User talk:Jimbo Wales: Difference between revisions

(Old stuff cleared out.)

Wikicities.com | My Website

Did you come here looking for something fun to do? Ok, now would be a good time to go speedy delete some images from "Images with unknown source" and "Images with unknown copyright status". According to the new speedy deletion criterion (I just changed it), these can be deleted on sight when they have been on the site for at least 7 days. (7 days to allow the opportunity for the uploaders to provide proper data, although in most cases, I see no particular reason to contact them: more often, people who do this should be blocked from editing, as they represent a legal risk to the project and are not behaving in an intellectual responsible manner.)

I am hopeful that a major push to sort through these two categories with an aim of eliminating everything in them can be completed in two weeks. If this policy change isn't enough to change the direction on these issues dramatically, we'll have to take some further steps to disallow uploads except to people who have somehow earned the right.--Jimbo Wales 14:52, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Unified wiki namespace?

Hello Jimbo, I have been wondering why the different wiki sites are rather separate: wikipedia, wikibooks, wikisource, wikiquote etc? It seems to me it would be easier on multiple levels if there was one unified namespace for everything under one site with one login, call it the wikiuniverse perhaps. Doesn't the concept of "wiki" trump even the seemingly arbitrarily imposed distinctions of "encyclopedia" and "books" and "quotations" etc? zen master T 14:21, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

I think the current division is completely sensible. An encyclopedia is a specific kind of reference work, not a massive random compilation of everything.--Jimbo Wales 14:02, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Oopsla in October

Hello Jimbo - I would like to schedule a San Diego meet-up to coincide with your trip to San Diego in October. Please let me know what would work best with your schedule and I will arrange accordingly. Thanks! Johntex 00:11, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo, I know you are terribly busy, but I wonder if you will have time while in San Diego this October to attend an event if I put one together? Please let me know. Thanks! (PS - best of luck with the funding presentations) Johntex 02:05, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I would be very interested in that. Please email me?--Jimbo Wales 14:07, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Ten things that will be free

On Wikimania you announced ten things that will be free, and blogged about two on Larry Lessig's blog. Then you wrote that the next will be announced on your blog, but there is no mention of it. I wonder, is this "project" dead or something? I am just curious. Samohyl Jan 17:50, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

No, it is an ongoing project of mine. I'll be presenting the current list at the Fellow's Hour at Harvard's Berkman Center Tuesday a week from now.--Jimbo Wales 14:02, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Mutual fund

Hi Jimbo, I was just wondering if, when you get the chance, you could look over the mutual fund article for accuracy? ALso I'm wondering whether the "advice" section of the "United States" section would be better on WIkibooks? Thanks. Pakaran 17:15, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

A suggested change to your statement of principles

Jimbo: Regarding your statement of principles, I think you know very well that #6 bit the dust a long time ago. (It is no longer open, nor is it the principle discussion forum). I think you should update it accordingly. →Raul654 19:06, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

Barbara Schwarz

May I direct you to observe the currently-locked article Barbara Schwarz (a conspiracy theorist and accused "FOIA abuser", well known in certain circles), and especially the accompanying talk page? When people start slinging libel accusations at the drop of a hat, you know there's a full-blown flamewar going on. I'd refactor the whole thing and have done with it, but they'd accuse me of censorship - and since I value my anonymity, I really have no way of defending myself. I would also advise you to not enter the conversation yourself, as you lack credibility with certain of the participants (it's related to Bomis, but I can't comprehend the reason for their hatred myself). I have NO idea which administrative channels we should take this through, and I need a true guru's advice... 206.114.20.121 19:30, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

It's actually just Barbara Schwarz, who posts from three public access IP Blocks in Salt Lake City. She does a lot of copy & paste, each libel by her is repeated for several days all around wikipedia. Tilman 16:12, 11 September 2005 (UTC)Tilman

Barbara Schwarz was one of the Scientologists in Germany who was prosecuted by the German government just for being a Scientologist, she was illegally admitted to a psychiatric institution and "treated" against her will with drugs and electric shock treatment. As a new user to Wikipedia, she only came here to correct the bias in the new article about her being composed by Tilman, Vivaldi and a couple other contributors. They have used biased sources and selectively extracted portions of Barbara's USENET postings to use against her. Barbara has vandalized the page several time out of anger, but even when she tried to follow correct format Tilman or Vivaldi reverts her changes. Basically she is up against a cabal composed of Scientology critics. --AI 04:20, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

your web page

Just to let you know, there seem to be some broken images on http://www.jimmywales.com/. Main Page 20:02, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Quote

Recently User:PigSwill (an Irate sock?) posted on your article an IRC conversation with User:Irate which led to Irate's ban. Of course I've complained vociferously about that ban before, since it was done 100% outside of process, but in the actual text I found this concluding exchange which I found extremely troubling:

Irate says, "I'll stick to the riles but I won;t like them is not enough for you?" To this you reply: "not at all", "not even close". This was a devastating thing for me to read because it is extremely important to me that a project I invest so much time in be founded on basically just principles, and what Irate was saying seems so obviously to be the just argument that I am astonished that any reasonable person would disagree. Irate, and presumably by extension all contributors, are required to like all of our rules, as opposed to simply following them? And for the founder of the project to say that? I'm hoping I misinterpreted or got something out of context, or maybe the text as given isn't even accurate, so I request clarification. Everyking 11:35, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Everyking, I took a look at the diff in question (which was quickly reverted by SlimVirgin.) It is here. While I agree that this may be a little harsh, remember that intentions eventually lead to actions, and Jimbo probably thought that his attitude was bad. "Insubordination" can get a person fired -even from a "nonpaying" volunteer job, such as wiki-editor. Now, if you don't agree with the Bible, then my following arguments won't be valid, but even still, let me just share with you some things I have found on the web (and I'm guessing they are correct quotes, because I don't feel like looking in my Bible for ALL these quotes).

• Proverbs 5:12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
• Leviticus 19:17 ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.
• Mark 7:21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
• Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
• 1st John 3:15 Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
• Zechariah 8:17 And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.

Remember, also, Everyking: Jimbo does have the all-powerful authority -at least for a time. (I hear there are plans to reduce his authority, but that is out of my hands.)

If you read all that I wrote -both my thoughts and those of the various Biblical writers, and combine that with your studied analysis of how you might act if someone starts tinkering with, say, your homepage -or home -or car, or whatever you own --then you might see a bigger picture. --Again, I am not saying Jimbo is right (assuming he was quoted correctly from some private chat or something) --I am just saying there are several sides to a story.--GordonWattsDotCom 12:09, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

It's fine if he got angry and went overboard. The question, to me, is whether he stands by it. It has to make anybody a little nervous when he's saying he'll judge people by what they think and not what they do. If what Irate's done is worth a ban, I don't have problem with a ban, although I strongly feel it should go through the ArbCom process...but here you had Irate saying he would obey the rules, even though he didn't like them, and that wasn't good enough for Jimbo. I think this is something worth bringing up for clarification. Everyking 12:36, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

If I'm reading it right, this user has created problems before, and Jimbo feels that any ArbCom would go in favor of booting the guy, so maybe, Jimbo's simply being "efficient" (and saving time/energy), but I could be missing something.--GordonWattsDotCom 12:45, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

The ban of Irate was not "out of process" in any way at all. The transcript that he posted was highly edited, and omitted significant parts of the discussion, including a discussion of his inability to spell. (I was prepared to cut him some slack if he's dyslexic, but he assured me that he isn't. Ok, well, then, he should learn to spell before trying to write an encyclopedia.)

The overall point is that his position was that he would not change anything, that he would continue to follow the rules as he saw fit, and as he always had. His defense of himself was grounded in "well, other people do bad things, so I will do bad things too". I found that attitude to be competely unacceptable, and that settled the issue for me.

Everyking, you appear to be willing to believe the worst of me, and the best of this illiterate troll. I urge you to reconsider this attitude.

But there is one core point of policy here which is worth repeating: our goal is to write a complete, comprehensive, free, high quality encyclopedia. An illiterate troublemaker is not helpful to that. Therefore, he is barred from participation. This is not a democracy. We do have policies and we do follow those policies, and we have an incredible amount of tolerance for bad behavior. But never mistake those rules and policies as being fundamental: what is fundmental is our shared goals and values. The rules are a means to that, not a suicide pact.

We don't allow administrators to ban people on the grounds of being illiterate. But that's not because we think illiterates are good candidates in writing the encyclopedia, but because banning people for illiteracy opens up a huge can of worms. The other rules are the same. --Jimbo Wales 15:56, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

The point, which you didn't address, was the banning of someone based on whether he'll support the rules as opposed to merely following them. I have no interest in hearing this business about building an encyclopedia, because I assure you I am quite concerned with building an encyclopedia, but also quite unconvinced that banning Irate gets us any closer to that goal. Moreover I happen to feel that observing rules and processes (and changing them when necessary through community agreement) is a better way to build this encyclopedia than administrative fiat, so I have never had much patience for the "suicide pact" line. Everyking 18:48, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

The point, which you didn't address, was the banning of someone based on whether he'll support the rules as opposed to merely following them - actually, you seem to be missing (or ignoring) the not-so-subtle point that Irate said (quite explicitely) that he had no intention of following our rules (the ones with which he disagreed). This is why Jimbo banned him. →Raul654 19:01, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

As I read the conversation it said the exact opposite. Could you identify a quote? Everyking 19:11, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

He indicated to me that he would continue to follow our rules as he always had before, which means "not at all". He did not accept that he had broken the rules, and announced his intention to continue behaving as always. That was absolutely not enough.

Let me clarify something. People are not required to support all the rules in detail, of course. Polite dissent from the rules is welcome. But in this case, we have an illiterate contributor with a long history of rules breaking telling me point blank that he doesn't think he's done anything wrong, and has no intention of changing. I see no way to defend that sort of behavior.--Jimbo Wales 19:21, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, I disagree about your interpretation of the conversation. Since you were involved in it maybe you're more entitled to judge, but Irate's words seems pretty straightforward. Secondly, I'm happy to see you disavow the notion that contributors are not required to support the rules, although this leaves the question of why this was required of Irate in particular. Thirdly, I think your repeated assertion that Irate is "illiterate" is bordering on a personal attack, or is already one (not to mention calling him a troll earlier). You know what people would have said if Irate had gone around calling someone "illiterate". Everyking 00:22, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Everyking has a decent point on the last point on the last part anyway. User's edits seem odd though - filing RfAr against an arbitrator, "vandalizing" user pages (removing himself from a user's people to watch etc.). Some contributions seem good though. That edit on Jimbo's user page shows an unusually snappy Jimbo, eh? Reeks of being edited and cherry-picked though. Sounds like a year-old thing of mutual distrust going on here though. Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 01:26, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd be happy if Jimbo just deferred the matter to the ArbCom. They already banned him for a few months before, so the outcome is not in doubt, of course, but the important thing to me is that there's process. Also, the ArbCom can only ban for a year, whereas Jimbo banned him for life. RN has it right that Irate was a problematic user but also one who made some genuine contributions. Therefore he ought to get to go through the standard disciplinary process that any other user who had made valid contributions would be entitled to. The fact that Irate was also promising to "abide by" the rules in the future should also, in my opinion, be grounds for giving him another chance, perhaps under probation—certainly not a lifetime ban. Everyking 01:48, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Calling someone illiterate is probably not the sort of insult that we should be dishing out here. It is highly politically incorrect, and, I could be wrong, but it seems the aim of giving a free encyclopedia to every human being on the planet is in part to improve literacy - a basic right. Literacy:Figures of 1998 show that 16% of the world population is illiterate (by the UN definition). In the United States alone, 5% of the population is illiterate by the US Government definition, according to the 1990 Census. Seven million UK residents are functionally illiterate according to Government figures. Another problem in the developed countries is the rise of secondary and tertiary illiteracy in recent years, i.e. the complete or partial loss of previously existing reading and writing skills due to lack of practice. Among the Arab states, more than 25% of men and 50% of women were not literate as of 2000. [3] The most likely reason for low levels of literacy is lack of education. There are spell checkers, grammar checkers, and most importantly, lots of other editors on Wikipedia. If we are going to start displaying prejudice against the illiterate then probably we have lost sight of our vision here and are meandering down a slippery slope. I don't think that's the case, but I also don't think that Irate's ability to type his thoughts at the pace of an IRC chat is relevant to his case. He seemed to have a conceptually large vocabulary. --Alterego 03:17, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

2 Questions re.: How do we enforce concensus?

Question 1:

What if we had, just for a crazy example, a 4-2 concensus to have a certain intro a certain way?

Would that be binding on later editors?

Question 2:

What if, say, another editor later added his vote, and claimed it was then 4-3, and enough editors kept voting?

Would the "concensus" change?

Implications:

• Q1 = "YES" - If we vote to make concensus binding, then the "wiki" nature would be limited to having to look at past resolutions (slash) laws to see if it's "permitted," possibly somewhat "un-wiki."
• Q1 = "NO" - If we prohibit concensus from being binding, then Wikipedia is a "nation without laws" -a lawless place where agreements and laws and truces can be broken willy-nilly, rather unbecoming of a User:Jimbo.

• Q2 = "YES" - This would be flexible to allow further input, but it could accommodate "vote buying" and instability of standards, especially if a user makes up sock puppets (and get to vote multiple times) before he/she can be caught.
• Q2 = "NO" - This would be unnecessarily inflexible and freeze things in cases where mistakes clearly happened. After all, even Dred Scot was eventually overturned.

What saith the Great Jimbo -- and his wise counselors?--GordonWattsDotCom 04:38, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

The Long Now Foundation - Rosetta Disk Project

Hello Jimbo,

It has struck me that Wikipedia could be an absolute goldmine for future generations, as it is such a good record of current culture. It might be a good idea to investigate what it would take to have a snapshot of Wikipedia inscribed in the same way as the Rosetta Project Disks - see [1] and [2] - that way, Wikipedia could even survive the fall of civilisations and help future generations (I know it sounds a bit melodramatic - but it could be true). As each disk holds about 30,000 pages, you need (at a rough estimate) 30 disks for the English Wikipedia alone. They might be merchandisable to (rich) patrons. Perhaps a good respository for Version 1.0

Anyway - just an idea!

WLD 11:06, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Timshell admin account

Hi - I recently updated WP:LA to reflect administrator activity using a script and noticed an anomaly. user:Timshell is a sysop account, but has never edited. I assume this is intended to be user:TimShell. I left him a message about this a while ago that I presume he simply hasn't followed up on. If you could either simply straighten this out or contact him in some way I'd appreciate it (it looks distinctly peculiar to have a sysop account with no edits, seems to take anti-editcountitis a little far :) ). -- Rick Block (talk) 13:57, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Jimbo's beard debate

Just wanted to note the fact that I've moved the Jimbo's beard debate to a subpage at User:Jimbo Wales/beard since even though it's a funny discussion it isn't entirely appropriate for long term use on his main userpage. Jtkiefer ^{T | @ | C} ----- 23:14, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Concerning Jeff Merkey

If he had any comments about my actions with him, please see here - and especially here

to see that he is causing much more trouble than warranted.  Take care, Molotov  (talk)  21:36, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I had to do it!Molotov (talk)

Marsden etc

Sure, I haven't been paying much attention to those articles recently anyway. I don't think I've edited Canada Free Press or Judi McLeod at all for a few weeks and I've only edited Marsden once in the last ten days.

If you got a lawyer's letter on behalf of Rachel Marsden, I suggest you actually call the lawyer and see if he actually wrote the letter. Allegedly, there was an incident a while back where she sent a letter on a lawyer's letterhead to an online discussion board (I think it was Frank online) without her lawyer's permission. Homey 23:19, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

BTW, if you're at liberty to email me a copy of the complaint, I'd appreciate seeing it. Homey 23:31, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

I've just emptied out my inbox (just realised it's been bouncing) so if you've already sent me the complaint, please resend. Thanks. Homey 23:38, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

RfA Policy: Approx 3-17-3 concensus says your policy is stupid?

Jimbo,

I have posted a few more than average questions of recent, but this one breaks the bank.

A lot of people have warned me not to "appeal to Jimbo" because you don't become involved in a dispute over one user, but I think you will want to look at this, because this attitude has been responsible for alienating and offending many users, who have left in disgust:

You see here my RfA. OK, no big deal.

However, what has happened to me (and I have remained cool but firm in most of my replies and rebuttals) happens to MANY users, so this is a wiki-wide problem. Just like you want the site to be open-editing for anybody, you also want there to be a fair hearing of all complaints, concerns, right?

I admit that I don't have as many edits as some "veterans," but this should not be a big deal: Admins says, in salient part: "Current Wikipedia policy is to grant this access liberally to anyone who has been an active Wikipedia contributor for a while and is generally a known and trusted member of the community...."This should be no big deal," according to Jimmy Wales."

While I have walked into the middle of many contentious edit wars on divisive page (Schiavo, Jesus, Abortion, Christianity, etc.), I have never been disciplined, blocked, etc. See e.g.,

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User:GordonWattsDotCom (old)

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User:GordonWatts (new)

So, while I am impressed an many who have more experience (and more time on their hands) to help Wikipedia, the policy you laid out above is apparently opposed by a 3-17-3 concensus (Uncle Ed is one of those who voted "for" me) -and they largely criticize my lack of experience and concentration on one small area of editing (in spite of the fact I have edited over 200 distinct pages).

Either you are right or you are wrong in your policy above:

• If you are right, then I ask you to enforce the rules so any editor in good standing (who has acted responsibly with the great powers he/she has), to be granted adminship.

• If you were wrong about that policy, then I simply ask you (or one of your bueaucrats, etc.) to change it to reflect the "changing standards.

I think you were initially right: The admin tools only confer slightly more "powers" to me, and granting them would not be any bigger deal than, say, letting me have a map, flashlight, and cell phone, for -say, a business trip, eh? "Adminship" as I understand it is not something with powers that a bureaucrat or steward has, so I think you were right on this policy. Am I right in all my assertions above and in the RfA in question? Seeing the apparently 3-17-3 concensus that says your policy is stupid: Is that true?

Thx.--GordonWatts 06:08, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

AFAICS, that sentence from Wikipedia:Administrators is not official policy; it just describes how RFA usually goes. Official policy is that people are promoted if they receive consensus on RFA. That sentence should be changed. ~~ N (t/c) 18:56, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Not necessary - Gordon's known, but from the remarks and comments, he's obviously not trusted by those that voted on his request. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 23:04, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

He's probably right that the RfA page should be edited though. RfA has become a popularity contest and should be scrapped. It's getting ridiculous. People oppose editors' having powers that are "no big deal" because they don't talk on policy pages! Well, why should they? People with admin powers don't have to get involved in sorting out disputes, blocking or other "admin" type activities. They don't have to join in the IRC, sign up for the cabal or get involved in any other way than editing the encyclopaedia. The admin powers are powers withheld to newbies, conceptually. A wiki hierarchy is determinedly not a good thing. -- Grace Note (apologies for not logging in)

I don't entirely disagree. It bears further discussion, and perhaps we should take this to Talk:RFA --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 01:32, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

3-17-3 means nothing and just demonstrates the basic flaw with Wikipedia. 3+17+3=23 users. Wikipedia is not composed of only 23 editors and there is a high probability that some or maybe most of the 17 have been informed or organized to vote against. 3 idiots builds enough consensus to shut out 1 scholar. And this is Jimbo Wales' Wikipedia formula? --AI 03:24, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Adminship might have been "no big deal" a couple of years ago, but administrators can do more now than they could before. Administrators can delete, undelete, merge page histories, block, unblock, do range blocks, protect pages from editing or just being moved, and delete images forever. About half of these abilities have been added since you could truly say that adminship was handed out liberally to anyone who asked for it. Adminship candidates must be trusted by the community (or significant pockets thereof) for them to receive sufficient support on RfA. Now that administrators can make lasting damage to the Wiki (at least going back to its last backup), more emphasis is placed on the "trust" part. - Mark 06:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

The only "lasting damage" an admin can do is delete an image. That's exactly the same situation as three years ago. The truth is that admin process has changed from a cosy little mailing list activity (easy when there was only about one admin a fortnight!) to a very tough trial on RfAdminship where every little detail of activity is analysed and used as a possible means to oppose. This is a bit of a shame because it has led to the homogenization of the adminship pool, when ideally more people should bring more diversity. Editcountitis is particularly bad. There was a case recently where someone had been around for two years, made lots of good (and lengthy) contributions, never caused any trouble, had helped people out, but was blindly rejected because he had only made 1,000 edits or so

In short, adminship should still be no big deal. We should work at loosing the RfAd culture up. Pcb21| Pete 09:02, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

P.S. I don't know anything about Gordon's particular case. Pcb21| Pete 09:02, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I think both sides have good points. We probably at this point need extended user rights capabilities so we can keep the adminship process "no big deal" and simple. Each admin could request a subset of rights based on the chores they wanted to perform. If that's not the case, we should just make the process simpler overall. I think another question that is relevant now that wasn't relevant then is, how many admins do we want? We have ~23,500,000 edits, ~2,300,000 pages, ~440,000 users and ~580 admins. That means each admin is effectively responsible for 40,500 edits, 4,000 pages and 750 users. That sounds like 580 full time jobs to me~ --Alterego 15:56, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

But it is not a job. They are just powers. Originally, they were conceived as powers withheld, which you would be granted if you kept your nose reasonably clean. Now people are opposed because they don't vote on deletions, because they have made enemies, because they aren't "trusted" (but not "trusted" not to delete pages, "trusted" in a sense defined by whoever is using that as their reason), because you once bickered with somebody over something stupid, because someone once called you a troll and his mates piled on. Gordon should be an admin if it's no big deal. He wouldn't do any harm with it. He just blathers and tries to push his POV. If that was a crime, we'd be locking up half the editorship. Grace Note 02:00, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia in Belgium: BELNET

Dear Jimbo: I don't know if you remember, but in february 2005 you were invited by the Belgian Secretary of State (Staatssecretaris voor Informatisering van de Staat) Peter Vanvelthoven. [3] He liked the project very much, and declared on tv that he wanted to help Wikipedia, by caching parts of Wikipedia on the Belgian University Network BELNET. We are now almost 7 months later, and that still hasn't happened. So I mailed our secretary of state, and he replied that the contract had been sent out tot Wikipedia, but did not yet return to his department (or to some other place). So, my question is: do you know how this subject is evolving? Is this cache still coming, or is it on permanent hold? I would like it very much if it would go online very soon, because the Dutch Wikipedia is going in slow-motion right now. And the French also, off course. --Tuvic 20:42, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Afaict the belnet offer was hosting only not servers. Given that wikimedia has other offers and colocation is a relatively small part of the budget one has to ask if its worth buying servers to fill the belnet rack. Also it would be the third cluster in that part of europe. Whilst i'm not involved in the process myself this offer just doesn't seem very attractive to wikimedia in its current situation. Plugwash 20:47, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Identity theft in Wikipedia

<personally identifiable information removed>

How in the world do we know it's not just two people with different names? Or that this person didn't just hit upon this user name as a random combination of popular names that sprang to mind? How does Mr. Carlson know it's identity theft, and was it mere coincidence that he saw the name at work on the Sollog article, or did he find out some other way? I'm not trying to be overly skeptical, it just strikes me as odd that someone would deliberately and falsely use a 12 year old girl's name to edit a Wikipedia article. I mean, how would one expect to benefit from that? Everyking 05:58, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Everyking, please stop raising silly objections to absolutely everything. It's an obvious troll or Sollog puppet account, and so therefore _who cares_ if it is a random coincidence on the name or not.--Jimbo Wales 19:13, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

What? I didn't even think about the quality of the edits being made. I didn't realize that was even an issue. Anyway I think you should apologize for the "silly" remark. Everyking 04:13, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

The point is that you should have looked into it more before popping off with a silly opinion. Please try.--Jimbo Wales 14:17, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

You've got the black spot, man. Anything you say can more or less be disregarded and you can be insulted by any mucky-muck who chooses. GWTP. -- Grace Note

I don't agree about any black spot. Everyking is a respected admin in many cases. In my opinion, he hurts his own credibility by being contrary all the time, without even (as in this case) properly investigating the facts.--Jimbo Wales 14:17, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Harassment

Hi, I think the ideas have settled. The primary concern I see is Trolls abusing the policy (such as something like willy on wheels claiming he is beeing harrased by admins). Aside from that I do not see objections to the proposed policy. I feel your views on the matter or even an apearance would prove to be useful. Thats all I got for now. --Cool Cat ^Talk 04:16, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Do you, Jimbo, agree with this edit?

I removed a commercial spam site link from the Autofellatio page; trust me...I even loaded it, told them I was 18+(which I am), and there is very little imformative there. It is quite disturbing.[4]Voice of All (talk) 05:47, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

John Byrne

What, exactly, are we allowed to do there right now? If we took your comments literally, we'd need a copy of his birth certificate to prove he was a human being. It seems... unnecessarily restrictive at best, and effectively appears to give Byrne a veto on the inclusion of any content from the fact that you supported his near-blanking of the article - SoM 19:51, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that the article was previously filled with innuendo and rumor without any sourcing at all. I don't mean to insist that we get his birth certificate of course, just that we adhere very strictly to standards of sourcing. We need to find legitimate sources for everything (magazine articles, reputable websites, etc.) and avoid speculation beyond what we actually know. This is just the same standards that we should be applying everywhere, but even more carefully than normal because the article has been problematic.--Jimbo Wales 01:15, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Jeff Merkey#2

I noticed that you had responded to Jeff Merkey on that talk page, so you already know of the incident at hand. Mr. Wales, please help me. I have tried several times to keep garbage of this site, and I have done what I think is a good job as a WikiEditor. This user has caused edit wars and has provoked nonsense ever since he has been on here. Worse, he has falsely accused me of profane messages directed toward him...and that will become true if this idiot runs loose any further.

P.S. I can decorate your page if you want. Tell me how you like my user page's decoration. (and please respond to this comment, I understand that you are a busy person, but I am livid at this point) Thanks, Molotov (talk) 20:12, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Jimbo, thanks for the welcome back. Yes, I noticed that the IP address he was using was deleting content, including other people's comments on Talk pages. When I went to the IP's talk page I noticed the legal threat. I also saw that he had been blocked before for the same thing, so I blocked him for a month. In checking his edits, I noticed he had deleted comments from a Talk page, so I reverted, then I saw that what he was deleting was a pesonal attack (in fact, the same information you deleted from the Merkey article), so I reverted myself. User:Zoe|^(talk) 05:04, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Edit war between bureaucrats.

FYI, Jimbo, there is an edit war brewing between two of your bureaucrats, and I've sided with one of them, and SlimVirgin ^(talk) has apparently sided with another one. (2 vs 2 here is a recipe for all hell to break loose.) It all started after my RfA was closed prematurely (cf: my post above). SlimVirgin had tried to get my RfA official removed, but the bureaucrat she recruited for this purpose, instead, decided to let it run its course. He wrote this to me:

"As for reopening your nomination - if you don't mind the "ill will", I'll replace it on the RFA page and adjust the closing time; the premature removal policy is really intended to protect the nominee from undue stress, and if you don't care, then it doesn't apply. — Dan | Talk 15:00, 15 September 2005 (UTC)"

I replied on his page: "I accept your offer here (Revision as of 15:09, 15 September 2005) to reopen my RfA."

SlimVirgin, however well meaning, wasn't a "player" in this: It was handed off to the bureaucrats, as she had asked. Later, however, another bureaucrat, User:ALoan, removed it after I had gotten permission from Dan to repost it and let it run its course. The one bureaucrat and I (two principal "players") voted down the other bureaucrat 2-1, and I reposted my RfA on the main RfA page, here and I removed the "vote ended" notice on my RfA's header here.

However, all good things must come to an end: SlimVirgin ^(talk) reverted my edits -and jumped right into the middle of a hot edit war involving two bureaucrats and one unhappy RfA camper; I think she is a good admin, in general, but I think she overstepped her boundaries when she walked into the middle of an conflict involving two bureaucrats and an editor in good standing. So, the final analysis is this: An edit was with four apparent principals: 2 vs 2.

How shall you break the tie? (Do feel welcome to take your time; After all, it's only wiki; PS: If you rule against me, be sure to know that I will not like it, but I will accept your decision here, if you decide to become involved: After all, you are the boss right now. My goal in wiki is to make other users feel welcome, and that is why I am protesting so loudly.)

PS: Why are she an ALoan so afraid of letting the RfA simply plod its course? Maybe it will uncover abuse or lack of following of Wiki-policy? If they think users will experience "ill will," then those users don't need to be at Wikipedia: Using those pages is voluntary. (PS: If I lose my RfA, I am NOT asking you to install me by "fiat," unless you discipline some users and invalidate their votes; That all is your decision.)

We await your feedback.--GordonWatts 11:03, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

There's no edit war between bureaucrats. Gordon nominated himself for adminship. It became clear very quickly that his nomination would fail, and because the page was becoming toxic, a bureaucrat removed the nomination. Gordon appealed to the bureaucrat, who re-opened the vote. Other bureaucrats advised that this was not a good idea, and recommended it be closed again, which everyone agreed to, except Gordon. No edit war; just a discussion. [5] The vote is now closed. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 11:42, 17 September 2005 (UTC)