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Jimbo, Did You Write the "Go Meatspace on Him" Email?

Jimbo, this email portion has been quoted by Kelly Martin, who has credibility as a former Wikipedia and WMF insider. Nevertheless it was a bit stunning to me. Can you confirm it?

"Well, as it is, he is on-notice that I am prepared to go meatspace on him if he keeps it up. Despite his defiant response, he may in the fullness of time realize that acting like a junior revolutonary teenager may not be the best way to influence Wikipedia policy and could very well backfire on him in some serious ways. He has two positions, as I understand it. One, minor elected official. Two, head of the Democratic party in his area. I rather suspect that the second job is held at the pleasure of the higher-ups in the state democratic party, and a phone call to someone there might work wonders. To date, 3 different Senators have contacted me to randomly suck up to me. Smart politicians understand that pissing off Wikipedia is not a good idea."

The email is I think from timeframe six or seven years ago. Ms. Martin has also said there are similar communications by you in IRC transcripts she's in possession of. In recent weeks you also publicly called for complaining to the employer of a once-incredibly prolific content editor who wrote featured Wikipedia articles and made other immense contributions to Wikipedia, with whom you shook hands on two separate community occasions. So it seems at least by that you still are of a mind to "go meatspace," ruthlessly, and without particular loyalty to someone that greatly helped Wikipedia.

If you do not deny the email, may I further inquire as to the identities of the U.S. senators you asserted "sucked up to you" for your prestige and influence as a Wikipedia founder?

Signature inhibited by filter 601. I'd otherwise gladly sign.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.253.80.225 (talk) 15:23, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I have no current way of searching my archives. It doesn't sound like me, and in any event I don't endorse any of the words there - possibly they were tongue in cheek, but honestly I don't remember them at all. Regarding when and why we ought to contact someone's employer, I think that there absolutely are cases of extreme abuse which warrant it. That's not "ruthless" and that's not "without particular loyalty". Perhaps a better approach rather than digging up questionable emails is to ask me direct questions about what I believe and what I think we should do in various kinds of cases.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:34, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Does it assist your memory to know the email exchange regarded an editor named Karmafist? He started very constructively but after his treatment by the administrative culture as well as further observation of Wikipedia itself, commenced to experiment with subtle disinformation inserted in articles, in order to inflict damage on Wikipedia? If you want direct questions, it was Kumioko that you met twice, that made like half a million content edits and created featured article. You claimed that his employer must be complained to for the "harassment" you suffered at his hands. Directly, what was the "harassment" (diff?) that warranted your advocay of a complaint to his employer?
Signature inhibited by filter 601. I'd otherwise gladly sign.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.253.80.225 (talk) 15:41, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
I vaguely remember Karmafist, but no, it doesn't jog my memory much about this particular situation. In terms of Kumioko, I think it is long past time to stop the harassment of good editors by escalating the issue appropriately.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:49, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for responding, I won't tie up your talkpage anymore. I do call attention to the fact that you did not point to any instance that in your view constituted harassment, including not pointing to where as you asserted Kumioko harassed even *you*, and I believe your use of the term, as by the administrative culture, is to rile up people and demagogue them against your target of the moment, including in the case of Kumioko a U.S. military veteran with decades of service, whom you once friendly shook hands with, and who also as I said wrote featured articles including list of Jewish Medal of Honor Recipients, and contributed hundreds of thousands of constructive edits to Wikipedia.
Signature inhibited by filter 601. I'd otherwise gladly sign. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.253.80.225 (talk) 16:03, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Speaking in general, the most egregious problems tend to occur off-wiki, in the form of emails and other communications. I think most people are reluctant to speak about this case out of sadness and respect, and rightly so.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:12, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Sort of a philosophical tangent here, but what's the difference between the WMF (or members of it's volunteer admin staff) calling someone's employer for being a pain in the ass, and a BLP subject asking the WMF (or members of it's volunteer admin staff) for information about people who have used Wikipedia to libel them? Not looking for a soundbite here, just pointing out the potential for perception of misplaced priorities. --SB_Johnny | talk✌ 22:29, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Admins would have access to exactly the same info that unregistered BLP subjects have access to. In other words, if Kumioko posted using his employer's internet facilities while being logged out in order to evade a block or ban, then BLP subjects could see the IPs used for that abuse just the same as admins could.
It has also been suggested that some (or more than some) of the abusive behaviour has been via email. It may be that some IP addresses were disclosed that way. (Not all email providers hide the IPs of people sending emails through them.) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:45, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

The problem here is that the Internet we used to know and love is infected with a serious disease, a disease of McCarthyism, a disease of censorship, a disease of cyberbullying. A disease that hates the free expression that the Internet was made to celebrate. A disease that tells people that one "bad" comment outweighs ten thousand good ones. A disease that replaces honest debate with dossier politics, where whoever has the better spy database sits as the judge of everyone else.

There was a time when the Internet was built around small companies, open markets, and fair protocols: SMTP, NNTP, IRC. Now these conversations are the prized property of companies like Facebook and Twitter, whose users are the product, and know not who is the consumer. There was a time, long ago, when people liked to imagine that the U.S. had "won" the Cold War; we celebrated our free expression and felt sorry for the international students who came in from China and didn't dare to get into conversations about politics or risque subjects or pretty much anything but work. Now these mobs of cyberbullies who go after people like the CEO of SnapChat[1] want us to accept that the Chinese were as far ahead of us in politics as they are in economics and science.

The question we have to ask is: have we grown so despondent in the old ideals of a free society that we are ready to give up and allow an endless season of the witch hunt without so much as a fight? To accept that everything good on the Internet that we took for granted was just a phase? Or are there still some among us who are willing to say, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." I remember when it seemed like the Net was going to be full of Make Money Fast forever. The same with pump and dump. But people wise up to things like that. And they can learn to ignore online "dirt" and demand that the workplace not be used as a bludgeon for censorship.

It wouldn't matter to me if Kumioko were spamming Nazi (or Stalinist, for traditionalists) propaganda. I don't want anybody contacting her employer trying to get her muzzled, fired, or otherwise acted on in my name - and if you do so as "an admin" or "an arbitrator" of Wikipedia, that's what you're doing. And I am not going to be moved by someone dredging up this old quote from Jimbo out of the Wikipediocracy private database.[2] I don't care if you paid a subscription to Blackshades and got a picture of Jimbo picking his nose to harp about day and night, I'm going to evaluate him based on his entire body of work over the years. I'm not going to let you push my buttons and program me like a microwave oven.

As surely as Wikipedia has been a part of the disease, it can be part of the cure. I would like to see us develop high standards to assure the employees of Wikipedia that their personal expressions will not be used to discriminate against them, and I'd like to see other employers follow suit - beginning with the Internet companies, which have so much to lose if everything you post online is part of your resume, so you only post your resume. Wikipedia is as detailed a copy of the world in miniature as has ever been made - imagine what it could mean if we would set it right. Wnt (talk) 00:25, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

You and I don't agree often, but I just wanted to give you a +1 in bold for an excellent statement of why it is wrong for WP to "go meatspace" via employers. Carrite (talk) 16:53, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
WNT: I would change that to say that "The employer shall not discriminate based on personal appearance off the job." Ken Arromdee (talk) 17:59, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Also, I'm not convinced you actually mean that. Consider, for instance, someone who spoke up elsewhere in favor of child pornography. (Having it is illegal, but just speaking in favor of it is legal.) I believe that there is consensus that such people should be kept off of Wikipedia.
(And if your reasoning is "it's not what he says, it's what's revealed about his character by what he says", couldn't that equally well be said for Brendan Eich? Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:11, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure who you're disagreeing with where Brendan Eich is concerned; to be clear, I regarded the pressure placed on him over a legitimate political donation as an absolute travesty. It is fully sufficient to have won the political battle; to punish the other side for what it said only ennobles the ignoble. Because Jimbo asked me once to avoid doing so on his personal talk page, I won't revisit my opposition to those aspects and others of the WP:Child protection policy here, but to be clear I did express my support here in the past for the abolition of the legal prohibition of obscenity, as is consistent with the plain language of the First Amendment. So far, Wikipedia has not prohibited that. Wnt (talk) 23:16, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
My point is:
  1. You probably agree that people who speak in favor of pedophilia should be kept off of Wikipedia.
  2. If asked why, you would probably respond that you have no problem with speech itself but their speech reveals something about their character that leads to them causing trouble.
  3. You obviously *disagree* with "going meatspace" on Eich.
  4. Yet the same argument made for pedophiles could be made for Eich.
I wasn't aware you were opposed to the child protection policy and that 1) might not be true.
Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:59, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
I believe you're telling me that I must inevitably slide down a slippery slope, but it turns out I hadn't obligingly stepped onto it for you. We should recognize that freedom of expression is the working principle that we generally follow, and even if some people aren't presently willing to follow every last chain of deduction that arises from it, it is still the basis of free society, the Internet, and Wikipedia. If we are to take the lone exception and make that our guiding principle to which all the rest must conform, the "correction" will include the obliteration of all these things we've held dear. Wnt (talk) 23:50, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Armed Forces Bikers

On the 11 November 2013 changes were made to the AFB charity Wikipedia page https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Armed_Forces_Bikers&oldid=581109860

The change caused people to.be directed to another charities page details below: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rockyr1156 (talk • contribs) 07:17, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

I have refactored your message so it is only one section. The issue is that this edit changed the external link from the first of the following to the second:
http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/
http://www.armedforcesbiker.co.uk
If that is not correct (wrong official website), please just edit the page. Actually, from the conflict of interest guidelines, it would be best to post on the talk page of the article (Talk:Armed Forces Bikers). A more appropriate place to ask about this would be WP:HELPDESK. I'll have a look at which link seems to be correct. Johnuniq (talk) 07:30, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Hmmm. The edit above (made 4 June 2014) introduced a dead link (armedforcesbiker.co.uk). Google shows that it should be http://www.armedforcesbikers.co.uk which is a working page that appears very plausible, although there are lot of plausible bad websites. I asked for assistance at WT:WikiProject Military history#Armed Forces Bikers. Johnuniq (talk) 07:44, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
The website at http://www.armedforcesbikers.co.uk/ is the one listed on the Charity Commission's record as the contact for the AFB charity. The edit on 11 Nov 2013 didn't change any external link. The article, from its original version created by Rockyr1156 on 27 Oct 2013 until yesterday, 4 June, had an infobox giving the afb website but an "official website" External Link giving the British Legion website. On 4 June an IP editor changed the "Official website" link to a mistyped version of what appears to be the official site (left out an "s"). I've now added the Charity commission and Scottish charity links as ELs, and amended the "Official website" link to point to www.armedforcesbikers.co.uk, as in the infobox. I'm not sure I understand the original poster's point, but hope that all is now well. PamD 22:52, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

CIA on Twitter and Facebook

"The United States Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, has opened its first official accounts on Twitter and Facebook, it announced on Friday."

—Wavelength (talk) 14:31, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

They won the internet with that first tweet. Guy (Help!) 18:20, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Article "ownership" through payment

Reverted comment from banned editor- see Supernerd below. Smallbones(smalltalk) 03:32, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

No. You're welcome. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:32, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Verstile ownership, articles on Wikipedia aren't for sale, but controlling an article is definitely attainable and for free! The article owner just needs to stay anonymous, keep it secret that he/she is editing the article with an agenda, and perhaps enlist some friends to covertly help out when needed. It happens all the time and as long as the article isn't one that gets a lot of scrutiny from WP's admin or follows a politically correct POV, they usually get away with it. Cla68 (talk) 01:49, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Do you know what you are really good at? Complaining and negativity. Do you know what we need? Positive solutions and effort towards collaborative compromise.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:49, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Berating and insulting Cla68 is not what I would consider a step toward positive solutions of any kind. Everyking (talk) 01:00, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
He has a point, though. -- Pingumeister (talk) 11:48, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
The banhammer's merciless, just keep that in mind. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 02:05, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Articles don't need a lot of scrutiny from the admins for action to take place. Any user (autoconfirmed, I think?) can report meat puppetry and it will be investigated. I think we should raise awareness amongst ordinary editors that this behaviour is relatively common and that it can be stopped. -- Pingumeister (talk) 11:48, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

@User:Jimbo Wales: I have come. This subject shall be saved. Continue discussion. Okteriel (talk) 19:42, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

What about all the people donating to the Wikipedia Foundation? Will they be treated better, will their point-of-views, when editing an article, be given more trust? Will they be protected by officials? Probably not, cause we live in this perfect world, where anything that is going on at Wikipedia all over the world is regarded as "good", while any criticism from the outside is "disruptive editing"? Could it be? Probably not, cause anyone within the Wikipedia administration is good and all that is needed is that those "disruptive editors" are banned, indefinitely?--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:28, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

No, no and no, respectively. Criticism from outside is not "disruptive editing", users with ridiculous grudges against Wikipedia are given endless slack - which they very often tie in a noose and hang themselves. Guy (Help!) 11:23, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

Dietrich Mateschitz

The owner of Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz, has an estimated personal wealth of 9.2 billion US-Dollars. The only donation that is mentioned on the Wikis is a one-time 70 million Euro donation (and that is only on the German Wikipedia). Is this a misrepresentation of this financial giant's donations or has he done more for good causes (apart from sports)?--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:14, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

From the English Wikipedia: "He has his own hangar, where he keeps his collection of old planes, including the last ever Douglas DC-6B to be produced, and which once belonged to Marshal Josip Broz Tito."

"In 2007, Red Bull founded Red Bull Brasil, a football team based in Campinas, Brazil."

"In May 2009, he founded a German football club called RB Leipzig and was named as owner. Since 2012 he is also the owner of the German ice hockey club EHC München which also changed its name into Red Bull München."--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia doing ANYTHING against this

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2626216/Hundreds-immigrants-feared-drowned-Italy-Libya-says-swamped-human-tide-trying-Europe-says-HELP-unless-gets-aid.html--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

How can we do anything in that situation? We aren't a humanitarian aid organisation. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 20:38, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Don't you have a news section on your main-site, where everyday's events are reproduced?--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Plus, you have a lot of "controversies on..."-articles. Is there any article elucidating the people that there are thousands of fellow men drowning in the Mediterranian, on a weekly, if not daily basis, and nobody including the potentates and authorities do care in any way?--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:45, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
In response to the first, we do, but we are not a news source first and foremost (try Wikinews instead). In response to the second, we're obliged by the Wikimedia Foundation not to do that. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 20:52, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
So you want to assert that making people aware about facts like human beings from an exploited continent like africa are drowning regularly and in vast numbers on an almost daily basis trying to get to the continent that ruined theirs is not in accordance with a "Neutral Point of View"? Please search the internet for "drowned immigrants" or something similar and tell us why this is not fact?--37.230.13.151 (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
My issue wasn't with *what* it';s about it's *how* you put it. —Jeremy v^_^v Bori! 21:05, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a soapbox. As an Italian and human being, I understand the outrage for what happens in the Mediterranean, but it is not our job to increase awareness of humanitarian causes in the public. If you really want to help about that, you'd better read our policies, make an account possibly, and improve articles on the relevant topics. That's the best we can do here. --cyclopiaspeak! 21:16, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
We have articles like Lampedusa, Lampedusa immigrant reception center, 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck, 2011 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck, 2009 Mediterranean Sea migrant shipwreck, May 2007 Malta migrant shipwreck, Katrine Camilleri, not counting the others from Turkey and Albania. You're certainly welcome to start one specifically on the people fleeing to Libya seeking entry to Europe; we have Refugees of the Libyan Civil War but I don't see an article for the now reversed situation. Or simply organize navigation of these articles better. Also, potentially you can give immigrants a better idea of what to expect, potentially reducing their risks of exploitation, by collecting more detail on the mechanics of European border enforcement, sort of like United States Border Patrol interior checkpoints. And of course, don't neglect consideration of the human rights issues at the source countries! Wikipedia isn't a soapbox, but it is meant to be a point to disseminate information, and if truly all information were known to everyone, all injustice would end. Wnt (talk) 06:39, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
As mentioned, please use our Sister Project Wikinews for events like this one. Wikipedia can afford to wait. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 12:01, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Article feedback → Flow

Yesterday I learned that the Foundation quietly pulled the plug on Article feedback on March 3, 2014. How did I learn that? Through a Signpost article? No, I noticed because of this diff in Help:Special page, which is on my watchlist. It says something about the dysfunctional state of product development here that documentation wasn't updated until 5 June 2014—three months later—to remove this deprecated system. The reason for shutting Article feedback down is stated here: "Most participants agreed that Flow is better positioned to give our readers a voice -- and that we should clear the way to make it a success." I'm not sure that I agree with the premise that "talk pages—as a discussion technology—are antiquated and are not intuitive." That description might well be more aptly applied to something like this. Heck, here I am starting a discussion on this meta-topic here on Jimbo's talk page because I find it more accessible than a Wikimedia maling list. Where are all the complaints that people have trouble using talk pages? I haven't seen that many.

OK, I guess I need to just "go with the flow". I want to submit a {{subst:Requested move}} on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Breakfast. So I tried to start a new topic there and put this into the edit box:

{{subst:Requested move|Wikipedia:WikiProject Meals|reason=Breakfast is too limited a topic for a WikiProject. Expand coverage to include lunch and supper as well.}}

I was not successful, as I see:

An error occurred.
The error message received was: Database query error

I do trust that Flow will support WP:Requested moves, how is that supposed to work? Wbm1058 (talk) 14:44, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

  • I suspect that everyone is so shell-shocked and hoarse from screaming about the debacle that has been VisualEditor that Flow has been ignored by many and consigned beneath the bed with other monsters. Alas, it is coming to save us all from a problem we don't even have. Of the recent software engineering initiatives that come to mind, I personally feel that two have been positive (1. the new look, feel, and functionality of USER CONTRIBUTIONS > EDIT COUNT; 2. the way clicked image thumbnails respond, first generating an enlargement with file info requiring two clicks, instead of vice-versa). Two have been failures (1. the new format for the New Pages queue for page patrol; 2. the reader-generated article feedback system). And then VisualEditor, which is clearly the most important initiative of any of these and which has been — to date — a catastrophe. The latter is about to be relaunched on English WP, I understand. I hope it has been improved mightily since last time around... Carrite (talk) 15:11, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
    • VE is definitely getting there. If it had been put out to the community for the first time in the state it is now, the WMF's engineers could have saved themselves a lot of lost trust. — Scott • talk 15:17, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
    • @Wbm1058: Oh, that edit was by me! It's not like I was acting in any official capacity, either. I was just removing a useless red link to a tool that I knew in a general sense had been withdrawn. The page you link to at MediaWiki is pretty risible; it says This page and related documentation will be edited in coming days to reflect these recent developments, which completely isn't the case - anyone reading mw:Article feedback would think it's an ongoing initiative. Dysfunctional indeed. Somebody from the WMF should really fix that. — Scott • talk 15:27, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
The problem with Flow isn't just that it's half finished, buggy, lacks basic things like a table of contents (at least they have something of a history now).
The big problem is that it is being pushed by radical philosophies of user interface that we don't believe in. I called "bunkum" months ago on their claim that #333 text is easier to read than black on white text - [3] - nobody bothered to respond. Then they de-emphasize content with grayer text, with prefill instructions greyer than that, until you can scarcely read them. You can scarcely read anything with their bunkum about huge margins being easier to read with, which I see they're being called on at [4]. For those of us who like to flip down a screenful at a time, tap tap tap, until we see something interesting, or scroll the whole thing fast when we're in more of a rush, this is a terrible way to go through a talk page. Even if you "Zoom out" on the browser, those narrow columns just get narrower and narrower, and the 100%+ dead space between lines means the print gets unreadable faster than it would otherwise - especially since, for some reason, replies are given smaller fonts than the text they reply to. It's just plain awful.
But out of everything, the very worst thing is a seemingly trivial decision to reorder threads by when they were last edited rather than when they were posted by. This allows them to do "infinite scrolling" of the type seen on many online forums. The problem with this is that "infinite scrolling" makes old postings quite inaccessible, and really only the top few threads are going to get most of the attention. The result is that the Gini coefficient of our talk page sections is going to go way down - some posts will get huge numbers of replies, others practically none. If you have a question or comment about an article, it will have one brief moment in the sun, maybe someone will respond, but 90% of the time, it will quickly sink down behind the perennial edit war of the day, never to be seen again. Whatever you post, good or bad, most of the time you will never get an answer. That may be just fine for a site like Reddit that mostly looks to entertain the lurkers, but it's absolutely unacceptable for an encyclopedia that needs to cherish every criticism it receives in the hope of purging most of the errors out of an article. Wnt (talk) 17:12, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
Right on all counts. If Flow is rolled out in any state closely resembling where it's at now, the community's response will make the VisualEditor debacle look like a tiny hiccup in comparison. I can only hope that the WMF's engineers have learned from what happened last time. To be completely honest, I can't really see it being broadly accepted at all by the user base any time soon. — Scott • talk 18:09, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
reorder threads by when they were last edited That's not how Flow works currently, it's sorted with Newest topics at top. Soon you'll be able to switch between that and sorting to Recent active topics which is what I think you're describing. As for topics sinking out of view, it is a concern. In Flow you can close a topic with a summary, perhaps we can have a filter to show all unclosed topics. Meanwhile, the crazy obscure "Archives: Index, A, B, ..." that you see on this very talk pages has its own access issues. Regards. -- S Page (WMF) (talk) 02:08, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
That one of not only the very oldest, but also the very busiest user talk pages in all of Wikipedia has had various inconsistent ad-hoc archive formats applied to it its 13 years' worth of content is completely irrelevant to Flow. The incredibly defensive way in which you refer to that speaks volumes. — Scott • talk 14:42, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
  • @Wnt: et al: Flow is not "half-finished" - it has only just started, relatively speaking. It has an incredibly large number of features to implement (many listed at mw:Flow/Release planning#Feature buckets), design-decisions to revisit (the light-grey text being top of my frustration-list), and yes, bugs to fix (as any software in development has) before a larger-scale rollout (beyond the pages that have volunteered to live-test the ongoing development) is even considered. There's also an overhaul to the front-end design coming soon (next few weeks, if all goes smoothly), with many more aesthetic changes, based on our feedback and user-testing, in the months and years after that. In the meantime, if you've ever been at all frustrated with classic wikitext talkpages, or with workflows involving convoluted multi-step multi-template processes, or had frustrations trying to explain them to someone who was smart but non-technical, then please, please, bring your suggestions and brainstorms and ideas, to the Flow talkpages. It aims to improve the life of powerusers and newcomers alike, but it needs all of our input, steadily and patiently, in order to get there, in the long-term. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 02:29, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
    OK, it looks like my question isn't going to be answered here, so I'll have to hunt down the appropriate Flow-related talkpage and ask my question there... hopefully I won't need to sign up for an email list to get my question answered. But if the answer is, "that's a workflow involving convoluted multi-step multi-template processes" and Flow is better than that because it's not convoluted", well that would be a wrong answer. Meanwhile there are real problems crying out for Foundation-provided solutions, see here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wbm1058 (talk • contribs) 04:21, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
    Oh, I see: mw:Flow/Architecture#Workflow. So I will "define a "requested moves" type of workflow. What's an "MVP"? The details don't appear to be much worked out yet. You guys should realize that we've already put a lot of time into designing the existing RM workflow, which for the most part is working very well, thank you. Now the proposed mergers workflow is another story, but we'll get to that eventually. Heh, I see: work"FLOW" Wbm1058 (talk) 05:00, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
    @Wbm1058: I'm sorry that I didn't reply to you earlier, when I left the other reply; I was slightly late for dinner, and had to dash without investigating.
    Regarding the subst error, I've filed bugzilla:66307, and S has filed bugzilla:66303. Thanks for helping discover these new bugs. MVP stands for "minimum viable product" in that instance.
    Regarding renaming the wikiproject, I'd suggest that they specifically chose a narrow area to cover, because that's what they wanted to focus on? See Template:Food projects for the related family of WikiProjects. You could always just ask them. HTH. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 05:32, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
    Somehow it's not encouraging to see that a bug needs to be filed for something as basic as template substitution. One should have to work a little harder to find a bug. Despite the message at the top "it is NOT a sandbox for random testing of Flow" that seems to me to be just what it's being used for. My move request was just a test, not a serious request. Cheers, Wbm1058 (talk) 13:33, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
This is sort of off-topic, since you're really all talking about Flow, but there's no point in you filing that move request anyway, because it's going to be very properly denied. "WikiProjects have the exclusive right to define their own scope", regardless of anyone else's opinion about whether they have chosen "too limited" a subject. A WikiProject is a group of editors, and if a given group of editors happen to want to work only on articles about eating duck eggs for breakfast, then there's no good reason for any of us to discourage them from working on their chosen set of articles, and no practical way to force those WP:VOLUNTEERS to work on a broader subject even if you thought you had a good reason to do so. In the specific instance, there are only three or four editors in this particular group, and they're already trying to support a thousand articles. That's plenty of work for a group that size. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:21, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I thought my reply to Quiddity above made my intentions clear, but evidently not. My point in attempting to file that move request was to see how compatible Flow was with WP:RM. The answer is that right now, it's not at all compatible because it doesn't support template substitution. I don't really care whether my "request" to move the project is accepted or denied. In any event, most of the volunteers participating seem to be more concerned with Flow than breakfast. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:54, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
I think it would be more accurate to say that "most of the volunteers participating" aren't actually volunteers participating in the WikiProject at all, but instead are people demonstrating how badly they're affected by banner blindness, since they're not (a) running their tests on the designated test page or (b) posting their feedback on the designated page for feedback. Both of those pages are linked in the large, bright-pink box at the very top of WikiProject Breakfast's talk page, in the event that you want to find them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 8 June 2014 (UTC)
Whatever. OK, I tested requested moves over on the official test page. Check it out. Based on my testing, I would say that Flow is a "fail fast and cut what we cannot do" project that attempts to solve problems that don't exist and unnecessarily distracts volunteer developers from their work on real problems. Wbm1058 (talk) 02:41, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Correct any logical flaw here: assuming Visual Editor comes back to us fixed, there is no reason why any new participant can not edit talk pages effectively using the current format and the current software. Carrite (talk) 06:05, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
    • That seems sound to me. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:11, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
      • VisualEditor is (currently) unable to "sign" posts, which is why it's not enabled in any talk namespaces. As far as I know, there are no plans to create this feature. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 19:36, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
        Why do we say drove and not drived? Only ~3% of all verbs are English irregular verbs, but the ten most frequently used verbs are all irregular, per ISBN 978-1-59448-745-3. When rules of grammatical conjugation die, they leave behind fossils. If the VE developers continue to insist on grammatical purity, and refuse to let Wikitext language leave behind fossils like ~~~~ and [[ ]], then they may be dooming their product. Wbm1058 (talk) 21:54, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
@Whatamidoing (WMF). Is there a reason that something as basic to daily life as a Wikipedian as a signature is not part of VE? Carrite (talk) 14:41, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Regarding feedback from readers: Readers aren't trustees of the WMF, employees of the WMF or editors. What they think doesn't matter. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:15, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

My sense is that the theory behind Flow is the same as that which motivated the "Reader Feedback" idea: that if casual readers can be induced into commenting, they will find commenting fun and they can easily be converted into actual editing work. This notion has been proven false, yet professional inertia pushes the Flow program forward. It is akin to a suggestion that posting a reader comment on a newspaper's website will cause a person to become a journalist...
There is no objective reason we need to have a new way to handle Talk Pages. They work fine. If the developers really want to improve the world with new visual presentations of content, come up with some cool new OPTIONAL skins for WP and make the use of skins better known to casual visitors and long-time editors alike. (PREFERENCES > APPEARANCE > SKIN for any signed-in account — I use Cologne Blue, it's swell). We don't need buggy new software to make talk pages perform more "Facebooky"... Carrite (talk) 14:49, 9 June 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 14:51, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
Well, Talk Pages do not "work fine" for newbies. Regular internet users that have no problems posting a reader comment on a newspaper's website or commenting in a blog (for years, say since 2004) do have problems commenting on Wikipedia talk pages, being confronted with wiki markup and formatting. Maybe this doesn't matter so much to enWP, since talk pages here seem to be mostly storage space for all kinds of huge assessment/wikiproject templates etc, but other WP projects actually want to use the talk pages for article editing coordination... Soon, editing article pages will be easier (thanks to VE) than writing on discussion pages. Is that a good idea, given that maintaining and updating millions of existing articles is getting a bigger and more important task which needs coordination?
That being said, the unreadable light-gray Flow design is awful (i was forced to use the flow beta in order to give feedback to another beta feature...^^) Another headache is that currently, you edit article and user and discussion name space in the same way: with wiki markup - only learning it once. But how will i suggest/include a picture for an article on a flow talk page? How can i copy formatted article text/templates to a flow talk page? How do i format even source links to newspapers when proposing them on a flow talk page? Currently i don't even know how to bold a word on a flow talk page... Yet another item for my to-do-list of learning curves for new WMF features: learn flow, learn echo, learn wikidata, learn lua, learn article-feedback moderation (and now forget it), learn tool.wmflabs (and forget about the toolserver-tools that no longer work), learn using bugzilla, etc. etc. --Atlasowa (talk) 12:04, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
I think bugzilla may be on the way out too, but I'm not sure. So far I've just let others enter the bugs I've found into the system. Yes, it is frustrating that the growth curve for technology is getting steeper and steeper, with products having shorter and shorter life cycles. It's gotten to where the tech growth curve is steeper than the human learning curve. If I'm struggling to keep up, what hope does the "average" user have? Soon only the bots will be able to keep up. Wbm1058 (talk) 14:40, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Flow=Visual Editor=failure. The WMF keeps implementing these half finished poorly designed pieces of crap and then expects the editors on this site to fix the mess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scoobydoobee (talk • contribs) 12:10, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

"Carrying the conversation into the wikis..."

On the Wikimeida-l mailing list WMF's VP of Engineering and Product Development Erik Möller suggested recipients engage in "carrying the conversation into the wikis" about Engineering&Product's draft goals for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1. The complete document may be found HERE. I'd like to do that with a big question in this very prominent place.

One of the line-items for "Editor Engagement-Core Features" for the July-Sept. 2014 quarter is this: • Auto-archiving existing talk pages when Flow is turned on. My interpretation of this line is as follows: (1) There is a plan at WMF to "turn on" Flow across English Wikipedia. (2) When this takes place, there is a plan to immediately auto-archive all existing talk pages and to "start from scratch" with new Flow versions of those pages. Is this accurate? Carrite (talk) 14:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know but it sounds extremely positive and about time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:36, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
It sounds extremely................ major to me, if my take is correct. There may be enormous unintended consequences and it may not be something that can not be reverted (in the event Flow is a debacle in practice) without another set of unintended consequences. I certainly hope that Flow is not turned on system wide without extensive testing, including a couple real-life high traffic talk pages — not just sandboxy things like the talk page for WikiProject Breakfast... Carrite (talk) 17:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Of course, but keep in mind that some people will climb the Reichstag no matter what happens.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Some people might be very upset if active discussions, move requests, RfCs, etc suddenly disappear from sight. Surely that isn't the plan? Dougweller (talk) 17:53, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Hopefully it just means that auto-archiving will be added to talk pages, not that they will actually be archived, but I've asked at [5]. Dougweller (talk) 17:57, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Tim, have a look at Wikipedia talk:Flow/Archive 2#What's going to happen to old talk pages? for some discussion about this last year. — Scott • talk 18:21, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

We can probably get away with using the wikitext "header" section of the new Flow pages as a temporary host for existing discussions, starting all new discussions in Flow, and aggressively bot-archiving wikitext-based discussions away as soon as a discussion is, say, a month old. Either way, wouldn't it be better to have this discussion on the technical Village Pump? {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 18:02, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

Quiddity (WMF) just told me above that Flow was "just begun" and definitely "not half finished". It doesn't seem to have changed much since last year. If it's being rolled out in three months, that's some remarkable acceleration! Wnt (talk) 19:22, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
@Wnt: Read the document carefully. Broad rollout on Wikipedia in Apr-Jun 2015. --NeilN talk to me 23:05, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Scott's link above leads to the following, seemingly official, comment from Brandon Harris/Jorm: "Flow-enabled pages will "subsume" the User_talk space for areas they are enabled. The older talk page (or talk pages) will be moved to a different url... They will remain wikitext pages. Flow will then ignore them forever." In other words, everything standing on every talk page is going to be effectively "hatted" when Flow is "turned on." That will be interesting, eh? An RFC is in progress? Whoosh, gone. A content change request is made? Vanished. Every discussion on every topic? Hidden from easy view. That's just three major consequences off the top of my head in about 45 seconds of thought... And, if this thing sucks, turning it off is going to cause the same set of problems all over again, in reverse. (And how is an RFC going to run on a talk page, by the way???) Carrite (talk) 19:28, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Oh, I see. Once the switch is flipped, if everyone goes with the Flow, then there will be a new WMF-provided way for doing everything on talk pages. If they don't, then editors will carry on as usual on "archive" subpages that haven't been converted (unless all talk subpages are protected). The existing RM process might work on subpages. In any event, I realize I'm supporting a dinosaur, so won't waste much time on further short-term enhancements to a dying system. I like to climb to high places, but I'm not up for drama. Wbm1058 (talk) 19:42, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
    • I for one am prepared to start directing people to "User:Scott/Talk" to converse with me if Flow is forced upon us. I suspect many people will do similar. It's not a prospect that I enjoy considering. — Scott • talk 19:54, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't know if that will work, since people will want the same talk pages, and won't want to ignore what's left in Flow wasteland either. True, you pretty much need your own talk page just to track the relevant threads on a well-read Flow page that drop out of sight due to lack of replies, but doing this manually would be a lot of make-work. So far as I know Flow is still un-Lua-able and untranscludeable ({{WT:Breakfast}} yields
Extended content

{{WT:Breakfast}}

, so you can't organize and reorganize them like you can our present talk pages.

I think it's time to take a step back and riddle out the theory of this debacle. To begin with, what is a Wikipedia developer's job? Be honest. I assume the answer is "to get a job at Facebook or Google". To do so, you need to write Facebook-like interfaces and code, you need to defend Facebook-like privacy policies (i.e. "no", put more verbosely), but above all, you need to maintain functional APIs for these companies to scrape the Wikipedia database most effectively. What this means for us is that stuff like Wikidata supports APIs right out of the box, but even years later a trick I used to get some of the functionality inside Wikipedia was considered a bug that developers actually had to remove from Lua in order to keep from happening. Anyway, according to this hypothesis, m:Flow/Architecture/API mw:Flow/Architecture/API is the place to understand and use a Flow board effectively (and perhaps even make it readable), and it needs to be done from off site; the question is whether an honest site going by old-fashioned Wikipedia principles has a place in this, or whether it'll all be left to the PR people and professional critics. Wnt (talk) 20:32, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
Wnt, this is from beginning to end, nasty, horrible, mean-spirited and false. It is not even a remotely credible or serious hypothesis. I am very disappointed in you and ask you to refrain from posting such bile on my talk page ever again.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't think you're right about developers wanting to work for Facebook or Google. Well, maybe they do, but FLOW really is something that's coming at us from WMF as a body, not from loose-cannon developers. Markup and user-led innovation are old hat and a barrier to participation. People understand social media, so if we're not exactly like social media we are locking them out. They seem to be fairly open about the fact that they are not interested in Flow being fit for purpose, only in it being as intuitive as possible. They would probably deny this, but the rationale set out at mw:flow says: "Many things about the culture that has grown up around talk pages ... are confusing. That is not to say those conventions are wrong, merely not what those users are prepared for." In other words, the way we currently do things may be right, but that's not the point. So there seems to be a knowing trade-off. Flow is more intuitive, but it is less flexible and less suited to collaboration. The core problem, it seems to me, is that most social media is not actually designed to be productive or facilitate collaborative working. Formerip (talk) 22:50, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Wnt, I'm confused. I think you mean mw:Flow/Architecture/API. Why do you need an API to edit chat pages? So bots can "chat" with people? So bots can edit people's comments? But one of the reasons for Flow is that people are "confused" by the fact that they can edit each other's Wikitext comments? It doesn't make any sense. But, since I don't do social media (FB/twitter) maybe I'm missing something. Wbm1058 (talk) 00:26, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm presuming that talk pages with flow will still be able to be redirected, like User talk:ClueBot NG currently is, for example. If so it ought to be simple - redirect the talk page to a non-talk space page. Anyway, can anyone see what happens with archiving Flow threads? I mean, having to scroll through 500 headers, even if there were a table of contents (which I've heard there won't be), to find an old discussion is quite ridiculous. BethNaught (talk) 21:19, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
It also appears that when the archiving takes place, the new blank talk page won't show the history of the archive. See [6]. And I hate the absence of a ToC. Dougweller (talk) 08:48, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

SCG International Risk - what does Jimbo think?

I removed text here from a banned editor. It was in the form of the usual claptrap from that editor. It did raise an interesting issue about the firm SCG International Risk, and I've made a change there from the banned editor's information, after checking it fairly thoroughly. I do think there are potential problems with this approach - the BE might, e.g. post good info here for reasons that are known only to him, but that we would not agree with such as getting back at somebody.

Any advice from non-banned editors appreciated. Smallbones(smalltalk) 23:02, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know who you are referring to, so I don't really have the full context. Therefore my remarks are necessarily abstract in nature.
The most important thing in this context is the quality of Wikipedia. The second most important thing in this context is taking care to not reward bad behavior. These two things can sometimes be in tension, and so judgment calls must be made. One thing to really look out for is BLP violations and COI editing, to make sure that we aren't simply being used as pawns for bad editors. For the current case, I think we should consider the concept of WP:COATRACK - that is, does the article about a defunct company exist only to indirectly disparage the principals of the company? Would we bother having the article in the first place, had it not been for POV pushing of some kind? I don't know the answer to that question - I just note that it is one we should consider.
Finally I note that the article is in pretty poor shape. It speaks in the present tense about things that must be in the past, if the company is really defunct. ("SCG International offers dozens of courses...") It is a laundry list of information without much explanation of why it might be notable. The vast majority of the information is completely unsourced and reads like an advertisement.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:38, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

@Smallbones. Of course the banned editor is bringing this up here trying to make a point, and I guess that is by definition trolling. Still, the core of the complaint was valid: that there are lots of propaganda pages like this (hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands?) that sit in mainspace unexamined, unresearched, unchallenged and that there needs to be a better mechanism for verification. It strikes me as counterproductive to vanish said editor's comments when the core of the complaint is truthful. (In the future, you might want to summarize the complaint after you vanish his exact words, assuming that you feel compelled to vanish his words.) I'm not sure what to advise here — WP is so big and registration and article creation so easy that these sorts of situations are pretty much inevitable. We need more eyes looking for such things; we have less. I'll make the radical suggestion that there is going to be a need for paid WMF editors at some point — people who make it their business to handle such editorial matters. PR people seeking amendments to articles via "legal" channels is the same deal; volunteers want to write about what excites them, not about boring commercial topics, even if these need to be addressed. The encyclopedia is maturing in terms of actual encyclopedic content. Marginal content is being gamed by interested parties and will inevitably continue to be gamed. Volunteers don't want to deal with this shit; there needs to be somebody to deal with this shit. WMF has lots of money and writers work cheaply. Said banned editor might be snarky about it, but it is a problem and there must be some sort of systemic solution, yes? Carrite (talk) 00:26, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. The banned editor also gave some feedback, which will likely make my future responses to him more strict. I'll likely summarize some things, sometimes from this persistent editor - based on my judgement. But I'll always remove his entries when it's clear to me that it's him - that's the only way to deal with him. Smallbones(smalltalk) 02:42, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
I's a shame that the only regular source of feedback concerning bad articles about marginal companies comes from a banned editor. I think we need a mechanism to deal with articles like that. But paying Wikipedia editors to deal with these low-priority, low-interest articles is not the solution. A far better idea is to tighten up notability criteria dramatically. Coretheapple (talk) 19:31, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Some editors are paid, some editors are not. Nothing will change that. Eric Corbett 19:40, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
But you can reduce the incentive, and make paid editing far less of a plague than it is now, by providing less opportunity for paid editors to "do their thing." The way to attack the problem is to identify where the paid editing problem exists, and it seems to be in articles about minor companies that Wikipedia can easily do without. They are a burden on volunteers and far more trouble than they're worth. Tightening the notability guidelines could be done without causing the kind of big ideological battle that comes from other forms of derailing the gravy train. Instead of blowing up the tracks, stop manufacturing the railway cars. Coretheapple (talk) 19:47, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
A good part of the paid COI problem isn't with companies at all, but with contemporary biographies. If we tighten rules for companies, we will simply push the editing towards BLPs of the movers and shakers of those companies, with redirects aplenty. It's like trying to squish an air bubble trapped under a sheet of linoleum... If you mush here, it will pop up again there. Carrite (talk) 21:06, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
No, this would simply be reducing the opportunity to corrupt Wikipedia. As I've pointed out before, this isn't a social problem like poverty or drug addiction. True, if you tighten the notability criteria for companies/people you will still have paid editors, but it will be less serious of a problem. Now we (or, more accurately, they, the Foundation and Jimbo) have the worst of all possible worlds. Lax article criteria and hungry flacks and paid editors, including some administrators as we've seen. These people love the money they get and become really emotional and a little nutsy when their place on the gravy train is imperiled. I was viciously attacked by one admin/paid editor on his talk page recently; NPA means nothing when the wallet is at stake. (Don't bother looking in my contributions; it was someone I haven't interacted with in many months and barely remember.) Coretheapple (talk) 21:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

A newly created account disapproves strongly of Wikipedia

Editor blocked as a vandalism-only account --NeilN talk to me 12:33, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Wikipedia has become a fucking joke full of abusive editors and admins. No one cares about creating an encyclopedia anymore, all they want to do is push their own POV for their pet projects and bully editors they don't agree with. Someone needs to just shut Wikipedia off and call it a massive failure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scoobydoobee (talk • contribs) 12:10, 12 June 2014‎ (UTC)

Yes, yes. Now what's your fix for it? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:18, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

The 2014 Johannesburg Wiki Indaba

I am a leading contributer on the Afrikaans Wikipedia (3000+ articles and approaching 50,000 edits). Why does people like me not get a automatic entrance to the Indaba? Why must we go through a time consuming process? Surely after my 5 years of hard work my credentilas should be above board? This is a big principal matter to me. Oesjaar (talk) 06:37, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

What is an Indaba? Would it help if you gave a link to a page about it? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:08, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
FIFY. —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 20:59, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Indaba is the Zulu word for Conference. Oesjaar (talk) 09:29, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, Tim, but none of the conferences listed on that page appear to have anything to do with the WMF or Jimbo? So perhaps Jimbo does know exactly which conference Oesjaar is talking about - or perhaps he doesn't - but I certainly don't. Wikimania 2014? The recently concluded conference in New York? A WMF-related conference in South Africa or even Holland? Something else? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 12:07, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
I think that's the hip name they're giving to Wikimania 2014. Merchandising possibilities abound. (That's a joke.) Carrite (talk) 15:11, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Hmmmm, upon further review the year doesn't match up, does it??? Should be 2015... I'm betting typo. Carrite (talk) 15:13, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Try http://www.wikiindaba.net Oesjaar (talk) 20:28, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. (I've made that a link for others' convenience). I agree it does seem rather haphazard. Clicking the "Attend" link takes one to a page that talks at great length about scholarships and the things you have to do or be to qualify for one, but nothing else (it does say that scholarships can cover the conference registration cost, but does not say what that cost is). Clicking the "Register" link previously took one to a page that just said "Register here", a link to a mailing list, and nothing else; that page now merely says that registrations are closed.
I think future similar events would be more widely attended if the registration process was easier to understand. User:Bobbyshabangu or User:Thuvack might have comments. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:32, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Standard English ?

The wording in 'see also' … … 'describes the current state of affairs on the English Wikipedia as it regards Jimmy Wales.' Seems unclear at least, possibly incorrect in UK English. Also tiny quibble, most of the content on the linked page is 'history of role/anomalies of role' … … is the italicised phrase standard US English?Pincrete (talk) 19:06, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's not brilliantly phrased. Make it better if you like. Formerip (talk) 19:10, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Just wanted to be sure that the usage wasn't 'standard US'. I've amended the 'see also', it now reads Role of Jimmy Wales – describes the current legal status of Jimmy Wales on English Wikipedia and its administrative bodies, with some examples of how he has used his powers in the past.

User "comments"

What do you think about user comments like this, Mr.Wales?

"Users with ridiculous grudges against Wikipedia are given endless slack - which they very often tie in a noose and hang themselves." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.230.3.89 (talk) 22:11, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I think it's an interesting variation of the English expression "give him enough rope and he'll hang himself". --Carnildo (talk) 23:19, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
It's curious: I explicitly asked Mr.Wales about his opinion, yet another user thinks he either is Mr.Wales himself (loss of reality) or he thinks he has a right of overriding importance to respond before the asked person has replied...Odd manners, but we're quite used to it.--37.230.3.89 (talk) 23:55, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
What is really interesting about this statement is that it is completely distorting the truth (cause quite a few Wikipedia officials are definitely not at all giving any kind of slack or "enough rope" but quite the opposite, they tend to kill all opposition once anyone dares to pipe up) and secondly, but more importantly, it shows the condescending and despiteous manner in which quite a few officials look down on other users (often times just because they aren't able to tolerate a different opinion).--37.230.3.89 (talk) 23:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
So how do you think users with ridiculous grudges should be treated? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:31, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
You mean users with ridiculous grudges against living and/or deceased persons who use Wikipedia articles as a tool to vent their personal frustration?--37.230.19.41 (talk) 23:25, 15 June 2014 (UTC)--37.230.4.122 (talk) 16:50, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Klout?

Has anyone ever talked to Klout about adding a network connection to Wikipedia? If we're interested in getting more editors and more/better contributions from those editors, it seems like it would provide a nice incentive. ,Wil (talk) 23:43, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I am not familiar with Klout beyond what is stated in our article about them, so I don't know just what you mean by "adding a network connection." But I will say preemptively that it would be a mistake to have any more incentives for anyone to maximize the sheer quantity of their edits to Wikipedia, as opposed to the quality and usefulness of their contributions. So any collaboration with that site should bear this in mind. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:47, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Have either of you read The Circle (2013 novel)? Klout reminds me of that book. Like Wil, I'm interested in considering outside the box ideas. Like Brad, I'm nervous about a metric that seems geared more toward quantity than quality. Quantity is easy to measure, quality a bit tougher, and even though I personally work in an area that needs quantity, I think Wikipedia as a whole needs to think how to pivot toward quality. --S Philbrick(Talk) 01:10, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
@Newyorkbrad: Klout measures online influence and is very popular among internet thought leaders who tow around lots of followers to whatever site they post on. I do agree about quality. But the best metrics for quality come from the feedback of other users. For example, influence on Wikipedia might be measured in how many people watch your user talk page. To incentivize quality, one might count thanks instead of contributions. And it wouldn't hurt Wikipedia to incentivize thanks, either. :) Of course, mechanisms have to be built in to handle gaming the system; in this case socks could really distort a score if sock-like behavior isn't somehow discounted in the algorithm. This is my point in asking about Klout; to do it right for Wikipedia, they would almost surely need our help defining the optimal algorithmic behavior.
@Stu: I connected my Wordpress blog to Klout. Do you have any idea how that connector happened?
@Sphilbrick: Also agree with you on the pivot to quality as we reach a sort of article saturation- on en.Wiki, anyways. Haven't read the book. Just might do soon. ,Wil (talk) 02:36, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
"Internet thought leaders" are often such mostly in their own minds. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 03:46, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Oh yes, someone asked Jimbo about this a while back and he registered or looked at his klout and commented on how he thought they based his number. It was interesting enough that I was curious and registered as well. I forgot all about it until I got a notification about my "klout" number a few months ago.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:52, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Yeap. I usually don't go to the site unless I get a notification. I do check out the graph of my score while I'm there out of curiosity, but I personally haven't started using it to change my behavior. I might if Wikipedia were on it- probably in the form of doing higher quality edits on pages that need more help than others if the score were calculated right. In any case, clearly many people here are influential online, because of how many articles they write on WP if for no other reason. ,Wil (talk) 14:44, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Memories are short here! Jimbo "barely even understands" Klout. - 50.144.2.5 (talk) 12:27, 13 June 2014 (UTC) (one of 1 million Xfinity WiFi hotspots)

My memory seemed perfectly long enough as you just linked to where Jimbo discussed his Klout page, but I wouldn't say he barely understands it. It appears the discussion shows that Jimbo even said that after looking at his page after months it seemed much improved. You have to have some basic understanding of something to say it has improved. I think what Klout turned out to be, statistical information about a specific user's "Influence" based on the amount of traffic to their postings on the internet, is flawed because it only figures hits and Google searches from a person but cannot know if the person is really influential. People can be directed to a posting but it doesn't mean they read it or agree with it. I am just unclear how it works myself. Is this for just the user to see of themselves or can you look up the klout of others? If so, would that encourage a negative effect of people trying to market themselves on the internet...in greater numbers than already exist?--Mark Miller (talk) 16:21, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
See Klout#Critism. I'm thinking I wouldn't want to touch this with a ten foot pole, even before we get to the specific question of what "adding a network connection to Wikipedia" entails. Wnt (talk) 21:32, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I ask one question of an admin, whom I have never interacted with before, and he says I'm "disrupting Wikipedia" and threaten me with ANI

Points have been made, repeatedly. Time to move on--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:03, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Dear Jimbo Wales: We are encouraged to talk on the discussion page of an article about our disagreements. I have never, ever interacted with Dennis Brown, an admin, and he expresses his opinion on the talk page about an issue. I followed his comment with a question that I believed in good faith was an important question and the answer to which would shine some light on the topic. Instead of answering my question Dennis Brown immediately accused me of "disrupting Wikipedia" and then later he threaten to take me to ANI. We are told to talk on the talk pages over and over again and in my first encounter with this admin he basically tells me that I can't talk to him or I will get the ANI. Is this the way that you envisioned Wikipedia working? You can review his inappropriate response to my simple question here: false claim by an admin of me "disrupting" wikipedia when I was simply asking an admin for his opinion. I would like to know why admins, such as Dennis Brown, apply the rules so arbitrarily. What I did I did not even see as "disrupting Wikipedia". I saw myself asking his opinion. Trying to talk to the guy. He just showed up on the talk page and I wanted to know more about what he thought. He saw it as "disruption". Why? The other editors on the talk page were asking the same questions, but they did not get the heavy hand of an ANI threat. Do you think this is the way to encourage discussion? I don't. Please review what I'm talking about.--NK (talk) 21:02, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Having looked at the exchange, I am not sure that I would have characterized the question as "disruption", but it was a hostile question, and that may be why he characterized it as disruption. Anyway, if you expect Jimbo Wales to second-guess and reverse a respected administrator, then you are wasting electrons. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:29, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
I didn't say that I did.--NK (talk) 22:47, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
No. You are right it was not "disruption" it was a simple question. I'm not attempting to get anything overturned. If he did not want to answer the question then he should have stated as such. There was no need to attempt to scare and intimidate me into silence and he was clearly in a conflict of interest because he took a position on the other side the debate and then he attempted to make the argument that he was going to take me to ANI to get me to stop asking him a perfectly logical question.--NK (talk) 01:18, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
That's odd. I'm having trouble finding your question. Oh, I see where Dennis Brown offered a clear, concise, and well-reasoned opinion in response to an RfC. And I see where you directly replied to Dennis Brown's comment with a bit of unhelpful, rhetorical, distracting polemic that happens to be followed by a question mark—but I don't see you asking him a good-faith question anywhere. And now you've decided to take your show on the road, demonstrating further bad judgement. Go find something productive to do. Scoot. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:41, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
You are wrong. It was a good faith question. You have jumped to a conclusion based upon very little information. Also, your response to my attempt to talk to Jimbo seems, as Robert McClenon stated above, hostile. I believe that Jimbo states that he has an open door and I believe him when he says that. I find your belittling of my attempt to take advantage of his open door an example of the hostility that McClenon referred to and similar to the hostility that admin Dennis Brown exhibited toward me when I asked him a direct question that was directly on point of the topic on the talk page. Why you feel the need to exhibit such hostility toward someone that is simply taking advantage of Jimbo's offer is not consistent with Jimbo's offer and is not consistent with the open door environment that Jimbo has stated on numerous times that he wants. No, you go find something productive to do and make sure that productivity includes not displaying the type of hostility that you and Dennis Brown believe is ok to engage in.--NK (talk) 01:18, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
The question asked, about whether we would include quotations every time the subject makes them, is one that virtually no one would think of it as an "important question," and I note that you also seem to be jumping to some quite unwarranted conclusions about the intentions of others, perhaps also indicating that you have little if any understanding of content policies and guidelines. As an editor apparently senior enough to come to this page, I and I think virtually everyone else here may well conclude that your rather apparently over-the-top rhetorical overreaction to the situation was both unhelpful, and, honestly, more than a little irrational. Rhetorical questions pretty much by definition do not necessarily require direct answers, and, honestly, as they really can't be seen as being honestly attempts to improve the content, may arguably not belong on the talk page at all. Agree with TenOfAllTrades here, with a proviso that reviewing the relevant talk page guidelines at WP:TPG would also be more productive than further comment here. John Carter (talk) 21:55, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
I find nothing irrational in taking up Jimbo on his open door policy. Also, it is simply your opinion that my question was not important that is not fact it is opinion. What is irrational is for you to confuse opinion from fact. That is the definition of irrationality. I have a great understanding of content policies and guidelines. Once again, you do not know me other than the little tiny bit you have read but you have jumped that incorrect conclusion. This is an example of the type of hostility that I seen from TenOfAllTrades and Dennis Brown. I guess somehow this hostility makes you feel better but it is not consistent with the Jimbo open door policy. My question was helpful. Thank you John Carter for expressing your opinion, not fact, and for exhibiting your hostility because it mirrors the hostility that Dennis Brown sent my way simply because he did not agree with me.--NK (talk) 01:20, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
  • You asked a pointless question, and were rebuffed. Somehow you think asking a rhetorical question in a RFC was very clever. When Dennis refused to fall for the bait, you badgered him on his Talk page. And now you come here to try and pretend like you are some innocent party, feigning as if your question wasn't rhetorical and demanded an answer? Very clever. Dave Dial (talk) 22:45, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Once again, another example of confusing opinion for fact. My question was not pointless. I'm not pretending to be some innocent party. Oh, I need to mention the parade of hostility continues from you that came from TenOfAllTrades, John Carter, and Dennis Brown.--NK (talk) 01:20, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
  • In an RFC (request for comment) there is a polling section and a discussion section. Your question had enough battleground mentality in the way it was formed that it was clear you were trying to make a point in the polling section. Disrupting the RFC with prolonged text, in the wrong location and in the form of ad hominem argument was pretty basic disruption.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:59, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't really know how to respond to this one other than point out that there is more hostility toward any one that attempts to take advantage of Jimbo's open door policy and you have no understanding of the phrase ad hominem because I did not call Dennis Brown a name. I only asked him a question.--NK (talk) 01:20, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I can't speak for Jimbo, he does that quite well himself, but I have seen enough of his replies to feel confident that he does have some concerns about admins who may abuse their authority, but I'll be stunned if he supports your position that Dennis Brown was out of line. All editors and especially admins are expected to AGF, but adherence to AGF does not mean one has to pretend that your leading question was an honest attempt to initiate a conversation with a simple question. Frankly it is an insult to Jimbo's intelligence that you would make such an assertion. You are still relatively new. Have you been around long enough to hear about WP:boomerang?--S Philbrick(Talk) 00:00, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
It is no insult to anyone intelligence to have a conversation. That's my point exactly. The hostility exhibited here by just raising a valid question shows the problem. Dennis Brown did not want to even engage in a conversation. And most the posters here do not want my side to be even heard. The response is pompous, hostile, dismissive, arrogant, etc. It is not consistent with what Jimbo's open door policy presents itself to be. The mean-spirited attitude of TenOfAllTrades is not as hostile as Dennis Brown, who basically said if I asked the question again he would ANI me and he refused the answer and he has a clear conflict of interest, but TenOfAllTrades's comments are arrogant and dismissive and, of course, immature. For some reason none of you want to let me have a hearing. You want to silence me--just like Dennis Brown wanted. What is the big deal? Is there a spirit of open communication or isn't there? Based upon the attitude displayed in this sequence of comments the answer is no.--NK (talk) 01:18, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
If everyone but you thinks you are being wrong or otherwise disruptive, perhaps it is time to ask yourself if, indeed, all these people could be right. You asked a silly rhetorical question, and you've been correctly put in your place. Whining here is not helping you, quite the opposite. --cyclopiaspeak! 01:21, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
Why are you so hostile to me raising the question? Does this hostility add to the open communication environment that we are told we want?--NK (talk) 01:32, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
Because it was clearly not an honest question, but a rhetorical device. Which can be fine, but it failed: acknowledge it and move on. There is no way that question was in good faith. And before you jump for the n-th time yelling "no no it was a good faith question", well, in Naples they have a say, ca' nisciuno è fesso, which means "nobody is a fool here". So, if you think you can fool us into thinking that you were asking a good faith question, you basically are assuming we are a bunch of idiots. When you treat people like idiots, expect hostility.--cyclopiaspeak! 01:45, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
You state, correctly, that there should be an open communication environment. You (NazariyKaminski) have been interfering with that open communication environment. Although it is permitted to delete messages from your talk page, rather than archiving them, deleting them makes communicating via the talk page difficult, by forcing other editors who wish to engage in honest communication to view the talk page history. However, you have the gall to accuse us of interfering with open communication when you are deleting communications, forcing us to view the history. I am not an admin. If I were, you would be already blocked for 36 hours for tendentious editing, not for the original hostile question, but for pursuing it at bizarre length. You were cautioned. The community thinks that the caution was appropriate. Take that as a caution, and drop the issue, or go on and get blocked. I would give you a Level 4 warning on your talk page for using Jimbo's talk page to rant, but you would delete it. Consider this your Level 4 warning. Any further comments should result in a block. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:55, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
Robert McClenon: I guess your hostile and abusive response is why you aren't an admin. Also, your comments are inconsistent with a open communication.--NK (talk) 15:47, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
NK, You cry about "open communication", yet use that phrase like a passive-aggressive mallet to get others to shut up; to stiffle discussion. You underestimate the intelligence of others, then strike out and play the victim when they call you on it. You dig in, insist on having the last word, spilling more and more vitriol with each comment, yet you are completely unaffected by the fact that no one agrees with you. I wrote an essay about 6 years ago that covers some of this: WP:Don't bludgeon the process.

The situation is simple, but either you lack the ability to understand the nuances of the English language, or you are blinded by your own ideals and biases. Either way, you have taken my polite, concise and well thought out comment at an RFC and attack me in every way possible because I wouldn't answer your "clever" response to it, a response that was created NOT to generate discussion, but instead to undermine my credibility and call my motives into doubt. My initial response was that your actions are a violation of WP:POINT: A willingness to disrupt Wikipedia in order to make a point. Everything you have done since, including your actions here, have only proven me right. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 16:43, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

(e/c)NK: Have you been misunderstood? If so, it's often best to take some of the blame, even if undeserved, if what you are really interested in is open communication. On the other hand, if all you want is to cast blame elsewhere for such missed communication, than it's likely to lead to wasted time, and not communication. Forensically, it is relatively simple to see what happened in the comments under discussion. You: 'Someone else supposedly made a claim, you agree with it, don't you' Him: 'I am not going to respond to a claim/question in that form' (he even pointed you to a link he felt explained his reason for not responding to the claim/question in that form). So, either reformulate your question, or move on. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:47, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

NK - this is meant to be a "World Wide Encyclopedia", not some other type of entertainment. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:52, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Alleluia! See WP:Statement on Wikipedia from participating communications firms

Or see Ad Age

I see this as a key turning point for Wikipedia (assuming the ToU changes are also put through).

Remember when the BLP policy went thru? Everybody thought it would be difficult or impossible to enforce and would bring Wikipedia down by violating our first principles. Instead it marked a new life for us as readers and new editors started taking us seriously. I predict that's what will happen this time as well. Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:56, 10 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree. A great opportunity is upon us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:04, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I was invited to the meeting at the Donovan House that ended with this agreement; sadly my grant request was turned down and I was unable to attend. That said, Ive stayed in pretty constant contact with the organizers of the event, as well as some of the participants. In my estimation, the PR people involved in this are being deadly serious in their positions. This is, I think, likely to provide us with our best chance to-date to integrate PR editors in to Wikipedia's workflow in a way that doesn't damage the integrity of the encyclopedia (and helps us cover undercovered areas better,) and at the same time discourage people and companies from using under the radar Wiki-PR style groups. I honestly believe that this has a significant chance of representing a turning point in our relationship with the PR industry. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:09, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
  • There have always been a number of "Good Guy" PR firms, including many of those in CREWE. They aren't the problem. They might be part of the solution, in that they will be looking to establish new editing structures to address the legitimate concerns of their clients, but this group of companies saying they are going to play by the rules (implicitly under the assumption that the rules will be fair to them) doesn't affect the broad situation in which WP content writing is a growth industry for freelancers, in which companies of smaller and smaller size are coming to see WP presence as an essential part of their marketing efforts, in which there are absolutely no fetters upon the creation of multiple accounts and paid COI editors flying under the radar. It's an opportunity for an alternative editing process to emerge, yes, but I still don't see anything from WMF but continuing efforts to ratchet up the rhetoric and the war with paid COI editors — which will continue to drive things underground, away from supervision and control. Carrite (talk) 23:10, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
    • I don't see that at all. Rather quite the opposite. The path forward is to reward and encourage disclosure and ethical behavior (i.e. to drive things in public, toward supervision and control). I wonder, though, rather than just being negative about other people's efforts to deal with what I think you agree is a problem, why don't you give us some detail about what you would do differently.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:21, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Well, I think the basic question is this: do we believe in anonymity of contributors and ease of entry as our fundamental principle, or do we believe in validity of content and transparency of contributorship as our fundamental principle? We cannot have it both ways. If we really want to ban paid COI editing, it is going to require real name registration, one user-name per account, sign in to edit, and an end to so-called "outing" prohibitions — things that can be determined by WMF as part of Terms of Service. The cost will be the loss of perhaps 25 to 50% of the editor base. If we want to maintain anonymity and ease of entry into editorship and current outing rules, we need to accept that paid COI editing is a fact of life and to split the difference with these editors: mandating disclosure but banning retribution against those who disclose. The software can be tweaked so that COI edits can be identified with a button the same way that minor edits are identified with a button. The key will be to keep an eye on paid COI edits without pursuing paid COI editors like they are outlaws and villains — giving them space to work and parameters of good behavior. Treating them like gophers to be shot on sight will just force them underground. It will be a cultural change either way. The current stalemate is sort of the worst of both worlds, easy underground shenanigans and an officially authorized "game" of liquidating those who engage in underground shenanigans. It all comes down to a fundamental decision about anonymity vs. transparency. Myself? I'm for transparency. Carrite (talk) 01:18, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. These are thoughtful remarks and much better than the innuendo and snark that are too often present here. I don't have time for a full response at the moment, not to mention that a full response requires some thought, but I invite you (and others) to think about third way approaches. That is - there is value in both ease of entry and (in some cases) anonymity, and there is value in validity of content and transparency of contributorship. AND, this is key, the two are only sometimes in tension. In many or most cases, ease of entry and validity of content are perfectly aligned. As are anonymity and validity of content.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:23, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
A quick response: there is comparatively little tension between anonymity/ease of entry with historically "encyclopedic" content. There is a great deal of tension between those things and commercial or contemporary biographical content, which involves self-interested parties on the one hand and really boring, volunteer-repelling topics on the other. Community notability rules aren't going to change, tweaking those is not a viable solution. It is a puzzle. The key thing is this: I think every single one of us agree that NPOV content is essential and that unsupervised and left to their own devices, paid COI editors will not tend to produce NPOV content. The question is how to eliminate the problem, not that there is a problem. Either we regulate paid COI editors under the current system or fight an unending and ultimately unwinnable war of annihilation; or else we accept that the days of IP editing and 40 socks per customer are relics of the past and actually do annihilate paid COI editing. I honestly can't see how one can split the difference on this matter. —Tim Davenport, Corvallis, OR /// Carrite (talk) 01:44, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
I was surprised there was not more support for corporate accounts, which would make COI edits much easier to identify, whether it is on Talk or in History. Also, if companies opt-in to a corporate account, that makes it easy to create a category of accounts that can be supervised/reviewed and easier to contribute on behalf of a company without disclosing your volunteer account or personal information. Just like accounts get upgraded to auto-confirmed, I could see new corporate accounts having no article-space privileges, but after a certain point they can request permission for a Pending Changes-type situation (pending changes reviewers would have to learn to revert anything controversial and tell them to take those items to Talk). Rather than review each edit individually, volunteers can conduct quarterly reviews of all corporate accounts and blanket revert with a button-press if their edits are 75%+ bad.
However, several editors I have talked to have sarcastically asked the question as to whether WMF would develop the software for new features for PR participation, especially given that COI editing (participation?) is strongly discouraged. And I'm sure they have lots of features on the wish list for the volunteer community as it is. CorporateM (Talk) 02:51, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
One solution which can go a long way without changing identification requirements is make special sourcing requirements for information on currently operating businesses, business leaders, and currently marketed products. Instead of applying general RS guidelines, allow only facts sourced to reputable academic sources on the one hand, and a more limited whitelist of news and business sources on the otherhand. This whitelist could list just well-established newspapers and business magazines (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Businessweek etc.) and the requirement be that only regular reportage (not advertorials or anything unusual) among those whitelisted could be used to source claims. This wouldn't solve everything, but would go a long way as much of the material that paid advocates add are sourced to lesser-quality sources and self-published sources which nonetheless still meet basic RS requirements. With a whitelist requirement like this, much could be summarily removed without much fuss. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 04:11, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Though I don't necessarily agree with everything that Carrite is recommending, his comments are incisive, thoughtful and worthy of consideration. I disagree that formal "corporate accounts" are a good thing, as that erodes our key value that editors are individuals rather than groups. I have a lot of concerns with this declaration by 11 PR firms. The signatories have Wikipedia accounts, most with only a handful of edits, mostly to their own user pages. If they truly want to engage with Wikipedia, the way to do so is by editing productively, in addition to issuing grand declarations. Are other people from those firms editing? If so, who are those accounts? And if 11 firms commit to following our policies and guidelines, how about the hundreds of firms that haven't? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:23, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
I think it would be nearly enough to simply forbid undisclosed alternate accounts and beef up our data collection enough to do a decent job of preventing socking (which we could do virtually automatically for most editors, given software that made a robust effort at doing so). The privacy concerns are pretty negligible to my mind: there may be the occasional nuclear physicist and scat porn enthusiast that wouldn't want to use one account to edit both topics, but we can live without one or the other set of contributions.—Kww(talk) 05:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
I've been saying this for a while now that it doesn't seem like it would be hard to automatically track MAC addresses, device IDs and other anonymous, non-personal information and automatically detect socks without interrupting the user experience of non-socking users. This wouldn't even have to prevent legitimate alternate accounts if there is a way to add exceptions into the system. It would become very difficult to sock if each the user had to use a different computer for each sockpuppet account. CorporateM (Talk) 15:46, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
@CorporateM: This is wrong for several reasons. To begin with, supposedly the MAC address should not be accessible to a website. There's been some hinting in the leaks that the NSA uses it somehow, but I don't know where to access it in a PHP file. Same with device IDs. So I think you're talking about getting editors to install a client, which is just poison -- you would lose three quarters of them in a day, the client would be a huge security vulnerability, and someone might still find a good way to hack the system (for example, some MAC addresses can be changed[7]). Also, the idea is defective in that lots of people have several computers - desktop, laptop, a few terminals at work if they're a little naughty, mobile/tablet/whatever. While others share the terminals at the public library, especially if they actually went there to research something. Wnt (talk) 21:48, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
As a representative of one of the agencies involved--Peppercomm--I created an account so that I could answer any questions people have and so that anyone on Wikipedia would have a means through which to contact me. My answer is solely for Peppercomm's situation; I can't speak about any other agency involved. I have never had another account, and I don't edit Wikipedia pages professionally (and, as Cullen328 points out, haven't done anything of substance editing on Wikipedia personally, either). Likewise, none of our employees are tasked with doing paid editing or even intervention on Wikipedia for our clients--nor do we hire freelancers to do so. In our agency's case, we counsel on what NOT to do. If they believe, however, that there is an inaccuracy or situation that requires some sort of discussion with Wikipedia editors, we have gone to an outside firm we trust who knows the Wikipedia editor community much more deeply than we do--in particular, in our case, Beutler Ink--to ensure that any requested edit our client wishes to make is done in an ethical, transparent manner that abides by all of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. To NOT edit pages has been Peppercomm's policy since at least 2008, when I joined the firm full-time...and, it seemed, had been the policy prior to my arrival as well. Our 11 companies issued this statement to make it clear to the Wikipedia community that many of us do have policies in place to align with Wikipedia's policies & guidelines--& Wikimedia's ToS (although our exact approaches and policies may differ). And our hope is that others will sign on or, if they don't already have these policies in place, will start to think about why they should. To be frank, intentional sockpuppetry and other forms of editing are one thing--but as substantial a problem are corporate employees or people at agencies who "don't know enough about Wikipedia to know what they don't know"...who understand this is an "encyclopedia anyone can edit" part but not COI and other very important parts of what makes Wikipedia what it is...Leumas712 (talk) 08:07, 12 June 2014 (UTC)Leumas712
If you're going to only allow sources like the New York Times for businesses, what do you do about businesses that cater to specialized markets? I remember Jimbo trying to make an article about a restaurant in South Africa. Good luck trying to find information in the New York Times on that. You probably wouldn't even find much about, oh, an anime producer, and even if you can find enough to create an article, all the existing articles on such companies would have to be rewritten with new sources.
I think the mistake here is trying to figure out how you can prevent COI editing and only thinking about the particular type of business likely to engage in COI editing. Having standards which limit the usable sources would help in articles about those kinds of businesses, but would completely destroy articles on others. Ken Arromdee (talk) 17:59, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
What makes you think that South Africa does not have any well established newspapers? Or that they might not report on small restaurants from time to time, if they considered the restaurant worthy of note for some reason? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:20, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
The idea was that articles about businesses could only be sourced to a particular set of whitelisted sources. I highly doubt that such a whitelist would initially have South African newspapers in it, or Animne News Network for anime companies, for that matter.
Of course, you could always look at the article after it's created, and only decide at that moment to add the South African newspaper to the whitelist. But that's basically what we do anyway every time we edit an article and remove material because a bad source was given. The only difference is that with the new method, after we decide the source isn't bad and that the material is okay to keep in the article, we add it to the whitelist, but it doesn't actually change how the article itself is created.
And how does that apply to the example of the anime company? You could probably find New York Times articles eventually, but saying that we can't use sources like Anime News Network is absurd. (And I doubt that anyone creating a whitelist ahead of time would put Anime News Network on it.) Ken Arromdee (talk) 17:33, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
It's true that much material would be removed. But that's true whenever notability and RS requirements are tightened. Imagine our current notability and RS standards were far lower than they actually are. We would have a lot of material which wouldn't otherwise be there. Then imagine we brought standards up to the actual current standards. A lot of material would be removed. Is that a bad thing? Of course not: It just means we are better enforcing the requirement that we make an encyclopedia, and not a indiscriminate collection of information. My suggestion is that for the particular class of articles at issue, a further tightening of these requirements would be an improvement.
Sure, it's absurd not to use the Anime News Network (at least, I believe you, I'm not sure what it is). That's why it would be added to the whitelist. Here's an example method of implementation for avoiding the problem you mention of not having the right things whitelisted: Create the putative whitelist over a long period, even years, while it is non-binding. Interested parties can discuss with adequate time as to what is appropriate and what is inappropriate for the list. This would involve looking at what sources are working well for this class of COI-prone articles and what are not working well. This could be done right now, without any wider community approval. If the community approves of it at a later time, then it can be implemented as binding then. --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 18:17, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Anime News Network is just an example. The more general point is that lots of specialized subject areas are going to have specialized sources that you could not conceivably put in a whitelist ahead of time. And "companies" is going to cover articles in a huge range of specialized subject areas.
Looking at sources ahead of time to decide what to put on the whitelist won't work because you'd have to do that individually for each subject area that might have an article about a company someday--which means you'd have to do it for each subject on Wikipedia. Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:27, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

It is rather, say, irritating that the Englisch WP community allows for the public relations and advertising industry to use the Wikipedia namespace for a press release. We should rather reflect on why we have not succeeded to exclude those people from WP altogether.--Aschmidt (talk) 18:14, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree, because it is a given that reputable corporations, including PR firms, will not violate website terms of use. That is not a cause for celebration. Most reputable and indeed some not-so-reputable PR people and corporate executives already abide by the TOU amendment (assuming it is what was originally proposed; nobody has yet addressed my question above). While this has been billed as the beginning of \the end of paid editing, in practical terms it seems more like an acceptance of paid advocacy editing. Coretheapple (talk) 19:07, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
+1. Indeed, this page should be deleted because it violates our rules for the Wikipedia namespace. It should not be tolerated that those companies misuse Wikipedia for their business communication. Wikipedia is not an outlet for press releases. It is financed by donors who give their money for an educational project.--Aschmidt (talk) 19:29, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
It strikes me as a form of advertising, especially for the less well-known firms and PR people signing on. Seriously, every Tom, Dick or Harry who wants a client, such as my personal firm Coretheapple Communications LLC, can and will sign on. Seems promotional. Coretheapple (talk) 19:54, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for co-creating Wikipedia. You are to Wikipedia what Stan Lee is to Marvel or Walt Disney to Disney. We are all grateful for your vision and foresight. Thank you Mr. Wales. --The Sockpuppet (talk to the hand) 10:23, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

How interesting it is for you to hang yourself, what with the username and all. Thank you for turning yourself in. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 16:01, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Drat, I fell for it... [8] LeadSongDog come howl! 18:58, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Terms of Use change

I just noticed

The times they are a-changin'

Congratulations.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 17:15, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations are certainly in order, as this is the largest, most positive step that's been taken to combat this blight. But there are still gaping holes. For example, paid editors can still hide behind the Outing and Harrassment policy. Good faith editors are still discouraged from linking to off-wiki evidence that User:Anonymous is John Doe the Wikipedia writer on pay4pr.com. Editors' expectations of privacy should end when they connect themselves to Wikipedia under their real name, for profit, anywhere public on the internet. Until this is addressed the new policy is only effective against those naive enough to fall for it. ThemFromSpace 21:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
As a strong supporter of rationalization of paid editing practices at WP, I'm also very happy with the change, which formally recognizes paid editing as a fact of life, to be declared and supervised. That's where reform starts. Next needs to come strict enforcement of anti-wikistalking rules for anyone failing to assume good faith and who abuses paid editors. That parallel need will ultimately be resolved at AN/I. Carrite (talk) 03:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
100% agreement there Carrite.--v/r - TP 06:04, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Correcting Carrite - the new ToU do not recognize that paid editors have a right to edit on Wikipedia. All they say is essentially "If paid editors edit Wikipedia they must declare each paid edit, and they must follow WP:COI and other rules." WP:COI also does not recognize that paid editors have a right to edit on Wikipedia. In fact it is pretty vague on many things, but it looks impossible to edit on the article page and follow those rules at the same time. It will likely all come down to the bright line rule - and we should probably explicitly state that as soon as everything has settled down.

I would hope that the hard-core advocates of paid editing would become more realistic at this point. The idea that paid editors are hounded and harassed is mostly a myth. Can anybody give a recent example of this happening? Rather, it seems like paid editors are the ones who harass volunteer editors who try to edit the articles that the paid editors want to own. The hard-core advocates of paid editing should realize that:

  • At least 80% of Wikipedia editors want some reasonable regulation on paid editors
  • The WMF has now declared that it wants some reasonable regulation on paid editors
  • US law requires prominent disclosure (likely on the article page) of paid edits of article pages, and if this can't be done, then the edits cannot be made. EU law is similar, as are the laws for most countries.
  • PRSA and CIPR ethics rules prohibit undisclosed paid edits.
  • 11 top US PR firms have pledged to follow the ToU and WP:COI.
  • WP:NOT still prohibits advertisements, PR content, promotion and marketing, which is what most paid editors are trying to add in one form or the other.

Now, if anybody wants to argue that paid editing of article pages is formally recognized as a fact of life, they've got a long row to hoe. They will almost certainly fail to change the new policy (the ToU) or WP:COI to reflect that "recognition." Why don't we just work together to make it abundantly clear that the bright-line rule applies? Smallbones(smalltalk) 14:07, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

There's not a single word about a "bright line rule" in the TOU language, only the very rational approach that paid editors must make declarations of their status and their employers on their user page or by alternate means of notification. This clearly implies a recognition that paid editors are here and will continue to come here; and it follows that if anyone starts stalking them and harassing them because of their correct and appropriate declarations of status according to the TOU, the matter will end up at AN/I and it will undoubtedly not go well for the stalkers. We already have rules about NPOV content to be enforced through the editorial process. As mentioned on Wikimedia-l, communities are free to make this section of the TOU more severe or to make it less severe or to set it aside completely (LINK) as Commons is already well on the way to doing. The "bright line rule" has already been rejected multiple times by En-WP, however, and has no more traction than it ever had and probably less. So: speaking as someone who thinks the solution to paid COI editing is for that work to be declared and supervised, I think the new TOU language is a big step forward. Carrite (talk) 14:49, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
For convenience, here is the actual TOU-Disclosure of Paid Editing Resolution passed by the WMF Board on April 25, 2014. Carrite (talk) 15:04, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Resolved that the Board of Trustees approves the amendment to the Terms of Use, as presented by the Wikimedia Foundation’s General Counsel and referenced below. Pursuant to Section 16 in the Terms of Use, this amendment was discussed with the Wikimedia community through an extensive public consultation.

A subsection added to the end of Section 4 of the Terms of Use, namely “Refraining from Certain Activities”.

Paid contributions without disclosure

These Terms of Use prohibit engaging in deceptive activities, including misrepresentation of affiliation, impersonation, and fraud. As part of these obligations, you must disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. You must make that disclosure in at least one of the following ways:

  • a statement on your user page,
  • a statement on the talk page accompanying any paid contributions, or
  • a statement in the edit summary accompanying any paid contributions.

Applicable law, or community and Foundation policies and guidelines, such as those addressing conflicts of interest, may further limit paid contributions or require more detailed disclosure.

A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy consistent with applicable law. If a Project adopts an alternative disclosure policy, you may comply with that policy instead of the requirements in this section when contributing to that Project. An alternative paid contribution policy will only supersede these requirements if it is approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page.

For more information, please read our background note on disclosure of paid contributions.

LINK

The hard core supporters of paid editing are going to have to come to grips with the fact that they are a minority of a minority. The first minority is supporters of paid editing - certainly less than 20% of our editors - the 2nd minority is those among these supporters who want to push beyond the bright-line rule. The big public PR firms wouldn't be caught dead pushing for more paid editing now, and most of the remainder would just like some simple rule that they can live with - not the aggressive fighting for a ridiculous ideal that the hard core like to push for. The 20% minority can't change anything without cooperation from folks who believe in reasonable regulation. The hard core minority of the minority can't come close to changing anything at all. Smallbones(smalltalk) 16:39, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

You and I read the politics here very differently. Perhaps you could point me towards a link for any RFC on Wikipedia in which the majority of the community resoundingly opined for the so-called "Bright Line Rule." Perhaps I missed something. Carrite (talk) 16:44, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, if you read the FAQs, you'll see they explicitly say most paid editing is fine [9]. The use of "employer, client, and affiliation" with and rather than or is a bit strange (I suspect it'd be impossible for me to even find a list of the clients and affiliations of my employer), but the FAQ suggests they mean or, rather than and. WilyD 17:01, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
I think a widely-advertised en.Wikipedia RfC on the bright line would be in order at this stage. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:04, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
The hard core opponents of paid editing are going to have to come to grips with the fact that they are a minority of a minority. @Anthonyhcole: Discussions have happened and these folks feel that paid and COI editors are coming en masse to disrupt them instead of accepting the consensus.--v/r - TP 17:05, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Just to clarify, TP: there has been a widely-advertised en.Wikipedia RfC on the Bright Line Rule. Have I got that right? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:15, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't know how 'highly advertised' they were, but there were several discussions around Nov 2013 linked here: Template:Paid Editing Parallel Proposals. For an RFC specifically on the bright line, see Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy#RfC: Should WP:BRIGHTLINE become policy? which ended in oppose implementation (I read it better as no-consensus but the closer put it firmly in oppose). Smallbones & crew haven't accepted the results of the RFCs.--v/r - TP 17:50, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:05, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
That RFC was centrally listed and clearly saw heavy participation. The matter seems settled. Carrite (talk) 21:05, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

"US law requires disclosure" is an absurd statement to make without contacting a lawyer. We should not be armchair lawyers here. Furthermore, "wants some reasonable regulation on paid editors" is a far cry from "wants to ban all paid editing" or even "wants a zero-tolerance policy". Ken Arromdee (talk)

  • I haven't been following this at all, but this provision of he TOU stood out: "A Wikimedia Project community may adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy consistent with applicable law. If a Project adopts an alternative disclosure policy, you may comply with that policy instead of the requirements in this section when contributing to that Project. An alternative paid contribution policy will only supersede these requirements if it is approved by the relevant Project community and listed in the alternative disclosure policy page." Was that part of the original proposal? I don't recall it. It strikes me as an immense loophole, expecially since I now see this provision as used, in the COI talk page, as an excuse for doing nothing. Some are arguing that we already have an alternative policy, and that our alternative policy is the COI guideline.
Jimbo, this is your talk page. What is your opinion on that? Is the COI guideline, in your opinion, the alternate policy indicated in the TOU?Coretheapple (talk) 21:18, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
That doesn't require Jimbo's interpretation, since it's 100% straightforward - to be an alternate policy, per the TOS, it explicitly needs to be listed at the list of alternate policies, and en:WP:COI ain't. Take a look - Italian and Hebrew Wikipedias have alternate policies, and that's all. WilyD 07:44, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes, you're right. Someone was arguing to the contrary, but it's clear that we do not have a COI policy, and would have to adopt one for the TOU not to apply here. Coretheapple (talk) 13:34, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Actually, re-reading the discussion, I see that one editor is arguing that in fact we don't need a COI policy, and that all we have to do is to convene an RfC and specifically overrule the TOU in the COI guideline. Voila! The TOU don't apply. He may be right too, and I have to say that if it happens, I will have no sympathy for the reputational hit and adverse publicity that will flow to the project and the WMF. Coretheapple (talk) 14:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
It's correct that English Wikipedia could decide to replace the paid editing TOU policy with whatever we like, but history shows we're unlikely to, if one reads the RfCs linked above. WilyD 14:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Does this accurately reflect your views on COI editing?

"How we treat BDB right now is going to reflect on our overall treatment of COI editors. Jimmy recently changed his tune against all COI edits toward being against only undisclosed COI editors or COI editors on article space. We had a big change in our treatment of COI editors earlier this year and we need to be careful not to fall back into old habits." [10]

Did you recently "change your tune?" Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 19:37, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

No, I have not changed my tune. I have long advocated for the best practice called the "Bright Line rule" which says that if you have a COI, you should generally not edit article space at all, and that any edits to talk pages should be accompanied by a clear disclosure of the conflict of interest. I still advocate for that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:17, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 20:19, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
And what about those administrators who are on friendly terms with certain users, don't you think they have a conflict of interest, too?--37.230.21.79 (talk) 22:04, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
In the end, it seems to me that this project is drawing criticism due to its lack of clear rules: One could assume that there is indeed a rule that says: Once an official is engaged in personal affairs and conversation, including sending Barnstars, praises etc. (trying to pander in any kind of way and gain the benevolence of an admin), there's to be drawn a clear line to prevent any form of favouritism or partisanship? Accordingly, anyone who is trying to interfere or barge in any kind of dispute, be it on content or an unblocking request or anything, should mandatorily be checked for any kind of connection or conversation with one of the involved parties. Where's the clear line that prevents this?--37.230.21.79 (talk) 22:27, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Jimmy, isn't your stance today different from when you gave this quote: "This is not complicated. There is a very simple ‘bright line’ rule that constitutes best practice: do not edit Wikipedia directly if you are a paid advocate." Has your chance changed since then, or did you mean "Wikipedia articles" when you said Wikipedia?--v/r - TP 23:44, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
I found my answer here. @Figureofnine, I was mistaken. This has always been the case, so it shouldn't be a surprise to you after all.--v/r - TP 23:47, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
No, it isn't a surprise. But since you've described yourself to me as "pro-COI editing given conditions such as disclosure" (the edit is now deleted), and seem to have a battleground attitude toward editors you view as "paid editing haters," I think it would be best if you did not act as an administrator in disputes in which commercial COI or paid editing was an issue, as you have done with the Banc de Binary article. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 00:08, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
My problem with certain editors has nothing to do with the subjects of articles. I wasn't involved in a dispute between pro-COI and anti-COI editors when I entered the BDB topic. That battleground came later. There is no need for you to confuse the difference between a dispute involving someone with a COI and a dispute between pro-COI and anti-COI editors and then criticize me for knowing the difference. You continue to not take any responsibility for your behavior and the fact is that you cannot know the impact of what you are doing. I'd really like to be able to show you, but the nature of the impact of your comments is that COI editors are going to try not to be detected instead of being open and honest. So I can't show you, because it's immeasurable. You've done more harm than good and your not looking far enough into the future to see it. You think you've done good work here? I can't even articulate the amount of damage this is going to cause the project. There is a reason we encourage open disclosure and talk page editing. There is a reason Jimmy supports it. But you'd like to block their editor because they have a COI and you're tired of dealing with them. Well, hello? That's a great time for you to step away, and not harm the project in the process. The proposal for a block on ANI is a punishment. You've said as much yourself when you said that after a month we will unblocking them. How is that preventative? What you want is to show them we mean business be casting them to the timeout corner for a period of time. My proposal can provide a foundation for them to edit and meets the community's concerns that they are being over-pushy. I've outlined what I think is a desirable outcome at WP:DESIRABLEOUTCOME. The least sanctions necessary. The least necessary isn't a block, you admit that when you say we can unblock them. But you're so sure of yourself, you're not listening to reason. I've tried explaining in every way why your approach won't work, I wish you'd take the time to try to understand me rather than focusing your attention to defending what you're doing.--v/r - TP 00:27, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
And for the record, the only administrator action I ever did in this topic area was to close this thread in your favor.--v/r - TP 00:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
So you're continue to continue to act as an uninvolved administrator when commercial COI or paid editing is involved? You've just shown me again why it's not a good idea, now I'd like to know if you're not going to do it. The reason I ask is that because of deletion of remarks that had to be oversighted because you "outed" an editor, the following remark by you is no longer in the edit history of your talk page:

Whether you knew beforehand or not, you've in the middle of a long dispute on Wikipedia, the presence of which now that I've realized has removed my impartiality. [redacted] and apparently [redacted] as well, are anti-COI editors with a history of hostility toward COI editors. They didn't just naturally come to the BDB page. They came willingly. BDB isn't just wasting their time, they choose to waste their time with BDB. I don't know about you yourself, but I know about them. They, and apparently I, also have a conflict of interest now because I've been pro-COI editing given conditions such as disclosure. This isn't about BDB at all, it's about COI. [Redacted] and [Redacted] don't care about BDB at all. This is just another battleground. And you're in the middle of it. Congratulations.

The two editors whose names I redacted are two established editors who you've disagreed with. That's why I think that you have a battleground attitude and feel you shouldn't act as an administrator on articles and disputes involving COI editing. Since you outed another editor (which is why I redacting) you probably shouldn't be an administrator at all, but they are lifetime appointments and I'm realistic. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 00:42, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
That's very disappointing. You've chosen to threaten me rather than address my concerns about how you treat COIs. The answer is no, I will not make a commitment about a future action I may or may not take based on no history of problems to someone who doesn't understand what the problem is and is contributing to it and who does not hold the authority to require it. If you want to hold a discussion or seek Jimbo's fiat then so be it. The likelihood of it is that you'll be told to wait until there is a problem before creating a solution. I answer to the community, not to you alone. There is no such thing as 'established editors' and whether I argued with two 'established editors' or two editors doesn't make the slightest difference. What you are doing, and what is apparent, is you are trying to create a chilling effect because you view me and me having tools as a threat despite no actual misuse of the tools to support your fear. The day you find I've acted inappropriate, that day and only after that day, may you ask me to answer to the community. I'm very disappointed, I thought for a few hours based on the discussion on my talk page that you might not be one of those who has a knee-jerk reaction to COI editing and might be thoughtful about it. It appears I was very wrong.--v/r - TP 02:50, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Let's get back on topic, which is you. You have acted inappropriately, and you know perfectly well that you have, and you correctly removed yourself as an uninvolved administrator from the BDB dispute.

You responded to an editor's comment on the BdB talk page by outing him. This is one of the editors you feel "hate" paid editing. He made an innocent informational comment, not directed at you or anyone, and you responded as you did. It was a nasty and totally gratuitous thing to do. Even if it wasn't outing, it was gratuitous, it was intemperate. It is something an administrator shouldn't do. It is something you shouldn't have done. But you don't feel that you did anything wrong, and as of this writing you haven't even had the common courtesy to apologize for doing that, to the editor or anyone. The editor in question, I'll call him Mr. X as I don't want to draw attention to what you did to him, is one of the editors that you have stated you feel is a "paid editor hater." When it comes to editors like that, Mr. X and Mr. Z, a fellow administrator, the gloves are off as far as TParis is concerned. When I raised the issue on your talk page, you gave me a lot of technical gobbledygook. You said I was "trolling." I wasn't trolling. I was disturbed that you had outed someone. You had. The edits are now deleted.

There is no reason not to believe that another BDB situation won't arise, and all I'm saying is that if it does, if paid editing or commercial COI is an issue, you're just too emotional and too wrapped up in the issue to act as an uninvolved administrator. Speaking of disappointment, when you voluntarily recused from acting as an uninvolved admin in BDB I was thrilled. Your statement above, which I quoted, showed self-awareness. I was hoping for better from you and yes, I was disappointed, first by your emotionality and defensiveness and next by your circling the wagons again and not admitting what you said in your deleted comment: that you have a conflict of interest on this subject, an agenda, and should not be functioning as an uninvolved editor when you are very much and emotionally involved. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 11:19, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

One last thing: I'm a weekend warrior. I have spent hours more on this BDB thing than I had planned this week. I'm not paid to edit here unlike the BDB people that you want to "help" and who you feel are the "good faith" editors here despite their disruptive socking. Take the gloves off. I'm one of "them" now. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 11:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

  • Just giving my 2cents. I have seen both Good COI and Bad COI editors. The best that i Have seen are ones that IMMEDIATELY say they have COI and ask for help such as Chris (btw they still need help at SEN plz help), and bad ones who edit war and use sneaky maneuvers to get their company a positive page. Now i have nothing against editors who want to improve their company via proper channels but the bad ones are despicable. Retartist (talk) 06:08, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
If we can all just agree that there is a difference between good COI editors (paid and unpaid) and bad COI editors (paid and unpaid) along the lines you suggest; and if we can all agree that the good ones are to be worked with to produce an NPOV outcome and the bad ones are to have their damage minimized and to be shown the door, we can have this problem solved once and for all. There is less difference between "pro-COI" and "anti-COI'" Wikipedians than is commonly realized. It's just a matter of solving the tactical question of "regulation" v. "prohibition." It's pretty clear that the former approach has majority support at English WP and is implicit in the new TOU rules. Let's all work together on this. Carrite (talk) 15:19, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
@Figureofnine: That's cute how you thing you can dictate the topic. You did the same thing on ANI. The topic here is whatever Wikipedians want to discuss. Have you not read WP:ANI Advice? It applies here as much as ANI. What you think is gratuitous, I see as an editor using Wikipedia to gain fame. Thats a COI violation as well. Wikipedia is not here to make anyone famous and edits should not be made with the intention of showing off to the media. That has led administrators to earn site bans here.--v/r - TP 17:09, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
TP, have you at any time disclosed in this discussion, or others concerning Banc de Binary, or the one above concerning the Terms of Use change, or the Conflicts of Interest guideline (such as before making this edit), that you yourself have been a paid advocacy editor? See the exchange with User:John Cline and myself at User talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive 148. Defenders of paid editing talk a lot about the need for "transparency" and "disclosure." Where's your transparency? Where's your disclosure?
I think that this is not just a question of whether you should be an uninvolved administrator in certain situations, but whether you're behaving the way an administrator should in a more general way. I'd like to hear more about your justification for outing someone. I guess you feel that he is "rotten," right? On 12 May 2014, approximately seven months after the exchange on this page on your paid editing, and whether you had lost the trust of the community, I found a little "ping" at the top of my page, a notification from your talk page. I went there, and I found the following reference to myself[11] from you: "Coretheapple is a rotten one. He is idealistic and naive. He thinks he can change the spin of the earth by his simple willpower. I've only ever stood up for him once, in some random unblock request, and it wasn't in any way motivated by some kind of like for the guy." So let's see. WP:OUTING is OK when someone you don't like is "using Wikipedia to gain fame," whatever that means. (Please explain.) personal attacks are fine when a person you don't like... well, I guess one can say that when a person you don't like exists because I had had no interactions with you in seven months before you attacked me on your talk page. And then there's your not disclosing your personal stake in paid editing, your being a paid editor, when the subject is discussed. How do you reconcile all this with the requirement in WP:ADMIN to "lead by example and to behave in a respectful, civil manner in their interactions with others"? Coretheapple (talk) 17:35, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Actually, the oversight team came back and said that it was no outing because the editor disclosed their name on Meta. Smallbones outed himself in this edit and figureofnine doesn't know what he's talking about. So, no, I haven't outed anyone. And, Coretheapple, I have never edited this project for money. I have advised on one article, and I wrote another article that someone else posted. Not once have I edited for money. So I thank you not to suggest I have. My only 'paid edit' on any WMF project was to upload a picture to commons which has a much different policy. And you'll find disclosure on the talk page of that picture. I have no need to disclose anything on BDB's page, I dont have a COI with it. That's like saying that editors who disagree on WP:V and WP:N have to closure on every article they edit that they disagree with those policies. In fact, your staunch disagreement with the COI policy would require you to share on those pages that you are an opponent of ENWP's current wording. So please, be sure to do so.--v/r - TP 19:06, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
"the oversight team came back and said that it was no outing" Oh really? Where'd they say that? Because I'm not seeing that. What I see on your user page at [12] is Kevin Gorman saying "I'm confident that the situation did not arise out of intentional malice and that he's unlikely to do the same thing in the future," and cautioning Figureofnine "Given the nature of situations like this, it's usually better to let them drop rapidly rather than have continued discussion about them - continued discussion about them tends to just bring attention back to the original issue, which is undesirable (since there's a reason such situations call for revdel/oversight to begin with.)" And if you didn't out him, are you saying now that what you did was OK? If it was OK, why were those edits deleted? Why not go back and re-insert what was deleted? After all, it was not outing, or so you say. Maybe you can just tell us what you said, since it wasn't outing, so that we understand the issue here. In other words, he said this, you said that, etc.
As for paid editing, you said at User talk:Jimbo_Wales/Archive 148, "As someone who is an admin and has also done a form of paid editing," and then defined "'A form of editing' - I wrote it, they posted it. Dennis Lo was written by me and published by someone else who paid me for it." See also John Cline's resaponse in the archive at 09:30, 6 November 2013 to describe the serious concerns that he had. And how about that NPA stuff you're not responding to. How about that "rotten one" comment, TParis? Still stand by that, I guess? An OK thing for a user/administrator to do? And how about answering my question at the end: how do you square how you behave with your duty as an administrator to set an example? Coretheapple (talk) 19:39, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Initially, I was under the impression that the SUL tool only showed accounts that were connected by SUL. Apparently I was wrong about the SUL tool. I, and not anyone else, contacted OS to have those edits removed. It was later found out that Smallbones made this edit and outed himself. I never outed him, intentionally nor inadvertently. As far as Dennis Lo, User:John Cline does not speak for the community and I'm sure I've addressed his concerns. The community has spoken resoundingly that I was not in violation of the COI policy and that I was still trusted as an administrator. As far as the rotten one comment, personally I think that was a good bit of play on your name, but it pales on the personal attack scale. Feel free to bring it up at ANI. As far as your defense in email, I wouldn't dare show you the positive things I said of you. That would make me choke. I've got a new essay in mind, you might want to read it.--v/r - TP 19:45, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Really really hard to converse with you since you keep changing your story and coming up with new excuses for the things you do. First you said there was no paid editing. Now that's inoperative. What you did there was OK. Then you said there was no outing, and that the oversight team said there was no outing. Now that's inoperative. Now you say Smallbones outed himself, and you posted a link to Smallbones not outing himself. WP:OUTING says "Posting another editor's personal information is harassment, unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia." Where on Wikipedia did he post his name? See if you can look around a little more and find his name on Wikipedia. What you're posting is an off-wiki link. If I outed someone, I'd get either a block or a stern warning. Why isn't that happening to you? And I'd like to hear you address the question I've been asking, which is how you reconcile your behavior with the duty of administrators to set an example. Coretheapple (talk) 19:58, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Really hard to converse with me? You've linked to the policy and yet you ignore it. "unless that person had voluntarily posted his or her own information, or links to such information, on Wikipedia." He has posted a link to the information. You seem to not like that a situation evolves. No one knew of this edit initially, I had an assumption based on a SUL tool that Smallbones had linked his accounts. He had not. I asked for it to be oversighted. The oversight team oversighted part of it and then stopped (not oversighting the stuff on my talk page) and replied to me and said that they have determined that Smallbones outed himself. Then I found this diff] this morning proving that he infact has outed himself. What I'm posting is an on-wiki link that Smallbones made to off-wiki information about himself. No one has been outed. Again, bring it to ANI if you disagree. Why is it that you avoid community discussions when you attack me? You attack me as a COI editor but when I brought it to the community they disagreed. You accuse me of personal attacks, I've said bring it to ANI and you don't. You've accused me of outing someone, and I've shown you a diff proving otherwise. Bring it to ANI. Bring all of your concerns with me to ANI. Hell, start an RFC/U on me. In fact, User:Hipocrite would probably co-certify. He loves an opportunity to start an RFC/U on an admin. Do anything that involved community input about me you choose. Until then, Coretheapple, there is nothing you can personally do. And if you don't go to the community, that will put the lie to your words. It tells everyone that you don't even believe the nonsense you are spilling.--v/r - TP 20:10, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I have not been following this thread, but I see my name is being bandied around. I have never intentionally outed myself on Wikipedia, but I'm used to folks like Mr 2001 and possibly others doing it. It is not a big deal now, but I do request that folks not do it. TP apologized by e-mail, that's enough in this case.

If I read this correctly somebody is talking about me as a "COI editor hater". That is a big deal. A few months ago somebody wrote me a positive note about my work against paid editing and mentioned something about me "hating paid editors." I do not hate paid editors, rather I feel sorry for them that they have to stoop to that type of work. My answer to that editor should explain:

"Thanks for noticing! It's always good to get positive feedback. I will correct you, however, I don't hate paid editors, rather it is paid editing that is hateful. It is tearing down a wonderful structure that has been built up by many volunteers, that provides good information to whoever has access to the internet. If that information is poisoned, and people can't trust us, then the whole structure may collapse.
"Your post reminded me of a news story from a couple of decades ago. After the fall of the Soviet Union people started cutting down and selling copper cable from high power electrical transmission systems (nominally still in use). I don't hate those folks who cut down the cable - they were doing what they had to do to survive. I did hate the fact that the transmission systems were being destroyed. It just seemed like there must be a pretty simple enforcement system that would stop the destruction. Everybody likely knew who was buying the cable - these folks could be stopped fairly simply if anybody took the obvious steps. Similarly, most people likely knew who was cutting the cable or where to look to stop folks from cutting more. So the system was messed up, but the parts of the system that led to the destruction of the cable could easily be fixed. The actual folks who cut the cable, in my mind, were less responsible than the authorities who couldn't be bothered to take a few minimal steps. That's my reading in any case."

Smallbones(smalltalk) 20:21, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Did you make this edit. I disagree that paid editing is hateful. Paid advocacy I could see a good reason to consider it hateful but it's a fact of life and we need realistic solutions to actively manage and regulate it rather than combat it.--v/r - TP 20:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
(ec) I think it's great that he apologized privately, but I see no such constructive attitude here, only defiance and evasiveness. I think that it would be much, much better if there was less of this bravado and "bring it on" nonsense and an acknowledgment that he did wrong, and an assurance that he won't do it again. I am deeply disturbed by the lack of sensitivity this administrator has displayed on this issue. Yes, TP, an arbitration proceeding may not be a bad idea if you continue down this road of confrontation and WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior. Be careful what you wish for. Also I would like a full and firm promise that he will never act as an "uninvolved" administrator in any controversy involving paid editing.' FON asked that politely and got trashed and smeared by this guy in return. I'd like to see a forthright promise here. Coretheapple (talk) 20:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm tired of this. Open an ANI or RFC/U on me or I'm going to open one on you. Your continued insistence that I have done anything wrong w/o evidence and ignoring plain facts is harassment. I've proven definitively that I did not out Smallbones. I made the apology before I had definitive proof I hadn't done it. Honestly, I still owe him that private apology because what I thought was proof (the SUL tool) wasn't and what I know to be proof I didn't have until much later. So in that intervening period, yes, I'm sorry to Smallbones that I gave a diff before I knew for a fact that he had already outed himself. Coretheapple, if you don't like my description of the events, that's fine. However, my description reflects reality. Either get wider community consensus, or quit hounding and harassing me.--v/r - TP 20:37, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Uh, no, having a discussion with someone on Jimbo's talk page is not "harassment" no matter how irritated you may become by said discussion. You may want to take a gander at the policy again, especially the WP:AOHA. Oh, and the stuff about outing too. Coretheapple (talk) 20:53, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Okay, expect an ANI case this evening once I've gathered all the relevant diffs.--v/r - TP 23:04, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Why don't you both not run to AN/I for three more days of fury and drama ending in a no-decision? Grit your teeth, move along... Carrite (talk) 23:18, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Carrite. TParis, you need to chill. You are doing yourself no favor by being so thin-skinned. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 09:48, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
(uninvolved editor) And still uninvolved, just suggesting that both parties read WP:ANI Advice and WP:BOOMERANG. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 10:55, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Elliot Rodger

Soooooo, it turns out the Isla Vista killer edited Wikipedia. Thought you or the countless people who watch this page might be interested in that detail.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 05:48, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Read it. Particularly interested was I, when it became apparant that I had been the last to revert Rodger's edits and warn him. Chilling indeed. Apart from that, the article provided is absolutely repugnant; but one expected nothing less. —MelbourneStar☆talk 13:11, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Heh. I see you reverted a few of ElliotR1's unexplained deletions on July 21, but in these articles, on his second- to fourth-last edits (Marist College Eastwood, Eastwood, New South Wales, Aziz Shavershian) it was his edit that came after yours. It's like you had your own personal psycho stalking you on Wikipedia for a bit, and I don't even see a reason why. Not a bad day to be an Australian, I'd say. :) Wnt (talk) 06:37, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

This may sound strange for sure, but its the content that is generally the factor as to undoing or banning users for things such as vandalism. For example if the leader of Al-Qaeda edited France's page to state the Capital was Paris (just hypothetical) we couldn't really undo it because it is technically true, if the content of such edits were actually by him and are in violation of guidelines though I suppose something could be done. SandeepSinghToor (talk) 09:56, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Ah well according to the page you provided what he did was clearly something against Wiki rules, however I am still unsure what can be done if the edits were already undone at the time of his alleged vandalism (alleged because by no means am I a qualified expert on accusing him of such) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SandeepSinghToor (talk • contribs) 09:59, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Wow, bad people are on the Internet, just like good people. Who would have ever imagined that. I am absolutely astonished. /s --cyclopiaspeak! 13:32, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

But how exactly are we supposed to know that the said editor had, shall we say, "issues"? Just as a cop isn't going to hesitate to shoot a man who had mental health issues and was going on a drive-by shooting. Users on Wikipedia aren't required to post their personal information, and even then it still doesn't excuse them from removing content from articles without explanation. Heck, if Barack Obama came in and edited the Barack Obama page, adding unsourced content and original research, claiming that "It's an article about me, and so I obviously know what goes here", it would still be reverted. Users aren't permitted to write autobiographies (except maybe in their userspace), and if they are notable enough for an article, they can request than an article be created about them. But other than that, blanking articles in frustration is like climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spiderman. You're not going to get people to listen to your point - you're only going to annoy them and earn yourself a block. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 14:39, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

  • Actually, although Rodger failed to remove the image from footjob, he succeeded in getting the image for blowjob (Fellatio) removed for over a year. After Rodger was banned, two IP editors in the 68.37.*.* range took up the cause of deleting each of these two particular images, succeeding despite a lack of talk page agreement via a compliant user who (apparently wrongly, since the file is still here) claimed copyright problems with File:Fellatio.jpg in his edit summary. I took the liberty of reverting him in May. A request I made at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ElliotR1 was dismissed and deleted but most of the information is here. I don't recall what the tool was to search a whole block of IP edits or if it still exists (everything on toolserver goes down sooner rather than later) but I wouldn't be surprised if you can do some fertile mining there if you have access or write one. Wnt (talk) 16:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks - I was looking in the wrong place! Though I don't see a way to use the range interface to pick out the tiny number of 2013-2014 edits while excluding the much larger set of edits made around 2007-2010. I checked the two blocks of 256 IP addresses and didn't come up with anything else. Wnt (talk) 06:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the nauseating and cowardly remarks made by Wikiconference USA attendees

I hope those attendees of the recent Wikiconference USA in New York who were discussing LilaTretikov and Wllm behind their backs, suggesting that the WMF's new ED should dump her partner, or banish him from the WMF world, are proud of themselves. "Multiple influential people", says Kevin Gorman. If any of them are reading this, I'll eat my hat if they have the spine to identify themselves in public and stand behind their grotesquely inappropriate comments. — Scott • talk 20:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Grotesquely inappropriate is exactly right, under any circumstances. – SJ + 00:51, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
I was present for the conference and heard no such remarks at all. What is the source for this gossip? Did you attend the conference, Scott? Liz Read! Talk! 04:25, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
There's a link in my post. Try clicking it. — Scott • talk 17:56, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Is anyone else getting "PirritSuggester" malware ads after accessing the Wikipediocracy site? I just did a system restore going back 3 weeks, and it seemed to get rid of them, but as soon as I access Wikipediocracy, the adware starts to appear, and my privacy settings show a huge of cookies being added. I'm seeing the same thing on wllm's personal blog. adnxs.com and pirrit.com seems to be the more intrusive ones, adding links and ads in the middle of text I am trying to read. —Neotarf (talk) 21:22, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Nope, never had anything like that from either site. 'Course, I use Firefox... 28bytes (talk) 21:35, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
So do I. And I have Windows Essentials enabled. This is something new. —Neotarf (talk) 21:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Nope. Must be somewhere else you've been. John lilburne (talk) 21:43, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Okay, thanks, I'm getting it now on other sites, where I might be expected to use a credit card online. <sigh> —Neotarf (talk) 22:00, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
  • /Sigh - sad to see this come up here. Wllm, none of my emails to you were unsolicited except the very first which you responded warmly to, and I'm disappointed that you chose to post a chunk of an email from me related to sensitive issues publicly. To those wondering, yes, I did send Wil an email where that was part of a longer chunk. I don't want to say what he posted was 100% accurate because I haven't compared them side by side, but it can probably be assumed to be. I would have responded to your post on the talk page if I had seen it, but haven't been monitoring the talk page regularly as I'm only now finally fully back to having internet access, being thoroughly in the bay, etc.
I have never tried to meddle in Wil's relationship, except to point out to him that some of his actions were actively sabotaging the impressions movement members were forming of Lila in her first few weeks on her new job, and by asking him to reconsider how hard and how fast he was diving in to certain controversial areas. Though now restored to internet access, I'm pretty much going to stay away from this thread except to say that I think Lila's performance so far shows that she holds a lot of promise as a replacement for Sue, something that took a bloody hard search to find. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:39, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
And why would it be any of their business, and why would it be any of your business to play tattletale and convey idle gossip? John lilburne (talk) 21:45, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Sounds like we could all use a bit more clarity here, Kevin. Do you mind if I release all of the emails you sent me? Could be either on-wiki or WPO, up to you. ,Wil (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes Wil, I do object, and for a pretty simple reason: doing so is not in the interests of, bluntly, anyone. You've already picked out about the worst sounding quote you could've in terms of effecting my reputation, let those who enjoy drama bask in that while they must, instead of drawing anything else in. I do have a couple things to point out: my email to you was not unsolicited, and my response to your request to not interfere with your personal life was to clarify that that was the last thing I wanted to do, emphasize that you had brought up a *lot* of points that needed to be addressed sooner or later, invite you out to dinner to meet in person and hopefully in the process convince you that I did in fact have your best interests in mind, and start talking about how to make productive change while stressing that not everything could be addressed instantly. Do you want to watch the world burn because fire is pretty, or do you prefer construction? If you want something constructive to come out of your engagement with Wikimedia, that can only happen if you engage with Wikimedia's community in a different way than you have so far. Please note that I'm only responding to pings from Wil and a handful of others in this section, rather than monitoring it proactively. Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:03, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
"If you want something constructive to come out of your engagement with Wikimedia, that can only happen if you engage with Wikimedia's community in a different way than you have so far." "Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy." Imbibe, imbibe! Say the words!Dan Murphy (talk) 23:13, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
Kevin, I don't think that quote was designed particularly to affect your reputation; though the best thing to do with offensive, ridiculous gossip is to stop it at the source and not pass it on. Repeating awful things that others have said is not quite as bad as the initial insult, but still hurts. As Wil seems to have been offended, an apology would not be remiss. – SJ + 00:51, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

If, as appears, tasteless remarks were made, I am not sure that one helps alleviate the tastelessness by publicizing them extensively. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:20, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

NYB, here's where I think you and I fundamentally disagree with how to handle matters like this. There is a good reason to hold people to their words and deeds. If we just sweep this stuff under the carpet, then Kevin's exactly right: the Wikimedia community tolerates this kind of behavior. I'm not interested in damaging the Wikipedia community or its reputation- just the opposite. I want this kind of stuff to stop. And it won't stop unless we admit we could have done better and learn our lessons well. So, I propose that we own our mistakes, learn from them, and better ourselves. And we should encourage others to learn from mistakes. If, for example, Kevin were to apologize to me and Lila, I would consider it a sign of strength, not weakness, and I would tell him so. ,Wil (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Wil: I've sincerely apologized to Lila, multiple times, over situations related to our interactions. When you expressed concern that I was trying to interfere with your personal life, I emphatically stressed that I had absolutely no desire to interfere in your personal life. (And, except for introducing myself, I have not sent you a single unsolicited email. If you took offense at me relaying how people viewed your behavior: I'm sorry, but sincerely hope you reread that whole line of emails to find and consider the point I made within them. I doubt leaking every email I've sent you would hurt my reputation to a greater degree than the initial offensive nugget you posted - but it would hurt likely hurt both your standing and Lila's, so I hope you have the sense not to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevin Gorman (talk • contribs) 02:41, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Accepted. This is where we could use some practice, however. An apology that follows the pattern "If *, I'm sorry, but *" is a weak apology. I simple "I'm sorry" is much more effective. I'd very much appreciate a chance to accept a strong apology from you, because I believe that it is warranted. But I'm not about to force it out of you; if you don't truly regret what you've said, then I'd prefer you don't apologize at all. And, Kevin, sincerely, you can stop worrying about my reputation. It will build naturally as I do what I believe is right. And, if you haven't caught on to this yet, I really don't care that much what people think of me. I'm interested in their ideas. And I've found no lack of good ideas voiced by good people here. I'm making a lot of friends and enjoying myself. I'm gonna stay the course. If you have concerns about Lila's reputation, I suggest you take it up with her. ,Wil (talk) 04:19, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
It looks like that's the strongest apology I'm going to get. :( ,Wil (talk) 01:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
  • This food fight is getting pretty silly. (1) Kohs shouldn't have been banned from WikiconNYC14 at all. (2) If there was a legitimate reason to ban him, it should have been stated. And it still should be, he's waiting. (3) The conference organizers owe him $5.30 and an apology, in my opinion. All the rest of this is so much noise. Carrite (talk) 23:44, 12 June 2014 (UTC)
    Off-topic for this thread, but yes. People running events can set whatever guidelines they like, and can choose their attendance list to realize the type of event they have in mind; but this should be clear up front. – SJ + 00:51, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
    Sj's right. It's OT, but there is a common theme here. It sounds like there were lots of learning opportunities at WikiCon USA. No biggies. This kind of stuff happens. I think if we practiced apologizing and forgiving, we would all move on and do it better the next time.
    I can guarantee one thing, however; if one chooses to hide their missteps and waste everyone's time- or, worse yet, reputations- by trying to save face, I'm not the only one who will persist in holding everyone accountable. But make no mistake, I do it so diligently because I don't want to have to do it next time. ,Wil (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I'd disagree, with that, Brad. If such remarks were made that Scott alleges in the original post, they should be publicised here, and if they are as offensive as has been suggested, the offenders swiftly removed from any position of authority or importance. (And, to be honest, anyone in authority who didn't do anything about it / didn't condemn it, possibly including people further up this thread). Black Kite kite (talk) 23:49, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Would someone please Rev Del this thread? It's entheta that draws attention to a potential trouble source who's under the influence of suppressive persons, and I'm sure the sole source of Wikipedia has more important things to attend to. Wikipedia is a safe space. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:28, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

@Anthonyhcole: Didn't you mean to say "Wikipedia is a safe space opera"? ;) ,Wil (talk) 02:21, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
@Anthonyhcole:, I believe you're a squirrel.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:05, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
"suppressive persons"? "sole source of Wikipedia"? "Wikipedia is a safe space"? Not seeing anything RevDel-able here, but then your statement doesn't really make much sense to me. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:39, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
Scientology and Sarcasm. Today is brought to you by the letter S. :D ,Wil (talk) 01:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
Kohs is not convincing me with this argument. While arguing around the idea that he not be banned from a Wikimedia conference, "thekohser" posted that "... got his panties in such a twist over this "blackmail thread", he spent exactly 1 hour, 42 minutes, 29 seconds on MyWikiBiz last night, even searching the database for [his username], just to make sure I haven't said anything mean about him. I'm pleased that he spent some time on the Sophismata page, though..." Now, this idea that someone is going to make opinions known for the Wikimedia community, encourage them to come and hear his banned words of wisdom, only to invade readers' privacy and use their browsing for opposition research, is not something I approve of. I have to limit my reaction in light of my opinion that every user ban should have a fixed maximum duration, and also in consideration that this wasn't directly done on Wikipedia; nonetheless, this is an argument he was making specifically for our benefit in lieu of access to edit here, and it makes me more willing to believe that his activities using any data he might collect at the conference could be problematic. As for the comments the OP was talking about, I haven't heard them, they may be unwise, but not every silly thing said has to lead to somebody getting voted off the island. Wnt (talk) 06:41, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
He may have said that in the thread about the conference, but I thought that comment was completely unrelated to WikiConference USA itself. For what it's worth, I told them today that I didn't think such doxxing behavior was OK for cases where they aren't exposing abuse (YMMV) and some of them did not like it at all. Then I reasserted that they are being asshats when they're making snarky comments about others. And, surprisingly enough, for completely separate reasons, I've stopped posting on WO altogether. It's been a busy day. But I still think that Wikipedia conferences that are open to all members must not exclude any participants who don't pose a threat. The matter that this section was created to discuss, however, has been resolved by Kevin's apology, although (and I really hate to criticize any apology; in fact, it's my first time doing so) it's mixed with more excuses and inaccuracies. In any case, I've decided not to release the rest of Kevin's mails. I don't think he was acting in bad faith, and he certainly assumed privacy. He just wasn't acting with prudence. I think he got the message that I'd rather not hear from him privately anymore. ,Wil (talk) 07:51, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
@Wil. I don't think the following representation of the dialog on WPO is accurate: "I told them today that I didn't think such doxxing behavior was OK for cases where they aren't exposing abuse (YMMV) and some of them did not like it at all." I think that a big majority of the wide range of people posting at Wikipediocracy would agree that real life identification of those abusing Wikipedia through anonymous accounts is OK, with the main difference of opinion being a big majority feeling that this should be limited to the manipulation of content and a small minority feeling that this should also apply to administrators and others making abusive use of site rules against their enemies. Essentially ALL feel there MUST be some purpose to such identifications. I think that's a reasonable reflection of actual sentiment there, whether one actively participates in such public identifications or one does not. This again gets back to the question that you yourself dodged on WPO when I directly asked it of you twice: in the matter of accuracy of Wikipedia content and transparency of contributors on the one hand vs. the perceived right of Wikipedia contributors to online anonymity, where do you land? Carrite (talk) 15:05, 16 June 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 15:07, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
OK, I'm answering your question with many witnesses present: This question is leading because it assumes a correlation between accuracy of Wikipedia content and transparency of contributors, which, to my knowledge, hasn't been proven. I could stop right here. But it seems like you're more interested in the seemingly mutually exclusive issue of transparency and anonymity. First, IP edits seem to make less sense as a wiki matures, and, IMO en.Wiki grew out of them long ago. Next, we should provide means for users to give Wikipedia as much information as they want, including linking accounts at other well known sites. This information should be opt-in and should not be relied on to establish RL identities. The only sure-fire way to establish RL identities is to have the contributor disclose their WP identity in a trusted and verified source. Otherwise, we can only rely on a mound of circumstantial evidence- much of which can be faked. So here's where we enter a fairyland of hypotheticals, because it isn't possible or practical to get the necessary information. If it were possible, I like the idea of a final promotion of our most mature articles to an expert-curated status, but only under the conditions that there are checks and balances established so that a verified and elected expert cannot abuse his or her power. Next, should we require more information of admins and others who govern the site if we could get it? Asking those who want these responsibilities to verify their RL identities might help curb abuses, but this information shouldn't be shared outside of the WMF. For the regular contributor, I think that connecting to RL identities isn't practical unless we are willing to decimate our editing population. The bar would be far higher for new editors. I think this is against the spirit of Wikipedia. The Wikipedia whistleblower's dilemma is the morality of publishing information that the contributor hasn't proffered. That's the individual whistleblower's call, whether we like it or not. I personally would like to see the WMF build even closer connections in the community, while establishing effective, trusted procedures for whistleblowers so that publishing private information is uncool under any circumstances. But this is just one contributor's opinion. It's really up to the community working with the WMF, and I hope that more of the community will get involved in decisions like these.
If this were dodgeball, I could tell you exactly where I land. On the floor, after getting hit in the face with a fastball. So I'm pretty sure I didn't dodge anything this time. ;) ,Wil (talk) 06:26, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
Hey tim, are you saying that every piece of personal information posted at Wikipediocracy serves a purpose? What purpose did Lila's and my private address serve? I thank the moderators who took it down, but it was still posted. For that matter, why did everyone need to know the name of our ISP? I won't speak for others on Wikipedia who have similar stories, but I believe my own is enough to make it clear that not all personal information posted there accomplishes anything other than making people uncomfortable. That said, I'm very open with my personal info as long as it doesn't endanger my family. Others don't feel as comfortable with this, however. I can't force anybody at Wikipediocracy- or anywhere else, for that matter- to not engage in these activities; I can only encourage everyone to ask themselves how they can be kind to others and act accordingly. ,Wil (talk) 02:52, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that every prospective post at WPO be pre-moderated? Two words for you: prior restraint. All sorts of inappropriate stuff gets posted on the internet and inappropriate material gets posted periodically and taken down at Wikipedia and Wikipediocracy alike. It seems disingenuous for you to single out the latter. Whatever happened to the love of free speech in the saloon, etc.??? There's an enormous difference between making clear Real Life IDs of anonymous editors who abuse WP rules and honest editing practices on the one hand (identification of undeclared POV editors, in other words — what He Who Can Not Be Named does all the time) and those who post addresses, phone numbers, and employer contact info — or who contact or encourage others to contact employers — of enemies. The latter sort of behavior is moderated away at WPO if anybody pipes up, and I for one pipe up as soon as I see it. And I'm not alone. Carrite (talk) 04:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
P.S. So far this year it is Wikipedia 1, Wikipediocracy 0 in the tally of "encouragement of others to contact employers of enemies" violations. Just sayin'... Carrite (talk) 04:37, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
TIm, two words for you: I'm not. :) I've expressed my opinion on censorship from day one on Wikipediocracy. I'm not necessarily singling out Wikipediocracy, I simply haven't seen it on-wiki yet. You've always been honest and forthcoming; I believe you when you say it happens. So let's start by pretending censorship works. FWIW, I believe it never works in the long run. We both know there's no bright line here; we're talking about nothing less than the whistleblower's dilemma. I appeal directly to individuals to make the right decision, because the decision to publicize always lies with them. When they decide to publish information in good faith, they have usually thought through the benefits. I want to make sure they are also aware of how it can impact others' lives. And, let's face it, there has been some doxxing in bad faith on Wikipediocracy and, no doubt, Wikipedia. This practice should be discouraged in the strongest terms, possibly punished, but never censored. My MO is to make it clear to everyone what kind of impact this can have on another human being. I consistently followed these practices throughout my time at Wikipediocracy. And I will continue to do so here. ,Wil (talk) 02:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
You know that when it comes to WP and WO, I'm not keeping score. :) I'm just waiting for the game to end, when they all line up for high-fives. How's that for optimism? :P ,Wil (talk) 02:31, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
I thought I answered the question about transparency vs. anonymity pretty directly before, but if you'd like me to repeat my viewpoint here, no biggies. Please give me a day or so. I'm having a hard time keeping up with mails, blog comments, talk page edits, etc. A lot of people have a lot of great suggestions on how we can be kinder to each other here on Wikipedia, and I'd like to set aside an uninterrupted chunk of time to address your question as directly as I can. ,Wil (talk) 02:52, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Fascinating, fascinating. Every now and then I am drawn to poor Jimbo's talk page through one link or another, and every time it's like falling into the middle of a soap opera, where everyone is up in arms over nothing that appears to be of any consequence. How do you all find the time to edit articles? Remember editing articles? I wrote one the other day, on a Dutch journalist who spent a couple of years reporting stuff while Serbian shells were falling everywhere. It was great fun, and it's what I came here for. Not to see you all, the usual suspects, fighting over God knows what as if it really matters if someone was disinvited to some conference or other. Christ, it's hardly like getting kicked out of heaven for having dog poop on your shoe. Why don't you all keep your emails and your accusations and your gossip and your allegiances and your IRCs to yourself, or to a dedicated IRC channel, so that Jimbo and I can use this talk page to discuss things that really matter, like beer and Wikipedia articles? Drmies (talk) 00:47, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
It's a shame you're so consistently enticed to the wrong threads. I promise you there are productive discussions covering timely topics chock full of wholesome counsel and examples of emuable conduct. Perhaps you're a drama monger in disguise, for the subject heading gives ample clue of what to expect; and what to avoid, might I add.—John Cline (talk) 01:15, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
MONGO supports the BEER discussion option!--MONGO 01:49, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
I can't really drink beer.....but I am up for discussing it. ;-)--Mark Miller (talk) 05:31, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
Drmies is right and I'm as guilty as the next person. And btw (1) that's an excellent piece on the Dutch journalist and (2) bourbon would work for me. Writegeist (talk) 05:40, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
.......this coming from a guy who has a free-ranging, widely trafficked user talk page with about 68 archivings listed. Ummmm, why not just put up a link??? ;) —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 16:28, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

is Wikipedia dying?

just few years ago I could find artciles about everything new, but now I can't:

What is happening to Wikipedia?
Deleters are claiming that "wikipedia already has articles about evering and no new articles are needed", but I see THAT'S A LIE! Why do they become so POWERFULL? Why metapedists who do nothing just delete are more equal the those who write articles? Why no one see the AGONY of Wikipedia? Why no one tries to save it? (Idot (talk) 06:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC))

Maybe priorities change? Years ago, you couldn't articles on most of the Fortune 500 companies but you could on every Pokemon out there. Does the fact that you can't find information on two video games tell you that the website is "dying"? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:02, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
The editors above both raise valid questions regarding missing articles. Another example: no article about Gado Badzere yet! However, we do have Mbilé, Lolo, Garoua-Boulaï, Gbiti, and Kentzou, which puts Wikipedia way ahead of anything else currently available in the major US press about the emerging Cameroon refugee crisis ... ;) Djembayz (talk) 22:58, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia has articles about *almost* everything, but some video games, films, books, pop albums etc may not meet WP:GNG, which is the requirement for a standalone article. In these cases, they can be included as part of other articles. Plus there is a need for someone to take the time to write the article.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:07, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Just few years ago we used to have enough people to write articles that cover everyithing... (Idot (talk) 09:01, 15 June 2014 (UTC))
The media claimed a decline in editor numbers in 2013, but that is not the real issue here. The rules for article creation are stricter now than they were a few years ago, and a stub class article about a video game sourced to a couple of online reviews would probably face WP:AFD.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:10, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Both are related, 'coz there is a GREAT DISINCETIVE and GREAT DISCOURAGE to editors, 'coz everyone are equal, but Herostrates are more equal then others, just 'coz
if a writer has a couple of hours to spent Wilipedia, he or she is forced to spend such time for arguing in AFD, not for writing articles and as as result the writer gets no pleasure from writing articles, but great displeasure, so if the writer is not a masochist the best choise is not to waste free time for displeasant Wikipedia, but to spent for something else
while a Herostrate may spent his or her couple of hours of free time in AFD, and gets lots of pleasure, and Wikipedia is very pleasent place for Herostrates, so Herostrates are more equal than editors, 'coz only Herostrates are able to spend their time for pleasant activity (Idot (talk) 09:45, 15 June 2014 (UTC))

While our fellow Idot here may be easy to ignore because of their not-so-good English and apparently frivolous complain, I wouldn't shrug and move on so fast. It is true that most of our readership is more inclusionist than we are. Readers expect to find information when they look for something on WP. Whenever we don't do that, it is a failure. Now, it is true that on some subject we simply cannot do that (e.g. if there is a lack of RS). But I often have the feeling that we draft tighter and tighter notability/inclusion guidelines only for the sake of ourselves as editors, without thinking about the readers outside. In fact the declining number of editors means that we are alienating more and more people, preventing them from becoming editors as well. I strongly urge everyone to consider that we are here for the readers. Maybe relaxing our inclusion criteria a bit, sometimes, would make this thing a bit uglier than we would like, but probably our readers would be much happier. This is not a new issue, actually. Media have often a dim view of our deletionist approach, and they already had several years ago: [13],[14],[15],[16]. Meanwhile the problem has only got worse.--cyclopiaspeak! 10:57, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

One person's "important information" is another person's "useless trivia" (and vise versa). The debate between inclusionists and deletionists has been going on since the earliest days of Wikipedia, and it won't end with this discussion. Deletion is only a "problem" if you are an inclusionist. The deletionists, of course, don't consider it a "problem" at all. It may be that most of our editors are deletionists... when the article under consideration is about a topic they have no interest in. They suddenly turn into rabid inclusionists when the article is about a topic they care about. Like I said... one person's useless trivia is another person's important information (and vise versa). Blueboar (talk) 11:37, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
you don't see the crucial point: deleters usually DO NOT write articles id est (in general) deleters ARE NOT writers, typicall they DO NOT improve articles, because they don't do anything to improve articles, but they have greater POWER than thouse who write articles, 'coz they could spend all free time for deletion, while writer are forced to spend lots of time not for writing articles, but for arguing with deleters - it means lots of time are WASTED not for improving articles, but just for arguing with deleters. while deleters do not have filling of waste of time (they have only pleasure of deleting and arguing), writers have fillings that writing in Wikipedia is waste of time and efforts, 'coz whatever they did might be easily wasted by deleters (Idot (talk) 12:07, 15 June 2014 (UTC))
The counter point, of course, is this: While deletionists do not improve any specific article... the see their activities as improving the entire project (ie Wikipedia as a whole). Remember, there are two ways to improve a written work... one is to add more to it... the other is to edit out what isn't needed. It's what editors do (there is a reason we are called editors, not writers). Blueboar (talk) 14:08, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you User:Idot for asking such a brilliant and perceptive set of questions. They get right to the heart of the problems preventing Wikipedia from achieving it's potential for good. To answer each in turn:

  • Is Wikipedia dying?

Not yet, but it is inflicted with a sickness. And until that sickness is cured, Wikipedia is increasingly at risk of going the way of Citizendium. Venture capitalists have long expressed a wish to fund a more open alternative to Wikipedia. Even back in 2008 they recognised that "Deletionists rule Wikipedia" . Almost every month here in London alone, there's a conferences on Inclusive capitalism. Im expecting to attend one on 3rd July with folk like Andrew Witty, Charlie Mayfield, Sir Roger Carr, Frances O’Grady, Sir John Armitt, Katja Hall and Mike Wright. While inclusionism is generally talked about in a broader sense than its typically used here on Wikipedia, options for a replacement are sometimes discussed. With good SEO, leveraging of social media and perhaps a little inside help from one or two of the tech giants, it would not be hard to engineer. So far, those with the knowledge to help implement the project have demurred, out of loyalty to Wikipedia. But this may not be the case forever. Once it happens it will happen fast. Wikipedia will drop like a stone in the search rankings, and there will be nothing the Foundation or community could do about it.

  • What happened to Wikipedia?

As you clearly already know, its been largely taken over by deletionists.

  • Why have Deletionists became so powerful?

There lots of reasons for this. As per your insightful opening post, one of the reasons is the powerful myth about article saturation. The assertion that we close to the point where we have articles on almost everything worthy of coverage in an encyclopedia is not just wrong, but breathtakingly wrong. Back when the famous 1911 Encyclopedia was written, it was reasonable to say that human knowledge increased at such a slow rate that it took about a century to double. Now human knowledge is increasingly at an exponential rate. This is a totally mainstream idea and not to my knowledge challenged by any serious academic. Human knowledge is now likely doubling in less than a year, accordingly to IBM, it may soon start to double in only 12 hours. Wikipedia took well over 10 years to reach 4.5 million articles. What's most concerning is the second derivative of the rate of increase, which is close to zero even in terms of bytes being added to the database, and clearly negative with regards to new articles. Millions of potential new topics are arising each year, receiving abundant coverage in reliable sources, and only an increasingly tiny fraction get included in Wikipedia.

I can't believe someones tried to defend this by saying at least we now have good coverage of Fortune 500 companies. Since Wikipedia became the world's leading source of information, the larger companies are naturally going to ensure they have articles. But what about topics of huge social importance but with less CoI reason to encourage editing?

Over the last few years, in the field of hunger relief and development, I've been painfully aware there are literally tens of thousands of high impact topics that aren't even mentioned in Wikipedia, despite being abundantly covered in reliable sources. I myself have expanded or created articles on a few dozen of these topics: e.g. Seoul Development Consensus , Hunger in the United States, School breakfast club , The World Development Report 2011 , but the efforts of myself and the few others who work in this topic class are just tiny drops in an ocean of omission. The same could be said about countless other topic classes. Huh, even many topics one might expect to appeal to Wikipedia's young male demographic are poorly covered. As a specific example, this May the United Nations held its first ever conference on autonomous weapons, and this attracted huge coverage in the main stream press. But not only is there no article for the conference, the fact it occurred doesn't seem to be mentioned on Wikipedia at all!

Again, not only are we no where near achieving article Saturation , Wikipedia is falling behind the saturation point at an exponentiation rate, and this includes omission not just of important computer games, but of countless events with massive coverage in both mainstream press and scholarly journals, and which any well balanced person would agree are of world historical significance.

Another equally destructive myth is the thinking behind the various methods used to promote quality. Aside from directly destroying content in the name of quality, adding ugly maintenance tags to the top of articles is perhaps the most self defeating. The sort of people best able to create quality content have many other platforms on which to contribute to other than Wikipedia. They also often have a well developed sense of aesthetics, and are repelled away from Wikipedia by the excessive tagging. This also ties in with what you've just suggested about content creators seeing contributing here as a waste of time, due to the power of deletionists.

Yet another reason for deletionists becoming so powerful is the way the RfA process favors them. Almost by definition, Inclusionists tend to be tolerant, and its relatively rare for them to oppose a half decent deletionist candidate. Whereas deletionists are much more likely to oppose an inclusionist candidate. So over the years, the admin corps has became progressively more deletionists in character, and the deletionist ideology has effectively became normalized throughout the politically active section of the community (i.e. those who frequently participate in the meta processes like XfD, RfA, ANI, policy discussions).

  • Why are deletionists favored over article writers?

You've already answered this, but its worth repeating. The short answer is the prevailing social dynamics on Wikipedia make it so.

Some come to Wikipedia because they want to add to the sum of humanities knowledge. This is hard work. Others seem to come to Wikipedia as its a good opportunity for them to exercise power. Everyone likes to have power, and the need to do so is generally proportional to one's strength of character (but not sadly ones ability to achieve or even perceive the good). Power is often defined as the ability to dispose. As Hegel revealed, the desire for recognition is a primary human drive, and achieving it often involves negating the other. Wikipedia is perfect for those who like to exercise power by destroying other peoples work. As you rightly point out, it is far easier to achieve pleasure here as a deletionist than as a content creator. This is also a fourth way to answer your question about why deletionists have became so powerful.

Moving on to a possible solution, a classic way societies have responded to destructive and intolerant elites is raise up a King. In Christendom especially, one of the roles of the King was to stand up on the side of the people against the nobility (or the power hungry middle class) if they became to oppressive to the people. (To be non sexist, I should point out good Queen Beth I was probably the very best recent monarch in this regard). In the early days of Wikipedia, Jimbo was effectively a good inclusionist King figure, but after years of aggressive lobbying by deletionists, he has progressively retreated from this role, both as he prefers the community to run itself, and as he's been sympathetic to deletionist propaganda when they present it as a way to increase quality.

The more modern solution to the problem of oppressive elites is strong and inclusive institutions. The simplest way a reform along these lines could be implemented on Wikipedia might be to give Arbcom the power to change policy, and create life long seats for our best inclusionist editors like Casliber, Hobbit, cyclopia, MSQ, Milowent, Dream and the Colonel. Only Jimbo would have the authority to bring this about.

  • Why do none see the AGONY of Wikipedia?

A great many do, it's just most are paralyzed by the horror of it all and so rarely express it.

  • Why do none try to save it?

Many have, but those who try to effectively oppose deletionists on Wikipedia rarely last. A few years back we had several editors of indomitable character, who heroically tried to save vast quantities of articles. The rescue Titan Anobody, the heroic Benji, the master strategist Ikip. But all have been permabanned, often after having threads started against them on off wiki sites, allowing hordes of deletionists to descend on ANI en mass and create an unstoppable illusion of consensus.

Deletionists are so powerful that only Jimbo could possibly oppose them. Despite the glaring flaws you've spotlighted, Wikipedia is still a monumental achievement, and Jimbos very success in founding it may mean he's not the best person to nurture his idea to its full fruition.

If you read this entire post though, I hope you'll see that some of the needed prep work is already being done off wiki. It make take several years, maybe two decades at the outside, but sooner or later inclusionism will rightly return as the prevailing ideology for the world's number one encyclopedia. This is inevitable. The question is whether it will be achieved with Wikipedia and the Wikimedia foundation, or against them. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:20, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

  • I am rather proud to be known as a "deletionist", actually. I and others serve here as "editors" more in line with what a copy editor does at a newspaper, i.e. formatting, grammar, fact-check, and ensure balance. We curate the content of others, basically. Part of that does involve working to delete content deemed ill-suited to this project. Not every Transformer needs his/her exhaustive history and abilities spelled out in detail, not every 4th-rate politician needs a biography, and not every video game gets a plot analysis and strategy guide. Unless there is something egregiously wrong (e.g. copyright violation) with an article, such things are always put up for a community discussion, where you can have your say. And Feyd, thanks for the early-morning chuckle. Titans, heroes, and master strategists? You identified 3 of the worst scourges to ever infest this project there. Tarc (talk) 12:29, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
You're welcome Tarc, and thanks for having the honesty to demonstrate the extent of the problem by openly admitting you're proud to be deletionist. The flip side of that pride is the much more common editor who denies being a deletionist yet still clearly acts on that philosophy. That’s what I meant about deletionism being normalized. We're not just talking about articles for 4th rate politicians being destroyed. On the subject of politics, even global phenomena like the 2008–09 Keynesian resurgence have been put up for deletion. A world wide policy shift that arguably effected everyone on the planet, and which attracted thousands of dedicated articles in the mainstream media, financial press, and the journals, and which had even had several whole books written entirely about it from the world's leading universities (including Harvard, Cambridge and MIT). Despite all this being patiently explained, the article was still put up for deletion! As you well know, topics that have attracted wall to wall media coverage relating to royal weddings or tragedies like the death of Amanda Todd have also been repeatedly put for deletion. No wonder fewer and fewer content creators want to contribute here. It's not just trivial articles that are being attacked. And to fulfill our m:vision , even the most minor Transformer character deserve an article. Why can't obviously intelligent people like yourself not see that deletionism is out of control, and ultimately threatens the very existence of Wikipedia? FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:57, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Sorry for that flip reply. I didnt mean to suggest there's something wrong in being a deletionists. As you say, deleting is a necessary part of presenting a useful encyclopedia. There's lots of reasons from op positional theory why its even desirable for the role to be personified by individuals. Folk being proud to be a deletionist is not the problem. The problem is one of balance, as Idot correctly says, deletionism is a problem because its become too powerful. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:32, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm somewhere between an inclusionist and a deletionist.
The inclusionist within me says:
  • Deleting an article that a new editor started working on is going to demoralize and confuse the newbie and likely scare him/her off from ever working here again.
  • We could benefit from articles on some subjects that are considered too insignificant to be encyclopeadic right now. If someone comes here to find some information, and it's not here because it's "insignificant" - then we failed to give that person the information (albeit obscure) that they needed...we failed in our role as "repository of all human knowledge".
  • What does "encyclopeadic" mean anyway? It means "suitable for inclusion into an encyclopedia". As we are now by far the biggest and best encyclopedia in the world, Wikipedia defines what an encyclopedia is. What is "encylopeadic" is now, by definition, "whatever Wikipedia chooses to accept". So we have a circular argument.
  • Disk space is cheap - so why not have articles about more obscure subjects?
But then the deletionist in me rears up his ugly head:
  • Allowing people to create articles that are truly too insignificant is a bad thing because it will result in a huge increase in the number of articles without a corresponding increase in people who stay here to maintain them. We truly don't have enough editors to maintain a much larger body of articles.
  • Wikipedia can only maintain the "encyclopedia that everyone can edit" mantra because, when spam is added to an article, it gets cleaned up in minutes - or when mis-information is put into an article by some random bad guy, it gets corrected by the people who have that article on their watchlists. That's certainly true for articles like Physics that have hundreds of watchers - but if we allow people to create articles about their barely-notable relatives, how can we be sure that they'll maintain them off into the infinite future? There is a risk that widening the scope of the encyclopedia will make it unmaintainable. You can certainly argue that only the unimportant articles will fall foul of spammers, vandals and so forth - but can we expect our readers to understand that reading an article on a barely notable topic exposes them to a vastly higher risk that what they are reading is nonsense. The effect that this might have on our reputation would certainly diminish our readership - and that's a much bigger threat to the encyclopedia than a diminution of the number of editors.
So who is right? I don't know...hence I oscillate between inclusionist and deletionist ideals. Hence, I subscribe to the Association of Wikipedians Who Dislike Making Broad Judgments About the Worthiness of a General Category of Article, and Who Are in Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad Articles, but That Doesn't Mean They Are Deletionists.
When we had that rash of Pokemon articles, I felt that it was too much to have an article about every single Pokemon. But, they mostly turned out to be well-referenced, and a lot of them made it to Featured Article status, and a fair number of people read them too. I've even had need to read one or two of them over the years.
My thought is that the gold standard for article acceptance should be:
  1. Is it referenced? Although we should give time for new editors to understand the need for references and to track them down and add them to their new articles before we leap in and delete those articles.
  2. Is it actively being maintained? Maybe we should have a bot that randomly inserts "PLEASE DELETE THIS SENTENCE!" into articles at random and watches to see how long it is before the article is fixed. If the time exceeds some threshold - then the article clearly isn't being actively maintained, and we should review it for deletion.
  3. Deleting articles that are unmaintained is a victimless crime because if a newbie creates an article and doesn't look in on it after several months, then if we delete it, we're not likely to deter him/her from becoming a new editor. But if he/she has been working hard on the article for days or weeks, then instead of deleting it, let's move in and help with it...even if it is kinda obscure. Then, if we have to delete the article later, we've already established a friendly working relationship with the new editor - and it's much more likely that they'll stay.
  4. Is it more than just a stub? The consideration and caution displayed when deciding whether to delete an article should be in proportion to the amount of work that went into creating it.
  5. Consider that (especially with first-articles-by-new-editors), it's not the article that we're deleting - it's the editor.
With those considerations in place, I don't see why we shouldn't allow much less notable subjects to be included here. Disk space is cheap - and who is really harmed if a well-maintained, nicely referenced article about some very obscure person is created here?
SteveBaker (talk) 13:25, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Interesting compromise, but while deleting unmaintained articles might not hurt the creator(s) in the sense that they'd be less likely know their work was destroyed, we'd still victimize all the present and future readers who would want to see encyclopedic coverage of the topic. Much better to only allow the destruction of hoaxes, attack pages and non notable BLPs. FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:32, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm surprised that anyone, anywhere, considers Wikipedia nearly done. There are about 300 German electoral districts currently missing articles, at least 500 members of the current German parliament don't have articles. Go back to 1949 and there must be 8000-9000 members without articles. In Spain over 2,000 members of parliament elected since 1977 don't have articles here. Add the members of regional assemblies in both those countries and you easily have over 50,000 articles uncreated which have presumptive notability. That's just for two rich western democracies with a lot of people who've had the money to put themselves through decent universities with every day computer access. How many electoral districts and members of regional and national parliaments around the world are missing? I don't think it's an exaggeration to say it must be close on a million. For all that, I'm not totally convinced about the Transformers characters and so on. I believe we should be making more use of mergers and redirects so that they have some mention here until the sources exist to spin them out into their own articles. I found that in the case of the politicians. I had a look before with a thought to creating articles on members of the Valencian regional assembly, but the sources just aren't there. In such cases I think "list of X" articles are better and are much easier for editors to monitor for vandalism, POV and misinfo than 2 or 3 sentence permanent stubs. Valenciano (talk) 13:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

  • Well, strangely enough, if we look at the two articles that Idot complains about at the start of this very odd thread'
  • "King's Bounty: Warrior of North is just still redirection" - well, yes, because it's never been more than a one-line stub. And "Ironclad: Battle for Blood - no article yet" ... as far as I can see, this has never had an article. So, Idot, if you want these things to have articles, you could also try writing them instead of complaining about it. Black Kite kite (talk) 14:47, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Black Kite, you don't get the point unfortunatelly, just few years ago articles of same topic would be have been already written! just few years ago I would had 'em already as a reader (Idot (talk) 15:32, 15 June 2014 (UTC))
      • Well, that's as maybe, but how does it stand with the stuff about "deletionists" if the articles have never even existed? Articles will exist if there are people sufficiently interested to write them. I can only assume, in the case of these two games, that there - as yet - haven't been. Black Kite kite (talk) 17:46, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
        • if writers were not discouraged the artciles would be already have been written. but we have the sad situation when writers are DO discouraged, so they choose do not waste time and efforts in Wikipedia by writing articles - the choose another pleasant activity, but not discpleasant and frustating athmosphere of Wikipedia which is not as frendly as used to be few years ago. 'coz whatever you do could be easily wasted by Herostrates, so writing articles become useless waste of time and efforts (Idot (talk) 18:03, 15 June 2014 (UTC))
Very true Idot. Appalling as the direct destruction wrought by deletionists is, it's small compared to their indirect damage. Due to deletionist dominance, countless millions of articles are never written as creative editors are too discouraged to start them in the first place.
Survey after survey from the Foundation has confirmed deletionism is a leading reason for the decline in active editors. For years nothing has been done, as it's been seen as the inevitable consequence of a wikipedia's maturation, a terrible pattern that plays out across all the difference languages.
Many good outside academics have tried to analyse the reason for the fall off in active editors. Without exception they've all been seduced by the false narrative of article saturation and nonsense about low hanging fruit. It took your genius to divine the true reason: the social dynamics implicit in the DNA for a wikimedia project are too favorable to deletionists.
After inclusionist trailblazers grow a new wikipiedia to a critical mass, it becomes attractive to deletionists who derive pleasure from exerting power over article creators and their work. They turn inclusionist's great virtue - tolerance - into a weakness. Jimbo and Jimbo alone has the power to turn the tide against deletionism. I doubt it will happen, but you've certainly started your thread in the right place. Thank you so much for giving us hope! FeydHuxtable (talk) 18:52, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

During 2004/2005, it took months after the announcement of a massive, high profile film for an article to be created about it. As of right now, a video game that gets announced at E3 has an article created within ten minutes. It's the same with most films and television series bar a very tiny minority of them. Article creation may well have slowed down but I do not believe pop culture topics have anything to worry about. —Xezbeth (talk) 14:46, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

I completely reject the point of deleting articles without people watching them. It is precisely the most "academic" topics the ones that will have less people watching or editing them, and the things from popular culture and/or modern times the ones with most activity. Cambalachero (talk) 17:56, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Is Wikipedia the site for the description of what some of the complaints? I mean, gamers and such don't go to Wikipedia to learn about video games. They go to walk-through sites, or cheat sites. Or more like Wikia. I use Wikia all the time for Walking Dead info. The TV, game and comic. I don't know if an encyclopedia is the venue here. I don't know if it isn't either. It might be a good idea to quasi-merge some of the material provided in Wikia and Wikipedia. Both are run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Dave Dial (talk) 18:33, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
  • It's an issue of scope. Wikipedia is trying to be more general and as such, is more concerned about more general topics. The Wikia page has more details on about the Walking Dead game but I'm certain Wikipedia has more details about the actors, the writers, the company, etc. Rather than both get bloated and unwieldy, let each community exist on its own. Wouldn't you rather the administrators at the Wikia page be people who know more about the Walking Dead series rather than just 'regular' people who may have no interest and cause fighting because they just aren't a part of that community? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 18:40, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
It's not a WMF project. It's run by a separate company, Wikia, Inc. See here and the WP article - it's a for-profit venture, hence the ads. BethNaught (talk) 18:42, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Oh, ok. I thought since it was founded by Jimbo and Angie that it was part of the Foundation. And yes, I would rather go to Wikia to get more in depth info on games. In fact, I do. In any case, I don't think Wikipedia is dying, just evolving. Dave Dial (talk) 18:53, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I'd like to thank Idot for starting this conversation, though I don't think video games are underrepresented relative to other items ... indeed, they seem to get front page product placements far out of proportion to their importance. And I especially thank FeydHuxtable for cogently saying things I could practically have written myself. But I should emphasize that the rules haven't changed. WP:GNG is still the "basic notability criterion" for everything, and it reads the same as ever. What has happened is that a lot of people just make a point of intentionally ignoring the guidelines we have, saying that such-and-such an article fails Notability (cartoon characters) or whatever. One things deletionists will never delete is notability guidelines, studded with some carefully lobbied-for set of things that, nominally, represent additions to the articles we can have, but which end up being voted as if they were limitations on them.
The larger problem that is a part of is that adding content is subject to all sorts of rules - "original research", NPOV, COI and so forth. But the people who come around to delete content don't follow rules. They basically say, this source doesn't match my impression of what is true, so it's out. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and extraordinary means anything I don't believe in. Or they wave a bundle of ethics at you, claiming violations of innumerable policies or just whatever they say doesn't seem right for us to cover. Even when they are not deleting to favor a POV, their notion of "balancing" an article is to chop down whichever view was best documented to match the physical length of whatever view was least worked on. There's no penalty for coming up with five different reasons, all clearly bogus from even a quick skim of the policy text, why an article has to be deleted. They perfect a make-work routine, understanding that victory involves spending a bare minimum of time to revert, a brief citation of a random policy if challenged, and a move on to the next policy when necessary. By moving quickly and spending little time, they can move in herds and achieve "consensus", at which point they can say the policy is defined by what they do.
I am not sure, but I think that Wikipedia can be saved by fusing it with one of the Internet's other forgotten pillars, Usenet. I understand, of course, that as implemented that network is vastly insufficient. However, I think we could formulate a general idea of decentralized storage, using the history old-id as the posting identifier, enabling Mediawiki markup, especially transclusion, in reading of the individual posts, and replacing the burdensome administrative and editing structure of Wikipedia and the obsolete and oversimplified newsgroup structure of Usenet with an after-the-fact choice of preferred versions by multiple independent authorities, and empowering the individual reader with the ability to archive some set of specific article versions to be served in a decentralized torrent-like network. I don't think it would be easy to design, and far harder to get people involved in, but we should think about ideas like this seriously in the expectation of the time when Wikipedia really does go under. I do not want this whole public enterprise getting taken over, censored, and all but owned by some creepy spy like company like Facebook or Quora because they're the only ones who had a dream, even though a dark one. Wnt (talk) 23:43, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
Merging with USENET - the famed copyright/child-porn/spam service would be like taking a cyanide pill for Wikipedia. Not to mention the wonderful tens of thousands of lawsuits waiting to happen in such a "fusion." IMO of course. Collect (talk) 00:11, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't usually agree with Collect, but I agree that merging Wikipedia with Usenet is one of the genuinely worst ideas ever to be expressed in Wikipedia. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:50, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
People file all these sorts of edits in Wikipedia. These are the accusations made against anything that "anyone can edit". Of course, as I said, we would need better than the simple newsgroup structure; as with Wikipedia, something should point to mark a "current version". The fact that Usenet is a venerable and ongoing institution demonstrates that indeed it is legal (especially something equivalent to "wiki.rec.games.computer.pokemon"!), so instead of worrying about how to beef up censorship we can worry about how to keep powerful people with POVs from skewing the content, by giving people a choice. I do recognize that spam is a huge problem on Usenet, but if we have a dozen people choosing their own "current versions" of a given article, only those 12 have to wade through it all. The rest would just see it transcluded from an index file the others would generate and post. Of course, it's vital to have a lot of development there so that people aren't wading through all this except by setting some preferences or choosing authorities to follow while reading, but see the technical aspects handle themselves as they ought. I suppose it will take more convincing and some specifics, even some mock-ups, to make this clear. I'm still trying to think of a good way to make the distribution sites self-funding (I admit, that's a tough one, but I think there should be a way). Wnt (talk) 00:59, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
I always find it interesting that while 'anyone can edit', if they add something, they are doing great work but if they remove something, it's a problem. Adding a ton of text that is in not comprehensible does not help. Editing is both. The truth is the best prose and writing is concise and that means stuff goes away (or else, you have indecipherable mess like this was). Is the real problem a lack of new people creating articles? I thought actual article creation was rarely by new users (other than those who wanted to create one article and that's it). Most new users I see start off with copyediting, correcting or revising the work of others and that's not a deletionist/inclusionist problem, that's a problem we have of creating massing walled gardens so that it's difficult to figure out what's right or what's wrong to do. I'm probably a rabid deletionist but I'm also trying to get rid of the mass of complicated templates people have created so that a user can actually see regular text when they edit a page and not get in trouble for ruining everything by forgetting a brace somewhere. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:50, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Deletionism puffs your heart up for a little while. It may not benefit mankind at all, but at least the deletionist gets LULZ -- even better than kicking down sand castles on the beach. That's about it. 71.246.147.13 (talk) 10:48, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Try comparing Joseph Widney with (Joseph Widney article as of 27 November 2008). Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:45, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
All I have to note, is this →.
Michelangelo took a perfectly good piece of marble and threw most of it away. More is not always better. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:58, 16 June 2014 (UTC) ::This is not art but agriculture. We don't care much about how the oranges are stacked, only that there is one when we get one. Which is good because many people can do agriculture together but who can carve a statue that way? Wnt (talk) 19:04, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Your rhetorical comparison, TenOfAllTrades, is a perfect example of what is wrong with deletionist culture.
Wikipedia is not used by readers as a whole. Readers don't print Wikipedia from the first article to the last, read it, ponder on its overall structure and decide if it was a good or bad read, if it was balanced or not. That's exactly the point. Wikipedia is not an overall finished work that has to be savoured whole. Wikipedia is a resource. It is akin to a library. When I look for a book in the library, I want to find it. A librarian that throws away otherwise useful or interesting books because they don't fit his notion of a library is not a good librarian. A library is there to service readers.
Deletionist culture sees WP as a goal per se. That makes it sterile and worthless. Readers do not care about how your great careful crafting of notability guidelines makes it rival the editorial committee of Britannica. Readers want to find information. They have been promised the sum of human knowledge, and rightly so they expect it.--cyclopiaspeak! 14:30, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
That's a weak argument Cyclopia. Everyone is a deletionist, whether they admit it or not. They simply draw the line in a different place. I don't think anyone would say "Well, the sum of human knowledge includes what my neighbor had for breakfast yesterday, so let's start a List of breakfast foods consumed by Obiwan's neighbor in June 2014. The library analogy would work if we were simply importing work that was already published, which is what a library does. Thus, for wikisource, we can take any primary source, I doubt they are as picky as we are for what they accept, and commons as we know pretty much accepts any image as long as the licensing is ok. But we're not a library, we're nothing like a library, in fact we're so far from a library it's not even funny. We're not curating a collection of works that have editorial expertise and publication houses and book reviews and so on behind them. We're curing self-created content, we have a limited number of editors, and we should thus have a limited number of articles, because the fewer editors per article the more likely such articles are to be vandalized, thus resulting in crap for the reader. I'd much rather we had 1,000,000 high quality articles watched by hundreds than 4,000,000 articles of middling quality, some of which have no watchers at all. I would support any move to drastically strengthen the inclusion/notability requirements for articles, especially BLPs.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:39, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Great point, I don't want something like the two border-line NN video games tarnishing the good name of the encyclopedia. We're not an aggregate, we discriminate at notability for every topic. If it's notable, it's in, and if it's not, it is merged or deleted. Simple, no palaver needed. Seattle (talk) 15:02, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
The problem being, reasonable people disagree on "notable", but IMHO as it stands the overall definition of "notability" is too inclusive to be ultimately manageable by a (perhaps declining) editorial corps.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:06, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
This imaginary bogeyman of a monolithic "deletionist culture" is why I should know better than to get into these types of discussions. If people who believe we should follow WP:BLP or WP:MEDRS are "deletionists", I guess I'm a library-burning "deletionist". Heck, Cyclopia, you were involved in an edit war just ten days ago at Olbers' paradox (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views), where you removed content from that article three times in rapid succession because you didn't think the sourcing was good enough. You couldn't even be bothered to go to the talk page. Guess you're a damn dirty deletionist, too.
...Or maybe – just maybe – you should consider restating your position with a little less us-versus-them and a little more nuance. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:02, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi, your words "I'd much rather we had 1,000,000 high quality articles" sounds like "deletionsists looks for sources and improve artiles to high standards", however they DO NOT, deletions DO NOT improve quality of articles, they just delete 'em! they don't even give a chance to improve it. high quality article is not created in one day, it even not created in seven days, but deleters behave like a slave driver they tell to voluteers who write articles "create high quality article by tommorow otherwise it will be deleted!", but We ARE NOT Slaves! we are free voluteers! (Idot (talk) 15:33, 16 June 2014 (UTC))
some topics will never be worthy here. And I don't think it's the deletionists job to improve articles that are hopeless. Nothing prevents a deleted article from being recreated, and there's no rush, you can dawdle in draft space or user space for years. But if it's not ready for prime time it's not ready.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:14, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Obi-Wan Kenobi, you again thinking like a slave driver, who proud by deeds that he didn't do like he did that deeds - it's really sad :-( Idot (talk) 16:28, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Everyone is a deletionist, whether they admit it or not. They simply draw the line in a different place. - I am talking of a line that is still more or less around WP:GNG, with perhaps a few inclusive exceptions (just for the sake of example, astronomical objects).
  • But we're not a library, we're nothing like a library, in fact we're so far from a library it's not even funny. - Way to miss the point of my analogy, Obiwankenobi, but I guess it is my fault. The issue is not in what WP is made of, I am aware it is not made of original books, thanks. The issue is the way it is accessed. Readers access WP more or less like students in a library, looking for a resource explaining a subject. Deletionists are those who perceive it as a book instead, something which only makes sense as a whole. Which is extremly elegant, but it is far removed from our readers' perspective.
  • because the fewer editors per article the more likely such articles are to be vandalized, thus resulting in crap for the reader. - That's a good objection; that's probably the only good objection. Yes, if more articles mean a sea of vandalized articles, that is bad. But look, the more we're tightening the criteria to include articles, the more we lose editors. Correlation is not causation, sure; but in this case I see some causation. When most new articles begin to be bombed by PROD/AFD tags; when we make the article creation process more and more difficult (see the Articles for Creations monster), we make the entry into WP more and more complicated exactly for the people we should attract more than anyone else: content writers.
  • This imaginary bogeyman of a monolithic "deletionist culture" is why I should know better than to get into these types of discussions. - Only if, in turn, it is accompanied by an imaginary bogeyman of a caricatural "inclusionism" that is often portrayed as "everything goes", as the silly breakfast example of Obiwankenobi above shows. Inclusionism does not mean I want an article for each grain of sand in the beach (poetic as it would be). It means that, very broadly speaking, we should have no further bias/barrier in including content than the availability of (possibly secondary) reliable sources. Yeah, I do remove stuff which is unsourced, I do remove WP:OR, I do want a lot of stuff deleted. What I do not want deleted is, in general, reliably sourced information.
  • I am sorry if it looked, simplistically as an "us-vs-them". But there is a clash of cultures. While the terms "inclusionist" and "deletionist" denote each a broad spectrum of different positions, with lots of space in the middle, a bit like "left" and "right" in politics, they still have a meaning. And I think the difference is exactly in: do we see WP as a resource, where the existence of an article does not taint the existence of others; or do we see it as a monolith to consider always as a whole? Do we think of giving readers information, or of building something for the sake of us editing and having a cute Internet hobby?--cyclopiaspeak! 15:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
I am not of the camp that sees Wikipedia as a book, nor do I feel it needs to form some sort of cohesive whole. However, I am of the camp that says GNG is actually not enough, since the worlds press is full of topics which easily pass GNG but the maintenance of which is literally impossible with our current editor corps - hence policies like WP:LASTING to ensure we don't report every football game and every rain storm. Take a look at biographies - I've been involved in editing a number of biographies that flash into the public eye and attract a great deal of attention, and then like all things, burn out. Now, if this is a dead person, not much damage, as the person isn't doing more stuff - but if it's a living person over time their biography becomes ossified in a particular state that no longer represents them, or at least represents a very incomplete picture. This doesn't happen with Obama but it does happen to hundreds of thousands of other biographies which remain of poor quality. As we all know, vicious people can modify these Unwatched biographies with pseudofacts that can persist for years. The net result is that, as a person of marginal note, it's often better to not have a biography here - indeed some people are calling for people to be able to opt out of having a biography here. How good of a resource are we if we can't keep up with the articles we have, much less many more? As for editors, I think the relationship between deletion criteria and editor retention is a complex one - I also think though that if Wikipedia were of much better quality overall we'd attract a different type of editor that would perhaps be more beneficial to the project.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:14, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree that for BLPs the balance of advantages/disadvantages may be tilted, even if I feel our guidelines in that respect are more or less OK as they are (I am vehemently opposed to opt-out, but that is another matter).
As for a different type of editors, in theory what you conjecture would be awesome. In practice, with hindsight, we know that projects like Nupedia and Citizendium failed miserably. The low to no barrier to start collaboration is what made Wikipedia successful. When this barrier begun to rise, our editor numbers plummeted (while average editor quality didn't improve significantly, I suspect).--cyclopiaspeak! 16:27, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Obi-Wan Kenobi, thanks for arising another problem! as we have less editiors and less new artilces, there are not enogh new articles to satisfy predatory berhavior of deleters since there are not enogh new articles to satisfy hunger to delete of deleters, now it's a commond to delete not only stubs, but articles that were good enogh few years ago to be not stubs are deleted too, they call it as "improving quality standards", however it is just satifiying their will to delete, not improving quality of existing articles (Idot (talk) 16:54, 16 June 2014 (UTC))
I honestly don't know if I have ever seen a thread as long and dare I say tendentious as this one about so little. The original complaint seems to be almost exclusively about how we don't have articles on video games immediately, apparently without regard to whether those games have risen to our comparatively low standards of notability or not. And in the last edit above, we now have a rather amusing unsupported allegation that "deletionists" are somehow absolutely committed to deletionist tendencies that they do nothing else, and languish without anything to do if they can't delete things.
The unfortunate fact is that, if we are, like I think we are, trying to be really encyclopedic like in the Wikipedia:Five pillars, we cannot be an indiscriminate collection of information. There is a great deal of indiscriminate information out there to be collected, unfortunately, and not all of it is suitable here. That is however not to say that some such information might not be appropriate for other WF entities. Also, if one were to want to look at Category:WikiProject lists of encyclopedic articles, which contains pages listing at least some groups of topics which have articles in other reference sources, one would see just how many redlinks and thus missing articles in other reference works we still don't have. May I suggest that perhaps one way to counter what seems to be one editor's primary complaint, that we don't have enough articles on video games, would be to collect together some lists of encyclopedic sources on video games which could be used to provide evidence of notability? I tend to think doing so would be much more productive and useful than at least some of the comments above. John Carter (talk) 17:15, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
John Carter, don't jumb the gun! if google for reviews you'll see that articles could meet or standards of noticeabilty, just writers so terrorized by deleters that were afraid of creating new articles, they just don't want to waste time and efforts by writing something for Wikipedia - the place were all their efforts could be easily wasted just for pleasure of deleters (Idot (talk) 19:53, 16 June 2014 (UTC))
Here's an idea then. How about using those articles, assuming they all meet RS standards, to develop the articles rather than wasting time here in such comments? WP:BURDEN still applies to all, of course, but if you are so overwhelming concerned with these articles, why don't you use the reliable sources available and develop the content based on them than continue to waste time here. Honestly, I have to say paranoically complaining about the great deletionist cabal is probably a worse waste of time than many other things. And, considering that at least one of the "articles" in question has never been more than a one-sentence stub, isn't jumping the gun with an assumption to assume that if the subject was clearly established in the article with reliable sources and sufficient content, possibly worse than accusing others of "jumping the gun"? John Carter (talk) 20:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
John Carter, whether you simply don't understand, or pretending to not understand, the discussion is not about these two articles, the discussion is about overal situation in Wikipedia, I could choose another random topics of realatively new events, and see the same picture - writers are afraid to create new articles, while few years ago they were not afraid to start new articles (Idot (talk) 20:34, 16 June 2014 (UTC))
Well, good, then; we've weeded out bad editors who would have written about non-notable and likely-to-be-deleted topics. The thing here is that too many people get caught up in writing new articles much in the same way they get caught up in how many orcs they kill in an MMORPG. The quality of articles is more important than the quantity, so new editors should be steered towards expanding existing articles, partaking in talk page discussions about content, and so on. After a bit of time and experience under the belt, they will be better informed as to what the project's standard for notability is, and will produce higher-quality articles once they actually do get around to new creation. Tarc (talk) 20:49, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
The quality of articles is more important than the quantity, - This is often repeated but it is only partially true. Is it better to have 1 FA or 10 GA? I would go with the second, absolutely. Because -again- we're not here to look at ourselves and tell each other "shit, look at how good I am at writing encyclopedias as a hobby". We're here to provide a service to readers, that is, giving them compact and structured information on topics they look about. I prefer to find not-so-polished drafts on many subjects than excellent articles on a few subjects while being completely in the dark on the others. What matters is that we have articles that are properly referenced and factual and somewhat complete. All the rest is good, but secondary.
Also, it is much easier to create a new article, for a new editor, than to start editing an already complex one. You are less likely to get into conflicts with people who feel like owning the article, you feel more gratification. It's a gentler and more satisfying introduction. --cyclopiaspeak! 21:07, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Tarc, I'm repating again the topics that sampled ARE DO NOTABLE, you can easily check by google, the is that writers are disatrrackted from Wikipedia, few years ago writers created article about all new noticable topics, now they don't do it (Idot (talk) 21:09, 16 June 2014 (UTC))
(e-c) FWIW, there are a huge number of articles around here are Stub or Start class article, and it is kind of hard to imagine many people would seriously object to their development. And, for all that you say the discussion isn't about the two articles you mention, they seem to be the only ones you are really concerned with, as per the last comment above. And, honestly, in a lot of the pages I linked to above of encyclopedic articles, there are still a large number of articles covered at serious length in encyclopedic sources which don't yet exist here. Also, I guess I have to apologize for Idot for having the arrogance and effrontery of assuming the comments with which he started this thread were what he was talking about. I fervently apologize for not using my mind-reading powers to realize his initial comments, which one generally assumes are the topic of a thread, were not in fact the topic of the thread. My deepest apologies for not being able to understand that I should not have based my understanding of this thread on the comments made to start it, but rather on the broader ideas which were at no point mentioned in them. Also, FWIW, regularly screaming in all-caps as you do is something most people have learned not to do early on, and the fact that you seem to be so fond of persisting in that behavior really does not reflect well on you. John Carter (talk) 21:19, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
You keep repeating this weak and fundamentally unprovable canard about "these articles would've been created years ago", but it is a ridiculous and foolish argument. If an article doesn't exist on a topic and you feel it should exist, stop whining on Jimbo's talk page and go flippin write it already YOURSELF. You keep saying "that's not my point", well I'm sorry bro, but it IS the point. Articles are written by people who come along and see a gap; if a gap exists, then perhaps the right person simply hasn't taken notice of that gap yet. I have only created a handful of articles myself over the years, because I am usually not terribly motivated to do so. Best Friends? now exists, though, as does [email protected]@ge and the Internet Defense League. If I didn't do them then someone else likely would have...or maybe not, we cannot really say. Having a Wikipedia article on a topic does not validate the topic's existence, nor does the absence of an article diminish the topic's importance. This is an ongoing, always-growing (though sometimes shrinking by deletion, as needed) project. If you wish to contribute to it, then complain less and be more proactive. Tarc (talk) 21:21, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Tarc, deleters are telling they do improve articles, but you don't notice that now you demonstration a typical demonstrating a typical behavior of deleter - whiping by whip like a slave driver and giving order to write something (Idot (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2014 (UTC))
Well, who else is going to write them? I certainly couldn't - I don't know anything about the subject. The ironic thing is that such articles actually wouldn't have existed years ago. There were more gaps in the encyclopedia then. These days, any half-notable video game has an article about five nano-seconds after it's announced. So let's face it, if a 2008 video games article hasn't been written by now, that suggests two things to me - (a) it's so obscure that no Wikipedia editor who is familiar with it has written one, or (b) no-one actually cares. Yet go and look at Special:Newpages - there are pages being created there every minute about the notable, non-notable, and complete nonsense, some of which is filling those gaps. So take Tarc's advice and go and write it yourself, or stop complaining about some completely nonsensical idea that mystical "deletionists" are stopping people from writing such articles. It's bollocks, and always has been. If the subject is notable, it will not be deleted. Thanks, Black Kite kite (talk) 21:32, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Black Kite, the fact is few years ago was possible to find info about any new notciable film or game, now no it is not possible. do you have any other explanation except that "Idot should write article about all new noticable films and games?", few years ago I did not such things, but I could find info (Idot (talk) 21:40, 16 June 2014 (UTC))
I'm not saying "you should write them", I'm merely pointing out that no one has written them. If the subjects are notable there's absolutely no way whatsoever you can blame that on some mythical "deleters", it simply means that no-one has done so. There's probably hundreds of thousands of equally notable articles that haven't been written as well. Where I find obvious gaps that I can write about, I create those articles. So do other people. But that doesn't mean that Wikipedia is ever going to include everything that's ever existed. Black Kite kite (talk) 21:44, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Tarc, you jumping the gun again! the question is not "why I didn't write these articles", the question is "why writers did't write these articles, while few years ago they always covered new noticable topics?" personally I visit en-Wiki as a reader not as writer, and few years ago I could easily find info about any new noticable event (Idot (talk) 21:35, 16 June 2014 (UTC))
Again with the "while few years ago they always covered new noticable topics" canard. No, the project has never had a period of time when things were "always covered". Yes there are issues with editor retention these days, but you are not making an informed or even a really coherent argument to address it. Tarc (talk) 22:51, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Hell, maybe for some of us, deleting things is our raison d'être. We sit in our Gargamelian lair, practicing our cackling and our nefariousness, on the look out for fresh meat to delete. The apprentices to the Deletionists' Guild hit F5 at Special:NewPages, squashing the dreams of the "me and my friends play emo/rap-core in the garage, we even have a MySpace page, here's our article!" crowd, which may be an immediate rush, but it isn't sustaining for long. The journeyman will peruse the TMZs, the Daily Mails, and the like looking for the news-of-the-moment people and things...the hiccuping girls, the helicopter cats, the fountain-walkers...see if an article has been created yet, and if so, ruthlessly lay into it with the hallowed Blade of One Soul or the mighty Cudgel of a Single Happening. But the guildmasters, lo! The crafty folk. They are weary of such simple fare, and nothing but felling of a Wiki-Redwood will slake their thirst. The felling of a high-profile smear biography or a racist meme, the true nectar of the gods. Tarc (talk) 17:11, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Maybe you see deletionism, and your brand of deletionism, as finely honed editing of dross - but there's a whole load of negative WP:RANDY out there, and it's destroying the impetus for those who want to build something instead. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:12, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

* I think it's inappropriate to compare deletionists to slave drivers. Though I'm not sure - can you believe we don't have any article on slave driver, only a redirect to a remarkably short and incomplete article on slavery? I mean, there was a time when it was a profession, no? But I think the deletionist pictures himself as the Editor In Chief in the big fancy office at one end of the building smoking his cigar, looking out through the glass panels at a big open factory floor with a sea of schmucks all scrambling, trying to figure out what their big boss is looking for, hoping that maybe this time their copy will be up to snuff, and they can eventually use their time at this unpaid internship to get a letter of recommendation for a better unpaid internship somewhere else. After all, Wikipedia is a fancy marble statue, and you can't have more than one Sculptor deciding what a statue is going to look like. And of course, as with all the fancy editors in all the fancy offices of the world, there are always those "compromises" to be made that the poor little schmucks scurrying around in the dirt below can't understand, stories that have to be spiked to reward the advertisers or mollify the government. The whole point of being the Editor In Chief is to make money, after all. Wnt (talk) 19:15, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

  • about the readers: Wikipedia is donated mainly by readers! deleters are not main donators => thefore if readers cannot find that they look for they are less likely to donate
    if Wikipedia exists for pleasure of deleters, they ought to pay for every article that they delete, only in this case their pleasure of delete become more important then satisfaction of readers (Idot (talk) 21:19, 16 June 2014 (UTC))

This conversation has become farcical. I'm moving on; and I would suggest other editors do the same. Seattle (talk) 22:26, 16 June 2014 (UTC)



  • It shows nothing of the sort; read up on confirmation bias at your leisure. If the project does not have an article on a B-grade movie and a 4th-rate video game, no one will lose much sleep at night. Tarc (talk) 12:16, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
    • King's Bounty-franchise IS NOT 4th-grade game, the games franchise is known as Cult video game! so few years ago Wikipedia had articles about the franchise on time, but not now. do you have a resonable explanation of it? as I see not, 'coz you don't want to confess the fact that it is a clear result of deletionists actiuty, that lead to decrease of number of editors and new articles (Idot (talk) 12:44, 17 June 2014 (UTC))
Here's my take on your examples... we do want to cover these video games... but, I don't think we need separate articles on both King's Bounty: The Legend and King's Bounty: Warrior of North ... the two games are part of a series, and so are best covered by having one single article (perhaps called: King's Bounty (video game series), or something similar). The same would be true for the Ironclad games... I would suggest one single Ironclad (video game series) article that covers all of the games in the series.
I am often frustrated by the dualistic battle between Inclusionists and Deletionists... the arguments are flawed on both sides... because both "factions" forget that there is a third option: Inclusion in a related article. I don't consider myself an Inclusionist or a Deletionist... I am a "Mergerist". Blueboar (talk) 12:37, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
I already confessed the other day that you're right, it is all a part of our master plan to destroy the Wikipedia. We're still awaiting funding for the underwater lair and for the sharks with frikkin' laser beams, though. Tarc (talk) 12:48, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Information icon Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top.
The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).. If proper sources do exist for these games and movies, you could have written an article in less time than it would have taken to complain repeatedly about reverse vampires supposedly deleting large tracts of articles. Resolute 13:17, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
  • the souce of the problem of overpowered deletions is: in Wikipedia have power metapedits, that means:
    while writer having 2 hours of free time spend 1.5 hour for writing articles and reading sources it means that a writer has less then a-half-an-hour a day for metapedism
    however deleter having 2 hours of free time feel enough to spend for deleting about ~40 minutes it means that a deleter has more than an hour a day for metapedism
    that mean a deleter more than twice metapedically stronger than writer - that is the ROOT of all problems in Wikipedia (Idot (talk) 13:15, 18 June 2014 (UTC))
    I suggest a steady diet of uppers for the content creators, then they can squeeze 3 hours worth of writing into that 1.5 hour time slot. Tarc (talk) 14:26, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Side-stepping the arguments above rehashing the deletionism/inclusionism & beginners/experienced arguments, I'd like to state that there are many reasons why fewer new articles are being written. One reason not discussed here is that because there are too many stubs, experienced editors are less inclined to create a new article. Unless it can be written as a Start Class article or better -- which requires more work than simply writing a paragraph on a given topic, press the "Save page" button, & expect someone will come by & improve the article. Which is happening less often, also for multiple reasons. (A very obvious one is that with roughly half of the 4.5 million articles being stubs, there are too many needing improvement to Start Class or better for the few editors currently contributing to work on.) Thus the de facto bar for creating a new article is much higher than it used to be, making it easier & more satisfying to improve existing articles than creating them. And I will say that this is a good thing: having a few million useful articles is far better for our readers than having ten million half-assed articles. -- llywrch (talk) 19:29, 19 June 2014 (UTC)


— Like user:Idot/user:cyclopia/user: FeydHuxtable/user:Wnt I am an inclusionist. Unlike other editors I do not spend much time “talking” and am humbled and encouraged to see these brilliiant writers talk about the effects deletionism has on Wikipedia.

I have been around since 2007 and I find it increasingly more difficult to contribute content here. Many of my own edits have been deleted (and I do mean deleted, not reverted). Sometimes I can find out ahead of time which edits are on the potential chopping block, but only if I am the page creator. If I added content to a page created by someone else the only deletion indication I get is the Deleted edits counter available at tools.wmflabs.org/supercount. It is very demoralizing to find out that over 2,000 of my donated edits to Wikipedia have been deleted.

I have been told that it is my own fault that pages I created are deleted, saying it is up to me to show up and defend them in deletion discussions. At the same time, I have also been criticized for “owning” behavior on article talk pages. Like everyone else here, the time I can devote to editing is limited and participating in “talk” comes at the expense of content contributions. When I contribute on talk pages I am unable to contribute content elsewhere. I believe the typical inclusionist on Wikipedia spends less time “talking” and more time building content, while the typical deletionist is the opposite. You cannot be a successful deletionist without spending time at the deletion talk pages. I agree with the sentiment expressed here that delitionists are becoming more prevalent at Wikipedia while inclusionists are leaving and that most new admins tend to be deletionist.

Some here have claimed that we have no choice but to limit the number of pages so that the ones that remain get more attention. However, in order to achieve this goal more and more energy is being diverted to an increasingly convoluted set of inclusion criteria that requires expert knowledge to navigate. this takes time and energy away from content creation and one of the unfortunate side effects of this is the growth of paid-editing on Wikipedia, another area that is sucking much time and energy of volunteers. Just my $.02 XOttawahitech (talk) 19:37, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

The link you cite with paid editing is worth considering further. There is a link between deletionism and "editorial discretion" or "editorial judgment", phrases which sound like they are a good thing but which are definitely not a good thing. Whenever people put aside a fairly clear-cut criterion like GNG and say that "well, that's only a presumption we can have an article, but we can decide every one on a case by case basis", that does not create freedom for the Wikipedia reader or the Wikipedia editor. Rather, it creates freedom for those sitting at the deletion discussions and acting, essentially, as government officials -- and freedom for government officials to decide what they please on a case by case basis is never a good thing. We know too well what happens when government officials have freedom, whether it is officials giving out liquor licenses in the U.S. or officials deciding whether a movie is legal to watch in some Third World regime. What happens is that you had better have some way to earn good will with that official, sometimes a social or in-kind connection, sometimes a brown paper bag full of cash, but there has to be some interest for him to act in your favor. The flip side of that is that he has to have a sackful of lame excuses why an application has to be denied whenever he performs his duties without gratuity. Wnt (talk) 22:25, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
A few comments. First my thanks to Wnt for making a coherent position of one case. Second my thanks to Llywrch for addressing what seems to me to be a closely related problem that so many of our articles are basically bad stubs. Blueboar probably presents what I think may be the most reasonable approach to merge bad stubs into a maybe no better longer page which at least reduces the number of crappy stubs. What I personally think from my exalted ivory tower is that what we need most is some idea what we want to have in wikipedia, and that I think the best and easiest way to get to that point is to use the databanks we have access to and the PD sources at archive.org and elsewhere to develop the pagest that can be sourced from them, and also try to get more "prospectus" pages like Wikipedia:WikiProject Christianity/Encyclopedic articles to make it easier for editors to know what topics we have and don't have and which are given the most weight elsewhere to help us more easily improve the content here. Sadly there doesn't seem much interest in such infrastructure editing. John Carter (talk) 23:01, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
Actually, a perennial complaint in the United States is the application of zero-tolerance policy in schools, where a local government official claims to lack discretionary power to mitigate some manifestly stupid punishment they've just handed down. But do carry on. Choess (talk) 01:28, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
@Choess: Zero tolerance is a better policy when dealing with violations of fundamental rights than violations of law, because rights are simpler, better, and truer than positive law; when they are correctly stated, they simply can't be granted too excessively. Nonetheless, zero tolerance policies were advanced for a reason, namely that school administrators can be corrupted also and let their favorites get away with anything. Here GNG and a low threshold of notability is more akin to a right than a law, because allowing anyone to edit about anything, when it can be done verifiably, is Wikipedia's purpose. Permitting discretion is more reasonable when it allows administrators to show mercy and understanding than when it permits them to go after someone doing what he ought to be able to. Wnt (talk) 05:30, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
  • please do not forget: Wikipedia become much popular that Encarta and Britannica because it was used to be possible easily to find up to date information, but now as my examples show Wikipedia is not up to date any more!
    Wikipedia is made for readers to make fun for deleters, the main donators are readers not deleters, so if readers will not find Up to Date info overall donates for Wikipedia will decrease, 'coz donates of deleters cannot compensate falling of donates of readers who cannot find up to date info, so become frustrated by Wikipedia (Idot (talk) 07:03, 20 June 2014 (UTC))

New York Law School

This conversation appears to have run its course. I am very strongly supportive of the decision taken to exclude Gregory Kohs from WikiConference USA. I know nothing about the other editors he is complaining about and I'm not likely to take any interest in it. My position on conflict of interest editing is well known and has been explained many times, so there should be nothing else for me to say about that in this context.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:10, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Jimbo, are you aware that the New York Law School provided for free much of the meeting space for three days to the WikiConference USA that was recently held in Tribeca? (This was the conference that banned one planned attendee, only 18 hours before the sessions began, despite the conference being advertised as "open" even to those who are "skeptical" of the Wikimedia movement's work.) The conference space was worth $40,000, the conference committee reports. Anyway, the head of the NYLS, Anthony Crowell is reported to have said "this conference was organized by an independent organization, independent individuals, and for an independent purpose uncoordinated with the Law School". However, the conference director was Jennifer Baek, who attended New York Law School for four years, and has been an employed Fellow of the institution for the past 11 months. The Wikipedia articles about New York Law School, Anthony Crowell, and Carole Post (Executive Vice President at New York Law School) have been heavily tended to by Wikipedia Users Ajuncos and Leonora1805. Andrea Juncos is the Communications Director of New York Law School. Still researching how Leonora may have a conflict of interest, so we'll see. Anyway, just the usual vibe here -- I am looking to politely notify you of this (as it could potentially begin to look worse for the Wikimedia movement, if it's not addressed in an open and transparent way), and to see if you have any personal comment on the situation? Note, I am not really interested in the predictable commentary from Smallbones and Coretheapple, since they are not official representatives of the Wikimedia Foundation, while you are. - 2001:558:1400:10:DC33:3186:3BC3:3AEF (talk) 17:08, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

No, I have no personal comment on the situation. My views on these and related matters are well known. If you have a genuine question, please ask.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:43, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
The internet community is a bit confused: you say you are a supporter of free-speech and say you're a "free-speech" activist, yet "one planned attendee" gets banned and therefore is berobbed of his free speech, "only 18 hours before the sessions began, despite the conference being advertised as "open" even to those who are "skeptical" of the Wikimedia movement's work." How does your stance on free speech match the actions taken during that conference, if I may ask?--37.230.21.79 (talk) 22:10, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
I might add that noone, including you and me knows what has happened, but given the way the OP has posed his question, it doesn't seem like he's an individual that is a menace to society and needs to be freed of his freedom to speak up? Maybe you could just ask the people responsible for this decision about their reasoning and the world may be a better place (understanding you and Wikipedia?)--37.230.21.79 (talk) 22:20, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
Just as a passing comment, universities often provide "in kind" sponsorship by providing unused space for conferences. The value is a bit arbitrary - the cost of hiring an equivalent space can be very high, but the cost to an institution is generally very low. Especially if they don't need to employ any additional staff or security for the event. Providing this sort of in-kind sponsorship doesn't necessarily entail any additional relationship between the institution and the content or organisation of the conference, which is normally not something for which the university is responsible, although you would expect that they would have a degree of responsibility of they were aware of issues prior to agreeing to the in kind sponsorship. - Bilby (talk) 03:37, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Even if we take discount heavily for the rather tendentious formulation of the above question, there remains a big issue here: is it okay for this Wikimedia-sanctioned event or that official Wikimedia conference to preemptively ban participation by a given individual? WMNY's 2014 Conference set a really bad precedent: not satisfied with their lengthy set of behavioral rules creepily designated the "Friendly Space Policy," they additionally refused admission to someone who planned on attending despite their catalog of proscriptions... Continuance of this ugly precedent can only lead to more ideological warfare down the road, I think... There have been a few stupid issues which have been talked to death about this conference: whether an interviewee was ambushed or misquoted by a reporter or whether he made a klutzy speaking blunder; the hubbub about catty conversations about the personal life of a WMF employee and the hurt feelings which resulted, etc. This, on the other hand, seems a really big issue — whether people banned from editing at En-WP can be made into unpersons and denied participation at WMF functions on an ad hominem basis. Carrite (talk) 03:20, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
I have nothing to do with the conference, and I have no idea of the validity of the ban nor the reasoning behind it. In general, though, these friendly space policies are a very good idea. Conferences have been using them to formally handle cases of harassment, which traditionally they haven't all been handling well. It has been a step forward overall. The question as to whether those policies are always well used is a different matter, but it is good to see them in place. - Bilby (talk) 03:37, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Why is Friendly space a red-link? I'm interested in reading more about this topic. What other organizations have felt the need to implement such policies, and what are the reasons for them? Presumably event organizers have decided that federal and state laws regarding assault or harassment are insufficient, so they need to implement policies that go above and beyond those. I'd like to see stories about incidents where organizers wished that they had such a policy, but felt unempowered to do anything about a problem because they lacked the authority such a policy would have given them. Wbm1058 (talk) 15:31, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Here's the document in question, which I uploaded to Archive.org. LINK Carrite (talk) 15:49, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Right, I saw that before. I just don't understand why all of that isn't just implicitly understood. Why all public space in the USA isn't just "understood" to be that? Why it needs to be put in writing. It leads me to the conclusion that some participants at past conferences have not been "friendly", and need to be instructed to be friendly. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:22, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that is very much what happened in some (non-WP) conferences, and are often simply referred to as anti-harassment policies. The push to codify what should have been common sense has grown as a reaction to harassment at various conferences and conventions. My understanding is that the Wikimedia friendly space policy has been in place for some time: [17]. - Bilby (talk) 00:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. Here's the permalink to the first version of the policy, which was written by Sumana Harihareswara of the WMF in January 2012. I'm curious to learn more about the "harassment at various conferences and conventions" which made this necessary, can you provide some of that backstory? Carrite (talk) 05:06, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm troubled by this clause, harassment includes, but shall not be limited to... which seems to give the event organizers carte blanche to define anything as harassment. So, what if, I rolled my eyes at someone's comment, and in response, the organizers publicly expelled me for harassment without giving any specific reason why, thus impugning my character because I "harassed" someone at the conference, all because I rolled my eyes. I might be afraid to attend such a conference that might put my reputation at risk just because I momentarily forgot to be polite. Wbm1058 (talk) 17:37, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
Despite all evidence to the contrary, people generally expect any statement, such as you quote, to be read with some common sense. Or, if you want a more technical rule, see ejusdem generis. If we worried about things like rolling our eyes in public, we would never leave the house. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:53, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to that legal term. That makes sense. No, I'm not really be afraid to leave the house or attend a non-virtual Wiki-event, though I have yet to do the latter. I think hypotheticals like this help to advance the discussion though. I think that it boils down to trust that the organizers will abide by ejusdem generis in applying anti-harassment policies, and if they don't, they will be held accountable. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:22, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
If you have evidence, SPI is thattaway... ------> Carrite (talk) 20:50, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Even if Mr. Wales thinks his "views on these and related matters are well known" (and they're not to me), I don't see why he didn't respond to the OP's genuine question with a genuine, open, and even courageously honest answer along the following lines:

"Yes, there's this "Friendly Space Policy" thing ("The Conference will be a friendly, supportive and accommodating space for everyone"), along with the "open to all, even skeptics" thing, which amount to nothing more than manipulative marketing tropes unless they translate into commensurate action. And then there are the realities: the unfriendly, closed-space thing when when we don't like the cut of someone's jib, and the secret-squirrelly thing when we refuse to openly disclose what it is we don't like about it. So there's hypocrisy, and I want it gone. And then we have NYLS in bed with the WMF, with NYLS donating tens of thousands of dollars in free venue space to the WMF and having NYLS branding prominently displayed there so that NYLS can publicize its cosiness with, and support of, the WMF. And we have a conference director who is an NYLS graduate and current NYLS employee. So the thing with the head of NYLS saying the conference was organized by "independent individuals" and an "independent organization", and saying the NYLS has "no power" over the individuals concerned is also highly (and genuinely) questionable, not least in light of the conference director's NYLS employment. And so on. As someone who considers myself reasonably intelligent, I can see how this all sucks. And as an official of the WMF, I'm really pissed because the suckiness discredits the Wikimedia movement."

It would have been encouraging to read an answer that conveyed genuinely open engagement with the concerns expressed. And even perhaps an intention to act. Writegeist (talk) 20:47, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I dunno...he could have responded as I did, which would have been to remove this nonsense from his page as soon as he saw it. I don't see any reason to give a banned editor and or his meatpuppets a place to post their conspiracy theories. Like I stated above...this should be hatted.--MONGO 01:43, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
A banned editor, meatpuppets, a bonehead---takes all sorts, huh? Writegeist (talk) 06:00, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Putin khuilo!

Hallo Jimmy, normalerweise würde ich dich nicht belästigen, da du sicher genügend zu tun hast, aber vielleicht könntest du dir diesen Artikel einmal selber anschauen: hier wird massiv versucht Wikipedia für Agitprop zu mißbrauchen. MfG --Jack User (talk) 13:45, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Hi Jimmy, I wouldn't normally bother you, because you sure enough to do, but maybe you could you this article look: here is a massive attempt to abuse Wikipedia for Agitprop. Sincerely --Jack User (talk) 13:45, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

This article/its deletion or lack thereof is being discussed in at least three different places (WP:ANI, WP:HD, here, etc. (brought up by different users, including OP, for different reasons)). It currently has an open AFD discussion (that was briefly overtaken by SPAs and socks looking to tilt the discussion to keep, but that's been taken care of). Maybe it would be best to let that discussion run its course, Jack User. - Purplewowies (talk) 16:57, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
@Purplewowies: Maybe, but it is such a blatant violation of Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons: Pages that are unsourced and negative in tone, especially when they appear to have been created to disparage the subject, should be deleted at once if there is no policy-compliant version to revert to; see below. Non-administrators should tag them with {{db-attack}}. Creation of such pages, especially when repeated or in bad faith, is grounds for immediate blocking., that I am forced to speak about this to " a higher authority". :) Meanwhile, this malady has spread to 14 Interwikis and really really: We are not the Ministry of Truth for Ukrainian hate preachers. Btw: Putin means nothing to me. --Jack User (talk) 14:39, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
When it comes to content disputes like this, Jimmy is not a higher authority (by his own choosing). The community has ways to deal with such things, and such ways appear to be working satisfactorily as far as I can see. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:00, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
(Oh, and in what way is the article unsourced? -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:06, 18 June 2014 (UTC))
Do you think a sourced hate speech is a good hate speech? Source it, and you can preach everything and Wikipedia helps to improve this crap? Only artists should be allowed to bring their shit into the Wikipedia: Artist's Shit, not nationalists for propaganda purposes. But: strange kind of thinking and really not my kind of thinking. But it seems i am right: Engwiki accepts a really low level of (p)articles, here less than zero. EOD. Have Fun @ making Engwiki a propaganda platform for nationalists. --Jack User (talk) 15:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Hate speech is typically defined as being based on a number of protected criteria such as race or nationality. True, some of the countries that enforce bans on hate speech probably would find a way to charge almost anyone they wanted with it if they really wanted to, (<--- is that hate speech?) but in common parlance, it would matter for the definition that people are singing "Putin huylo", not "Russians huylo". Even if they were speaking of all Russians (or perhaps you believe Putin is Russia), I have the deepest skepticism for the sort of ethics that would tell people they should worry about whether Ukrainians are saying epithets about the Russians while the Russians are smuggling tanks and soldiers of fortune into their country with the intent of taking half of it. Is it really a fundamental human right to be able to invade a place without complaints? Fortunately, Wikipedia can follow the American position on hate speech per the article, which dismisses prohibitions; even if it did not, some would say there is a difference between encyclopedic coverage of an idea and espousal of the idea. (That said, I imagine that if the encyclopedia were based in Germany, there would have been more pressure to cut out media and background on some aspects of the Nazi Party. Even though that would have nothing but harmful effect on efforts to prevent a resurgence) Wnt (talk) 16:37, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
@Jack User: "Do you think a sourced hate speech is a good hate speech?" - Why would you think I'd think that? Please don't accuse me of saying things I clearly have not! -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:38, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Nominated for deletion: vi:Putin khuilo!, tr:Putin huylo!, rue:Путін — хуйло, ja:プーチンのペニス, eo:Putin ĥujlo!, da:Putin huylo!, ca:Putin huylo!, be-x-old:Путін — хуйло! and be:Пуцін хуйло!, песня. More or less in lt:Putin chuilo!, fr:Poutine khouïlo ! Spainwiki says here in es:Putin huylo! Crosswiki Spam. A crusade against Putin and, btw, also the Ukrainian people: or should we think this people is as stupid as some of them? --Jack User (talk) 22:27, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
The .es version is an inferior version, very short, which the same IP address that started it then put the equivalent of a "7-day WP:PROD" on. I have no idea what contorted political plots are going on here but this is an encyclopedia, we cover (or should) whatever there are sources to tell us about. Wnt (talk) 23:58, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Deletion decisions made on other wikis are not binding here, I'm afraid. Tarc (talk) 00:21, 19 June 2014 (UTC)
I know: Engwiki must defend a low level. I'm just glad, that Germanwiki (my Homewiki) does not accept this "Eintagsfliege", english about "a seven-day wonder". We are not a newspaper for this harassment. WWJS, when he sees his discussion page? Sorry, Jimmy, it is your disc. --Jack User (talk) 01:12, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
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