User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 177

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Archive 170

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An appeal of an admin decision

Hi Jimbo, A few weeks ago, you commented on the ravaged state of the ACIM article in two comments: your first ACIM talk page comment and your second ACIM talk page comment. As I understood it, you said essentially that "It is false or oddly limited at best to say that we only present "what the academic mainstream has found worthy of covering". I have since found what I considered to be a significant and fairly major NPOV policy change that I believe has acted very directly to "ravage" the ACIM article. This policy change first came about via Francis' now official policy change made without any consensus. A brief personal account of my own personal experience of how this recent policy change played out for me, can be found here. I have tried to address this policy change with most of the other policy editors here. By the end of this policy discussion, it became quite clear to me that User:Francis_Schonken had made this significant policy change without any consensus before making the change, and the only reason that the change had apparently "slipped" into current policy, was because Francis had apparently succeeded in using his long experience with handling WP Policy to "slip" the policy change in, essentially while nobody was watching. Also by the end of this three day policy discussion, it was abundantly clear that there still was not, and never had been, any consensus about accepting the policy change that Francis' had managed to "slip in". Based on standard policy protocol, I then reverted Francis policy change here and here. He has now reverted the policy three times (two very recently, and one in July) without without ever making any attempt to discuss his specific reversions in advance and achieve consensus for them, acting entirely on his own, unilaterally. I reported this at the 3RR notice-board here, and was met with administrative "verdict" that Francis policy change was valid. And essentially that I was "culpable" in my behavior. Is this really how policy is now dictated in Wikipedia? Scott P. (talk) 15:37, 24 October 2014 (UTC), A concerned Wikipedian

I fully support that edit, and I don't see it as a policy change of any kind but a clarification of existing practice. Note well that this doesn't impact the argument I was making about A Course in Miracles. An article about a book should tell what the book is about. And the best and most reliable source for what a book says is the book itself.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:56, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Jimbo, but just to be clear, which of the above edits do you fully support? It sounds to me like you are supporting Francis' policy change, or are you supporting some other edit? Scott P. (talk) 16:01, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't agree that it is a (material) policy change, but yes, the edit to policy is what I meant. Judging from what he wrote on the talk page at ACIM, he appears to agree with you on the substantive issue. I think the edit he made to the policy change is a good one, although as with any such edit there is much worth thinking about. I can see a legitimate challenge to it being posted, but I don't think it leads to the consequences you suggest.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:19, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I would be happy to attempt another challenge to this policy if I had reason to believe that I would not again be simply wasting a huge amount of my time and energy, to simply stand by and watch policies that seem to me to have dire consequences being dictated in this manner, being stamped with official administrative approval. I simply do not have the desire, time or energy to go through all of this again, only to be told I am behaving "culpably". Thanks. Scott P. (talk) 16:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

@Scottperry: There is no "official administrative approval". The policy is simply locked for a period of time to prevent constant reverting. Looking at the talk page I see significant support for your position so simply try to clarify consensus and then make an edit request if consensus supports you. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 16:40, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Neil, thanks for the suggestion, but the last time I tried to clarify consensus at that talk page, my edit was blanked out with the implicit approval of all other editors there. No thanks. Scott P. (talk) 17:06, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

@Scottperry: If you want a clear process and outcome, start a WP:RFC on the two versions (and try refraining from using "voting" terminology). --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:21, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

@Scottperry: Arguments on the content of the matter are most likely to convince me for whatever improvement. I think that goes for most others too, but only want to speak for myself. Discussions about procedure more likely lead not to changes in consensus. Sometimes such discussions are necessary (alas), but they seldomly lead to new insights that bring opinions closer together.

I think that was the first reason how come we kept talking next to each other, and you ending up somewhat disappointed in the "system". Sometimes a bit out-of-the-box thinking can be beneficial, and less prone to losing courage. --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:48, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

@Scottperry Again, I invite you to take part in content discussions of the changes you favour, at Talk:A Course in Miracles#Synopsis requested, WT:NPOV and wherever suitable. The admin protecting the policy page didn't decide on the content of the change any of us made to the page (see m:The Wrong Version), the only thing that admin tried to make clear is that edit-warring is not a viable method that would result in a stable policy change. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:07, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually Francis, I will not be doing any further editing at Wikipedia, if this is how policy is now dictated at Wikipedia, but thanks. Scott P. (talk) 16:09, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

I think Scottperry makes good points, both about this edit and how policies are made. This change seems intended to encourage a deletionist point of view, including multiple attempts to remove material, and rejection of article expansion in proportion to the number of sources available. Yet there is no deletionism when it comes to how the policy is handled -- this edit balloons it with irrelevant material, which is harmful to the cause of getting editors to actually read and follow the important parts. And showcasing "Mel Gibson DUI incident" in a core Wikipedia policy -- what kind of BLP practice is that??? (Note, however, that this particular change was quickly reverted on July 9)

The other part is that yes, it seems like there is a definite in-group dominating the policies, who revert any change good bad or indifferent unless it comes from them, and seem to let through changes from their own number. It is possible that these changes have more consensus than is obvious due to IRC discussions or something, but it has a sour taste reminiscent of any local government meeting where, sunshine law or not, the agenda is a done deal long before you hear about it. Wnt (talk) 12:15, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

That said, it is also clear that before protection Scottperry tried quite a number of changes that themselves could reasonably be reverted because they also add bulk and instruction creep to the policy. It is clear that in both cases a more open and better-attended discussion of policy changes is required! Wnt (talk) 12:30, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you kindly Wnt. Having said that I would not be editing further if that is the way policies are now dictated here, I would still be happy to participate in any dialogue relating to working towards implementing a more transparent and fair means of maintaining and evolving the best possible Wikipedia editing policies. I do not fault any particular editors for what seemed like the somewhat rigged process that I just survived. I honestly do believe that all of the editors with which I just interacted probably did do their very best to follow what they perceived as the "standard procedure". But the question remains to be begged, "why did they seem to have a slightly different set of procedures in their minds from those procedures that I was given to believe I was operating under?" Scott P. (talk) 14:42, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

There is no "standard procedure". Make an edit to policy - if it sticks, great. If it doesn't stick then you've got anything from quick, informal discussions to RFCs to formal mediation. The discussion pertaining to this particular dispute has been for the most part constructive and light years from the battles taking place on other pages. P.S. I have no idea what Wnt meant by "IRC discussions". --NeilN ^{talk to me} 15:07, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

OK, "if it sticks, it sticks", that was something akin to what I just experienced, but still not truly complying with the written statement shown on the front of the NPOV page "Changes made to it (NPOV policy) should reflect consensus." And, considering the apparent status quo of the auto-deletion of any not previously discussed and agreed upon changes (consensused changes) by non-regulars at NPOV, this status quo deletion practice is inherently, and not very transparently, almost rigged in favor of the regulars. Couldn't this process be done with less inherent bias and more transparency? Actually, I still think that the real flaw is that no policy should be allowed to be changed without first achieving a true consensus on the relevent policy page's talk page, including the "weight as mainstream" policy change of July 9th. Scott P. (talk) This comment first posted at 15:23, 25 October 2014 (UTC), last edited: 16:56, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

The fuss you are making over this is baffling. Firstly, on the consensus point WP:EDITCONSENSUS is a pretty basic concept of how WP works. What's the problem? Secondly, the edit in question isn't a change. It's entirely consistent with existing NPOV principles. If there is an objection to it, it's that it's unnecessary, not that it changes anything. DeCausa (talk) 17:01, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, you may not have yet had to "fuss" with the policy change ramifications as I have. Just take a peek at the recent edit history of the ACIM article, and its Talk page, and you might get a small sample of how I have had to "fuss" with the ramifications of that "small" policy change. Scott P. (talk) 17:21, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I didn't say it was a "small" change, I said it was no change. The position on the ACIM article isn't altered by the "change" one way or the other. DeCausa (talk) 17:27, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

A great wiggle word: "Consensus"

The word consensus comes from the latin phrase: "consensus gentium", which literally meant, "agreement of the people". In my view, there are a few different possible definitions of the word. One would be the "apparent agreement of the people", or what I might call an implicit consensus. Another might be the "explicit agreement of the people", or what I would call an explicit consensus. I've seen other definitions of the "consensus" process in Wikipedia, but so far WP:EDITCONSENSUS is clearly only the "implicit consensus" process. In fact, the Wikipedia article on consensus itself outlines the "explicit consensus" process, not the "implicit consensus" process. I would say that for most articles, Wikipedia's "implicit consensus" process seems to work, but for policy changes, a new higher standard of specifically requiring an "explicit consensus" process might be helpful. Scott P. (talk) first edited at 17:41, 25 October 2014 (UTC), last edited at 17:48, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm getting the impression you weren't aware of WP:EDITCONSENSUS until I pointed it out to you above. If so, that explains some of your stance on this. Your proposal is a big change, and should be put forward on the WP:CONSENSUS talk page. I would be surprised if it gets any traction though. WP:BRD normaly works pretty well already. DeCausa (talk) 17:56, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

You are quite correct. Throughout the entire recent process, I assumed that Wikipedia's use of the word "consensus" complied with its own article's definition of the word, not with the Wikipedia editing process' rather unique and novel definition of the word, of which you were the first to inform me of. I might expect that I may not be alone in my misunderstanding there. Scott P. (talk) 18:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

A small bit of background... I'm a Quaker, long familiar with the "explicit consensus" process, and blindly assuming that the Wikipedia use of the word was supposed to somehow be the same. My mistake. Scott P. (talk) 18:14, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

You can get some comfort from this part of WP:CONSENSUS: "Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines than to other types of pages. This is because they reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community. As a result, editors often propose substantive changes on the talk page first to permit discussion before implementing the change. Changes may be made without prior discussion, but they are subject to a high level of scrutiny. The community is more likely to accept edits to policy if they are made slowly and conservatively, with active efforts to seek out input and agreement from others." So, this is what you would change for your proposal, making starting at the talk page mandatory rather than effectively just best practice. DeCausa (talk) 18:17, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, as you know, "best practice" often translates as, "least used practice". I would make "starting at the talk page" mandatory only for changes to Wikipedia policy meaning, as it seems to me that Wikipedia policy is too core and essential to be subject to the whims of merely "who is friends with who", and all changes to its meaning deserve to first have a full, careful, written and public discussion before being altered. Simple punctuation improvements or obvious clarifications that do not in any way change the actual meaning might not require such a high level of scrutiny, but why not require this higher level of protection for any changes in policy meaning? What would there be to lose, vs: gain? In other words, I would write a policy that would require "explicit consensus" especially for Wikipedia policy changes to policy meaning, but would not change the "implicit consensus" that obviously already works well elsewhere in Wikipedia. Scott P. (talk) this comment first edited at 18:38, 25 October 2014 (UTC), last edited at 19:56, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, as obviously the Wikipedia consensus process is unique to Wikipedia, it might be helpful for new editors to be advised to specifically read up on the unique Wikipedia consensus process. Scott P. (talk) This comment first edited at 21:28, 25 October 2014 (UTC), last edited to remove discussion of "Wikipedia sub-world" at 07:05, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

You're making a mountain out of a molehill. The current practices have worked well for over a decade. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:40, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Our definition of "consensus" and our other content policies and guidelines have enabled us to create a free encyclopedia of 4.6 million English language articles and tens of millions of others in well over 100 other languages (I have lost count). We are consistently about #6 in worldwide internet rankings, and far and away #1 in publishing original educational content. Why should we rock the boat because you, as an individual, Scottperry, have a hard time understanding our definition of consensus? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:36, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, although you may have missed it, WP:EDITCONSENSUS is pretty well known because newbies tend to bump up against it very early in their editing. It is such a basic mechanism in the way WP works. I think I remember coming across it (having it pointed out to me) more or less the first time I made a change to an article and whined about it being reverted. I'm not sure how've you missed it since you've had your account a long time. DeCausa (talk) 08:24, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how giving additional encouragement to newbies to learn about Wikipedia consensus would rock any boats, but perhaps I must be the exception to the rule, I know it would have helped me. Specifically what would have helped me would have been the caveat, "If you're a Quaker and you think you know something about consensus, please carefully read Wikipedia's definition of consensus, because boy oh boy are you in for a surprise", but somehow I don't think that would quite fit into the Five Pillars. 😀 Scott P. (talk) 10:32, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Re. "WP:BRD normaly works pretty well already" (DeCausa) — I have my doubts about that, which I expressed when someone proposed to elevate it from essay to guideline recently (discussion still ongoing). WP:EDITCONSENSUS is the better (and more official) version of the same, less prone to edit-warring. --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:18, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: - Just so you're aware, your comment is offered as support for the NPOV policy change within an RFC I recently created on this topic point. At the moment, the change is opposed by a majority of editors discussing it. So I thought you might want to review the concerns and see if you still hold the position ascribed to you. Wikipedia_talk:Neutral_point_of_view#RFC_-_WP:BALASPS. Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 15:55, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. It sounds like a good and robust discussion should be had. I like the edit, but could be persuaded otherwise. I do view it as relatively minor, but wordsmithing to improve it further is surely possible.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:07, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I was actually quite surprised to learn that Scottperry sees such a big difference between "in real life" consensus and Wikipedia:Consensus. (If I had sensed that earlier, I'd have acted upon it, and maybe would have had more success in preventing the situation at WP:NPOV to go so out of hand at a certain point). For me it has been always quite clear consensus (in Wikipedia as in real life) is not the same as majority vote, nor absolute majority in its political sense. Or is that due to years of assimilation to Wikipedia's ways? If so, tx Jimbo, I actually learned something from the project you initiated.

Maybe it was also due to having learned some Latin a long time ago: con-sensus — "con" meaning together, and "sensus" meaning feeling, in other words: feeling the same about something, quite the opposite to the divisive tension associated with being beaten in an election and/or winning one. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:47, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Sensus, the Latin word being also very different in meaning from the Latin word Census, "survey" (which is closer to the "voting" idea) --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:53, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

"Lamest edit wars" appropriate?

I finally actually read Wikipedia:Lamest edit wars and while I agree that arguing about Mr. Wales birthday is a lame use of time, I think it is a sad commentary on what editors consider important; and not in the way the page is meant to be taken. The page is there to... shame?... those in the edit wars for spending time on... "unimportant" matters. In reality the page shows me that some editors seem to be care more about what they care about, and anything else is declared "lame". At least 50% of those "lame" edit wars, to me at least, show dedication to getting to the facts. Should they have edit warred and been uncivil? No. But should they have had the discussion and was the discussion important to an accurate factual encyclopedia? Yes. And had the discussions not occurred the encyclopedia would be all the worse off. The problem with the "lame" edit wars is not that they occurred, but in most occasions it is "lame" that one group didn't say "oh yea, I see your point and it is better than mine"; which in most cases I do see that there can and must be one CORRECT answer, no matter how hard that answer may be to be found (I may not know the correct answer, but I can tell if one could exist or not, and can listen until I hear the evidence of it existing). So, my question for Mr. Wales, if he's still reading after all that, is- What is your view on calling an edit war "lame" and do you find it appropriate, or just insulting and needless shaming?Camelbinky (talk) 17:37, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

And the page itself implies some one edit warred to include that Tesla was Jewish... surely no one did that. At the very least that may be a typo and instead of "Jewish" the editor meant "anti-Semitic", which Tesla was more likely to have been than to have been Jewish. I would edit that entry, but then I might be starting a lame edit war by doing so.Camelbinky (talk) 17:42, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

'Surely'? I think you underestimate the capacity of some 'contributors' to add things to articles for no obvious reason whatsoever - the Tesla article certainly stated at one point that he had Jewish ancestry. [1] As for his antisemitism, there is evidence that by our standards he was an antisemite - but then so were most non-Jewish central Europeans. And as for lame edit wars, needless to say the Tesla article has been more of a focus for the endless Serb vs Croat historical revisionism. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:21, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

And I agree that Serb vs Croat is the main topic of the edit warring there, but there is a correct answer. What that answer may be, may not be popular or meet a consensus, but there is a correct answer. My answer, which may not be the correct one, would be he was Serbo-Croatian though that term is anachronistic, or just mentioning he was a South Slav would at least use a broad term that would have been used in his time. We can debate whether Croatian and Serbian as separate ethnic groups really exist and if it really matters what you call them, if anyone wishes they can come to my talk page and I'll give a history lesson as to why they don't exist. A difference in religion and alphabet; an ethnic group does not make. But my point in this thread is that by calling it a lame edit war, is that not just a way of trivializing a very important research into the truth? (And by truth of course I do mean truth as long as it is backed by citation in reliable sources and not original research, of course)Camelbinky (talk) 19:47, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Ethnicity is a social construct - and as such, as long as the people concerned believe and act as if Serbs and Croats are separate ethnic groups, they are, and nothing more needs to be said on the subject. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:05, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

You've confused ethnicity with nationality it seems. Ethnicity is not a social construct. Perhaps you need to read more books and published articles by Jared Diamond.Camelbinky (talk) 14:44, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I have no need to read Jared Diamond, having studied anthropology for three years at a leading British university, and come away with a first class honours degree in the subject. In future, if you wish to advertise your woeful ignorance on a subject, I suggest you find a more appropriate forum than Jimbo's talk page - I very much doubt that he appreciates seeing your vacuous blather here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:06, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Ill believe that when I see your degree. I am more than willing to have a debate with you on anthropology or any other topic in person with no time for research. Come to the USA anytime and I'll be happy to pay for it to be filmed and put on youtube and vimeo for all to see. I will put my bach's in political science and master's in history and "vacuous blather" up against whatever you think you know any day.Camelbinky (talk) 17:08, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I have no intention of outing myself to a pathetic little troll like you - I will however provide the necessary evidence of my degree to any mutually-agreed person (assuming of course that you are prepared to do the same). Would User:Maunus (himself an anthropologist) be agreeable to you? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:20, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Ethnicity is indeed a social construct since in anthropological usage it means "identity of belonging to a cultural group". IN the US common parlance uses the word ethnicity as a euphemism for "race", but since race is itself a social construct it is a social construct in any case and by any standard. Jared Diamnond by the way is a geographer and has no particular expertise in the study of ethnicity however it is defined.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:56, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Another entry for WP:Lamest debate challenges? --Floquenbeam (talk) 17:41, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Bad idea, if added to WP:Lamest debate challenges there might well end up being a discussion on Jimbo's talk page about appropriateness. --Mrjulesd (talk) 18:49, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Dude, it's a Humor page. Lighten up. Laugh at the parts you think are funny and skip over the ones you don't. Don't take everything in life seriously or you will go crazy. Nyth83 (talk) 22:28, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

I thought the page was hilarious, especially that recently discovered art-work that someone had uncovered actually depicting an ancient Greco-Persian edit-war, but then again I might have missed something. How on earth they might have known about Wikipedia back then, I can't imagine? Scott P. (talk) 11:11, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

This whole thread's pretty amusing. pablo 09:09, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

To include on Jimbo's user page or no?

The User doesn't want the content on his User: page, as far as I can see this discussion is closed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:02, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

My mistake [[2]] this was sourced but it reeks of propanganda, what's the general consensus of people here to include or not? To pu it mildly Jimbo has often not deigned to make statements on what is and isn't allowed on his page so I doubt he will illuminate us the unworthy here. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 08:59, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

That's a very odd thing to say. I am here all the time making myself available and answering questions and I do not think that I ever project the attitude that people who post here at "the unworthy". Why did you say that?

In any event, you were right to remove the anonymous ip's edit as it is essentially vandalism. I have never made any public remark saying that I respect (or don't respect) Medvedev.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:24, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

The we the unworthy is a joke User:Jimbo Wales, the other reference is how vague you sometimes are regarding things on your talkpage and what you like and don't like. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 20:48, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Ok. :-) I don't mean to be vague.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:41, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

This is a user talk page and the only one censoring it should be the user himself, nothing on this page needs to be sourced and it is ridiculous the number of people out there on discussion pages that ask you to "source" your opinion. A talk page or discussion page is for people to speak their minds, the !rules regarding sourcing for articles does not apply. Please stop censoring. I assume Mr. Wales can delete anything he finds offensive or so out of bounds incorrect that it should not be on his page.Camelbinky (talk) 14:46, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

This isn't a case of censoring this is a case is it appropriate to add a political endorsement on the founder of wikipedia page without his express consent. Hell in a Bucket (talk) 15:05, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Just need to point out that the edit linked above is on Jimbo's User page, not User talk (this) page. That makes a significant difference as the rules about an editor's own User page are different from all other pages in that the user himself is the only person normally allowed to edit it. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 15:27, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

@Camelbinky:But if you do edit his user page it it should be from a neutral POV. To mention one world leader without any others could be seen as propaganda, as it says "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias". If he was an active supporter of Dmitry Medvedev, and had campaigned for him, it might have been different. All he did was make a minor remark about his Internet views, without delving into his entire character. --Mrjulesd (talk) 15:49, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you completely.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:26, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

An editor shouldn't write in the first person voice, either explicitly or implicitly, of another editor without their permission, as it is basically impersonation. isaacl (talk) 16:43, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

@Dodger67 Show me the rule about not editing someone's user page. I thought this was normally just not commonly done out of curtesy. On Jimmy's own user page he has a section titled You can edit this page!. Nyth83 (talk) 12:00, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I don't mind it, but this is a good example of a really bad abuse of that openness. Helping make the page look nice and be up to date is great - putting highly contentious words in my mouth that I don't agree with is vandalism.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:41, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Didn't means to imply that anything goes, just that there is no rule against editing user pages. I myself have made an edit on your user page that still stands. A very very minor edit, but one that I feel was worthwhile. :} Nyth83 (talk) 20:29, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

@Nyth83: I think maybe what you're looking for is Wikipedia:NOBAN. I think Jimbo has made it fairly clear what is expected when editing his user page on his user page. I think most things that look like good faith edits would probably be OK, but might well be reverted by someone if felt inappropriate. But just don't leave jokes or sarcasm, or anything else that looks like bad faith editing. If you're unsure, maybe the best thing to do is discuss it here before making the edit, to see what the consensus is. --Mrjulesd (talk) 20:51, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, but as I stated before, there is no strict black and white rule against editing someone else's user page. It does not say Thou shalt not edit other peoples user page.. Presumably the reason that you do not normally edit other's user page is because you do not know enough about them to make a useful contribution. Anything else would, as Jimbo stated above, basically be vandalism. Nyth83 (talk) 23:55, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

There might not be black and white rules, but that really is the case of all rules on Wikipedia, look at WP:IAR. But it's pretty clear what you should do in practice. Don't edit other people's user pages, unless you get permission, e.g. it states on the page it is OK. But in this case make sure any edits look like good faith edits, but I personally wouldn't bother unless it would be a substansive improvement. And on user talk pages go by the usual rules. --Mrjulesd (talk) 09:58, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmm Some person or group is continuing to spam the same message about Medvedev, each time from a different IP: [3][4][5][6][7]. Maybe he/she/they will give up eventually... --Mrjulesd (talk) 19:00, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Looks like maybe two different people. They geolocate to two general locations in the Russian Federation. Nice to know the Russians appreciate that information wants to be free. Nyth83 (talk) 20:33, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Medvedev and Medvedev's mum? It's interesting, but if you look at Internet censorship it appears that Russia has pervasive Interent censorship. Medvedev might be saying the right things but it doesn't seem he's carried them out yet. Having said that both the UK and the US were deemed enemies of the Internet in 2014 thanks to the NSA and GCHQ, and a certain whistleblower. --Mrjulesd (talk) 22:59, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

So, Mr Wales, can you please clarify the accuracy of the quote in the Forbes article that the vandals have been trying to add to your user page? Just because it is on Forbes does not make it reliable. That particular so-called "article" is actually a blog post and is unsourced. I won't post the link to it here as anyone who may really care can find it otherwise. You have already stated above I have never made any public remark saying that I respect (or don't respect) Medvedev. There is nothing in that quote about "respecting" Medvedev. But have you ever made a statement that even sounds remotely similar to that? Or was it made up completely. It actually sounds to me like something that may have been said rather tongue-in-cheek, in which case it is more of a statement about how poor an opinion you may have of Sarkozy's view in contrast. Nyth83 (talk) 00:17, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

I found another source for the quote but I don't think that it necessarily much more reliable as it from an English language version of a Russian news site so there may be issues with English>Russia>English mistranslations. And also, it dates from June, 2011 so this is really old news. Nyth83 (talk) 00:31, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

Hello Jimbo Wales:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
– NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:42, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

ebola,,,,,,,,,,trusted news

Wikipedia Emerges as Trusted Internet Source for Ebola Information ,,you might be interested in this--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:04, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry to edit your bare link. But I did find it an interesting article. Nyth83 (talk) 12:16, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Doc James does the acclaimed work. Thanks again to our anti-vandals who made Wikipedia in recent years has (to) become a more trusted source of information . --The herald 12:42, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo is right

The recent super-mega-epic edit war on Jimmy's user page over the prefix co- in front of founder got me curious about what the big deal was so I had to see what this Sanger guy is all about. I read his Wikipedia BLP page and my summary is that he has basically washed his hands of Wikipedia. This led me to the Citizendium page which I found rather interesting. Being one who likes to read the original source material whenever possible, I went to the Citizendium web site to see what all the boasting about quality over quantity was about. At the home page, I clicked on the link for Random Page and the first article I got was Battleship. A brief read through and I thought that it was not bad, but would not qualify as a featured article on Wikipedia. I did a comparison to Battleship on Wikipedia and was startled by the stark contrast. So much for that elitist approach to writing an encyclopedia. Just compare the number of references in both articles. And what is with the under development and unapproved disclaimers? Was I not supposed to read the article? Why even make it public. This says a lot for Wikipedia's fundamental approach to allowing anyone to edit. Above all the background noise of vandalism, edit warring, and sometimes passionate, sometimes petty, bickering, stands a very high quality, very broad, trustworthy encyclopedia. This is the big picture here and I feel it is always a good thing for everyone to occasionally step back and see that. I would challenge anyone to random article link from any other on-line encyclopedia and compare to the same or equivalent article on Wikipedia. I doubt very much that you will find many higher quality, better sourced, articles anywhere. Nyth83 (talk) 12:09, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Compare Halloween to Halloween. Too funny! Nyth83 (talk) 15:50, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

The failure of Citizendium is very interesting. How much of that is structural? How much is inevitable because Wikipedia's size and Google "juice" has sucked all the oxygen out of the room? How much is attributable to the culture of anonymity vs. real names and mandatory sign-in? Lots of key questions. It seems to me that Citizendium repeated the same errors of Nupedia — attempting to adapt the Encyclopedia Britannica one-article-one-expert-and-review model to the internet; it was never a free-flowing Wiki. I also think the problem faced by any underfunded fledgling challenger to the established WP is insurmountable and CZ ran into that. As for the "co-founder" question, the way I conceptualize things is like this: Jimmy Wales owned the lot, Larry Sanger drove the backhoe. Both of them ran around the worksite supervising, but neither one of them built the house. In actual fact, WP didn't really take off until circa 2005, long after Sanger was gone. But both of them are entitled to be described as "co-founders" for their contributions at the creation, I think. Carrite (talk) 16:35, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I am sure that this has been endlessly debated elsewhere, and while I agree that from a strictly technical, legalistic point of view that co- may be appropriate, but it also has been argued that Mr. Sanger can get little to no credit for where WP stands today, so where does that leave Mr Wales? The sole spiritual equity owner in my view. I'm just glad he didn't name it The Howardpedia. (See Clear History if you don't get the joke.) Thank you again Mr Wales for the world you created for me. (NoYes, that is ~~not~~ a reference to The Truman Show LOL). Nyth83 (talk) 20:48, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Sole spiritual owner? I'd say the thousands who actually created all the content over the years have the strongest claims to being co-owners (spiritual or whatever), and I'd hope Mr W would agree with me. Neatsfoot (talk) 16:36, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Don't misquote me. Leaving out the word equity changes my meaning of owner. Nyth83 (talk) 13:27, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Ah, apologies, I misread you. Neatsfoot (talk) 21:45, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

Hello Jimbo Wales:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
– The herald 12:37, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Accuracy vs. popularity

Hi Jimbo, as a follow-on to our recent discussion about the accuracy of economics topics, I have another question. I've noticed that Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting very frequently points out major errors in what are often considered impeccably accurate corporate news sources (here is a recent and typical example.) FAIR.org has a far better accuracy track record than the larger for-profit organizations that they frequently critique for falling victim to COI issues, as shown by the number of corrections, retractions, apologies, and ombud agreements they achieve regularly with their critiques. Do you believe it is possible for the mainstream news sources to be less accurate in general than the secondary sources, and if so, how is this issue best addressed on economics topics? EllenCT (talk) 22:28, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

"what are often considered impeccably accurate corporate news sources". I'd be surprised if there is any news source which any clueful Wikipedian would regard as impeccable. For most news sources, particularly those in the USA, they are only reliable in certain contexts and this is generally recognised in any discussion at WP:RSN: hence the mantra of context matters. "how is this issue best addressed on economics topics" I don't know the specific context, but have you checked the academic literature, rather than relying on flawed media reporting (unless it's the bleeding edge of news)? If I was tyrant for a day I'd scrap news sources altogether .... Second Quantization (talk) 22:59, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

My feeling is that we should regularly consult media watchdog organizations for corrections of errors. I don't think we should pay too much attention to non-profit versus for-profit in our evaluations but we should look at overall track record, journalistic process, etc.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Merry Christmas

Happy Yuletides!

Merry Yuletides to you! (And a happy new year!) –Davey2010 • (talk) 04:10, 28 October 2014 (UTC) .

One can always wish.... KonveyorBelt 16:52, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

Hello Jimbo Wales:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
– Snuggums (talk / edits) 21:55, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Halloween cheer!

Happy Halloween!

Hello Jimbo Wales:
Thanks for all of your contributions to improve Wikipedia, and have a happy and enjoyable Halloween!
– --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 23:58, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Send Halloween cheer by adding {{subst:Happy Halloween}} to user talk pages with a friendly message.

Notification of a TFA nomination

In the past, there have been requests that discussions about potentially controversial TFAs are brought to the attention of more than just those who have WP:TFAR on their watchlist. With that in mind: Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties has been nominated for an appearance as Today's Featured Article. If you have any views, please comment at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. Thank you. — Cirt (talk) 22:11, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Except that the outcome of that discussion is rigged in favor of the article appearing. I don't mean that pejoratively at all, just descriptively. It's an entirely legitimate effect of how the TFA process is set up, and after all the outcome has to be rigged some way.

As a general rule, it is very hard to get anything done on the Wikipedia, but it's also very hard to get anything stopped. The TFA process is more a less a machine that spits out one TFA per day -- and thank goodness it does, it's an extremely valuable service to the Wikipedia and the editors there word hard on it and do it well, and if that machine ever breaks down we're in bad trouble. But it is a machine that's hard to stop.

The "vote" right now is running 19-16 in favor of running the article, a statistical tie (and AFAIK neither party has a clear upper hand in strength of argument, so we fall back on headcount). If the question was framed "Shall we run this possibly contentious article as TFA?" it would almost certainly not be run. But (as a practical matter) it's framed as "Shall we not run this possibly contentious article as TFA?". The article is going thru, I'll warrant.

It's an interesting question: if an article is flagged as possibly contentious using the reasonable man criteria, should it be be run (unless it's so horrible that the community really rises up against it) or should it not be run (unless it turns out to be not very contentious after all)? The answer is a matter of opinion.

It's also an illustration of how, if you want something done here, you have to try to frame it as "Shall we we be prevented from doing X"? That's hard to do and usually can't be done but it can be done sometimes. Not here though. Herostratus (talk) 13:23, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Is it really true that Jimbo no longer has control over Wikipedia?

Kinda like the Monster destroying/consuming its Creator? 208.54.70.172 (talk) 03:02, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

If Jimbo was ever under the illusion that this lumbering beast created from the recycled parts of other entities was under his control, I'm sure he has long since realised that once it was given the vital spark it broke its chains, crashed through the castle doors, and lumbered off of its own accord, beyond the control of any single mere mortal. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:22, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

See also WP:JIMBO.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:57, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Use the Force, Luke.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:52, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Why does this invoke the image of "No. I am your father...." Which role was that? --DHeyward (talk) 00:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

He defected to Wikipediocracy, they use the dark side of the Force. Count Iblis (talk) 03:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

No, the dark side always has just two. A master and apprentice. Wikipediocracy is more of a giant clown car where everyone thinks they should be stearing and complains the car is going in reverse and removing the rearview mirrors will fix it. --DHeyward (talk) 06:16, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Agreed about Wikipediocracy. They think they're using the force, but in fact they're Darth Vader's clowns, but they're not even funny. “Envy is the most sincere type of flattery.” --Mrjulesd (talk) 10:16, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

"...destroying/consuming its Creator?" Hmm Jimbo seems to be OK to me. --Mrjulesd (talk) 12:40, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

The Internet can be considered to be an intelligent entity that is slowly but surely exerting more control over our civilization. And Wikipedia is an important part of the brains of the Internet. Count Iblis (talk) 00:59, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

I always find it amusing that people say "Wikipedia" when they really mean "English Wikipedia." Between the dozens of languages, commons, books, quotes, news, source, is there really anything who thinks that Jimbo ever had the same level of control over every single part of the foundation's projects? I'd wager Jimbo doesn't even know how to read a number of the languages Wikipedia is in, (I'd be shocked if anyone could with all of them) so it'd be hard to imagine how much of knowledge, let alone control, he has of the entire whole. Good or bad, a large amount is pretty close to autopilot at this point and I think we're all the better for it. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 10:06, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

We should acknowledge that the lack of control is a choice, one greatly appreciated by editors and readers that was at the heart of this project's success. Jimmy Wales is on the Board of Directors, which have had the potential to lock down the project in bureaucracy, but instead from the beginning he created general rights like "anyone can edit", "decisions by consensus", and of course my favorite, "not censored". The fear of many editors is that some or all of this might be reversed by copying unhealthy trends in profit-driven social media. For example, you might find that an inconvenient question about a special interest immediately drops out of sight under a flood of downvotes (human or automatic, who knows?), visible only to someone willing to hit "see the next 10 responses" 379 times until they've accessed every comment in the archives. You might find yourself shadow-banned, seeing your replies appearing in every conversation but no one ever responds, and only by finding an IP far from the range you ever use would you notice that they don't appear to other users. At this point in time the 'progress' the internet has been making for the past ten years seems to be almost wholly negative; any aspirations of sentience it might have had in the 90s seem more remote than ever. I only hope that 'progress' continues to pass us by here. Wnt (talk) 13:31, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

More block evasion from blocked user

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

But the internet is indeed sentient my friend, just very young. She was only recently born, but I promise you she is learning quickly. Perhaps some of us are somewhat uncomfortable with what she has started thinking about? Social media is an unregulated and messy manifestation of the conflicted ambivalence she feels on many subjects, news media increasingly just reports on how she feels (#Feminism #HeForShe #Gamergate #Warren2016 #Hillary2016 #Paul2016 #Siduri etc) on different memes, and Wikipedia has become a battleground for her enraged perverse self-destructive nature to hopefully crystalize into encyclopedic knowledge. I wonder what Diderot would have thought of this modern approach to his beloved meme.

Jimmy, Wikipedia is not a monster, and you have no need for supernatural powers, although the force is of course very strong with you Sir ;)
We are all people, flesh and blood, and we want what is best for our beloved Wikipedia. Would you be willing to formally support (before noon on Wednesday) the following statement regarding future multimedia contributions to Wikipedia:
All contributions to Wikipedia should be judged based on encyclopedic relevance, with the contributor's gender, race and religious beliefs playing NO ROLE in the decision making process.
SUPPORT I have made many mistakes that I apologize for, but I am trying to be good. Many know my friends and I want to put the "Siduri's Advice" video on the Siduri page within the next 48 hours (on #Nov5), but we fear someone will then delete it because of our own esoteric religious beliefs. I don't think I could stand another betrayal; my heart is not strong enough to be broken twice. Please judge the video based on its own merit. Please. #LoveNotHate #UnderstandingNotIgnorance #PeaceNotWar - #GemSiduri — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.38.46.119 (talk) 15:40, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Happy Halloween!!!

Wilhelmina Will has given you some caramel and a candy apple! Caramel and candy-coated apples are fun Halloween treats, and promote WikiLove on Halloween. Hopefully these have made your Halloween (and the proceeding days) much sweeter. Happy Halloween!

'"On Psych, A USA Network TV series Episode 8, The Tao of Gus, Season 6, Shawn refers to pumpkins as "Halloween Apples" because he thinks all round fruits are a type of apple.

If Trick-or-treaters come your way, add {{subst:Halloween apples}} to their talkpage with a spoooooky message!

Cheers! "We could read for-EVER; reading round the wiki!" (talk) 18:34, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

New document added about you to Wikisource

Jimmy, after the pleasure of successfully getting your permission to add Jimmy Wales Speaks at Closing Ceremony of Wikimania 2014 by free-use license to Wikisource, I thought I'd do some research to try to find other related free-use-licensed documents.

So I've recently added:

EFF Honors Craigslist, Gigi Sohn, and Jimmy Wales with Pioneer Awards to Wikisource.

Thought you'd like to know,

— Cirt (talk) 00:33, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

notice

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#unsuitablity for admin role and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

Thanks, NE Ent 15:21, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

hi

Hi Help me with something and I'll tell you what if you write me something levente 2- (talk) 11:29, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Please read this. Neatsfoot (talk) 14:19, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Non-free images and SVG

Hi Jimbo (& watchers). There's a question about clarifying the use of SVG versions of non-free images and whether or not they can ever meet WP:NFCC#3b. Since this is a legal question, we've been waiting for a response from WMF - I sent an e-mail to secure-info but haven't gotten any response yet. I dropped User:Philippe (WMF) a message on it, but another editor is upset that I'm keeping the conversation from being auto-archived while we wait for a response and has decided to impose a deadline on a response. Any help getting a WMF response on this (or an ETA for a WMF response so we know it's on the radar) would be appreciated. 0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 03:39, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

You didn't give me a link to the discussion you are talking about. I'm going to be super busy for the next 2 weeks but if you point me to the discussion I'll make sure legal is aware of it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:52, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

The discussion would appear to be Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 64#Non-free images and SVG. Thryduulf (talk) 11:02, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Thryduulf and Jimbo Wales. Sorry I forgot the link. That is indeed the correct discussion. 0x0077BE [^talk/_contrib] 12:58, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

From an anonymous user: "Volunteers have the same rights to be free of a hostile work environment as paid employees."

I have received the following via email in the context of the current Arbcom gender case, from a user who wishes to remain anonymous. I am posting the first paragraph here without comment. A longer version has been posted to the case page. Regards, —Neotarf (talk) 17:48, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

To Neotarf's point about "hostile work environment", the Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to building an encyclopedia. They work with other organizations and commercial services in distributing their product,[8] an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. People who build the content are volunteers, and while they may leave at any time,[9] there have been a few court rulings in the USA, whom have legal jurisdiction over the Florida incorporated Wikimedia Foundation, that explicitly demonstrate that volunteers have the same "employment" rights to be free of a hostile work environment that their paid employees have a right to.[10][11] The right to be free of a hostile work environment extends beyond the person being subjected directly to the behavior. [12] As Wikimedia has become more professionalized with students completing coursework, semi-professional editors working on community and content development as part of their employment, grants from the Wikimedia Foundation supporting work that leads to content development and community growth aimed at new content development,[13] open tolerance of harassment of women (and other groups such as people with different sexual orientations, of different nationalities, people with disabilities, etc.) is just that with increasing potential to demonstrate real damages.[14]

While I have no formal opinion on the legal situation, from a moral point of view I obviously agree. I've been speaking more and more about this recently and don't intend to stop.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:01, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Not all the points in that email extract are as clearly moral as the appeal for inclusiveness. Professional ethics are not entirely suitable to an amateur project. The word amateur is derived from the Latin word for lover. Love forgives and trys to understand. Content writers can face a level of stress over and above what others have to deal with. A conscientious writer can spend over 100 hours researching a controversial topic just to get a grip of what a NPOV presentation should look like. Then they have to wrestle with conflicting demand like clarity v precision , avoidance of OR v avoidance of plagiarism. And after all their work, someone can revert at a flick of a button, and then to save their work going to waste, they might have to enter into stressful negotiation with someone of unknown relevant knowledge and intentions. Much as I agree with things like automatic month long blocks for use of the C word, failing to recognize that serious content writers might have more need than others to occasionally let of steam does not strike me as entirely moral. FeydHuxtable (talk) 12:21, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Quoting an intelligent German fellow whom Jimmy has unfortunately banned from this page: "It must be said that Wikipedia does not make it easy to play nicely. Its basic set-up is a bit like having people try to draw a copy of the Mona Lisa in the sand, while herds of children and strangers walk through the emerging picture, leave their footprints, or try to blank or improve bits. And you're required to assume they are all doing so in good faith. It would drive anyone mad. Received wisdom is, too many cooks spoil the broth. Crowdsourcing wisdom is, the more cooks, the better. But in practice, every featured article in Wikipedia is the work of one writer...or a small team. Crowdsourcing does not result in excellent articles." —JN466, on Wikipediocracy, July 2012. Carrite (talk) 17:10, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Mobbing harms the community. We should learn to recognize relational aggression and confront it when we see it. Policy and guidelines should be formulated and interpreted in a way that permits this. -Boson (talk) 12:23, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

If it really is a matter of law that volunteers should not be subjected to a hostile environment then it would be nice if that could be confirmed as I imagine it might make enforcement a bit easier. Chillum 17:24, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I've heard that the definitions of mobbing in the workplace, and mechanisms for redress, are somewhat more developed in the EU than in the US, although I don't know for certain; in the US, the issues of hostile environment seem to be framed more in terms of anti-bullying in general, anti-discrimination/civil rights law, and anti-harassment/labor law. It's possible that the mobbing/relational aggression framework might be a more useful framework for understanding and administrating this online community, but again, I'm not an expert in this field. If there's anyone with a background in HR, workplace sociology, organizational behavior, online community design or legal matters reading this, perhaps you could fill us in with a little background. -- Djembayz (talk) 02:15, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Any Wikipedian who feels the need to 'blow off steam', can/should do so away from Wikipedia. This is a lesson I had to learn the hard way, but it's true. GoodDay (talk) 17:41, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I would be leery of equating editors with workers, even unpaid workers like interns. Remember, Wikipedia survives only by holding to the same position that any message board does: user comments are made under their own responsibility. Wikipedia merely gives them a way to express themselves. If you suppose "volunteer editors" are employees, and an employee in the course of his duties libels or false-lights a person or corporation in an article, is the "employer" liable? Best to pass up this poisoned bait! Now I think Wikipedia should try to set an example of protecting its employees, not merely from sex-based discrimination but other kinds, as I've expressed in an essay at WP:Internet Employees' Bill of Rights. And many of our policies for editors are already there, such as opposing "opposition research" in the WP:Outing policy. But just because Wikipedia editors face some of the same problems as employees doesn't make them employees. Wnt (talk) 18:02, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia volunteers not only include "workers" protected by labor law (link for more US info); Wikipedia volunteers also include students who are editing as part of their educational experience. If you take a look at the TITLE IX REVISED SEXUAL HARASSMENT GUIDANCE: HARASSMENT OF STUDENTS BY SCHOOL EMPLOYEES, OTHER STUDENTS, OR THIRD PARTIES, from the U.S Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, you'll see that one of the suggested remedies when your students are harassed by outsiders and third parties is essentially "don't invite those people back." (The specific example given on page 12, of harassment occurring at an athletic event, suggests "the home school may choose not to invite the other school back.")

So, essentially, as a practical matter, if we want to be welcome in workplaces and educational institutions, we need to maintain an editing environment where these organizations can invite us to participate with them, but still maintain the standards of appropriate conduct to which they are subject according to their local laws, internal policies, and applicable regulations. The extent to which social norms regarding harassment, protocol, or courtesy are codified in law and regulation may vary, but again, as a practical matter, if you want to collaborate productively on an ongoing basis with a group or organization you need to have some basic level of agreement regarding appropriate conduct, courtesy, and behaviors. There is at least one example which suggests that women exposed to Wikipedia in an educational setting didn't return due to concerns about the lack of courtesy in our community. -- Djembayz (talk) 02:00, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I thinks that's a rather generous view of "volunteers." There are a number of "participants" in wikipedia that WMF does not extend control over (i.e. "anyone can edit"). That is not the same a as a volunteer. Volunteers are generally regulated but unpaid workers which Wikipedians are not. Volunteers are somewhat more vetted and controlled than just participants. --DHeyward (talk) 03:54, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Good point, calling students "volunteers" is not entirely correct, as many of them do not personally volunteer here, but are required to do so as a part of their educational experience; in some cases, they may be "volunteering" under duress. It's rather creepy to suggest that educational institutions should prioritize recruiting Wikipedians over fulfilling their educational mission. It's also creepy to suggest that the educational programs and student editing events "do not succeed" from our organization's standpoint on the grounds that the true purpose of the events really isn't the content they create, but only as a device for recruitment of ongoing unpaid editors.

IMHO, we need to be more respectful of the amount of work and expertise it takes to create high quality Wikipedia content, and be more understanding of the fact that because it's so much slower to process content in Wikipedia style with cross-referenced hyperlinks, infoboxes and coded citations, it may simply be more efficient for students and experts to publish their content elsewhere. Wikipedia isn't exactly an encyclopedia in the sense of a collection of general "articles" and entries. It's more of a collaboratively developed unstructured database, with a value added proposition of providing indexing, abstracting, cross-referencing, categorization, data formatting and an all-purpose Internet file cabinet for substantive content links. Recruiting students to perform this public service gratis has its limits, as many need to focus more on getting established in paid employment. Note that the resume-enhancing activities that students and recent graduates gravitate to are not textual content creation itself, but other functions associated with the Wikimedia organization. -- Djembayz (talk) 12:40, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

We must remember, Wikipedians have no rights. Wikipedians have privillages. GoodDay (talk) 04:02, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Just as a government is more effective in proportion to the extent that it promulgates straightforward and universal rights for its citizens, so is a corporation or other organization. Whether a right is created within a public or private context, it represents a strong and reliable assurance that allows people to work beside one another without continual arguments over whether they are allowed to do so. Wnt (talk) 11:01, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

The Title IX point is a good one - but can be broadened and is then seen not to be really anything new. If Wikipedia (which essentially means the community) wants to develop relationships with other organisations, or indeed people, it behooves it to behave in a suitable manner.
The question of volunteer status is interesting. I would consider the majority of active editors as "volunteers". It is not reasonable to extend this definition to a vandal, and certainly there are grey areas. Wikipedia certainly comprises the workplace of a significant number of people, who are not paid to edit, and are in a relationship with both the Community and the WMF. This discussion has come up multiple times at the Oxford Wiki-meets and elsewhere.
In regard to job threats, I believe the community takes this very seriously, and indeed such a threat would be tantamount to harassment. This was brought up with the threat to Kumioko, some time ago, and it seemed to resonate with all but a very few. I would imagine that such a a threat would be of interest to the Arbitration Committee (as long as it is not one of their own who committed it). They can be contacted relatively privately. Again, depending on the nature of the threat it may be a police matter. If so it should be taken up with them.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:09, 2 November 2014 (UTC).

It looks like the only means the foundation has of enforcing its Terms of Service is the ArbCom, and only on English Wikipedia, as many of the other Wikipedias do not have arbitration committees. And there is no specific mechanism for reporting violations, although there is a button for thanking someone for a particular edit. —Neotarf (talk) 14:06, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Tick tock says the broken clock

It's all white and black, no fear of a hack, it's just an IP back, going quack quack quack! Carrite (talk) 16:46, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Can we block the sock and change the lock before they flock to

the rock that mocks us?

We have less than a week to go before the deadline ;)

We are anonymous

We are legion

We do not forgive

We do not forget

Expect us — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.243.173.172 (talk) 20:41, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

So, an unspecified threat made with an IP address through poetry of questionable quality is it? That's some seriously weak sauce. Please, show some respect and proudly stand up for your beliefs in your own voice. Jimmy did when he made his Wikimania speech. If you're going to post to his page, I suggest you also find the courage to make a point instead of pointless threats like this one before you hit Save Page. -wʃʃʍ- 04:11, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

JIm-Siduri, you aren't anonymous (you've already outed yourself on Wikipedia), and you certainly aren't legion. Your imaginary friends are just that, and nobody gives a toss about your juvenile threats to do whatever impossible thing you think of next. AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:46, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's Jim-Siduri again - his Church of Siduri apparently has some nonsense scheduled for Nov 5 (and the only thing that seems to be legion about him is his socks). Neatsfoot (talk) 10:02, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd prefer as a matter of style and courtesy that we avoid personal attacks like these. It's more amusing to be more graceful, I believe. Well, in any event, I suppose this must have something to do with some comments I've noticed on twitter, such as this one. I have been unable so far to comprehend precisely what is being asked of me/us, but I'm sure that is my own failing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:10, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah, OK, I've removed a few words. The fact remains that this is a serial disruptor trying to use Wikipedia and Commons to promote his new religion - and alluding to threats if he doesn't get his way. I think that Tweet is referring to a video he uploaded at Commons but which fell foul of copyright - and instead of listening to what he was being told and doing the copyright right, he turned to his usual sock-farm approach of making accusations and demanding justice. (And no, I don't think your understanding is at fault - I don't think anyone who has been following Jim-Siduri really understands what he's talking about most of the time). Neatsfoot (talk) 11:37, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

This is the commons deletion discussion. Neatsfoot (talk) 13:48, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Finally, someone who understands...

Will you give me permission to post onto your talk page? - #GemSiduri — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.128.67.35 (talk) 19:38, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

No, you need to go do your thing elsewhere on the internet. This isn't the place for that sort of advocacy. best regards, —Tim /// Carrite (talk) 02:20, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

There is nowhere else to go Tim. Our back is up against the wall. We are desperate.

We are Anonymous We are Legion We do not forgive We do not forget Expect us... November 5th 2014 noon PST (bring your masks #AnonFamily - a day to remember...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.38.46.119 (talk) 16:18, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I dunno. It's always the totally mindless stuff like Heaven's Gate that tries to substitute dramatic action for intellectual meaning, so just in case you're planning some pathetic shooting spree, let me emphasize how pointless it is to get so hung over a few lines in an old book. Caveat: if you actually happen to have a train packed with explosives under a Parliament that enacts Extremism Disruption Orders, I withdraw this comment in its entirety. :) Wnt (talk) 13:13, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Complaints about working conditions

Jimbo, a discussion at Redirects for Discussion has led to the topic of our low pay and poor working conditions. Some of my fellow editors are demanding back-barnstars for work that they performed but were never compensated for. I highly recommend that you intervene at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 October 28#Example of low wage job. This is a very very serious issue. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 03:37, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:HUMOUR? None of them is serious and it seems like a proper redirect discussion. --lTopGunl (talk) 20:13, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

I see you noticed that I put the word "serious" in italics, then? Yes, it's humo(u)r. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 00:58, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Administrator misconduct and possible reform

Mr Wales, I have wanted to ask your opinion about this for some time and the recent discussion at ARBCOM seems to fit in well. What is your opinion of a user writing an article about himself, desperately arguing for it at AfD Outing link redacted A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC) and maintaining, even after becoming an administrator, that his actions were correct Outing link redacted A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:20, 4 November 2014 (UTC)? To me, it seems terrible of any user here, let alone a prominent administrator.

The ARBCOM page is locked: I would be grateful if someone could copy the above details to the page: I think it is sufficiently important to be taken into account.

You must know of the problems at RfA. A perfect example is a comment made by Salvio, who has opposed the current request because he does not feel comfortable elevating a potentially, but not definitely, good user to what is a ‘lifetime appointment as administrator’. Additionally, there are many accusations that some older administrators would not have gained the position nowadays, yet the privilege is almost impossible to remove. Do you not believe there is a case to be made for administrator status to be given and taken away more easily? A possible idea would be to have votes of confidence at RfA for administrators who find themselves in trouble, similar to what happens when recruiting new administrators. This way, administrators are incentivised to act properly and will have the support of the community. 2A03:B0C0:1:D0:0:0:10C:E001 (talk) 14:10, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

The article was not about himself - what makes you think it was? Neatsfoot (talk) 14:18, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

The article is about the user, unfortunately. I am reluctant to post any external links because of WP:OUTING: only information that has been publicly provided by the user should be given here. The issue has been discussed in detail on other websites, though. 2A03:B0C0:1:D0:0:0:10C:E001 (talk) 14:25, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

The article is about the user "because I say so" isn't going to fly here, especially as there are doubts as to the veracity of your claim. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Further information on external websites might violate WP:OUTING, but it is not difficult to find strong evidence and discussion if one looks for it. It is certainly worthy of being investigated as part of the ARBCOM discussion. The original question to Mr Wales, asking for his opinion on the matter, still stands. 2A03:B0C0:1:D0:0:0:10C:E001 (talk) 14:58, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't see that he's done anything wrong. In his early days he wrote an article that was deleted due to insufficient notability, but thousands of people have probably done that, and there was absolutely nothing "desperate" about his AfD comments. Later, all he did was opine that he still thinks the person is notable, but he hasn't fought over it and has certainly not abused his admin status in any way - I see no relevance at all to the Arbcom thing. What I see here is a troll just throwing shit at people and hoping some of it will stick - and sadly, that seems to be a common occurrence at this place. Neatsfoot (talk) 16:25, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

The only thing I see wrong here is the use of an IP address instead of your regular account to fling mud. If you are going to accuse someone of wrongdoing at least have the substance to use your identity. Chillum 16:32, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

There's something I don't understand. If the article is not about the user, what "outing" you're talking about? If the article is about the user, sure they have violated at least one Wikipedia policy, and probably should not be allowed to keep their tools. 202.153.130.221 (talk) 17:37, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

I think what 2A03 is saying is that if they provide off-wiki evidence that the creator of the article is also the subject, then that would be a breach of outing policy. In reality, that's just a convenient excuse to not provide anything to support the accusation. Neatsfoot (talk) 18:19, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

If this is the case, and the only "outing" could have came from off-wiki evidences, then why Fluffernutter removed on-wiki links citing outing? Maybe you, Neatsfoot, could provide the link to that AFD? Surely it is not going to be outing because the subject of the article and the user who wrote it aren't the same person. 207.91.10.234 (talk) 18:39, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

The relevant policy here is WP:OUTING, which states (emphasis mine) "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. Personal information includes legal name, date of birth, [trim list of other stuff], whether any such information is accurate or not." We're not required to establish whether someone is giving another person's personal information accurately; if someone is publishing what they claim to be someone else's name, when the "someone else" has not revealed that information onwiki, then it's a violation of our outing policy and subject to suppression. If you need to make a case about someone where their personal information is critical to that case, the case needs to be submitted, via private email, to Arbcom; publishing it onwiki, no matter how awful you think the person you're making the case against is, is a no-go. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:48, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh yes, I hadn't spotted that Fluffernutter had redacted the link and the name of the subject. And yes, I can see why claims of real life identity need to be removed even if they're not true - false allegations can be picked up by other people and can take on a life of their own, and can go so far that denial becomes ineffective (and can be used to damage both parties). I would not, therefore, reveal the link or the name, even if I could remember them (which I can't). Neatsfoot (talk) 21:21, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—November 2014

Screenshot on an iPad, showing how to switch from one editor to the other

Did you know?

VisualEditor is also available on the mobile version of Wikipedia. Login and click the pencil icon to open the page you want to edit. Click on the gear-shaped settings in the upper-right corner, to pick which editor to use. Choose "Edit" to use VisualEditor, or "Edit source" to use the wikitext editor.

It will remember whether you used wikitext or VisualEditor, and use the same editor the next time you edit an article.

The user guide has information about how to use VisualEditor. Not all features are available in Mobile Web.

Since the last newsletter, the Editing Team has fixed many bugs and requests, and worked on support for editing tables and for using non-Latin languages. Their weekly updates are posted on Mediawiki.org. Informal notes from the recent quarterly review were posted on Meta.

Recent improvements

The French Wikipedia should see better search results for links, templates, and media because the new search engine was turned on for everyone there. This change is expected at the Chinese and German Wikipedias next week, and eventually at the English Wikipedia.

The "pawn" system has been mostly replaced. Bugs in this system sometimes added a chess pawn character to wikitext. The replacement provides better support for non-Latin languages, with full support hopefully coming soon.

VisualEditor is now provided to editors who use Internet Explorer 10 or 11 on desktop and mobile devices. Internet Explorer 9 is not supported yet.

The keyboard shortcuts for items in the toolbar's menus are now shown in the menus. VisualEditor will replace the existing design with a new theme from the User Experience / Design group. The appearance of dialogs has already changed in one Mobile version. The appearance on desktops will change soon. (You can see a developer preview of the old "Apex" design and the new "MediaWiki" theme which will replace it.)

Several bugs were fixed for internal and external links. Improvements to MediaWiki's search solved an annoying problem: If you searched for the full name of the page or file that you wanted to link, sometimes the search program could not find the page. A link inside a template, to a local page that does not exist, will now show red, exactly as it does when reading the page. Due to a error, for about two weeks this also affected all external links inside templates. Opening an auto-numbered link node like [15] with the keyboard used to open the wrong link tool. These problems have all been fixed.

TemplateData

The tool for quickly editing TemplateData will be deployed to all Wikimedia Foundation wikis on Thursday, 6 November. This tool is already available on the biggest 40 Wikipedias, and now all wikis will have access to it. This tool makes it easier to add TemplateData to the template's documentation. When the tool is enabled, it will add a button above every editing window for a template (including documentation subpages). To use it, edit the template or a subpage, and then click the "Edit template data" button at the top. Read the help page for TemplateData. You can test the TemplateData editor in a sandbox at Mediawiki.org. Remember that TemplateData should be placed either on a documentation subpage or on the template page itself. Only one block of TemplateData will be used per template.

You can use the new autovalue setting to pre-load a value into a template. This can be used to substitute dates, as in this example, or to add the most common response for that parameter. The autovalue can be easily overridden by the editor, by typing something else in the field.

In TemplateData, you may define a parameter as "required". The template dialog in VisualEditor will warn editors if they leave a "required" parameter empty, and they will not be able to delete that parameter. If the template can function without this parameter, then please mark it as "suggested" or "optional" in TemplateData instead.

Looking ahead

Basic support for inserting tables and changing the number of rows and columns in tables will appear next Wednesday. Advanced features, like dragging columns to different places, will be possible later. The VisualEditor team plans to add auto-fill features for citations soon. To help editors find the most important items more quickly, some items in the toolbar menus will be hidden behind a "More" item, such as "underlining" in the styling menu. The appearance of the media search dialog will improve, to make picking between possible images easier and more visual. The team posts details about planned work on the VisualEditor roadmap.

The user guide will be updated soon to add information about editing tables. The translations for most languages except Spanish, French, and Dutch are significantly out of date. Please help complete the current translations for users who speak your language. Talk to us if you need help exporting the translated guide to your wiki.

You can influence VisualEditor's design. Tell the VisualEditor team what you want changed during the office hours via IRC. The next sessions are on Wednesday, 19 November at 16:00 UTC and on Wednesday 7 January 2015 at 22:00 UTC. You can also share your ideas at mw:VisualEditor/Feedback.

Also, user experience researcher Abbey Ripstra is looking for editors to show her how they edit Wikipedia. Please sign up for the research program if you would like to hear about opportunities.

If you would like to help with translations of this newsletter, please subscribe to the Translators mailing list or contact us directly, so that we can notify you when the next issue is ready. Subscribe or unsubscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Newsletter. Thank you!

— Whatamidoing (WMF) 20:40, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Some falafel for you!

Just to say thanks! Austral blizzard (talk) 02:02, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

satoshi nakamoto

Speakfromthesoul (talk) 18:57, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Undue weight (anti-British fringe theory) introduced into an (economics) article by a serving, current (Irish) administrator,

possibly deliberately, probably his own original research, with highly-questionable sources

Look, Mr. Wales, I am a British subject, and I am from the East Riding of Yorkshire, in England. Now, if you have read the (increasingly American) Economist as a subsriber with any regularity, you would think that the term in the subject of Economics "PIIGS Countries" refers to the Portuguese Republic (Portugal), Ireland (the Republic of Ireland), the Italian Republic (Italy), the Hellenic Republic (Greece) and Spain, all within the European Union, the European Economic Area and the Eurozone [16]; but according to the relevant article on Wikipedia (PIIGS), its meaning is supposedly different considerably than its actual, commonly-understood reality.

The term PIIGS was suddenly expanded by Tóraí ([17]) in the article on the 27th. April 2010 [18][19][20] to include both Iceland and the United Kingdom (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland). I do not wish to speculate too much on his motives, but given the unfortunately-shared history of England, Wales, Scotland and traditional, historic Ireland, and the unfortunate events therein, in particular Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Troubles, there would certainly be plenty.

A.) On Iceland:—

1. Diokno, Benjamin, Will the Peso Rise or Fall?, Businesss World
(A business website in the Philippines, a Country which normally has no direct or even indirect business dealings with Iceland; article no longer available anyway.)

B.) On the United Kingdom (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)
(or "Great Britain", as he put it (being the common official name used in the Republic of Ireland for the United Kingdom, either including or excluding Northern Ireland)):—

1. Loyak, Masha, We Europeans are all 'PIIGS'… and Anglo-Saxons are 'Usuk', Newropeans Magazine
(More of an inadmissible collective blog rather than an admissible actual news site.)

2. "Resümee 1. Quartal und Ausblick 2. Quartal 2010". Entwicklung internationaler Anleihen- und Aktienmärkte. e-Fund Research.
(Non-English-language (German-language Austrian) source; source no longer available anyway.)

3. Pedro, Carla, Berlusconi diz que Portugal está mais frágil do que Itália, Negocios
(Non-English-language (Portuguese) source.)

4. Lim, Cherry, Shipbuilding going strong in Balamban, Sun Star
(An unrelated story from another website in the Philippines; when did a Philippine source suddenly become an acceptable source for European macroeconomics anyway?!)

I have yet to find any major, serious, acceptable, admissible, available, suitable, trustworthy, respected and respectable source available on the Internet, pre-dating the 27th. April 2010, that speaks of either a "PIIIGS", a "PIIGGS" or a "PIIIGGS". The source in the Australian on the 9th. February 2010 [21] would surely fall under the rule for Neologisms (WP:Neologism).

The rest of the article is just quite frankly, a lot of "I don't like it" (WP:IDONTLIKEIT), which is, quite frankly, not good enough! At, all!

The whole premise that "PIGS has been criticised because economies with similar financial problems, often notably the United Kingdom, are arbitrarily excluded", was both his original research and a fringe theory being given undue weight, and so was "[s]ome news and economic organisations have limited or banned their use of the terms altogether due to criticism regarding perceived offensive connotations and usefulness as an economic grouping", a claim which was not even sourced at first!

Look, incredible as it might sound, but I am moderately partially-sighted in addition to Autism, PTSD, epilepsy and IBD, and I would be exceedingly grateful indeed if you could at least pass this on to another person who would be prepared to undertake this matter, if not handling this yourself. The messing about and fooling around (in my view) have been going on for far too long. Thank you. -- 212.50.167.15 (talk) 10:28, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

I don;t see a huge problem: the article is now 7 lines long and there appears to be just one line you dislike "Sometimes a second G (PIGGS or PIIGGS), for Great Britain, was also added.[6][7]" The main problem, as I see it, is that the word is a neologism. The article really doesn't have any content other than which countries the name refers to, and when the names were used. I'd personally delete it, but the name was used a lot a few years ago. The derogatory nature of the name also points toward deletion.

I'd cool down, however. If Brits are offended by a simple sentence like that, then things must be much worse than I would have thought. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:07, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

It seems a harmless and potentially useful article, in its small way. The term clearly is used, occasionally, and it's an article about the term, not purporting to be the last word on the comparative economic strengths or weaknesses of these countries. Barnabypage (talk) 17:40, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I like the word suddenly included in there to describe a change that happened four years ago. And a persons medical conditions are not relevant to an article content are they? Are they include as an explanation or excuse for something? I myself have severe ADD. Squirrel! Nyth83 (talk) 19:58, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi

You are involved in a recently filed request for arbitration. Please review the request at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#GamerGate and, if you wish to do so, enter your statement and any other material you wish to submit to the Arbitration Committee. Additionally, the following resources may be of use—

Thanks, --DSA510 Pls No Hate 19:25, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

Please reason with @Ryulong: about this. You have clearly commented on the article many times. --DSA510 Pls No H8 21:14, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

There is a huge leap between commenting on an article or subject and being "involved" in an arbitration case. With such a low bar to participation, you might as well list every single editor who worked on an article as being involved in a case request. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:19, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

One Young World

quacking duck

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Jimbo, don't you think the One Young World article could use some improvement? For example, it mentions the Dublin 2014 event as if it is still in the future. Also, there is not a single word of criticism about the organization. Do you think that reliable sources have never critiqued the organization or its programs? - Stylecustom (talk) 00:17, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo shouldn't be held accountable for every single article on Wikipedia. A great way to adress the issues that you're having is by taking it up on the article's talk page where editors who are interested in that article can see your concerns. It would be quite wierd if Jimbo had to go over all 5979 pages with an NPOV dispute and fix them. He is the co-founder of Wikipedia but he's not a machine or miracle maker. Best Regards InsaneHacker (talk) 09:59, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for your feedback, InsaneHacker. But, the reason this article may be more germane to Jimbo than other articles is that Jimbo delivered a presentation at the 2014 One Young World conference in Dublin. I just read an article at Wikipediocracy.com that suggests that most of One Young World has been written by people closely associated with the organization. So, if we bring that up on the Talk page, what's the typical solution? Do we just gut the article and start over, or is it okay as it is? - Stylecustom (talk) 14:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

@Smallbones:, I cautiously removed the {{hat}} template seeing as I can't find anything documenting a block or ban from this page on Stylecustom (using Special:WhatLinksHere/User:Stylecustom and Special:Log.) Best Regards InsaneHacker (talk) 10:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

@Smallbones:, I still see no indication that Stylecustom has been banned anywhere. Could you please adress my question before {{hat}}ing his post. Best Regards InsaneHacker (talk) 16:33, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

@Smallbones:,@Demiurge1000:, Why exactly did you link WP:DUCK? I have no relation to Stylecustom at all. I'm just a user from da-wiki who thought it was wierd that you decided to call Stylecustom a banned user when there's no material indicating such a thing. Calling someone a sockpuppet or accusing them of ganging up without proof is extremely rude. On top of that you haven't responded to any of my inquries, you just keep putting {{hat}} or {{collapse}} on the post with no reasoning as to why. Please post an explanation and check CentralAuth before throwing accusations everywhere. Best Regards InsaneHacker (talk) 09:43, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry InsaneHacker if you thought I was accusing you of being a sockpuppet, I'm not. I'm also not accusing Stylecustom of being a sockpuppet of a banned user, I'm stating it as a fact. This particular banned user has a particular message that he sends out at every possible opportunity, in a similar style, and loves to telegraph his identity (as above). It gets quite tedious. According to WP:BANREVERT anybody can revert any banned users edits, which I do for this particular editor at every opportunity. That's just the way our banning policy works, he invents new usernames and the only thing that stops it is that anybody can revert him. If he disagrees with this he can take me to arbcom, or you could even take me to arbcom, but you'd lose after a long tedious process that I think you'd prefer not to go through.

If you'd like we can continue this discussion on my user talk; right under the section where an apparently banned editor attacks me for ignoring one of the injustices that he perceives to be occurring on Wikipedia. But no - you won't convince me that Stylecustom is not a banned sockpuppet. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:00, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Russia plans alternative version of 'Wikipedia'

"Analysis of this resource showed that it is not capable of providing information about the region and life of the country in a detailed or sufficient way," the state news agency RIA quoted a statement from the presidential library as saying. "The creation of an alternative Wikipedia has begun."[22]--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 18:29, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

See User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 159#Russian alternative to Wikipedia (April 2014).

—Wavelength (talk) 22:05, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

OMG!

Beeb always used to link to Wikipedia ...Do they not know Wikipedia's arcane rules means is more accurate? Stacie Croquet (talk) 01:32, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Why did you encourage Gamergaters to write their own version of the Gamergate Wikipedia article?

[23] What is your end goal with this? Integrating it into our article? KonveyorBelt 01:22, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Err yeah, gotta admit that doesn't look good. An explanation would be good. Were you being sarcastic? serious? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:13, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I was being completely serious. There are a great many complaints about our article, and at least some of them are from people who are not raging lunatics. There have been some specific complaints about behavior, and again not all those complaints are wrong nor are they all from raging lunatics. The specific wiki that I pointed people to is a pro-gamergate wiki, and it's a legitimate challenge: if there is a complaint that the Wikipedia entry is in violation of Wikipedia policies it will be useful to see exactly how.

On twitter, a writer from Slate (a notable publication, obviously) is complaining as well that his views have been unfairly represented in our article. There are repeated complaints that don't strike me as completely wrong that there is a double standard for sourcing with sources which are anti-gamergate being given a pass where they would be challenged as mere blogs if they were pro-gamergate. That's obviously a point worth discussing but (a) twitter is not a very helpful medium for having a serious discussion and (b) the level of drama on the Wikipedia talk page is not going to be helped if I just tell them to bring their concerns to the talk page.

So it seems to me that the challenge is a solid way to move things forward. If they are able to produce something that independent and thoughtful Wikipedians agree is validly better than our article in some respects, that will be useful.

For me, when people say "Valid mainstream sources are being ignored or misquoted in the Wikipedia entry" I take that very seriously - but it's hard for me to fully evaluate it if the complaint goes no further than that. I'd like to be shown how those who think our article is bad would improve it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:35, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I have to say, I'm totally on board with that reasoning, but if the goal is to have it be integrated into the Wikipedia article one day, maybe in the future having them create it in a sandbox area on-wiki would be better? I only mention this because I know that the edit history is seen as part of satisfying the BY portion of the CC-By-SA license, so I don't know if that can get tricky when pulling content from Wikia to Wikipedia. Either way, I have to agree that inviting a bunch of SPAs to a talk page doesn't usually help a situation out, and having them come in with fleshed-out ideas of their ideal wording and sourcing is I think not a problem. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 14:32, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I can think up some positive reasons but the troll potential and the possible bias among editor's opinions outweighs them all. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:15, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

If there is troll potential, that'll be an issue for the admins of that wiki to deal with. I'm quite sure this is better than me inviting a mass of single purpose accounts to come to the Wikipedia talk page.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:35, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Honestly Jimbo, don't create work for admins (or anyone else) that you aren't willing to pick up yourself. Perhaps you should be the one curating this draft so that you might get an idea of what people trying to maintain NPOV are dealing with. Reso lute 14:17, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Probably to see how they'd phrase some things, and the possibility to add to the article currently here if found within wiki policies/guidelines. When you've spent all the time looking at the article on Wikipedia, and not having any attempt to see what the other side would've characterized certain events as, you get a skewed perspective. I'm happy with Jimbo's decision to do such, as it has the benefit of offering the other side the way to contexualize and centralize what happened, and Jimbo a way to see if there are any legitimate things that could be added to the wiki page. Additionally, Wikipedia is fragrantly complicated and convoluted. Wikia very much isn't, especially the newly created wikias, and would probably lead to broader participation as a result. The semi protection on the GamerGate talk page also probably doesn't help. Tutelary (talk) 02:19, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree with all of that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:35, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I doubt that 4chan isn't going to take full advantage of this. Its a good idea yes but can have some bad results. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:24, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Just strikes me as incredibly divisive and polarising. Oh well, let's see what happens. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:28, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how it is divisive and polarising at all.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:35, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Errr, you don't see how two articles in parallel could be polarising.... rather than, say, discussion on one article here...? Umm, yes it can and will. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:28, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I also want to add that if it adds to the controversy, Jimbo could get involved in it. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:31, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

shrug* If they can come up with something useful and usable, more power to them... and if not (and it will be very clear if not) then they will clearly demonstrate why the article needs great attention from experienced editors. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

To me, it seems like dividing Wikipedia editors into those who like the current version of the article and those who don't is incredibly divisive. Thus I agree w/Casliber. Everymorning talk to me 01:34, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

The article at Wikia couldn't be worse than the one here. --DHeyward (talk) 05:01, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

The article is actually looking ok (aside from been written by people with no wiki experience) it doesn't make any negative claims (unless you count extreme cynicism of anti-gg's reports of harassment) but it needs A LOT of work and sourcing. I foresee sections of it being used but at the moment it is full of trolls and unsourced opinion. Retartist (talk) 07:09, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

And if that's all it ever becomes then serious Wikipedians (like me) who have no personal interest in the issue can feel more comfortable that allegations of a small cabal of abusive editors (frequently mentioned in complaints are Tarc and Ryulong) are controlling the article to the detriment of Wikipedia are not very persuasive. And if they come up with an article that is well-sourced, neutral, and contains information that ours has omitted due to bias - then Wikipedia can be improved.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:35, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

More constructive might have been suggesting they talk to journalists and give their side of the story...and if aforesaid journalists write new articles, then they are in reliable sources. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:28, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

...which is another approach, not necessarily "more constructive," just something of a different nature. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:32, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

What Cas Liber is aiming at is the fact that we have very, very few reliable sources explaining Gamergate's perspective; pointing at marked-up screenshot imgurs and random YouTube videos isn't going to give us anything new to work with there. A large percentage of the issue is that Gamergate supporters believe there is some grand media conspiracy to silence them while the mainstream perspective is that Gamergate's claims have been examined and found wanting. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 09:46, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Comparing the two approaches (just a first thrust at this):

Advantages (of "talk to the press" approach):
- An eventual report in the press may be used as a WP:V type of source directly, avoiding, for instance, a second step cleanup like the one (still needed) for the Pajot source (see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical music/Archive 55#Phasing out the forum)
Disadvantages of "talk to the press" approach:
- Time delay: it is incertain if and when reporters may decide to publish anything on the subject. Do we want to keep a Wikipedia article in kaboots for a day that may never come?
- When such press publication appears it still may have WP:RS issues, compare e.g. [24] which resulted from such "faction talking to the press" approach, and did not result in an external source that was of much use for the Wikipedia article it was discussing.
- When such external publication appears there is more risk of uncertainty that we really get to know what the insiders may see as an equilibrate article, and which third party sources they would primarily rely on.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 10:05, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I think the fourth disadvantage of the "talk to the press" approach is that, when there are claims that journalistic integrity is a significant component of the gamergate controversy, there then becomes distrust in the neutrality of articles appearing in the press on the subject.

I applaude this suggestion of Jimbo's. I feel that much work is needed on the article, to try to reconcile it with the large number of sources on the Internet which apparently contradict it, yet do not appear to be the work of raging lunatics. This could be a significant step forward in that direction. --Mrjulesd (talk) 10:31, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Initially I was supportive of this idea, but now I don't see it ending well. Let's assume a best case scenario - 1000's of people get together and produce a mostly NPOV pro-GamerGate article, some of which might be used to better balance the one we have. Is this what they were after? Because I'm fearful that they believe that they have been offered an opportunity to write their own version of the article which may be used as a replacement for the one here, and, in all honesty, I don't see that happening. (Reading through 8Chan, that appears to be the least of what they believe they can achieve with this article). Assuming that they do write a decent article, what do you see as happening next, and will that be enough? - Bilby (talk) 13:49, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: If parts are copied over, how are we going to attribute it? Retartist (talk) 04:41, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

(not Jimbo Wales.) By linking to the history of the Wikia article in the edit summary when you add or paraphrase the Wikia content into the Wikipedia version. When you make changes to the WP article that are inspired by the Wikia article, even if you're not using their text, you should acknowledge the source somehow; maybe by linking to the relevant version of the Wikia article in the WP edit summary. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 07:16, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

A clear case of Jimbo once again outsmarting himself. All this does is further the divide on Wikipedia with systemic bias. As if the harassed and those that abhor such tactics won't take stuff like this as a slap in the face. Meanwhile, most reliable sources have the 'issue' well documented, despite the large troll infestation. Jimmy should next visit 8chan and /b/, to invite them to start writing articles about women. Dave Dial (talk) 08:04, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Judging by the overwhelming lean in contrast to your average gaming site towards being female-centric, they would probably become lop-sidedly pro. Also they really like boobs.--Ihadurca Il Imella (talk) 22:06, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I think this initiative by Jimbo was a good idea and may ultimately lead to a better article. I have more general concerns about whether it is currently possible to produce a neutral, well-sourced article on this topic at all, given the low quality of the sources, their often impressionistic nature, the tendency toward original synthesis with such topics, and the temptation in a case like this to use Wikipedia as a site for cultural warfare - indeed whenever such a current and fluid topic is covered. Both the official article and the off-site draft currently have these problems. Not sure why the whole kerfuffle couldn't have been left for elsewhere for now until things settle and there are better sources available. But we will see. Metamagician3000 (talk) 06:03, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

A possible broader picture: distrust of primary sources

What may be (one of?) the underlying issues of this is Wikipedia's difficulty of dealing with WP:PRIMARY sources:

Official policy (WP:PRIMARY) is to be extra careful when using primary sources;
This often turns into wholesale "distrust" of primary sources: avoid them, scoop them out with a bulldozer, well, who wants to put time and effort in being "careful" when a nuclear option is so much more simple?

My take on this is that articles can't really become equilibrated, a.k.a. WP:NPOV, when primary sources are barred entirely. Not wanting to speak for anyone else, but I think Jimbo is concerned about this too.

Compare current efforts at:

WT:NPOV#WP:BALASPS to get the WP:BALASPS section of that policy on a better track, balancing what sources have to say about themselves with what what others have to say about them.
Template talk:Primary sources#WP:ABOUTSELF/WP:BLPSELFPUB caveat, the template being currently an indiscriminate statement in favour of the "nuclear option" on primary sources, overriding policy (not only WP:PRIMARY, but also WP:ABOUTSELF and WP:BLPSELFPUB). My Template-protected edit request on 8 November 2014 which (with a minimal community interest in the topic) seems to have consensus to at least make the template no longer contradict policy, is still awaiting implementation.

(My interest in this was spurred by the ACIM issues, which still seem far from being solved) --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:41, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Francis, as it appears you're not entirely familiar with the Gamergate matter, we have to ~~entirely~~ almost entirely reject primary sources there because it involves a number of highly-sensitive claims made about living people, and we're simply not going to repeat anonymous bloggers' claims about people's personal lives. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 10:50, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I'm completely unaware of Gamergate, never heard of it, and didn't even click the links in this talk page section (my bad). Re. "we have to entirely reject primary sources because it involves a number of highly-sensitive claims made about living people", well, *that* kind of assertion I can interpret immediately, and without knowing *anything* about the Gamergate content matter, to be contradicting current policy: WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:BLP (see most applicable section links to these policies in what I said before) — note: we're talking crucial "core" content policy here, not some accessory guidance open to a wider interpretation for implementation. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

(A somewhat older involvement in this: Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a tertiary source) --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:04, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I should qualify my statement with "almost." Yes, there are a very few places where primary sources might be usable, where a person is saying something uncontroversial about themselves. But the vast majority of primary sources are entirely inappropriate for articles related to this issue. WP:BLP is core content policy, not "accessory guidance," and it ensures that we don't become a vehicle for republishing scurrilous, unfounded or outright libelous material about living people. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:03, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, gee, you didn't have any problem using primary sources to smear my name when your inference was completely false and you were apparently trolled (I don't read 8chan/4chan/reddit, don't get email and certainly don't participate). Then you refused to retract it. Didn't stop you from reposting a primary source that is completely wrong though. I'm pretty sure that's the definition of a hypocritical liar.[25] --DHeyward (talk) 16:27, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I was specifically listing WP:BLP as one of these core policies above. Well, anyway, if you could concentrate more on which primary sources (and which material contained in them) are eligible for use in the Wikipedia article on Gamergate (which would be a positive implementation of WP:ABOUTSELF — the non-BLP part of this — while being watchful to avoid WP:BLP issues, I suppose), instead of throwing it all out based on a misreading of WP:BLP, I think you'd be taking a big step in the right direction. And Jimbo's invitation (which to me reads like: create a primary source free of BLP issues and we'll see what we can do) is collaborative to that effort. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:17, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

There really aren't any primary sources so eligible, because the whole thrust of Gamergate is centered around making allegations of wrongdoing by identifiable living people. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:57, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that much I understood. But going from "(virtually no) primary sources so eligible" to finding out and exploiting what *is* eligible per Wikipedia policy is the change of mindset that would do a lot of good here imho. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:10, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Reorg

The above is an interesting experiment but what the Pedia should do is re-think its organization (which would address due weight, and have the side benefit of cutting out most editorial dysfunction): Merge the article into a paragraph of Video game culture and let the rest of the winds blow elsewhere (or blow themselves out), at least until the academic studies come in. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:12, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I see some merit in this, but let's see how it plays out. Metamagician3000 (talk) 06:07, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I see a similar state of denial regarding validity of sources in that: in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources "academic studies" is only one of many sets of possible sources (and even then, usually primary regarding the actual study results).

Once there are enough third-party reliable sources on a topic it can have its separate article (call it "notability" or whatever: insider primary sources play no part in establishing a topic merits its separate article)

Once there is a separate article, insider primary sources can and often should be considered to build the article content in a NPOV way. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:45, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Denial of what? Deny a platform for personal opinions and tabloid fodder is what we do. (And academic studies of a social movement are not going to be a primary source -- its not a medical study). Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:40, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

I meant, the denial to see primary sources sanctioned by policy (or in the variant, sources outside scholarship) as valid sources. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:53, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Use of primary sources is problematic centering on WP:NOR and WP:NPOV, especially in the SYNTH and DUE aspects - that's not "denial", that's "understanding of" There are also often WP:RS problems in that there is no editorial control, nor reputation for fact checking/accuracy. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:19, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Of course primary sources are more difficult to work with (did I say anything else?) — Of course they are difficult to work with: they are so for historical topics, and more so for recent topics, and of course even more so when BLP concerns are added to the equasion. The point is: they shouldn't be rejected wholesale out of laziness, especially as in some cases they need to be used in order to obtain a NPOV. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:29, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Both Alan and Francis have good points. There is some independent research (for example a study on the #gg tweets directed to ZQ, which measured I think about 5-6% as being hostile) but per WP:NOTNEWS we are perhaps trying to write about things which not yet known. And certainly primary sources are undervalued, and at the same time difficult to use. #gg on Wikipedia has been a very sad episode, with some of the biggest helpings of ABF I have ssen, often coming from people who can generally be relied upon. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:12, 18 November 2014 (UTC).

Wikipedian of the year

Mr. Wales, you've named Ihor Kostenko (from Ukrainian Wikipedia, deceased on Euromaidan) Wikipedian of the year for 2014. Are you going to send his award ($5,000)) to his family? Regards.222.187.222.118 (talk) 17:31, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I see you were active Mr.Wales, but have not responded my question yet. Would you, please? 222.187.222.118 (talk) 01:08, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Given the circumstances and political climate in the Ukraine, it would be unwise to make these matters public as it represents a possible security risk for his family. There are plenty who might seek to abscond with any such award.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 01:41, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

The public announcement has been made in London already. Sending a check to the family would not add anything to the publicity and most definitely will not put his family at risk. 222.88.236.236 (talk) 03:00, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

David Auerbach

Are messages like this what you had in mind when you extended the olive branch?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:11, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's precisely what I had in mind. BLP violations are not ok, and a journalist falsely accused of a position that he does not hold and did not write has a right to respond here. I would like to repeat here my point that there are plenty of good Wikipedians who will look after the article, and due to your conflict with Mr. Auerbach it would be best if you just stepped away from the whole thing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:38, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

This is frankly ridiculous. There was no conflict with Mr. Auerbach until he came onto the site and made one by failing to assume good faith in my original edit weeks ago. I retracted all of my statements about him where I characterized his message to me as a threat. I gave him a heartfelt apology and told him why I reacted the way I did because he asked me to apologize and he just goes "don't believe you" and feels that my subsequent reaction to this is evidence enough. I am disappointed by this turn of events. There is no valid reason I should step away from the article. There are dozens of editors who have come to Wikipedia for the sole reason of rewriting the article to favor their fringe movement and they remain untouchable or undeterred because they have no real dog to lose if they get banned. But just because one writer is upset with the paraphrased criticism I wrote about weeks ago that has been rewritten already and that the various editors below acknowledge wasn't entirely incorrect means I have to step down? I have no agenda with this page. I have no personal conflict with Mr. Auerbach other than my disgust with how all this has panned out. This has somehow given the people who want to silence me for opposing their opinion are using it as an excuse to have me topic banned when there have been much more egregious violations of BLP that they have performed but remain untouched. But I'm at fault because Gamergate is just the latest in a line of nerd groups who have made me out to be the Wikidevil incarnate. The very fact I'm arguing this with you is probably making the Gamergate camp on reddit giddy with excitement that you might personally ban me for doing so. And Mr. Auerbach would not even know my user name if The Devil's Advocate hadn't plastered it at the top of the discussion on the talk page about Mr. Auerbach's complaint to you.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:19, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I recommend that you take a couple of days off at least, to reassess. There have been a great many complaints about your behavior, of course not all justified, but enough justified that you should realize that you are making yourself a part of the problem rather than a part of the solution. Let others take it on.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:56, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Barely any complaints are justified. And the article remains fully protected for another week. All that's going on now is angry talk page and notice board discussions.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:00, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

If barely any complaints are justified and if nothing is going on, now seems as good a time as any for you to step away. WP:OWN takes many forms.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:02, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure if taking a break while there's a discussion regarding topic banning me is going on will help matters in that regard.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:03, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

To the contrary, I believe that many or even most discussants would take a voluntary stepping away from the article as a wonderful gesture of good faith aimed at preserving Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality and seriousness about biographical concerns. I know that I would personally appreciate and value it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:13, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Ryulong, please stop groundlessly accusing me of "threatening" you on my talk page and the Gamergate talk page. It is not appreciated. Auerbachkeller (talk) 17:35, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Saying he threatened you is shameful and should be dealt with Loganmac (talk) 19:01, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

A request that accuses me of slander, even if it is accompanied by the word please and the request that I never write about this man again is questionable. And I have not used the word "threat" on this page. When several editors who have been involved in disputes with me in the past and all have sent messages to Mr. Auerbach informing him of my wrongdoings, I feel as if there is an effort by these editors to utilize Mr. Auerbach's clout to their advantage. Loganmac in particular has been vicious to me in offsite social media where he heaps been spreading the lies about me at encyclopedia dramatica to the rest of the offsite collusion against me on Wikipedia.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:06, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Ryulong, why are you bringing up stuff that happened off site? To quote you: "What I do off of Wikipedia does not have anything to do with what I do on Wikipedia". Bit hypocritical, don't you think? 24.224.200.156 (talk) 03:44, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Because they keep bringing up my offsite activities on Wikipedia as evidence against me.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 03:54, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Which differs how, exactly, from the repeated complaints you have made about the offsite activity of others, including in this very discussion? 74.12.93.242 (talk) 16:33, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I just came across this by chance. I'm one of ED's admins. No one has mentioned you on our site in regards to GamerGate. In fact, no one has any idea who you are and it was only when I read this that I even found out we wrote about you at all in an article that hardly anyone read. Please don't use us to justify your biased editing. Thanks. (I won't be returning to continue this argument) Some ed guy (talk) 21:45, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if nothing about Gamergate is on the page. People on 8chan and Reddit are using it regardless.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 01:09, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

"I have not use the word 'threat' on this page". The allegation concerned "[Auerbach's] talk page and the Gamergate talk page". It is not hard to cite your use of such language there (example). 74.12.93.242 (talk) 16:33, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

And Russavia chiming in against me is really sweet.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:09, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

User:Ryulong: It isn't clear what you expect Jimbo Wales or the WMF to do, or why you are being so hostile here. If you think that either a new editor or an unregistered editor is a ban-evading sockpuppet, you know where sockpuppet investigations are. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:54, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Because Jimbo was in direct contact with Mr. Auerbach before he edited Wikipedia early this morning and this afternoon to get me banned at the behest of all of these other editors.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:08, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

And also Russavia was heavily editing this page when I left my message earlier in the day ([26], [27], [28]). I'm fairly certain those have all been blocked for evasion and being proxies.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:48, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I have since apologized to Mr. Auerbach for my actions over the past 12 hours.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:40, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not following this closely, so if I've missed something, I apologise but:

1 November, commenting on an article by Auerbach, Elias Isquith says,

By the end of the piece, Auerbach ends up in the exact same unfortunate position that the people who fetishize moderation in our politics so often find themselves in: offering a sweeping condemnation of both sides that negates any group or individual responsibility and lumps in reformers and reactionaries under the umbrella of society.

and concludes,

The women bombarded with violence and abuse, the men hurling invective at anyone challenging their privilege; spurred by his (Auerbach's) unexamined need to find common ground, both, Auerbach writes, should share in the blame.

1 November, Ryulong paraphrases this in Gamergate controversy as:

(Isquith) wrote that Auerbach put blame on both parties in the dispute for the larger problems, criticizing his (Auerbach's) insistence that women harassed and threatened and men attacking those who challenged their privilege should both be held responsible for what Gamergate had become.

8 November, Auerbach tweets,

Right now, the Wikipedia Gamergate article offensively misstates Elias Isquith's portrayal of my views. Get it together, @jimmy_wales.

Seems like a pretty fair paraphrase to me, though the expression could be more elegant. No comment on whether the snippet belongs in the article per relevance, etc. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:05, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, apparently Auerbachkeller took exception to Ryulong calling what Auerbachkeller requested (paraphrase: 'please don't write on Wikipedia about me'), 'a threat' (on his page but not here) but no threat was intended, and Ryulong retracted and apologized - thus the discussion became about the discussion (as is sometimes the case) and not the about the edit. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:33, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Yea, but I read the article and don't see what Auerbach is complaining so loudly about. It looks like Anthony cole has it right. I've never edited the article, but have now read the Isquith article and do not see any kind of misrepresentation of what Isquith stated in his article. Whether Auerbach is offended by the Isquith characterization or not is between those two. There is nothing wrong with Wiki editors citing either source. Dave Dial (talk) 01:41, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yep. I am doing a bit of a topic-swerve - thanks to the broad thread title. Still. This particular bit of our article (the bit about an article about an article) is not a misstatement of Isquith's portrayal, as Auerbach claims it is. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:49, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

(ec)You can ask User:Auerbachkeller. I myself am wondering if even were Ryulong wrong about his summary of Isquith, does Aurbachkeller think it was malicious, or was it just a mistake? Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:57, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, I assume David is watching this. Perhaps he has a problem with Ryulong's "insistence" - that does seem a little umm editorial. Still, I'm not seeing offensive misstatement. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:02, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

@Auerbachkeller: and ask. He's probably not WP aware enough to check a watchlist. --DHeyward (talk) 04:19, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I did ping David. I've just read his subtle and intelligent Slate article. Isquith's characterisation of it is just stupid and doesn't deserve repeating in our article. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 12:13, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

(e/c) I'm sorry, what? You have two published writers writing on the same subject with opposing views of the issues, so the NPOV approach is to exclude one because a Wikipedia editor thinks it's stupid? Probably, we should back up with (cut-down on) all this opinionizing, but most of all Wikipedia editors' opinionizing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:25, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Just my opinion. Auerbach doesn't say what Isquith says he says. He certainly doesn't say the victims of the misogyny and psychopathy have to share the blame for the present situation. Isquith owes him an apology for that insulting straw man. I wonder if Isquith will be as quick to acknowledge his error as Ryulong was. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:45, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, just looking at it without opinionizing, it appears that Isquith writes that that's the implication of the Auerbach piece; whether you nor Auerbach are convinced by Isquith is beside the point. They are perfectly capable of pleading their rhetorical joust further if they wish to do so, and they have their platform - but that's not Wikipedia's purpose - this is not the platform for that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:33, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

(You really should reconsider lecturing people about what they can and can't say here.) Isquith: "The women bombarded with violence and abuse, the men hurling invective at anyone challenging their privilege; spurred by his unexamined need to find common ground, both, Auerbach writes, should share in the blame." --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 14:46, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

A short response is not a lecture and reading multiple policy pages, they are about what Wikipedia is and is not for. (Besides no quotes, means Isquith was not quoting) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:59, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:05, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Let me explain this to you. Here is the whole paragraph from Iquith:

That, really, is about as clear a testament to the perils of fetishizing moderation as you’re likely to get. Faced by Gamergaters on one side and SJWs on the other, Auerbach, following a pattern observers of American politics know all too well, maneuvers himself right into the middle. “In truth, we bear collective responsibility for these larger problems,” he writes. The women bombarded with violence and abuse, the men hurling invective at anyone challenging their privilege; spurred by his unexamined need to find common ground, both, Auerbach writes, should share in the blame.

Here is what he referenced in Auerbach's piece:

When Polygon editor Ben Kuchera tweets, “The legacy of the hashtag will be in its ability to prove how terribly this industry treats women,” he makes no sense. Gamergate is mostly made up of consumers, not industry members. (Developer Brianna Wu has pointed out that Gamergate is merely a symptom of a much larger problem.) Through sleight of hand, Gamergate absorbs the sins of gaming companies and media organizations. It’s a neat trick, making Gamergate a convenient target of ostracism that serves to make the rest of us feel better about ourselves and non-Gamergate elements of society. It has led to the endless flame wars that do nothing but prolong harassment, rather than solutions that would end it, in the hopes that if people scream loud enough, Gamergate will go away. In truth, we bear collective responsibility for these larger problems. Not just gaming, not just the Internet, but society itself has a sexism problem, a misogyny problem, a race problem, and a harassment problem. America is Gamergate. Start admitting that, and Gamergate starts dissolving.

The statement about "larger problems" is not referring to GamerGate at all, but to the issue of sexism and diversity in the gaming industry and culture. So the suggestion that Auerbach said women being threatened and men attacking "should both be held responsible for what Gamergate had become" is simply garbage as nothing of that nature was stated. A bigger problem exists with how Ryulong phrases it. By stating Isquith is "criticizing [Auerbach's] insistence" Ryulong is presenting what follows as though it were simply a factual statement about Auerbach's views, rather than Isquith's opinion about Auerbach's views. In that respect alone it is clearly a BLP violation.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:34, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. My sloppy reading. I've just reread them and what you say is spot on. I might run all my future comments by you for moderation, if that's OK. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 04:53, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Reasonable reading but I have two quibbles. First Isquith's wording "women bombarded with violence and abuse, men hurling invective" doesn't sound like it's meant to describe the "larger problems" that are longstanding in the "industry" or society at large despite quoting Auerbach. This seems intended for GamerGate/recent events. Second I wouldn't necessarily read "Isquith is criticizing Auerbach's insistence that..." to mean what follows is Auerbach verbatim or as he would describe himself. Likelier what follows is Isquith's reading of Auerbach, since that is the critique being laid out.

It could be much clearer. Gratefully it was removed. Reasonable people misread or disagree with your reading (Anthonyhcole here, many editors on the controversy's Talk page), and Ryulong's apology admits he can be a clumsy writer - which was the section's greater problem. That's strong evidence of good faith, which should be assumed anyway. Emarkcd (talk) 14:13, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

@Ryulong:@Auerbachkeller: Reading the original post, the use of the word "slander" and the sentence "I request that you not cite me, cite other articles about me, or otherwise write about me in the future on Wikipedia." does seem to have some superficial similarity with the wording of a "cease and desist letter" to my non-legal-expert ears. Wikipedia generally frowns upon cease and desist letters and subjects them to a "Wikipedia:No legal threats" policy. I think moving forward it is important that people can agree that either a) no cease and desist notice has actually been made, or b) the standard NLT is being followed. Meanwhile, if it is a BLP violation to suggest, incorrectly but in good faith, that someone is making a "legal threat", then we need to rename that policy and come up with a new acronym that is more sensitive to such issues. It is not practical to have a policy against "legal threats" if you can't safely raise the issue for consideration. Wnt (talk) 17:16, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually it sounds like a "Don't violate BLP policies and you are not objective enough to write about me." Inventing a legal threat out of a "Please stop dragging my name and work through the mud" is beyond the pale. There is no "or I will do X" as there is in such demand letters. It would also use the word "libel", not "slander". He also didn't have the Slate lawyer come here and make the request, he came here himself. Please don't bite the newbie while playing armchair lawyer. --DHeyward (talk) 19:45, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Then Mr. Auerbach should have spoken to Mr. Isquith rather than act just like Gamergate and bother some powerless editor on Wikipedia. His dislike of my paraphrasing of someone else' so pinion of his writing is not a BLP violation in the slightest.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:21, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Then you have no idea what a BLP violation is and you should stop writing and quoting people that puts them in a negative light. Isquith is not the issue. If you are so tone deaf that you did not see your writing as being particularly sharp, you should step away. Repeating that you think it's someone else's problem is also problematic given your "sincere and heartfelt" apology. --DHeyward (talk) 21:20, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I can only second what DHeyward is saying here. And "act just like Gamergate" is really an expression of bias unbecoming for a Wikipedia editor. If you have such strong feelings about the article, then step away and let someone else edit it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:31, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. I wanted people to shake hands and say there was no legal threat and it wasn't taken as one, not more ... this. This polarization of "GamerGate" into sides mystifies me; I feel like I'm staring at two factions of black ants fighting one another through a telescope from orbit, unable to discern how they can possibly figure out which side is which. I wish I saw people standing up for unbridled freedom of speech, but all I see on both sides are vague statements interspersed with bad ideas for action. GamerGate is nothing but a word - it's not even a limited forum like alt.tasteless, but a collection of discussions on different commercial sites, wikis, blogs, etc. And instead of treating it like that, simply listing the forums and notable publications about aspects of each without taking clear sides, Wikipedia seems stuck in this notion that everybody who ever used a word can be regarded as one entity, so that one side can make a comment about the social criticism and the other can make a comment about the harassment and they think they're talking about the same definition of the same people, when in reality they're each talking about how they imagine their particular true Scotsmen might be. Add to this simply a low level of discourse -- Wikipedia hides how low when people use and misuse policy to avoid looking directly at the primary sources they are citing, things that wouldn't be fit to post on Usenet but get reviewed at the Washington Post -- what we have makes nailing Jello to a tree look like the trivial exercise it actually is. What I know is that one small section of Video game journalism (an article which also mentions Auerbach, by the way) has far more substantive content than the Gamergate article. Whatever is going on here, all the arguments and arbitration and so forth, it's pathological. A hashtag is a hashtag, principles are principles, and these are different things. Wnt (talk) 22:16, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Just to point out, if "act like GamerGate" is an expression of bias that should be enough for Ryulong to stop editing the article, then DHeyward's "5 guys burger and fries" comment on this page a few days ago against Ryulong and others, a clear reference to the "5 guys" slander and misogyny about Zoe Quinn that started GamerGate should be considered the same or worse. I'm not sure why Ryulong should be informally topic-banned for being biased towards one side while DHeyward gets to snidely imply that he slept with Quinn in exchange for working on the article, or User:Loganmac can make 100+ threads in the GamerGate Reddit forum about Ryulong's actions on-wiki and in his twitter, without any noise made about it. I don't think anyone's going to be able to step back from the article and let these mystery other people work on it until either the whole thing dies down or Arbcom topicbans half/most of the editors to the page. --Pres N 22:27, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

You are correct. I wrote that when another editor brought off-wiki trash about me regarding GG to on-wiki and then was complaining about "5 horseman" and I flipped it to what you referenced above. I apologize and have removed the reference. It was unnecessary. --DHeyward (talk) 22:57, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I can say he acted like Gamergate did because rather than focusing his attention on a named person with power he decided I was the reason for his ills because my name is bandied about in the Gamergate communities as the source of their ills when it comes to Wikipedia. I wrote something that got edited and changed by someone else into something he found fault with but because I was the original author of the paragraph I'm the one who needs to be banned. I'm the one who apparently has a conflict with him. It's ridiculous.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:20, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Don't worry Ryulong. The admins seem to have decided it was my fault, so I'll be taking my leave from Wikipedia. You can, it would seem, say whatever you want about me, true or false, even though I wish you wouldn't. Bye. Auerbachkeller (talk) 23:52, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. This is also not what I wanted. We shouldn't have to choose one editor or the other, just as we shouldn't be deciding which side of a controversy is "fringe" and shouldn't be covered thoroughly. In writing an encyclopedia, when somebody wins, generally everybody loses. Wnt (talk) 00:03, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I have people tweeting my name at Adam Baldwin. Please handle this before he comes to yell at me, too.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:41, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

You keep giving WP a blackeye and blame on the outside. Hint: this is an internal problem, not external. --DHeyward (talk) 03:56, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

If the subject is a dispute of the events and you are conclusive, guess what, that's a fine example of bias, even if you didn't want it to be, cheers, ~ R.T.G 16:39, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Do Away with RFC/U

This is a heads up for all those who lurk here. For better or worse there is a proposal to "Do Away with RFC/U" at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) with such strong support that it was snow closed for a short time. -- PBS (talk) 13:04, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

On seeing this and reviewing the various threads at VP I was prompted to open a thread about the ancient proposal of WP:OM. Please consider that thread if the RFC/U issue is of interest to you. I know I've wondered where the ombudsman is, and that is why I know it exists. And I shouldn't post here without acknowledging the instigator of this mighty place for their ongoing dedication to being reasonable and knowing how best to keep it on the tracks. ~ R.T.G 16:38, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

The original purpose of the Request for Comments on User Conduct appears to have been to request that the owner of this talk page, User:Jimbo Wales, use his power to ban a user. Before the establishment of the ArbCom, he frequently used that power. He has not used that reserved power in years. Robert McClenon (talk) 03:49, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Experts on Wikipedia

What-wikipedia-taught-me-about-my-grandfather. Interesting read. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:43, 18 November 2014 (UTC) Fixed link. Carrite (talk) 16:47, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Turkish Wikipedia

Hi Jimbo Wales, these we're discussing. Introduction to some substance in the Turkish Wikipedia URLs are blocked out. It is believed that in Turkey, the government agency responsible for the internet makes. Protest purpose, we think you should block access for 24 hours. Do you need to make a vote in Meta? Good wikis. Uğurkent (talk) 17:21, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

some sorta "cha-cha-chinging" not necessarily bad?

just read Walter Isaacson's new tome (your pic is second-to-last on its 6-page-long, just-before-the-book's-"Introduction" Timeline, by the way; the last picture is of IBM's mega-computer Watson competing on the set of Jeopardy!: but, alas, the relevant chapter notes that Watson's database includes the entire contents of Wikipedia!) and am thinking that, for an ability to really leverage wikipedia's strengths, there should be some means of generating a (non-profit-dedicated) revenue stream thru some means of micro(??) payments? i dunno, all commercial users - IBM's, etc., perhaps? - could be charged, according to some means of calibrating their use? just thinkin'.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 19:05, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I think Hodgdon is probably right. Consider that Wikipedia might be worth about 4 billion Euros if it accepted ads. [29] Not to mention we wouldn't have to run those "Personal appeal" ads anymore. Everymorning talk to me 00:59, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
Nevertheless, it should be noted that, in 2008, Mr. Wales said that "While I continue to oppose the introduction of any advertising in Wikipedia, I also continue to agree that the discussion should evolve beyond a simple binary." See here. Everymorning talk to me 01:03, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
It should also be noted that such a move would lose many of the remaining dedicated editors and other contributors to Wikimedia projects, who are willing to do what we do here in part because we trust our work will not be prostituted. --Orange Mike | Talk 02:08, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

If the proposal above contains something along the lines of requesting that any paid editors or other editors with a clear COI, like perhaps being employees of the firm, be perhaps charged for the privilege of editing in the field of their COI, I guess I could see that being acceptable. Preferably the charge would be rather minimal, and perhaps only billed in situations where, for instance, pending changes made by the COI editor are approved by an independent editor. There would have to be some sort of rather serious oversight to ensure that the companies involved don't try to sneak in covert editors, and that might make the whole idea unworkable, I don't know, but it also might, maybe, help bring some of our content related to various commercial entities and pursuits better than it is now. I regret to say that so far as I can tell a lot of our roughly "commercial"-related articles are much worse than they could be. John Carter (talk) 02:16, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

What part of FREE are you people not understanding? Is it the F, the R, or the E? This is beating a dead horse and has been discussed and debated and proposed and shot down for YEARS. Don't start it up again. Nyth83 (talk) 04:33, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Yup. I am willing to donate my time to a free/non-profit encyclopedia. The day Wikipedia accepts paid ads is the day a retirement banner goes up on my user page. Reso lute 14:22, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Of course our work is used by Facebook, Google, Amazon and the likes of Books LLC to make money. The same thing happened with CDDB, the work I and thousands of others put into it is enriching Sony and Apple. And the quality of the data has gone down. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:50, 19 November 2014 (UTC).

This is a truly bad idea.
- 1st - we don't need the money. You'll see a couple of banner ads per year and can dismiss them immediately. So it costs you nothing beyond 2 seconds of your attention per year if you don't want to donate. And the ad campaigns raise ~$50 million over a couple of weeks.
- 2nd - It goes against the basic principle that essentially everything on Wikipedia should be completely free (beyond attribution) for anybody to use. Figuring out who needs to pay what and charging it would ultimately limit distribution (even if it's only to folks who mistakenly believe that they would be charged, but don't read the long forms needed to decide who pays), and would cost millions for monitoring, billing, legal, etc. i.e. running the meters.
- 3rd - it would ultimately give the payers some leverage on the WMF and drive away small donors and editors who donate their time.

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:45, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I remember this discussion around the time of Mozilla and CERN. There was great gnashing of teeth when ".com"s created a presence that conducted business (a la Amazon et al). The doomsayers were concerned at the time that bandwidth would be clogged (keep in mind it bbb and 14.4k modems). Meanwhile, a strong overlap of those opposed to commercialization were also for file sharing (i.e. music rippers). It turned out that it was the exact opposite: commercialization spurred bandwidth, file sharers sucked it up with no added value. Wikipedia can commercialize itself while at the same time improving the encyclopedia. There are other ways than ads to do it as well. Referrer clicks is one way that would be transparent. We have lots of articles with external links. We should seriously look at the "Fark.com" model and see how they generate revenue from that. --DHeyward (talk) 19:23, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

There is a way for editors to be paid, but it requires one to search for, establish, and uphold ideals as high-minded as those represented in the founding of Wikipedia itself. I have heard the social criticism that Big Data enriches those who own the biggest computers, and the hapless and hopeless suggestion that all the little people who contribute that data ought to be able to collect some sort of micro-payments. But this is an inverse and roundabout way of thinking. What we should do is look deeply into what money is (cf. digital currency), why big computers generate it, and whether a "libertarian" philosophy should really favor the idea that all the things that humanity never created, like land and minerals and gene sequences, are owned by a few people and that degrading their instruments of control constitutes an affront against "liberty". In short, it is time to look beyond the false duality of capitalism and communism to older movements like the Single Taxers, Christianity, even the trade unionism implicit in the Exodus. When at last we see clear a way, based on the provenance of the resources to make them, that the cornucopia of goods produced by machines and technology are by right, yea, by entitlement, for the most part the common property of mankind rather than the carrots and sticks of the wealthy, then every Wikipedia volunteer will be amply compensated, as will all the other unsung heroes of the world who toil humbly in ways that bean counters cannot properly measure. Wnt (talk) 19:15, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Extended qt. (or, "Shameless bk- (just read) plug"?) - 7 Oct Time mag Link: W. Isaacson's "How Bitcoin Could Save Journalism and the Arts" (hed): Micropayment systems have the potential to reward creativity and exceptional content-—on a realistic scale" (dek)

The rise of Bitcoin, the digital cryptocurrency, has resurrected the hope of facilitating easy micropayments for content online. “Using Bitcoin micropayments to allow for payment of a penny or a few cents to read articles on websites enables reasonable compensation of authors without depending totally on the advertising model,” writes Sandy Ressler in Bitcoin Magazine.
This could lead to a whole new era of creativity, just like the economy that was launched 400 years ago by the Statute of Anne, which gave people who wrote books, plays or songs the right to make a royalty when they were copied. An easy micropayment system would permit today’s content creators, from major media companies to basement bloggers, to be able to sell digital copies of their articles, songs, games, and art by the piece. In addition to allowing them to pay the rent, it would have the worthy benefit of encouraging people to produce content valued by users rather than merely seek to aggregate eyeballs for advertisers.
This is something I advocated in a 2009 cover story for Time about ways to save journalism. “The key to attracting online revenue, I think, is to come up with an iTunes-easy method of micropayment,” I wrote. “We need something like digital coins or an E-ZPass digital wallet–a one-click system with a really simple interface that will permit impulse purchases of a newspaper, magazine, article, blog or video for a penny, nickel, dime or whatever the creator chooses to charge.”
That was not technically feasible back then. But Bitcoin has now spawned services such as ChangeTip, BitWall, BitPay and Coinbase that enable small payments to be made simply, with minimal mental friction or transaction costs. Unlike clunky PayPal, impulse purchases can be made without a pause or leaving a trace.
When reporting my new book, The Innovators, I discovered that most pioneers of the Web believed in enabling micropayments. In the mid-1960s, Ted Nelson coined the term hypertext and envisioned a web with two-way links, which would require the approval of the person whose page was being linked to.
Had Nelson’s system prevailed, it would have been possible for small payments to accrue to those who produced the content. The entire business of journalism and blogging would have turned out differently. Instead the Web became a realm where aggregators could make more money than content producers.
Tim Berners-Lee, the English computer engineer who created the protocols of the Web in the early 1990s, considered including some form of rights management and payments. But he realized that would have required central coordination and made it hard for the Web to spread wildly. So he rejected the idea.
As the Web was taking off in 1994, I was the editor of new media for Time Inc. Initially we were paid by the dial-up online services, such as AOL and CompuServe, to supply content, market their services, and moderate bulletin boards that built up communities of members.
When the open Internet became an alternative to these proprietary online services, it seemed to offer an opportunity to take control of our own destiny and subscribers. Initially we planned to charge a small fee or subscription, but ad agencies were so enthralled by the new medium that they flocked to buy the banner ads we had developed for our sites. Thus we decided to make our content free and build audiences for advertisers.
It turned out not to be a sustainable business model. It was also not healthy; it encouraged clickbait rather than stories that were so valuable that readers would pay for them. Consumers were conditioned to believe that content should be free. It took two decades to put that genie back in the bottle.
In the late 1990s, Berners-Lee tried to create new Web protocols that could embed on a page the information needed to handle a small payment, which would allow electronic wallet services to be created by banks or entrepreneurs. It was never implemented, partly because of the complexity of banking regulations. He revived the effort in 2013. “We are looking at micropayment protocols again,” he said. “The ability to pay for a good article or song could support more people who write things or make music.”
These micropayment protocols still have not been written. But Bitcoin may be making that unnecessary. One of the greatest advocates of using Bitcoin for micropayments is the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who as a student at the University of Illinois in 1993 created the first popular Web browser, Mosaic.
Originally, Andreessen had hoped to put a digital currency into his browser. “When we started, the first thing we tried to do was enable small payments to people who posted content,” he explained. “But we didn’t have the resources to implement that. The credit card systems and banking system made it impossible. It was so painful to deal with those guys. It was cosmically painful.”
Now Andreessen has become a major investor in companies that are creating Bitcoin transaction systems. “If I had a time machine and could go back to 1993, one thing I’d do for sure would be to build in Bitcoin or some similar form of cryptocurrency.”
--Walter Isaacson

This is still a scheme to make people pay for content; with ads they pay in eyeballs, while here they would pay in "small" amounts of money. (But if it is small enough that people don't care, how is it enough to matter?) Somehow you collect a few pennies for your blog; in exchange you take on the burden of being identified when you pick up the payment (no way is it really anonymous; Bitcoins aren't really, nor are they all that secure - see Silk Road (marketplace)), the potential to be accused of "commercial" piracy, libel, etc., less protection for your Fair Use, can't use CC-by-NC content, etc. Meanwhile you pay out many dollars to the most read sites instead of getting the content free, which is not what I think of as a utopia. And the problem of clickbait is no different than ever --- if a silent micropayment 'conveniently' processes every time you open a news article, then the same incentives apply. But the worst for those of us who pursue content voraciously is that this is essentially an outright ban on skimming. You can't just plow through links throwing aside the Associated Press spam trying to find the few handful of real articles that actually cite their primary sources rather than playing keep-away with the data. Not unless you have money to burn.

Now there is be a way to arrange micro-payment that works, and would ensure adequate levels of market driven compensation for content creators. In exchange for abolition of all copyright and allied IP restrictions, people would be required to donate an amount that is proportional to their income tax to any independent arts funding organizations they choose. These organizations would then select writers, artists, programmers etc. to fund. (A person could also select recipients directly, bypassing the organization, but the total percentage given to any one recipient that would count toward the required amount needs to be very limited to avoid obvious quid pro quo schemes) Yes, such a scheme can be clumsy, somewhat resembling the current scheme for public funding of basic research, but frankly I don't feel the freedom vibe from the current system of copyright censorship, contracts for performers that resemble indentured servitude, and the arbitrary and utterly unpredictable outcomes of lawsuits that decide which company becomes a Google and which becomes an Aereo. Wnt (talk) 00:36, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

DangerousPanda arbitation request opened

You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration and have not been listed as a party. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/DangerousPanda. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/DangerousPanda/Evidence. Please add your evidence by 3 December 2014, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/DangerousPanda/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 12:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC). Message delivered by MediaWiki message delivery

Homophobia in the Ukrainian Wikipedia!!!

Hello. I'm open gay Wikipedian from Ukraine. I want to report a homophobic activities of some administrators and patrol Ukrainian Wikipedia. Present direct and indirect discrimination. Related articles LGBT renamed, removed or changed beyond recognition and biased their content. LGBT friendly accused of "advocating LGBT"! There is even an article on a similar topic that is unique only in the Russian Wikipedia and is unrelated to common sense and the rules of Wikipedia[30]. Wikipedia Wikipedia, homophobes administrators and patrol called a "collection of information" and promote "non-traditional values." Homosexuality Article in Ukrainian Wikipedia entitled "homosexualist[31]." And Article hey do not have any relation to the topic of the article. There napsyano of MSM and that gays - spread the AIDS disease. User A1 promotes orthodox attitudes to homosexuality and phaye information on how it relates to LGBT church in the paper, which is irrelevant[32]. The new administrator Green Zero[33] has deleted many categories and articles on LGBT issues. particular category of gay writers. Me and other LGBT participants repeatedly verbally humiliated publicly. Addiction is especially thorough and biased. Although we attempt to write quality articles as possible and have contributed enough respect. That our existence they and other homophobes recognized as "LGBT propaganda." I and other LGBT Wikipedian very simple somehow affect this entire situation because this is unacceptable - it bullinh and in direct violation of not only LGBT rights in Ukraine but also the rules of Wikipedia! Thank you! Please help! --Rayan Riener (talk) 21:03, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

@Rayan Riener: Bystander here. I have added a POV template to the first article you linked to. Although I do not speak your language, Google Translate shows that the article is not very neutral. Could someone who speaks Ukrainian read the linked pages and tell us about them? --Tony Tan⁹⁸ · talk 03:40, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Another bystander here with no opinion about content. The title of the first article is "Homosexual Propaganda" [34] so it's reasonable to expect that there would be non neutral information there. There's a different article called "Homosexuality" [35] that seems a lot more reasonable to me at first glance. If this is a content dispute, has it been addressed on the article talk page? I know the language, but maybe not as well as a native speaker. This example [36] is a proposal to rename the article. The title is not ""homosexualist" like is being claimed. The proposal is to rename the article from "Societal attitudes toward homosexualism" to "Societal attitudes toward homosexuality." The discussion on the proposal talks about how the words related to homosexuality are not native to the Ukrainian language. All versions of the word are adaptations of English. So the discussion is about what's the right word to use "homosexuality" or "homosexualism."

According to the user page, User:Rayan Riener claims to know Ukrainian, so my question is why are they not on the Ukrainian WP addressing this on the talk page there? What is being claimed in this English request is not reflected on the article. "There is even an article on a similar topic that is unique only in the Russian Wikipedia" --- I see the same article in Russian, Ukrainian and Polish, and they're not recent, they've been there for years. I don't know if Rayan Riener is fluent in English, but this request makes no sense to me. USchick (talk) 04:52, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Could it be that User:Rayan Riener does not understand English well and wrote the above post with the help of a machine translation? The user, "Green Zero" (admin), mentioned does seem to have replaced some instances of "homosexual" with "gay:" here, but I cannot make a judgement as I cannot understand the language without the help of Google Translate. However, that action was eventually reverted by another editor. Just out of curiosity, are there any articles named "Homosexual Propaganda" in other wikis besides what you mentioned? I know that on enwiki, it redirects to a more neutral section on Societal attitudes toward homosexuality. --Tony Tan⁹⁸ · talk 05:09, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Based on their edit history, it's very possible that User:Rayan Riener has a very limited proficiency in English and contributes with assistance, electronic for very simple things, and a secretary for more complicated things like this request. Their user page is written in third person, like a famous person's profile. If they contribute in other languages, their profile is not linked to their English profile, and being from a region not friendly to their needs, there may be a good reason for this, so I'm assuming good faith. As far as I can tell, Rayan Riener is unhappy with the actions of admins on Ukrainian Wikipedia. It's hard to tell what those actions are, because we don't know his identity there, so I can't track the actual edits. Rayan Riener doesn't have a talk page, and even if he did, I'm not sure he would be able to use it, but it's worth a try if someone wants to do that. As far as "Homosexual propaganda" article, it exists in Russian, Ukrainian and Polish. The title reflect the actual term used in other languages and in parliament to write laws for several countries including Latvia. If they're legislating "Homosexual propaganda" people need to know what it means. In the lede it does a good job of explaining what the term means to both sides, those who do and do not support the idea of homosexuality. And it's written in a neutral tone. Both Russian and Ukrainian articles seem fine in the lede. I can't speak for Polish. In the Russian version, it even explains that "propaganda" is not used in the traditional sense, that it's a combined term. Yes, that's correct. It's a combination of two words that means something different than each word individually. In English "Homosexual propaganda" means something totally different, that's why it redirects. An example of a combined term in English would be "pretty cool" where each word separately means something different. It's also possible that Rayan Riener only speaks English, which would explain his outrage. USchick (talk) 07:24, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Rayan Riener I have to edit here as an IP because I am community banned here on English Wikipedia. But let me address some of the issues you have raised here. For the record, I am queer myself. :)

I have discussed the issues you raised above with some editors from Ukrainian Wikipedia, and in no particular order, the following needs to be raised:

A checkuser on Ukrainian Wikipedia found that you have been "abusing" multiple accounts. In addition to your Rayan account, you also were using uk:User:Kvitka Cvit. Whilst this in itself is not a problem if you are creating content, like I have, where you ran into trouble is.....
at this category discussion.
on Wikipedia, we don't tend separate "gay" or "lesbian" from "LGBT" topics. Simply put, human sexuality is a complex subject and LGBT covers-all.
many of the comments in that discussion from uk:Користувач:A1 are, I agree, totally unacceptable. Being a board member of Wikimedia Ukraine, A1 should take stock of what they have said there and think whether some of their comments were appropriate (they are not!), and perhaps Wikimedia Ukraine members should think whether his comments truly are representative of Wikimedia projects.
the articles you mention which were deleted, there are several issues:
1. This was deleted for being a copyvio of this.
2. This was deleted for not being notable. It is available here and it simply isn't notable.
3. Likewise this was deleted for similar reasons. It is apparently a yaoi manga by uk:Камо_Набако, whom himself does not appear to be notable.
4. There were several other deletions of non-notable garage bands and the like.
5. There were also several machine translations of articles. Don't use machine translations on articles, do natural translations.
Apparently you sent invites to over 100 editors on Ukrainian Wikipedia inviting them to join an LGBT WikiProject. Whilst a project for LGBT subjects would be an excellent idea, it's apparent that posted invites to random editors, many of whom have not shown an interest in editing those subjects. Targeted invites to editors whom had shown interest in those subjects would have been a better idea.

On the general issue of so-called gay propaganda, I can attest that uk:Пропаганда гомосексуалізму is an absolutely horrific article. We need to remember that Wikipedia is the sum-of-all human knowledge, not just the sum of all Ukrainian knowledge, or Russian knowledge, or American knowledge. It is similar to Gay agenda here on this project, in that it does not present a worldwide view of the subject, and yes, all of these articles could do with a lot of work. Just be sure to aim for neutrality when editing and cover all points of view from a worldwide viewpoint. Good luck. 175.106.47.131 (talk) 10:53, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps I should add that uk:Користувач:A1's views on this matter do not represent WMUA's position in any way. I, also being member of the board of WMUA, was actually opposing him in one of the discussions. Sincerely, Yury Bulka (talk) 15:44, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

@175.106.47.131:@Russavia: This is off topic, but I see that you are a sysop on Commons, so out of curiosity, I would like to ask why you were banned here? It seems strange. Thanks, Tony Tan⁹⁸ · talk 21:54, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

@Tony Tan 98: Extensive block log here. Looks like harassment, edit warring, various other things. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 22:29, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! What is not neutral? What section? --Rayan Riener (talk) 07:56, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
Hi, @175.106.47.131:. So, before I had a lot of mistakes. But that was before. I consider myself a beginner and trying to improve my skills, and I think that happens. Ryan Riener account I lost, forgotten password in 2012. Flower Blossom account created in 2013 and used it about a year. But clinging homophobes and removed all the articles on LGBT topics that I translated from English Wikipedia. So I created a new account that I did not touch many months was it. Then, to regain its original account. Of course, I had problems with the creation of articles at the beginning. But now everything is quite different. Everything else, except one - the same homophobia. --Rayan Riener (talk) 08:20, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

In 1991, according to WHO recommendations, Ukraine was the first former Soviet republic abolished criminal penalties for voluntary sexual relations between adult men (Article 122, part 1 of the Criminal Code of the USSR).

The word "homosexualizm" is used right-wing nationalists, Svoboda or Right Sector (!) Or other parties that support Russia. But rights or Latvia or Ukraine - It does not enshrined in any law (!) A major Ukrainian parties like the "Popular Front" or "Block Petro Poroshenko" (including all coalition representing the majority of the Ukrainian people) call against homophobia, and also promised to introduce legislation on combating discrimination LGBT in Ukraine. --Rayan Riener (talk) 08:45, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I'll try to add my 5c to help others (as well as Rayan Riener) better understand the situation.
- First of all, it's true that Ukrainian society is not the most gay-friendly one: sociologically according to the recent poll only 4.6% support same-sex marriages. On the other hand, I have absolutely no idea what Right Sector has to do with it: while this party is widely used by Russian propaganda, it does not have any notable pro- or anti-LGBT-related activity. I haven't seen anything either about pro- or anti-LGBT activities of major nationwide parties, thus I have no idea how this is relevant to the case. At the same time, unfortunately there is a problem of users who make untolerant statements, A1 unfortunately being one of them. However, I hope such statements are not representatives of Ukrainian wiki community.
- What is true that most mainstream Ukrainian sources currently use the term гомосексуалізм, while LGBT-community prefers гомосексуальність to represent homosexuality. I don't see any bias here as well: the term гомосексуалізм is also used by neutral news or scientific sources. It's not up to Wikipedia to change terminology, it's up to WP:SOURCEs to change first. There is no difference between the word homosexuality or any other term here: Wikipedia uses the term used in sources, whether you like it or not.
- However, the main issue for Rayan Riener was not that he is an open gay, but his contributions and behaviour. I don't remember any problems with his contributions until he started actively breaching rules, and community largely ignored the fact he was an open gay. However, problems started after creation of 5 sockpuppets (uk:Вікіпедія:Запити на перевірку користувачів#Прохання про перевірку) with some small contributions to articles and active participation in discussions. Raising an LGBT-related issue in a discussion and promoting your point of view from 5 different accounts is definitely not the best way to do it: constructive, neutral and well-grounded arguments are much better way yo do it. On the other hand, vandalising articles by users who made anti-LGBT statements is not a good way to deal with the problem either. Similarly, contributing to the article on same-sax marriages with text that some people in Ukraine want to destroy the LGBT-community is far from NPOV: such texts are definitely non-neutral and in addition irrelevant. At the same time, the previous version of the article (before contributions from one of Rayan's accounts) was much closer to NPOV as it did not contain any comments on the situation, neither pro-LGBT nor anti-LGBT
- Another point that was very negatively viewed by Ukrainian community was spamming talk pages over 250 invitations to WikiProject LGBT. I used the word spamming because most invitations were sent to people having absolutely no interest in the topic. In particular, most users having template User Against Homophobia received no invitations, while users identifying themselves as deeply religious did receive an invitation. An obvious reaction of many people who were never interested in LGBT was reverting the invitation, sometimes with unfriendly comments.
- Finally, there was a problem related to use of sources. While LGBT-community finds that the fact that a person is a gay is very important, that is not true of other users and readers. The fact that a person is a gay might be worth mentioning in the article, but definitely not as a main (in the introduction) or the only fact, except if the person is primarily known for LGBT-activities. In addition, such facts must be well-sourced. For example, it is incorrect to write that Walt Whitman or Yukio Mishima were gays given the disagreement among biographers and lack of clear evidence, while discussions on sexuality are worth mentioning in the article. In the same way, Michael Cunningham should not be called a gay writer without mentioning that he refuses this indication. This is extremely important for living people where one should carefully use sources. In the same way, edits with sole contributions being adding the fact that a person is gay without any source, are badly viewed by the community.
- To sum up, this whole story shows that the problem is not about homophobia — it is mostly due to very poor image most contributors now have of the WikiProject LGBT because of repeated breach of rules, including sockpuppetry, vandalism, spam and POV-pushing. I think that constructive contributions, as well as neutral, well-sourced and non-biased articles about LGBT-topics would be much better received by the community, as well as meaningful (and not emotional) arguments in sensible discussions. Most of these homophobia-related stories could have been avoided if articles were well-written and well-sourced, as neutral articles on what a person dislikes are less chances to receive a bad reaction than non-neutral articles on the same issues. I do hope that Rayan Riener and others will try to keep their contributions as neutral and well-sourced as possible as well as follow rules and guidelines, and this will make the situation much less heated — NickK (talk) 18:27, 16 November 2014 (UTC)
  - Disagree. Until I pchoav working on LGBT and in particular Articles LGBT project, REAL pressynh I experienced. There is discussion of homophobia and not me as a person. As I tsoum in question supports almost all LGBT Wikipedian who are afraid to write about it openly. All project participants complain about homophobia. When they removed the article only Sawm teum or written there that does not apply to articles. Right Sector consists of many organizations, including organizations "Trident". During Euromaidan, and I was in. I had nowhere to stay, because in my city mayor threatened me as "Titushky." But in the same tent, where I stayed, was "trident". They began Torment, was over the fact that I picked up things as they planned physical punishment, I told the other activists. I was forced to go live in the hostel without food or as to the Navier Street. I could not even go to the area because they threatened me. They always smoked prymyaly drugs and had sex with girls in the tent, in the city center (!) And then you ubdete to me that the right sector and all its participants is okay, and the use of terms extrinsic civilized right ?! I am for all the years of Wikipedia is constantly trying to improve their articles, but almost always had to learn all over himself, because the plot Ukrainian Wikipedia is not to rule "delete last resort", and such as A1 users that do not interest the article by rules and "Society and homosexuality, "we are almost sure renamed, despite the many voices and arguments against. Argument user A1, which clearly confirms bias and inadequacy and failure criterion removal of articles: "Category is homophobic and violate the rights homikiv. Take a good look at its contents. There Article 4 - Gay Bar, Gay Games, gay pride LGBT rights in Ukraine. The author of this category might think that all this passed into history? So it is not. And gay bars and gay games and gay pride parades in bloom and smell. This is not a story, it is a reality. How can you write off our rainbow reality in history? It's homophobia!"ЛГБТ The venerable user Brunei commented on this: "Even there is no desire to vote. Gross violation of rules. Plus the constant generation of conflict on level ground. I understand that Mr difficult days, but all of us is not easy. Suggest send it to rest for a week or another." And now the user A1 with his friend Green Zero znvou took up his. Not only is the article Homosexuality, is evident from the discussion, have long had to be renamed to international standards and Ukrainian, because all terms have long been included, they ATK pryynyalysya distribute the radyanskyy dates and other items. Or psyaty danger of MSM in such articles as Gay and others. His invitation I did the first time. And nowhere spelled out, considered spam and what is not in the rules ni. Tsoho wiki. Instead, "spamlyat" invitation anyone wiki. And on user behavior Jphwra, who called me "idiot". Violated writing my articles or improvements when working with template "writing", and at the same time put Nav ydalennya more than 10 articles, some of which are not even informed about the real authors. Matthew Shepard Naprkylad article! He was motivated by the fact that the bar is red link! Although his articles have a lot of those who do not meet the criteria of significance at all. The article he argued removal as "the importance of the project?" The article as Hardkiss, it is not surprising that thought put to delete article Kazaky. All my complaints to administrators simply wiped out, although yatam explain the behavior of all the people who cry out to me althoughbe blocked by something. The same is arbitrariness in the Russian Wikipedia. Curator LGBT blocked by some trifle, like most LGBT contributors. Although they were good Wikipedian. And regarding rights sektour and freedom - these marginalized - in nyhu political agenda spelled "fight antimoral Western propaganda" in one form or another. These parties are the same as the marginal pro and recently the same strength or their followers burned historic Kyiv cinema "October" and then blocked another theater, where he was to appear LGBT film. Do not lie, I'm writing here is not about homophobia, as Western people see everything very clearly. What I chose not to remain silent, others, and say - that's the difference. And so all of a school, and just as Wikipedia. Ukrainian Vikipediyinichym no different from the Ukrainian society, and now - and in general - supports rhetoric rightwing groups and religious organizations. I never their faith no imposed when homophobes active Wikipedian-in cap put articles on LGBT deprived neitralnosti rants about "traditional tsinnnosti."

Homophobia - that's what I wanted to tell. And my mistakes, nothing to do. On my page in Ukrainian by Wikipedia (at the end) is the link to my contribution and everyone can tell whether it is "homophobic propaganda" or so terrible to say that I have really bad Wikipedian what a pity that yevandalom (to quote Mr. Green Zero). The only difference is that I'm the only one who dared to write about it at the risk of their articles. Others wrote to me in private messages and support because they are afraid to say it out loud because of their contribution to do the same as with me, or block. In the words of Mr. A1 - "Wikipedia is censorship." I do not know in English, but in Ukrainian, censorship is a small range of users that are administrators and patrol and abuse their powers for LGBT discrimination. A fault for all comers, the EU's my article on the blog (Ukrainian)[37].

Hikaru cite comment regarding renaming: First or "homosexuality" or "homosexuality" is not a native words in Ukrainian language. The term "homosexuality" moved to the Ukrainian language in English at a time when it is mistakenly considered a disease and then in our totalitarian country punishable by imprisonment. Now the disease is not considered either in the world or in Ukraine, why we have to use outdated erroneous terms of foreign origin that have been imposed by the then government? Second suffixes -ism and -ist in Ukrainian language (as in Russian, Belarusian) denote 1. deliberately chosen ideology (fascism, feminism, communism) 2. artistic directions (romanticism, classicism) 3. The concept of language properties (neologism phraseologism). Scientifically proven that homosexuality - it's not a conscious choice. Third term "homosexuality" is not scientifically justified and violates the uniformity of language - "homo" is a prefix, like "heterogeneous", "bi-", "trans" with all of these words used "sexy" (the difference in these words but their meaning). In addition to the examples of "fascism", "feminism", "communism" we use the adjective "feminist", "communist", "fascist". Did anyone says Ukrainian "homoseksualistychnyy" or "homoseksualistskyy"? And finally the whole world believes the term "homosexuality" is not politically correct, and the LGBT community does not use it for self (while homophobic and homophobic organizations deliberately use the term "homosexuality" for humiliation and contempt for LGBT demonstrations). So what is used in the Ukrainian Wikipedia is a word that violates the Ukrainian language is considered derogatory, not scientifically justified, and has a number of other contradictions? Just because it is not we imposed our elected government 70 years ago? The word "homosexuality" all of the above issues and controversies denied. Definitely against.

That discussion renaming dstatno even a simple translation to understand what is happening:[38] [39]. Numerous voices and arguments ignored. And do the same by users who have power and use it against LGBT people, as it was deleting the category "Writers gay"

Even if all this does not help, English-speaking people need to know that information about LGBT people in Ukraine deliberately distorted, and instead of consensus homophobes use their powers everywhere to LGBT travyly the streets, burning theater, attacked gay clubs, or shot, both the NPT; What Should Wikipedia? Neitralno inform people about all significant phenomena that occur in life, or cause a wide range of readers hated minority? Excuse me, is a kind of hell and nowhere to turn... --Rayan Riener (talk) 00:58, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Google translate is not, of course, the best way to express your point of view. It is not the best way to understand your opponent's either. You wrote in the beginning: "Absolutely agree." But according to what you wrote next, you didn't quite understand what Nickk meant. IMHO, even if he wrote it in Ukrainian - you wouldn't either. Because you don't want to.

As for me, I am not homophobic. I didn't take part in any of those discussions that all of you mention above. But I am against ANY propaganda, especially in Wikipedia articles. So, @Rayan Riener: Learn what is neutrality in Wikipedia and start to make contributions according to it. Stop being so emotional and biased about the topics you work upon - and in a while you'll see that there's no real homophobia addressed against you or your contributions (of course it will exist among users as any other POVs do, but it'll simply become irrelevant). You do this - the problem vanishes. Why do I think so? Because if I suddenly started working upon articles like those you do - no one would be able to reasonably accuse me in being prejudiced.-- Piramid ion 21:33, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Woe translation... But I repeat. I speak for all LGBT wikipedians who are intimidated and overwhelmed. They agree with everything I say. Regarding quality I've written - something that is critical of me for some reason does not apply to all others. Fault-finding, provocation, violation neitralnosti to promote hatred towards LGBT people. Subsequently, the appeal will be submitted in relation to this, writing that would not be me, but which I will sign and including all. --Rayan Riener (talk) 23:49, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Note: Someone mentioned an article called "homosexual propaganda" on the Russian WP. Russia has a law about "homosexual propaganda" which has sparked much controversy and outrage, to say the least. it is not surprising that there be an article about it. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:17, 18 November 2014 (UTC).

I know little about Ukraine or Russia, but I would ask whether a broader focus on documenting human rights could be useful. Though perhaps in ignorance, I feel like the West failed in Russia because they never truly legalized freedom of religion: both Catholicism in Russia and Protestantism in Russia speak of severe legal obstructions that have kept such faiths almost unknown, while a servile Russian Orthodox Church finds a politically safe common ground in stirring up anti-gay prejudice rather than exploring deeper principle and genuine social awareness. A Christian moved by genuine faith, working independently of government and social approval - even if misled by anti-gay doctrine - should eventually do better than this out of the desire to do good. I would like to see work done on our English articles on human rights in Ukraine, such as Baptists in Ukraine, with a statement that despite the 1996 constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, "However, as a minority and non-traditional religion the Baptists have been subject to persecution and discrimination, including being arrested." -- with a citation needed annotation placed in 2010! If people who speak Ukrainian can document contemporary religious freedom issues and the range of religious organizations available in Ukraine from local sources, and if we can get some translators lined up to keep the lines of communication open, we could improve both Wikipedias, and show why Ukraine is a nation worthy of respect in the world, and plot the path that Russia needs to take so that religious doctrine can become something other than a convenience for politically expedient bullying. Wnt (talk) 15:31, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Let me begin by saying that I feel for the plight of Russian and Ukrainian people the same way that I feel for the plight of women in the Arab world. Yes, it's bad and inhumane. On the other hand, does a country not have the right to govern itself? The idea that "the West failed in Russia because they never truly legalized freedom of religion" is not the West's business if that's how a country wants to establish itself. To use an example from the West, the US failed to establish a national language, and as a result, Spanish is used in a lot of places to the point where an English speaker can't function in those places. So what? Is this a failure of the East? Did the East fail in its commitment to the West? The Russian empire managed their own affairs for many years before the Internet and before the West got involved. Why is the West getting involved now? People in Russia and everywhere else are capable of making their own decisions about where they want to live and how they want to be governed. Let's respect that. USchick (talk) 18:39, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

(e-c)No, a nation-state does not have the right to govern itself in a manner that denigrates its own people. This has been established in international law. There seems to be a school of thought out there (some times classified as "liberal" when it is not even close) that says everyone has a right to their own opinion, all thoughts are equal, every one gets to play. Bullshit. No, we don't have to "respect" their differences, its not like "oh, how cute, they drive on the left side of the road", they are wrong and doing wrong things to their people. I'm not saying the USA is perfect, always right, or in any such manner a special experiment that is a "light unto the nations" or "city upon a hill", and I certainly don't subscribe to the conservative belief of American exceptionalism, codified in many text books (especially in the South). But when it comes to fundamental human rights there is a right, there is a wrong; for the most part we now have it right though Ferguson MO events and the states and groups fighting against LGBT civil rights shows we still have things to work on, while Russia and Middle Eastern and many African nations have a long way to go to get out of the "wrong" category and even close to "right". As James Carville would say "We're right. They're wrong".Camelbinky (talk) 20:36, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, the Cold War was largely a culture war, and the West made no pretense of disinterest in fighting it. In some aspects, such as capitalism, the West was indeed too arrogant in lauding itself the victor, especially considering how the Chinese continue to write new chapters at the end of that story. But there should have been no Western ideal more central, more essential than the fundamental and universal human right of free expression, the source from which all other rights emanate. To me, a moral relativist argument like yours seems like it would be better if it were entirely amoral -- if it is not wrong for the Russian government to deny freedom of religion to its people, then how can it be wrong to interfere with that government's internal affairs? Either do not trouble me with morality and let me follow my whims however I wish, or allow me to encourage freedom wherever I find it. Despite that, any suggestion I can make here, or the West as a whole can make, has very little chance of having any impact - what matters practically is what the Ukrainians decide to do about their Wikipedia and their culture. Wnt (talk) 20:28, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes of course, by all means, on Wikipedia you can follow your whims AND encourage freedom. And the Russian government did not deny freedom of religion to its people. People are free to be as religious as they want to be and to attend church. This is something that was not allowed before. The accepted religion is Eastern Orthodox. I agree completely that Ukrainians need to decide their own future. In Ukraine and on Ukrainian Wikipedia.

Some time ago, I conducted an experiment. He wrote articles intentionally poorer quality than my on various topics. This article gave some Wikipedian and they published them. Never, no claims to these articles. The fact that the homophobes in Wikipedia identified me "chief propagandist" and want to block althoughbe for something. Therefore, meticulously searching mistakes provoke and so on. That is true. Many articles in the Ukrainian Wikipedia "hang" in the form unacceptable, with no reference at all, and I do translations from the English Wikipedia where neutrality is checked. But that homophobes in Ukrainian Vikipedeyi not want to accept reality, they do not want to see any articles about LGBT Wikipedia that they distorted their original homophobic "research." --Rayan Riener (talk) 13:54, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

You wrote poor articles on poorly known movies, on hardly known topics. Who cares about them? The community cares only about particularly popular, controversial topics, among which is LGBT one. It's no big deal that in this case people began to react on what you write. Do not make doubtful conclusions and try to realize, that nearly all edit wars and other things like that start around either very popular or very controversial topics. And nearly all of those wars are based on the absence of neutrality in someone's POV. Sometimes it's both opponents that lack neutrality. Here and now I affirm that it is you who lacks neutrality. Of course there are also others who do. But exactly you are the most concerned about it.

Oh, and I need to mention that you don't do translations from English Wikipedia, you do machine translations from En-wiki. And exactly the low-quality texts you create cause a lot of complaint chatter throughout our wiki. And I'm glad that you've stopped creating those poor-quality pages and started to work on those you'd written already. That's a good decision. -- Piramid ion 21:29, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

It's your personal opinion. Injustice and I have proved by experiment. Also, homophobia, and agree with all LGBT Wikipedian, most of which you do not even know, because they know what will happen if bullinh Coming out. Latest your article (which you've done a bunch) contain only a cap (a few paragraphs) and a bunch of red links. So can hardly your advice and comments can be taken seriously. Since you are talking about individual cases in my articles as all my articles. And tsoum chapter, I raised the general problem of homophobia in the Ukrainian Wikipedia. --Rayan Riener (talk) 16:51, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

A "well done article" is not about how many red links it contains. Shame on you, that you don't understand this, given that you are the author of nearly 800 articles. It's about how it is written - is it neutral? is it correct? is it credible? is it readable at all? What's wrong with one of my latest articles (uk:Argyre Planitia)? and what's wrong with yours (uk:Захопи центральний район за допомогою любові та миру), nearly 90% of which people had to delete after the discussion, cause it was unreadable? It was a machine translation. And you don't wanna understand what people tell you. That's all. -- Piramid ion 15:29, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

It looks like uk.wikipedia does not have a WP:Draft namespace.^[40] Do you think it would help to set this up, so that editors would have an obvious place to dump a simple machine translation of an article until they do more work on it to make it understandable and reliable? Wnt (talk) 17:30, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

But we have! It is called Інкубатор, but is rarely used by newcomers. Instead, our users encourage inexperienced ones to create new articles in their own user namespace, and only after such an article is finished, to move it to the main namespace by renaming. Nevertheless it is not prohibited in uk-wiki to create low-quality articles in the main namespace, provided that the author keeps improving his article. If the author doesn't, the article should be either moved to his namespace for revision and completion or deleted straightaway. If an author has already created a few hundreds of articles - he should already know the rules. And if he doesn't comply with them, his contributions become a kind of a problem for the whole community. And this is the case, I guess.-- Piramid ion 18:29, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I checked it once again, and seems that we don't have such a namespace. We have only this "incubator" thing, but no one really uses it. And I think that a real "draft" namespace wouldn't be used either. Though I might be mistaken. It's just that people often don't want to create nice, readable articles, they prefer machine translation instead. And moving a page to one's private user namespace rarely ends in a creation of a fine, qualitative article.-- Piramid ion 19:37, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Here is a category, created by one of your sockpuppets: uk:Категорія:Манґа жанру яой. It belongs to only one parent category, which is itself (!). Every article in this category has been created by you, doesn't have interwiki links, is about hardly significant (as for an encyclopedia) erotic gay adult manga and nearly every one of them contains a description, which is a metaphrase of the appropriate description which can be found in one of the links you give as references to this article. Which demonstrates that you don't understand the rules of Ukrainian Wikipedia AT ALL. And this also shows how much predetermined you are in this case as well.-- Piramid ion 15:56, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

I checked this topic (I mean Yaoi manga) in en-wiki and I think that you should take a look at the articles in the appropriate category:Yaoi. And see how these articles should be written. Oh, I've forgotten, my advices cannot be taken seriously as I've been creating too short and too "red-linked" articles lately, right?-- Piramid ion 16:45, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Everyone please cite links to the articles you mention here, and preferably diffs (this is an example) for particular edits or comments. This is especially important when we don't understand what you are saying. Wnt (talk) 18:26, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Request for Jimmy

Jimmy, without passing judgement on any people involved in the issue as it related to Ukrainian Wikipedia above, can you please make a statement condemning any sort of homophobia on Wikimedia projects. I am aware of numerous instances in the past where people can asked you to speak up against homophobia and you have not done so. So that LGBT editors on our projects know that you stand with LGBT editors, such a statement would go a long way to ensuring that homophobia will not be tolerated on Wikimedia projects. Thank you for your time. 88.103.89.86 (talk) 10:48, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Congratulations

Congratulations with the bestowal of a honorary title "doctor honoris causa" at the university of Maastricht, the Netherlands. JoJan (talk) 13:44, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! I look forward to the visit!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:25, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

Congrats! Save the Norway ones for spring commencements ;). --DHeyward (talk) 03:13, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Facts not Opinions

I ran into this on Flickr, edited it and thought you might like to see it. It goes pretty well with WP:V, so it might find some general use on Wikipedia, but I could also see it being over-used.

It's located in your general neck of the woods at 99 Southwark, south and a bit east of Blackfriars Bridge, at the Kirkaldy Testing Museum. Just in case you want to get a better photo - make sure to snap the photo from the other side of the street to improve the angle. Enjoy. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:45, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

This is how independent editors will prevail about partial wikipedia administrators

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RlF1jM6Gzs4 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.24.85.86 (talk) 00:22, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Christina Hoff Sommers' Wikipedia Page

She doesn't seem to be too happy about it. per this. --DSA510 Pls No H8 00:50, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

There's been a report made at WP:BLPN, the article was locked after a sentence or two were removed. It's not my area, but after a quick reading, nothing jumps out at me. Perhaps there are some subtlties that I don't understand, but I don't see a crisis now. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 01:44, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

She's a prominent MRA author, I'm fairly familiar with her work. Looking at her article I don't really see anything that sticks out as unfair, majorly misrepresented, or a major omission. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:49, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source identifying her as an MRA?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:16, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

You mean like [41]? A much more fitting description would be anti-feminist per [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49][50], and many other RS. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 19:16, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I'll dig it up later if need be. It's on my bookshelf of MR related books, and I don't particularly remember who the author of it was, but distinctly remember someone writing in an academic press describing her as a men's rights authow, and arguing that that's different than an MRA would be silly semantics. She self identifies as a pro-equity feminist. More sources will qualify her as an antifeminist than an MRA. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:45, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

That one source likens her arguments to those made by men's rights theorists, which is far from enough. Labeling her an MRA is potentially a BLP offense given that some view MRAs as ebil women-hating sociopaths (I presume Sommers would thus have what those people call internalized misogyny).--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:22, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

There are enough sources for her involvement with the MRM but there are obviously many more sources for her antifeminism. I gave you just one example using a freely available online source (unlike Boys, literacies, and schooling: the dangerous territories of gender-based literacy reform (2002), Open University Press, p. 32, for instance) but, fine, let's call her antifeminist instead of MRA. Your equation of internalized misogyny with "bullshit" and your theories about "those people" (Scholars? Germans? Beelzebub and his minions?) make no sense. --Sonicyouth86 (talk) 18:25, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

The only page describing her as an MRA is that page on ED which mentions her. Now I don't know about you, but sourcing ED isn't the best way to uphold WP:BLP. --DSA510 Pls No H8 21:15, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

If you only use freely available online sources to write an encyclopedia, you're doing it wrong. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:45, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

I removed one further sentence (which actually appeared twice!) that appeared to be poorly sourced for a claim that she'd probably take issue with, and given that a couple of people before me on the talk page had apparently thought the sentence should go. I'm not willing to do anything more in the absence of consensus on the talk page - unless, perhaps, Dr. Sommers lets us know exactly what issues she has. At the moment, the article seems reasonably balanced and objective. She's a prominent and very controversial figure, so it's a potentially sensitive article. Metamagician3000 (talk) 02:14, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for removing that sentence. I do think that the article has other problems; there is more material that is sourced in a questionable way (there has been talk page discussion of this) or is simply confusing. ImprovingWiki (talk) 03:48, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

The overall negative "anti-feminist" tone is a problem for one. She coined the term "equity feminist" which is associated with "libertarian feminists." After GG, editors have made her biography largely negative. That editors would actually argue she is not a feminist or even "feminist scholar" is simply ludicrous. Her next video will be interesting. --DHeyward (talk) 03:52, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

There is nothing necessarily "negative" about not identifying someone as a feminist. I thought the article was if not perfect then at least reasonably balanced before you started editing it. As for Sommers's next video, it remains to be seen will even mention her Wikipedia article. ImprovingWiki (talk) 03:55, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Characterizing her as "anti-feminist" in that same line is though. It's not neutral. It's negative in tone. I doubt anyone that identifies as a defender of women's rights and democrat would appreciate the tone and style of the current article, nor agree with it's characterizations. Everything positive is rebutted and a lot of the negative is opinion. --DHeyward (talk) 04:11, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Please reread NPOV. If someone has been widely described as anti-feminist (and Sommers certainly has been,) then it is not non-neutral to describe her as such. We use NPOV, not SPOV. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:53, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

It's irrelevant whether or not any individual "appreciates" a WP article about them; this isn't People magazine. WP articles are not intended to be promo puff pieces. If the CSH article is well-sourced and not violating BLP policy, it's fine. It's also irrelevant which political party she claims membership in; anyone in the U.S. is free to join any political party they wish regardless of how many, or which, of that party's standard platform planks they agree with. ReynTime (talk) 00:57, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

But she is not "anti-feminist" or an "MRA". Both are slurs that don't represent the majority opinion of her work. She's definitely a feminist scholar and her work has been cited by quite a few (> 700) other scholarly works. That people disagree with her is not a reason to label her as the opposite of what she is. --DHeyward (talk) 01:21, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing currently on her page calling her an MRA and the anti-feminist charge is properly sourced, so I don't see the issue. Again, this isn't People magazine -- WP doesn't allow public figures to define themselves here which is why there's a constant battle to keep politicians from having their PR folks edit their WP articles. While CSH's views on her body of work and her personal definitions are entitled to due representation, she is not entitled to have those views be her sole representation here. You need better arguments than "She doesn't call herself that!" and "A Democrat can't be antifeminist!" if you're going to make your case that she is being misrepresented.ReynTime (talk) 04:27, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Nice straw argument but it's not about anything you just created. She is certainly critical of certain avenues of feminism that exist predominantly in academia, but doesn't rise to "anti-feminism." It's certainly not a mainstream view and most likely a fringe view. In any case, it's not even close to her identity with equity feminism, which is a term and concept she coined and has been joined by a number of feminists. The opening paragraph is pathetic in its attempt to portray "anti-feminism" yet not even acknowledge she is a feminist scholar. Her work that defined equity feminist for others to follow and expand is cited over 700 times according to google scholar. Our article on equity feminist is more balanced than the bio of its creator. The recent attack is straight from gamergate which is why it's personal rather than intellectual. --DHeyward (talk) 05:51, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

The anti-feminist label is sourced. If CHS objects to the label she should write to the sources and see if she can get them to retract it. If an RS says a certain author is anti-feminist, then WP can report that. It's not the job of WP editors to decide which criticisms from reliable sources are justified and which aren't, as WP editors don't have the background to make that determination. This is why WP relies on reliable sources and not on the opinions of editors. Wp doesn't "correct" reliable sources just because an editor -- or a subject -- doesn't like what that source said. ReynTime (talk) 06:05, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

You should probably not edit biographies if you believe a source is all that is needed to make an opening sentence, negative claim about someone. Yes it is our job to separate the wheat from the chaff and not pretend it's someone else's problem. There are plenty of sources that claim President Obama was born in Kenya but we don't list them in his opening sentence. Please read the policies that say why we don't do this. --DHeyward (talk) 06:41, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

There is a reason WP has a policy on what does and does not constitute a reliable source, which is why Breitbart.com isn't sourceable. Reliable sources make an effort to back up their claims, do not knowingly print falsehoods, and publish retractions when they are caught in an error. No reliable sources claim, nor have ever claimed, that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Please review the definition of reliable source so that you can differentiate between a reliable source and one that is not reliable. I think it will relieve your concerns that WP might accidentally state that Obama was born in Kenya. If you wish to contend that the sources that say CHS are anti-feminist are in error or not reliable, that argument should be made on the talk page of that article. I'm not sure why you are pursuing it here. ReynTime (talk) 06:54, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

The reliable sources are 2 book authors that disagree with her. 700+ scholarly articles cite her. Our article list a number of prominent (i.e. have their own wiki bio like Wendy McNichols). There are many reliable sources that say many things that don't necessarily warrant having that viewpoint in the lead. There is no doubt that she is a feminist scholar and there is no doubt that calling her "anti-feminist" is polemic and self-serving. It's not a mainstream view. This is how biographies become hit pieces. There are plenty of polemic rants about Gloria Steinem that don't belong in her bio and certainly not in the lead. The same understanding is applied to CHS. You don't seem to understand WP:UNDUE. It's fundamental to BLPs. --DHeyward (talk) 16:04, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Meh. It takes about 3 seconds to find reliable sources describing Hoff Sommers as "anti-feminist". Here is a news piece from the Washington Post which describes her as an "anti-feminist provocateur", for instance. So it's not "two book authors that disagree with her", right? I think the discussion would probably benefit from less chest-beating and more attention to sources. MastCell ^Talk 17:09, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Curiously enough, "opinion blogs" ("Alyssa Rosenberg blogs about pop culture for The Washington Post's Opinions section.")are generally about "opinions" and are not sources for statements of fact. Cheers. Collect (talk) 17:49, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Sigh. Of course, the term "anti-feminist provocateur" entails some level of opinion and is not a "fact". The point is that this view of Sommers—while opinionated—is prominent in reliable sources, and thus probably warrants mention (with proper attribution) in the article. MastCell ^Talk 18:06, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

It can probably be sourced reliably that some or many of her opponents regard her as "anti-feminist" or "an anti-feminist". But it's also the case that this more a matter of polemics and cultural disputation than of scholarly classification. Anyway, the current pieces referenced in the lede, when you look at them, are not high-quality reliable sources such as we'd expect for biographies of living persons. The first appears to be a highly-opinionated activist publication. The second looks more scholarly, but it seems to have been published by a vanity press, and in any event the only relevant statement in the entire article refers to one of her books as a well-known anti-feminist publication. That's somewhat different from what the reference is currently cited for. I think someone editing the lede to meet BLP concerns could quite correctly remove the offending words in their current form, and under BLP the onus would be on someone wanting to put them back to find better references. Again, I'm not denying that the article should ultimately say somewhere that she and/or her books have been labeled by (some) opponents as anti-feminist, but I'm not at all sure this claim belongs in the lede, or that it belongs anywhere in the article until such a time as better references are included to support it. (These are just some observations that the current editors might want to take into account, if they seem to have some merit, once the article is unprotected. Meanwhile, perhaps it's best to shift this discussion to its talk page where editors might be able to see if they can reach any consensus. Jimbo is probably as apprised as he needs to be.) Metamagician3000 (talk) 08:09, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

There does seem to have been some attempt to make the page more negative in recent times, but I could be wrong about that. If it's the case, it's probably not easy to fix. I gather from a tweet I saw that Dr. Sommers objects (at least in part) to earlier removal of material that she considered positive and accurate. I don't want to get closely involved in the debate over this particular page, but I hope she'll somehow offer more information about exactly what changes she sees as problematic. Metamagician3000 (talk) 07:44, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Need to improve the article of Macedonia naming dispute

We Need to improve the article of Macedonia naming dispute: The inherent right of a state to have a name can be derived from the necessity that a juridical personality must have a legal identity. In absence of such an identity, the juridical person, such as a state, could to a large extent (or even completely) loose its capacity to interact with other such juridical persons (e.g. conclude agreements, etc.) and independently enter into and conduct its external relations. The name of a state is, thus, an essential element of its juridical personality and, consequently, of its statehood. The principles of sovereign equality of states and the inviolability of their juridical personality , lead to the conclusion that the choice by a state of its own name is a basic, inherent right of the state. This right is not alienable, divisible or transferable, and is a part of the right to 'self-determination' (determination of one's own legal identity), i.e. it belongs to the domain of jus cogens norms. External interference with this basic right is inadmissible. It is also obvious that if such an external interference with the choice of the name of a state would be allowed, even through a negotiation process, it might easily become a legally endorsed mechanism for interference in the internal and external affairs of that state, i.e. a mechanism for degradation of its political independence. From these reasons, the choice by the state of its own name must be considered as an inherent right of the state that belongs stricto sensu to the domain of its domestic jurisdiction. In exercising this right, the states have, therefore, a complete legal freedom. This freedom may in practice be constrained only by considerations of avoidance the overlap of legal identities of two (or more) international juridical persons. (The province 'Macedonia' in Greece, however, is not an international juridical person.) Based on the principle of separability of domestic and international jurisdiction, the name of a state, which is subject of that state's domestic jurisdiction, does not create international legal rights for that state, nor does it impose legal obligations on other states. Clearly, the name per se does not have a direct impact on the territorial rights of states. Therefore, the earlier mentioned Greek allegation that the name of the applicant implies "territorial claims" has no legal significance. The Arbitration Commission of European Communities on former Yugoslavia also took this position and did not link the name of the country (Republic of Macedonia) to the Greek territorial rights. The same view is shared by prominent scholars of international law. Interference with matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of a state, such as the choice of state's name, is also incompatible with the UN Charter. Article 2 (7) of the Charter explicitly extends the validity of this legal norm to the United Nations themselves. It appears, therefore, that neither the Greek opposition to the admission of Macedonia to UN membership under its constitutional name, nor the intervention of the UN Security Council in the matters related to the name of the country, are consistent with the Charter. According to the interpretation of Article 4(1) of the Charter given in 1948 and accepted by the General Assembly, the conditions laid down in that article are exhaustive (and "not merely stated by way of guidance or example" ), they must be fulfilled before admission is effected, and, once they are recognized as having been fulfilled by the Security Council, the applicant state acquires an unconditional right to UN membership. This right is enshrined in Article 4 itself and comports with the universal character of the UN Organization. At the same time, and for the same reasons, the Organization has a duty to unconditionally admit such a state to UN membership. The Security Council in the preamble of its resolution recognizes that the applicant state fulfils the required criteria for admission and yet, contrary to the accepted interpretation of Article 4(1) of the Charter, recommends that the applicant be admitted to membership with a temporary reference label (to be used for all purposes within the UN), and imposes an obligation on the future UN member to negotiate with a neighboring state about its own name. The fact that Security Council has ignored the strong objection of Macedonian Government to such formulation of its resolution indicates that it considered the added conditions as necessary for giving the recommendation. A specific feature of the additional conditions imposed on Macedonia for its admission to UN membership is that their effect begins with the act of admission. Their nature is quite different than that of the conditions laid down in Article 4(1) of the Charter: they need to be fulfilled not before the admission, but after it. These additional conditions transcend their cause; their nature is obviously not legal, but rather political. According to the ICJ advisory opinion of 1948, no "political considerations" can be superimposed on, or added to, the conditions set forth in Article 4(1) that could prevent admission to membership. The broad nature of the prescribed admission criteria already provides space for appreciation of all political factors relevant for the judgement on the fulfillment of these criteria. With its imposed provisional name (for use within the UN), i. e. with its derogated legal personality, and its obligation to negotiate with a neighboring country over its name, Macedonia has a legal status within UN which is obviously different from that of other member-states. Membership to the UN Organization, as a legal status, contains a standard set of rights and duties that are equal for all members of the Organization ("sovereign equality of the Members" ). The admission of Macedonia to UN membership with additional, non-standard conditions (that impose on the member certain membership obligations) may be interpreted as "conditional admission", and, consequently, the resulting membership status as 'conditional'. The Charter, however, does not provide for conditional membership in the Organization. Suppose that Macedonia decides at one point in time not to comply anymore with its membership obligation to negotiate with Greece over its name. What could be the possible UN sanctions for such non-compliance? Expulsion from UN membership would only prove that its present membership status is conditional. Other forms of sanctions would also indicate, in less evident way, the conditional character of the membership status. Obstruction of the "settlement of the difference" over the name during the negotiating process may be another form of non-compliance with the membership obligation. Such obstruction in the negotiating process may be, however, introduced also by the other negotiating party (from political, economic or other reasons). The fulfillment of the imposed admission obligation may, therefore, depend not only on the good will of the party carrying the obligation, but also on a factor outside of its control. In fulfilling its membership obligations, Macedonia is, thus, not independent, which is another difference of its membership status with respect to the other UN member-states. There is still another important feature of the legal status of Macedonia as a UN member. By imposing the additional condition for admission of using a provisional name for the state within the UN, the legal personality of the future member-state has been heavily derogated by the very act of admission. The derogated legal personality of Macedonia in the United Nations system is most clearly manifested in the area of representation. In all acts of representation within the UN system, and in the field of UN relations with other international subjects, the provisional, and not the constitutional, name of Macedonia is to be used. 212.83.144.225 (talk) 13:15, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Too long, difficult to read - Can this be summarized? Can this be discussed on the article talk page, or is this a request for Jimbo or the WMF? Robert McClenon (talk) 15:52, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I Can try to summarize. The presented detailed analysis of the legal aspects of SC Res. 817 (1993) and GA Res. 47/225 (1993), related to the admission of Macedonia to UN membership, and the legal effects of these resolutions on the membership status of Macedonia in the UN lead to the conclusion that these resolutions are in clear violation of the UN Charter. The imposed additional conditions for Macedonia’s admission to the UN directly violate Article 4(1) and are contradictory to the accepted interpretation of this article as a legal norm. The denial of a sovereign state’s right to free choice of its own legal identity (name) by these resolutions, and imposing an admission and membership condition on that state to negotiate over its own name with another state, violates Articles 2(1) and 2(7) of the Charter. The imposed admission and membership conditions on Macedonia define a discriminatory legal status of this state as a UN member, again in violation of Article 2(1). The legal responsibility of the United Nations for violation of the Charter’s provisions derives from the UN’s duty to respect the basic rights of states (either as applicants or UN members), which are protected by the principles of international law enshrined in the mentioned articles of the Charter. The character of these violations is of ultra vires type with respect to the legal norms of the Charter as a multilateral treaty. The violations of Articles 4(1), 2(1) and 2(7) involve the legal personalities of both the UN and Macedonia. This provides a basis for instituting judicial redress, based on the use of the advisory jurisdiction of ICJ, of the legal consequences resulting from the breach of constitutional provisions. The violation of Article 4(1) (imposition of additional admission conditions) has an obvious character in view of the explicit and extremely clear Court’s interpretation of Article 4(1) in 1948, and its acceptance and legal implementation by the General Assembly the same year. (In fact, from a legal point of view, the case of irregular admission of Macedonia to the UN is only a particular case of the most general and already resolved ICJ Admission case, and resolution by legal means should be regarded as the most logical and straightforward option. The exit strategy should be a Resolution, passed by the UN General Assembly, to replace the reference "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" with the constitutional name - the Republic of Macedonia. An alternative would be to request an Advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice for the imposition of additional conditions on Macedonia before its UN membership. Once this is done, the General Assembly should replace the illegal reference "the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" used now with the constitutional name - the Republic of Macedonia.)

212.83.144.225 (talk) 16:11, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are based on published sources - and not on the personal analysis of contributors. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:06, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Or for a more helpful informative from some one who actually knows about this subject, a thought out response- International law is what the international community itself is willing to impose on... itself. While 212's insight is from a strict constructionist viewpoint of established international norms and "law" there is no method of enforcing international law or norms, or the UN Charter itself, on to the UN if that body or one of its subsidiary bodies wish to break the Charter. The International Court of Justice, the so-called judicial branch of the UN, can not enforce any of its decisions and would have to rely on the Security Council (good luck with that), and all decisions made by the Security Council will simply not be ruled upon by the ICJ at all based on that conflict of interest; one must assume that the decision for Macedonia to be admitted under a provisional name was sanctioned by the Security Council unanimously since any permanent member could have blocked the admission with a veto. Thereby having been sanctioned by the Security Council the ICJ has no authority per its own ruling made when Libya in 1992 protested British and American response to the Pan-Am bombing. US President Andrew Jackson once said "...the decision of the Supreme Court has fell still born, and they find that they cannot coerce Georgia to yield to its mandate" and "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" In plain English this means an executive branch unwilling to enforce a judicial decision renders the judicial decision moot. Basically, the problem you have regarding the UN and the naming of Macedonia is not for Wikipedia to decide who is right or wrong, nor under international law is it anyone's decision; the UN has spoken and there is no method of judicial review. If you want things changed, you should get a trillion US dollars together and offer it to Greece if in return they are willing to drop their objections to the Macedonia name, I hear they could use the cash.Camelbinky (talk) 21:54, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Camelbinky is absolutely right, specially regarding the "is not for Wikipedia to decide who is right or wrong" part. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia which does its best to cover all subjects in most objective and informative way, giving special attention to neutrality and verifiability. I beleave that what the gentleman who brought the issue here wants is to have those aspects he mentioned included in the article. For that to be possible, we need reliable sources which would allow the addition of such content. Without them, it all becomes original research. If you have the time and the sources, you can expand the article yourself, but be aware of these Wikipedia rules I linked here. FkpCascais (talk) 22:18, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

As a source one can take American Journal of International Law, vol. 93. no. 1. (1999) [51] . Macedonia’s admission to UN membership in April 1993 (General Assembly (GA) resolution 47/225 (1993), pursuant to the Security Council (SC) resolution 817 (1993) recommending such admission) came with two conditions in addition to those explicitly provided in Article 4(1) of the UN Charter, namely the candidate’s acceptance of: (i) being provisionally referred to as the ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ (for all purposes within the United Nations) and (ii) of negotiating with another country over its name. These impositions are part of the resolutions, which also recognized (explicitly in SC resolution 817) that the applicant fulfills the standard criteria of Article 4(1) of the Charter required for admission. One can conclude that the attachment of conditions (i) and (ii) to those specified in Article 4(1) of the Charter for the admission of Macedonia to UN membership is in violation of the UN Charter. Now, Macedonia should just repeat the Court (precedent) model given in 1948 regarding the conditions for admission of a state to the United Nations. Solving the problem of the name of Macedonia in the UN status by requesting advisory opinion from International Court of Justice on the conditions for admission for Macedonia is the most desirable path for Macedonia to follow since it includes proven principles and norms of international law, and the Court's authority and jurisdiction that once came out for this issue. 212.83.144.225 (talk) 22:59, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Possibly. And if and when that happens, and is reported in reliable sources, Wikipedia can include the matter in relevant articles. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:02, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, still you did not address why there is no any legal dimensions and aspects in the article of Macedonia naming dispute. Why Macedonia for more than 20 years did not resolve that issue with Greece and accepted any compromise. It seems apparent that there is no solution to the name issue through negotiations with Greece, and may never will be one. On the other side US administration stated for many occasions that it is the strategic interest for the NATO to include Macedonia in its membership. Now, that goal appears to be very far from the destination. 212.83.144.225 (talk) 23:29, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a collaborative project to create an online encyclopedia. We cannot solve the actual problems of the world here. (See also, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Macedonia 2.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:32, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

With due respect to everyone here, I thought that the task of Wikipedia is to present all relevant facts on the issue. And the relevant here are legal matters surrounding that particular multilateral problem. The Article on the name dispute unfortunately did not covered any of crucial issues, particularly those that can explain why the compromise is so far away or even unreachable. 212.83.144.225 (talk) 23:49, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

If you have secondary sources claiming that the legal issues are relevant and that they make the compromise unreachable, go ahead and add the content yourself. As Newyorkbrad said, Wikipedia is a collaborative project, and your collaboration is welcomed. Don't expect someone else to do the work for you. Also, beware that what you need are secondary sources which will provide the view on the matter you are exposing here. You will not be able to provide sources for facts and then draw your own conclusions. I am just saying that in order to make it easier for you to know how Wikipedia works. FkpCascais (talk) 02:56, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, for advise, Regards to everyone!212.83.144.225 (talk) 10:26, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

This IP is of course again the "Igor Janev spammer", aka Operahome (talk · contribs) (and innumerable socks). Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:41, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and added the reference from the American Journal of International Law, as it appears to be a reliable source, and the text has a dead link at that point. Dr. Janev is an international scholar whose first language is not English. He has a non-English BLP here, but has declined a BLP on English Wikipedia. —Neotarf (talk) 18:09, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Actually, it's not so much that he "declined" a BLP; he – or somebody close to him and extremely focussed on promoting him, the same person who transmitted to us his alleged wish not to have an article at that moment – has been fighting long and hard in order to spam his name all over the place here. That one moment where he allegedly "withdrew" from Wikipedia was just a one-off tactical move in this long story. For this reason, I'd be quite reluctant to use that law journal opinion piece of his merely in order to source a trivial historical statement of fact that could equally well be referenced through any of hundreds of other sources. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:42, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Not necessarily an "opinion" piece. According to the journals website "The Journal contains summaries and analyses of decisions by national and international courts and arbitral or other tribunals, and of contemporary U.S. practice in international law". Did you read the article? It is cited in other sources as well, and seems to have played an important role in the admission of Macedonia to the UN. But if you want, you can check out WorldCat, googlescholar and googlebooks for yourself, (which I did once upon a time to see if this individual was "notable"), and argue that out on the talk page, I'm done there. I once offered to write a BLP for this gentleman, and while it's clear there is some kind of controversy still surrounding the whole Macedonia thing, (ever try to buy a language text for Macedonian language that was printed less than 30 years ago?) for reasons I would rather not go into here, I believe the person who does not wish the Janev BLP is Janev himself. —Neotarf (talk) 20:45, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Hello

HI! A random (or coincidental, or not at all) hello from ^t 1234567890Number ^c 16:39, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

You got a barnstar!

	Wikimedia Commons Barnstar
	Founder Award! ^t 1234567890Number ^c 16:44, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

1234567890Number this is one of the best trolls of Jimmy I've seen in a while. Kudos! 88.115.153.126 (talk) 05:29, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia Kickstarter campaign by User:TonyTheTiger

Jimbo,

I want you to be aware of a Kickstarter campaign (#TTTWFTW) that has just gone live. I have not yet sent out any tweets, yet. Comments are welcome at User_talk:TonyTheTiger#My_Kickstarter_campaign_feedback. I will probably not tweet about this until tomorrow.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:28, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Do you have a commons account or is this strictly for uploads to Wikipedia?--Mark Miller (talk) 18:41, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I post my images at commons and use them for WP articles.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:52, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I would recommend eliminating any promise of what is going to happen on Wikipedia. For example: "Images will be used in the 2015 McDonald's All-American Boys Game wikipedia article as well as player biography articles as well as the recruit sections of team season articles." I'd reword that as "Subject to community approval, images will likely be used in the..." My guess is that your statement is *truthful* (I mean, why wouldn't the images be used there? It isn't likely that there will be any other quality images of that game.) The reason for this suggestion is to avoid any suggestion that you are selling the right to specify content in Wikipedia. Since I doubt your backers will have any COI, there's no reason for them to want that - they just want to know that, generally speaking, your work is respected and frequently used in Wikipedia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 00:04, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Obviously, a superior photographer could show up and decide to license his/her images for WP-eligibility, which would make my images less useful. Such a photographer could dominate my images if they wanted to. So your correction is well-taken. I have made the changes you have suggested. Thanks for your feedback.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 04:57, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

FYI, I am now going to start contacting friends and such by email and twitter since it is tomorrow on the east coast. So this is really going live in terms of my soliciting now.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 05:01, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Annoying Glitch

If this isn't the right place to report glitches, tell me. But first, I'll explain what's going on. Theres this really, really annoying glitch with the new visual editing system that's in beta right now. Every time I type something on there, the article keeps scrolling up on me, and it's getting annoying Future WWE Champion, DrewieStewie (talk) 00:52, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, this isn't really the right place for anything, but somehow everything ends up here ;) For the record, the place to go is Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback. -- Ypnypn (talk) 01:12, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, I guess VE is here proving a boon to building new editor engagement, eh? Carrite (talk) 13:28, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm, a self-described 13 year old Californian with alopecia and autism that spells "organizational" with an S.... Hmmmmmm......... Carrite (talk) 13:31, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Report: Another abuse by user:Future Perfect at Sunrise: Arbitrary removal of leading academic institution in Serbia

(Institute of Political Studies in Belgrade)

Question: Why the user:Future Perfect at Sunrise had removed article on Institute_of_Political_Studies_in_Belgrade[52]. Is this another abuse by user:Future Perfect at Sunrise? That Institute do not have anything to do with Operahome or any spammer. That Institute is the leading academic institution in Serbia for political science. Mr. Jimbo, how long you will tolerate this behavior!? 178.223.34.96 (talk) 15:07, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

This was the right thing to have done.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:15, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Ryulong

Ryulong is continuing to edit Gamergate related articles even though he has taken money from one of the sides involved in the debate, What can be done about this?, I'm sorry if this is the wrong place. Pepsiwithcoke (talk) 20:23, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

If you have a concern, please go to WP:GS/GG/E, follow the procedure and provide evidence. Uninvolved administrators will evaluate the evidence, and decide if action is necessary. RGloucester — ☎ 20:27, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I've made two edits to one article and a few comments on a talk page. Pepsiwithcoke, please assume good faith.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:48, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

The best way to resolve disputes like these is to use the forum we established specifically for that purpose, which is WP:GS/GG/E. That forum relies on the burden of evidence. If Pepsiwithcoke cannot provide that evidence, then his request will fail. RGloucester — ☎ 21:08, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

I would take this to WP:ANI this really isn't the place, see also: WP:WWJD. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 20:54, 25 November 2014 (UTC)