User talk:Jimbo Wales

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Unblocking former editors

In the prior thread ("Dear Uncle Jimbo"), the question was asked, "Why can't the community raise the dead?" in reference to restoring a blocked user. The reasoning appears to be that, if an editor was blocked by a small group of users, then that decision "cannot override" a wider group of users who want the editor to be unblocked. In practice, we have been able to unblock editors by writing support for them during the wp:UNBLOCK appeals on their user-talk pages. There was no need to poll "100 users" to get a wider consensus. However, the blocking of those editors was based on limited circumstances, rather than patterns of extreme hostility. In these cases, several editors had been blocked in connection with the temporary conviction of Amanda Knox (in Perugia, Italy, later acquitted on 3 October 2011). To facilitate the unblocking, some active users merely wrote support on each editor's user-talk page to recommend unblocking those editors. Again, those editors had not been totally wild before being blocked. There had been a long series of other editors who were pushing "block-Amanda-supporters", where if a new user wanted to add footnoted text that there was no reliable evidence against Amanda Knox in the criminal trial, then other editors tended to hound those people as being an WP:SPA. They even tried to accuse me of being "an WP:SPA" but my long and varied edit-history quickly refuted those false allegations, so then I was falsely hounded as being "the ringleader" of the new editors (some with formal training in criminal justice), because I spent time writing to them about nuances of Wikipedia policies, which was seen as improperly "coaching" them. I was blocked repeatedly, and when I began the BLP article "Amanda Knox", and wrote to 4 editors (2 who wanted the new article, one neutral, and 1 opposed), then that was condemned as "wp:Votestacking" and I was topic-banned for 3 solid months. I tried and tried to explain to people that all the interest in Amanda Knox was due to monthly legal reports or family interviews in U.S. national news; however, many people still imagined a nefarious "advocacy group" (not just millions of people who watch U.S. TV news) was trying to take control of Wikipedia and "force" the article to contain sourced text. Anyway, Jimbo finally kept advising people to allow balance in the article. So, by the time Amanda Knox was acquitted of the murder charges, and October pageviews skyrocketed over 2.4 million, then the article even had several photos (not quickly deleted), although the top photo had been sent for wp:FfD deletion twice, with the second attempt lasting not the typical 7-day discussion, but dragging on for 3 weeks before being kept in the article. Anyway, many of the formerly blocked users had been unblocked, after other editors wrote support for them on their user-talk pages. I am not sure if the unblocking admins had been aware of the full hysteria behind blocking so many of those users, or to what extent the written support played in assuring admins that those users were not a potential risk to Wikipedia. Also, some of the editors remained blocked because there were so many of them. -Wikid77 17:13, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

This is, indeed, a very interesting case study. Wikid77's view on it is, naturally, from one side of the issue and so I suspect that many good people who took a different view would disagree with aspects of it. But I think we can get consensus around a few things in this case: some of the blockings were valid, the blockings were not all valid, the article was at one point highly biased due to the blockings taking out one side fo the debate, and that the article today, despite all that, is much better than it used to be. How to figure out improvements in process that lower the number of inappropriate blocks, and increase the number of appropriate blocks, is tricky business!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Please please please accept Bitcoins in the next donation drive

Hi Jimbo,

Pretty please could you consider accepting bitcoins in the next wiki donation drive - they're right up your street. I urge you to have a go with them if you haven't already to see what I mean. They are the future. 217.28.6.37 (talk) 18:29, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not the decision maker on such things, but I think we should only do so if it makes financial sense, which it most likely doesn't. As I understand it, and contrary to what many people intuit, it turns out that offering too many payment options actually decreases total revenue, presumably by adding complexity and surprise to the checkout process. I suppose we could accept Bitcoins and publicize it in the bitcoin community (but not add it to the general donation page where it would confuse people) but in that case, it's unclear that the level of donations would be sufficient to overcome the engineering and other administrative costs of doing so. But, really, I'm not involved with this decision at all, I'm just explaining why I think you'll have a bit of an uphill battle persuaded the Foundation to do this!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:35, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you could offer them instead of paypal then - it would certainly be interesting to see what effect that had on basically the entire internet. I'm not really serious about that of course - but it would cut your transaction costs and I expect most of your donors would be perfectly capable of working them.

In any case, thanks for your input. 217.28.6.37 (talk) 19:38, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

You're welcome!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:44, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Bit-Pay.com can have you accepting bitcoin for donations in a matter of minutes…and if you're a 501c3, there are no fees. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.204.90.78 (talk) 03:18, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Recruiting Retirees and Invalids

Hello, Jimbo Wales. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

...about this thread topic. I sent it a few days ago with a copy to the Philleppe at the Foundation. Also, why is your page archiving so quickly? Some good conversations are ended before they can get up a head of steam. The naysayers and anti-melodramaticists get their shots in and then, before you can say, "Bobs 'yer uncle", the thread is gone. ```Buster Seven Talk 21:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Overly-quick archiving by ClueBot III to /Archive_100

Again, some talk-page threads, here, have been archived within hours of the last reply, by ClueBot_III into /Archive_100. Fortunately, that archive page is still small, so the final replies can be read easily on that page:

• See: /Archive_100 - archive of threads, including replies within recent hours.

The archive parameter, in User_talk:Jimbo_Wales, was set to "24" which User:ClueBot_III states as being 24 hours, but the auto-archiving has been removing threads within just a few hours of the last reply's timestamp (not after 24 hours). I had thought this time-span problem would be fixed by now (by a Bot person), but perhaps someone else could check for the problem. I am thinking a work-around would be to set the talk-page's archive parameter to "48" which might then act to auto-archive after "48-24" hours (?) since last reply in a thread. Gotta run. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I see the problem. As I set up ClueBot III for Jimbo, he likes to keep at least 2 threads on the page when the bot archives. As I set up ClubBot III to replace MiszaBot III instead of using the "minkeepthreads" parameter, I used accidentally used the "maxkeepthreads" parameter which was set to 2, which is causing ClueBot III to forcibly archive younger pages. I fixed it now and this should no longer be an issue.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 00:37, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Great, thanks. I like to keep it pretty speedy because otherwise the page gets unmanageable. The downside has always been that sometimes due to being busy, I don't get to something in a timely fashion, it gets archives, and someone's feeling gets hurt. But I think fast archiving is still the right way to go.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:43, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

With an active page such as yours, I'm amazed you haven't gone crazy yet with the constant notifications.—cyberpower ^Chat_Offline 01:20, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Encyclopædia Britannica article about itself

The Encyclopædia Britannica has an article about itself.

• Encyclopaedia Britannica (English language reference work) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

—Wavelength (talk) 00:38, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia

Wikipedia has this page about errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica.

• Wikipedia:Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia

—Wavelength (talk) 00:39, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom

Dear Jimbo, I refer to this. A few pertinent points. (1) As I demonstrated in my statement there, there was never any justification for topic banning Cla68 in the first place. He was a model editor in the climate change area - probably the best editor who ever dared stick his neck out in that toxic area. If he was banned, I should be banned a hundred times. William Connolley's supporters came up with pseudo evidence in revenge for Cla68's involvement in his banning. ArbCom was too lazy to read all the masses of evidence given, so they arbitrarily banned everyone. (2) The reasons the arbitrators give for refusing to relax Cla68's ban now apply far more to William Connolley, who they unbanned. As you would know, Connolley's blog is largely dedicated to attacking people he disagrees with - including other Wikipedians such as me. (3) In Connolley's ban appeal he engaged in battlefield conduct during the ban appeal itself (which was amusing). He displayed contempt for ArbCom, and implied that there was no justification for his ban in the first place, and dismissed the comments of people like me with personal attacks. As a result, the Arbitrators unanimously agreed to lift the ban. (4) Compare this with the lame excuse given by William Connolley's supporters for why Cla68 should remain banned and the fact that Arbitrators in Cla68's case feel these lame reasons are justification for leaving the ban in place for another six months.

I have always maintained that this banning of 15 editors randomly was hugely damaging to Wikipedia's credibility. In any case, in view of this huge double standard applied now, it is clear that ArbCom is not neutral. If ArbCom is not neutral, why is this lumbering committee not folded immediately and replaced with a merit-based committee where arbitrators are appointed by yourself or the Wikipedia Foundation and given clear rules to follow? Alex Harvey (talk) 01:25, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

(I should add that it amazes me that someone like Cla68 wastes his time on this project given this sort of nonsense.) Alex Harvey (talk) 01:26, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Is this a climate change/CO2 related dispute? I think you need this video. 71.215.75.236 (talk) 05:36, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting AFD

I nominated this for deletion a while ago and there have been no comments, I would like for there to be a consensus at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Crissi Cochrane. Thank you, Albacore (talk) 04:00, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Replag ridiculously high.

I'm not sure if your able to comment on this but could you possibly give me a clue why the replication process of the Wikimedia databases is lagging 38 hours behind? Replag is 1 Day 14 Hours. That is exteremely high and it's been like this for almost 12 hours.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 11:42, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't know anything about this these days. Can you point me to where I can see these numbers and educate me about what they mean? I'm happy to pass along concerns to the tech staff, but it'd probably be faster and more effective if others did so!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

See this thread. Goodvac (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Replag is up to 1 Day 20 Hours. I believe replication came to a stand still and now the lag is piling on. It's hindering toolserver now and bots may get affected from this as well.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 17:27, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Did you know...

... that some Wikipedia contributors consider a DYK about an actress murdered (allegedly by her brother) three weeks ago, who's body parts are still being recovered from a canal [1] to be suitable main page material - next to a DYK on 'national masturbation day'? See Talk:Gemma McCluskie#Far, far too soon for this article to have a hook in 'Did you know' and Wikipedia_talk:Did you know#Gemma McCluskie. Given that this 'contribution seems to have been motivated by Wikipedia:WikiCup (see Wikipedia:WikiCup/History/2012/Submissions/Miyagawa), I personally think that we could well do without the cup, DYK or both. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:25, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

There was an ANI thread on this a few hours ago and consensus was that it was inappropriate at this time.—cyberpower ^Chat_{Limited Access} 17:29, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Why are you forum shopping? If you have a problem with the Cup, go bring it up there. Otherwise, we all make mistakes, and going on a witch-hunt to destroy DYK, the Cup, Miyagawa, and everyone else is not exactly helpful. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:02, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

I have no strong views on 'Forum shopping' in general, but I ask people not to complain about it here on my talk page. I like this to remain an informal and kind place for discussion of deeper philosophical questions, so it isn't really a "forum" in the usual sense. If we treated it as a forum in that sense, people would be discouraged from bringing things to my attention, and even though I'm disinclined to actually take action in virtually all particular cases, it is important that I remain informed, particularly about matters of philosophy. The general questions I see here are: what are the appropriate standards of good taste and decorum for DYK hooks, and (one that I am particularly interested in) - is our current practice of tying DYK exclusively to new articles a good idea? (I think it is not.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:51, 21 March 2012 (UTC)