviewing CTO candidates would be appropriate as part of an interview panel. But not even Burger King applicants have to run the gauntlet of angry customers before they're hired. Risker (talk) 00:10, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
If a restaurant chain was hiring someone to whom they intend to delegate decisions about franchise standards, is it reasonable to require that they have experience working the counter, supply chain positions, and as a customer? Can you think of another way to make sure that we get a CTO with the community goals at heart, instead of someone who devotes massive effort to, or supports contractual obligations requiring, something the community doesn't need? EllenCT (talk) 01:03, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
The community isn't hiring her, the WMF is. We don't set the job description, we don't pay the salary, we don't set the goals and objectives, and we don't carry out the performance appraisals. The CTO will not be reporting to the community, but to the Executive Director. Lila's page is on Meta, if you'd like to make the case. Whatever else, Jimmy has no role in the hiring or firing of anyone on Wikimedia staff, with the exception of course of the ED. Risker (talk) 02:01, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
"The community" are the creators of the product, unlike Burger King customers. Jimmy can have as much role in hiring or firing as he likes, which is why the WMF exists in the form it does. Try not to be so uncritical. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 02:07, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm sorry you feel that way SB Johnny, that I'm being critical. I'm being realistic. The CTO job is not a community-facing one, it's about the system architecture and maintaining the operating system and keeping the server kitties fed and happy. The closest it comes to "community" is in running and maintaining the labs (which just lost a staff position, I understand), and that's more directed at the volunteer developer subset of the community. A lot of the responsibilities that I believe EllenCT is looking for, based on her posts, are under the umbrella of the Product department, which has its C-level leader in Wes Moran. She's absolutely correct that these are important functions. They're just not the functions of the CTO. And at the end of the day, it's going to be the ED making the hiring decision. So any appeals for an opportunity to participate (which I don't think is a good idea, and which I do not believe many excellent candidates will be willing to go through) needs to go to Lila, or possibly Boryana Dineva, who will probably be organizing the interviews. Risker (talk) 02:47, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Was the previous CTO responsible for the contradiction between messaging to the Knight Foundation and the public regarding the creation of a search engine for non-Wikimedia content? Whether they are public-facing or not, they clearly have a substantial community impact. Why do you believe that a good CTO candidate might not want to engage with the community concerning their philosophy and goals? I will certainly take your advice to at least ask the ED to try to make sure the CTO approves of the community tech team goals. I am not sure who Wes Moran is. I was unaware that the WMF provided products instead of services. What is meant by product in this context? EllenCT (talk) 03:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
No, the CTO role is a new role, or more correctly the return of a role that has not been filled since 2011. The person you are thinking of was the Vice President of Engineering, which did not encompass the same responsibilities. Wes Moran is Vice President, Product. It's been called "product" for over a year. Risker (talk) 05:14, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Given that many of the incidents that have damaged relations between WMF and the community had their origins in technical fiascoes, it might help generate good will if the WMF allowed the community a role in the CTO decision. That doesn't (necessarily) mean a deciding role or a veto. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:20, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree a deciding role or veto would not be appropriate; I am only asking for questions and answers for three weeks. EllenCT (talk) 03:36, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Apologies if it looked like I was trying to put words in your mouth -- that was not my intent at all. BTW if anyone wants to know where the CTO sits in the grand scheme of things, there's an organizational outline of sorts here. I'm not sure whether I'm less confused after reading it. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 03:40, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I suggest we as a community comment on the job application description. That seems appropriate and useful for the hiring process. I don't think it's good however to have the community vet a candidate. I agree that some mistakes have been made over the past years with some hires, but it is simply not our place to participate in this. I'd rather see a hire fail, or the whole foundation fail, than having the community grill some potential hires. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:22, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Why would the Foundation be better off with a CTO candidate who would rather not engage with the community? EllenCT (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Community Participation in evaluation of the ECTO candidates. It seems that User:EllenCT is candidate to become an ECTO, i.e. an Evaluator of the CTO candidates. Perhaps the ECTO candidate could be more prolix about her ability to evaluate a CTO candidate, i.e. a Chief Technology Officer. According to the | job description, the required CTO will be the senior technology executive at WMF, in charge of a 58 sized staff, among them 15 seniors/directors and 40 engineers (with overlap). What EllenCT does know about leading such a technical team ? Home work for the ECTOs: describe how you think a CTO would manage the solving of the archival problem (talk pages, as well as discussion boards). Pldx1 (talk) 18:26, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that only one community member should have the opportunity to ask CTO candidates questions? EllenCT (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Dear User:EllenCT. I am suggesting that I am not sure that you are qualified to recruit a Chief Technology Officer. That was the reason why I proposed you some home work. Additional question: what is your guess about the budget of the Tech Department ? Pldx1 (talk) 09:08, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
You clearly did not read my proposal. I did not suggest that the community should do any recruiting, nor that I be the only one allowed the opportunity to ask questions of the staff's top candidates before a final decision between them is made. What does your "homework" have to do with determining if the CTO candidates' goals are aligned with those of the community? EllenCT (talk) 10:28, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
This is because I have read your posts that I suggest you should discover what is the job of a CTO, i.e. a Chief Technology Officer. This person is not hired to have any goals by herself. Her job will be to coordinate/organize/manage/control what a 58 sized staff will do, for an budget of around 10,000K$ () per year, in order to fulfill the goals assigned to the Tech Department by the WMF through her Chief Executive Officer. Pldx1 (talk) 14:17, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

On the WMF hiring process

Lots of the ideas that are circulating on this page strike me as misguided, but I'd like to make a couple of suggestions, based largely on my experiences several years ago as a volunteer developer for GIMP, the open source image editing program.

1) It is extremely useful for developers and other staff members to be users themselves. All of the developers and maintainers at GIMP were heavy users of the software, and our personal experiences informed and motivated everything we did. In fact our greatest difficulty was in supporting the Microsoft Windows port of the program -- all our principal developers worked in Linux, and we often had trouble appreciating and understanding the issues that Windows users faced. Consequently I suggest that it should be a big plus, when looking at candidates for any WMF position, for the candidate to be an experienced Wikipedia editor. I don't think it should be an absolute requirement, but it should be a big plus. (This really applies to the BoT as well.)

2) Even if WMF staff were all editors themselves, there would still be substantial antagonism between the staff and the editing community. This is inevitable because inevitably many of the ideas generated by the broad community are misguided. The broad community is often good at identifying problems but poor at judging solutions, due to unfamiliarity with the technical issues at play, and unfamiliarity with issues that are known to have affected other similar systems. Also the users with the most experience tend to be the least sensitive to issues that mainly affect newcomers, and in general tend to be overly conservative about any sort of change.

3) Philosophical differences are also important and probably inevitable. At GIMP a large contingent of our users would have preferred us to be as much of a PhotoShop clone as possible, but as unpaid volunteers we found that idea excruciatingly boring and simply refused to do it. If we were a commercial entity we might well have followed a different path. The issues affecting the WikiMedia movement are obviously very different, but philosophical issues still come into play.

Looie496 (talk) 16:15, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

These are all 3 very wise statements.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:50, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
"Users are unfamiliar with the technical issues" - in the Wikimedian community you have a huge variety of experience. We have trustees of charities (I have been a trustee for 30 years), we have software developers, we have Nobel prize winners, we have lawyers, we have project managers, we have professors, we have graphic designers.
However good the hires at the Foundation, there are going to be Wikimedians with more experience in their field. Listening to the community is a good idea.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 10:23, 23 February 2016 (UTC).
I actually agree with all of that. The key point is that although listening to the community is essential, making strategic decisions by community vote is often wrong. Looie496 (talk) 15:48, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Some of these points mentioned here remind me of What Have We Learned From This Open Source Project?. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:16, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia article: "Murder of Anni Dewani"

I'm writing to bring your attention to a Wikipedia article which is needlessly inflicting emotional pain and suffering on the family of the murder victim who is the subject of the article. And the pain and suffering is being exacerbated by Wikipedia's refusal- despite repeated requests from multiple people- to abide, in the article, by its own ostensible standards for balance, NPOV, and consensus-based edits.

Jimmy Wales has been quoted as assuring the public that Wikipedia will not be permitted to be used as a platform for spreading public relations propaganda (http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/technology/article4575800.ece). And certainly the published standards for Wikipedia articles purport to disallow such.

Therefore I was shocked to find that the article on the Murder of Anni Dewani has been written by someone who appears to be acting as a PR agent for the man...wait for it...accused of orchestrating her murder. Not as shockingly- since this is what PR agents do, isn't it?- the article is written from a decidedly NON-neutral point of view and suppresses salient facts about the murder that are inconvenient to the agenda being pursued in the article.

I'm herein requesting that Wikipedia a) remove the bias and agenda driven language from the article, and b) permit the inclusion of the proven, documented, and salient facts of the murder which are currently being censored from it. Precisely how this can be accomplished has been discussed and requested, ad naseum, by multiple people, on the article's talk page. But to no avail.Al Trainer (talk) 19:41, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

This is an obvious sock/meatpuppet of User:Lane99, and I have blocked it as such. See Talk:Murder of Anni Dewani. Bishonen | talk 19:50, 17 February 2016 (UTC).
Backstory? The husband was accused of plotting to murder his wife but was acquitted and exonerated. Some folks are upset that Wikipedia won't allow them to post "evidence" of his guilt. According to WP:CRIME, a party is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law which didn't happen. So, it would be biased and against Wikipedia's own rules on neutrality to post "facts" against a person that were not included in a trial or supported by reliable sources (WP:NOTADVOCATE). Liz Read! Talk! 02:49, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I have reviewed the article briefly, being only familiar with the case as most people in the UK are, having read a lot of news reports, etc. And it looks quite fair to me as it stands. If our complainant had a specific concern, i.e. a specific example of a neutral statement backed up by reliable sources that people are not being allowed to include in the article, that would be interesting. And if there is proof or even real evidence of someone engaging in paid advocacy, then that would be valuable to see as well, although it should probably be emailed rather than posted on-wiki.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:45, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
User:Jimbo Wales A. Calculatingly crafted PR of course is liable to give the impression (however specious that impression might be) of being "fair". In particular to people (such as yourself, as you've mentioned) who are not intimately familiar with the subject matter at hand. But by any reasonably objective editorial standard the article on the "Murder of Anni Dewani" is un-fair. In fact, so patently so, it can be proven in just the following few sentences: Premise 1) To present something that is a proven fact as merely a theory is unfair. Further, to present it as a discredited theory is flagrantly unfair; Premise 2) Multiple courts have affirmed that it is a proven fact that Anni's killing was a planned murder for hire that was staged to appear as a random carjacking. No court has ever ruled that it was not a murder for hire; Premise 3) The Wikipedia article presents the proven fact of Anni's killing being a murder for hire as if this fact was, rather, not only merely a theory, it presents it as if it is a discredited theory; Conclusion) Therefore, not only is the article unfair, it is flagrantly unfair.
B. Having established above that the article is unfair (and should therefore be revised), a balanced and neutral recitation of the salient facts of this topic has indeed already been suggested (and endorsed by multiple people) for the lede of the article. It is the lede paragraph seen at this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_Anni_Dewani&oldid=701824448. The sources cited are court documents and mainstream media reports. Every word of this suggested lede is an established fact, and supported by not only by the sources cited, by a multitude of others that could also have been cited.
C. That the author of the current article on the "Murder of Anni Dewani" is acting in the capacity of a public relations operative is supported by considerable empirical evidence. To which email address should this evidence be sent, please?209.52.88.22 (talk) 01:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi Lane99, thanks for attempting to substantiate your claims but you have fallen well short of an argument that holds water. You have simply repeated the same rhetoric that you have been pushing for many months and for which no consensus exists. As the article's Talk page will bear out, your rhetoric has been rejected by the vast majority of other editors of the article. The only other "editors" who have supported your claims are your own banned sock puppet accounts and an occasional meat puppet IP account. Your claim that the current article has been written by one author is clearly false, as can be seen by simply viewing the edit history. Many editors have contributed and discussed every aspect of the article. You were invited to contribute many times and the only contribution you've been willing to make is to push the same barrow that you're pushing here; insisting that the discredited BLP violating "murder for hire" theory be stated as undisputed fact - in the article's lede, no less!
You have not even attempted to explain why the self confessed perjured evidence of key witnesses, deserves to be regarded as "proven fact". That perjury was crucial and cannot be ignored. The court in S v Dewani certainly viewed it as damning and used it as the basis for overturning key findings made in the earlier trial of hijacker Mngeni. Paragraph 23.1 of the court's judgement in S v Dewani explicitly states that the only crimes that had been proven to have been planned in advance were the crimes of kidnapping and robbery.
"23.1 It is clear that Mr. Tongo, Mr. Qwabe and Mr. Mngeni (and Mr. Mbolombo) acted in execution of a common purpose to commit at least the offences of kidnapping and robbery and possibly also other offences"
User:Jimbo Wales Paragraph 23.1 is irreconcilable with Lane99's claim that this crime was "proven" to be a murder for hire. In actual fact, it shows Lane99's claim to be patently false. I am not sure what else needs to be said on the issue. Best. Dewanifacts (talk) 09:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
The comments of "Dewanifacts" (can I be forgiven for considering that a presumptious moniker?) are diversions that consist of ad hominen attacks and logical fallacies. And only serve as further evidence that the Wikipedia article is rigged and biased. The title of the article is the "Murder of Anni Dewani", and not the "Trial of Shrien Dewani, from whose agenda driven, obviously non-neutral point of view the article is currently written. Hopefully logic, reason, and the documented facts of the case will guide the resolution of this matter, and not ad homimen attacks, logical fallacies, and axe-grinding.Kesadilla22 (talk) 15:50, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Oh look. Another brand new editor who registered 45 minutes ago for the express purpose of pushing the same barrow as Lane99! How convenient. What do you think Bishonen? Is it even worth running a checkuser? Dewanifacts (talk) 16:27, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
The CU's get bored if you call on them on in obvious WP:DUCK cases, Dewanifacts. There's definitely no need for CU after I read the facebook page you linked to above. Blocked as obvious sock- or meatpuppet. Bishonen | talk 16:54, 23 February 2016 (UTC).
I was involved in a failed attempt at dispute resolution and have continued to pay some attention to this article. It is true that a single purpose account has been heavily involved in the article, but the SPA has, interestingly, been following the relevant Wikipedia policies of neutral point of view and the biographies of living persons policy. On the other hand, as noted by User:Bishonen, the real problem has been User:Lane99, who has been pushing an agenda, and has been topic-banned from the article for BLP violations, and has been using sockpuppets. The murder victim was murdered in South Africa in what on its face was a botched carjacking. The carjackers then confessed that they were involved in a murder for hire. Because they confessed and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, they got reduced sentences. They said that the victim's husband had hired them to kill her. He was tried in South Africa and was formally acquitted, including because the testimony by the carjackers was contradictory. That should end the question of his involvement. However, User:Lane99 maintains that there was a formal court finding that this was a murder for hire, and that the article should reflect this. I have requested, but not gotten, a legal view at WP:WikiProject Law as to whether there is such a thing as a formal court finding as a result of a confession in a common law court. (Since common law, unlike civil law, is adversarial, there are only really judicial findings, at least in my non-legal view, when there has been a trial. Civil law works differently.) The real problem at this point is continuing sockpuppetry by User:Lane99. I thank Bishonen for taking care of it, and I agree with User:Jimbo Wales that the article at present is fine. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:43, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I've not reviewed this case or this article, but at first thought - there might be an argument that the hired guns were convicted of being hired guns, but that no one has been convicted for doing the hiring. It's two separate issues. But I agree, that is entirely separate from the conduct issue, and on that point I think it's handled. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 19:34, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if the defendants were convicted of being hired guns. They were convicted based on their own confessions, not on trial. In S. v. Dewani, the only trial, the trial court found that they lied. There is no real evidence that they were hired gunmen, only that they were gunmen. Also, if the South African prosecutors still thought that this was a murder for hire, they would be looking for the mystery mastermind. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:33, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
My feeling with this sort of situation is whenever there's controversy, steer close to the source. Use the actual quote from the court about the payment for the murder, and do include it, because the quote was - indisputably - actually given and relevant. You can then provide other sources/arguments you find that the court was misled because the confessions were inaccurate, if that applies. Well-documented allegations belong in our articles even if they are untrue - that is what we do in mentioning Patrick Lumumba in the Amanda Knox trial, for example. The notion that only convictions can be mentioned would make Wikipedia vastly inferior to all other sources reviewing criminal proceedings, because of course, without the allegations and counter-allegations, none of the events would make much sense. Wnt (talk) 20:28, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Wnt User:Jimbo Wales If you read the article you will see that the Mngeni court's finding regarding "murder for hire" is clearly included in the section on the trial of Mngeni, as is the qualification that the finding was later found to have been based on perjured evidence. The complainant (Lane99) through his litany of sock puppets, has tried for 7 months to insist that this court finding should be stated as fact in the article's lede, despite its basis in perjury. Said complainant has point blank ignored every request to participate constructively in the talk page discussion, despite being invited to explain and substantiate his position. He has instead opted to unilaterally insert and re-insert his own interpretation into the article and the talk page despite it being against consensus, until there was no option but to protect the article and to topic ban him (and his many socks) for disruptive editing and repeated gross WP:BLP violations. Getting back to the article itself, it should also be noted that the article makes no attempt to disguise or obscure the allegations made against the husband - in fact the allegations are clearly spelled out, and an entire section is dedicated to the trial of the husband, complete with the court's reasoning for the exoneration. This entire complaint to Jimmy Wales is wholly lacking in substance and again makes scurrilous unsubstantiated claims about a PR agent being involved. Furthermore the complainant's emotional blackmail by referencing the murder victim's family is yet another fanciful attempt to manipulate. It is particularly distasteful in light of the fact that this same complainant has recently been impersonating one of the murder victim's family members, with yet another of his banned Wikipedia sock puppets - "ahindocha" . Dewanifacts (talk) 10:25, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
I think that it is time to close this thread as posted by a sockpuppet, and to consider banning the sockmaster. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:14, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree that the sock-puppeteer (Lane99) deserves to be blocked and banned but at this stage it seems even that is a circular and non successful recourse. He isn't even using the Lane99 account anymore - instead reinventing himself with anonymous IP's, and new socks - not to mention his canvassing for meat puppets on the "Memory of Anni Hindocha" Facebook page, advertising the fact that he has engaged Jimmy Wales and begging meat puppets to back him up.
In the interests of showing good faith, what might be really useful is if Lane99 could be given one more chance to substantiate his claims, and if he cannot or will not do so, to accept that his rhetoric will not be published on Wikipedia. Specifically Lane99 should be invited to:
A. Specify precisely what wording in the article is non neutral and biased, and provide suggestions for improvement
B. Specify to whom or what the article is biased toward
C. Explain why the Mngeni court's finding regarding "murder for hire" should be given prominence in the Wikipedia article's lede paragraph given that it was later found to be based on perjured testimony and flawed forensics.
D. Provide evidence to support his allegation that a "PR Agent" is operating. I am the account he has accused of being a PR Agent. I have on numerous occasions assured him that I am nothing of the sort and have asked that he desist from making such unfounded allegations, yet he continues to make them. I am not quite sure why he thinks that the husband would even require a PR agent at this stage of proceedings. He was exonerated 15 months ago, that court decision rendering PR superfluous.
My money says that this complainant will not come forward with the above details, thereby showing this complaint up for what it really is; baseless, unsubstantiated rhetoric. If that's the case, then it should put the matter to rest once and for all. We will see...Dewanifacts (talk) 20:28, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Long statement from Lila

In case folks aren't aware... see "Why we've changed". Jytdog (talk) 21:33, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Developers upset perhaps good

Although it would be nice if the wp:developers were working well with Executive Director Lila Tretikov and her insights to improve WMF software, their complaints might be a good thing after the years of technical issues which the developers have failed to solve (such as scrambled diffs, wp:edit-conflicts, or tiny template limits). Even the new Lua script interface was installed with a miserly 10-second timeout limit, when the prior markup template limit was 60 seconds, and some complex tests about Lua performance cannot be run due to the 10-second Lua timeout limit. I have worked with many software developers (+their managers) who were very stubborn, enamored with tech-toy "pet projects" and rarely cared to improve the end-user needs. I sincerely hope Jimbo fully understands that difficult software people are not a "failure of hiring practices" but rather a typical problem which many software organizations must manage. One troublesome programmer at an electric company even boobytrapped his software modules to systematically degrade (over a period of months) when his name no longer appeared in payroll files if he were fired, which he was and his hidden software boobytraps were found months afterward. More later. Wikid77 (talk) 18:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

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