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Are certain policies absolutely mandatory for editors to follow? Or can consensus overrule any policy?

FWIW, there is a discussion at Wikipedia Talk:Consensus where this precise question is being discussed. IIRC, in the past you have called some policies "non-negotiable" so the question becomes "Are 'non-negotiable' policies actually ignorable by a consensus on any article?" Collect (talk) 13:20, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

  • Focus on editorial judgment: I think Jimbo has repeatedly emphasized to use "editorial judgment" in those decisions, where wp:IAR could override the prior policies but beware an attempted "takeover" of a few people to bypass all policies whenever. As a general rule, wp:consensus warns that a "local consensus" cannot override formal policies, but guidelines are considered optional and are often ignored (as thousands of pages ignore wp:MOS). For example, after a recent wp:TfD discussion, an admin deleted a template which provides functionality not provided by any other known templates, so I naturally cited wp:IAR and recreated the template, but another admin (unaware of the specific functionality) re-deleted the template just following the petty procedure to request undeletion via wp:DRV, as with any typical bureaucracy to "submit form 567B part 7, take a number, and wait in line". In general, admins need to be taught about wp:IAR with templates, when a template is accidentally deleted with zero understanding of its actual utility. This is an age-old problem: people learn best by being taught, and make no mistake, Teaching is the way; otherwise let children roam free until age 18 and see what happens. As W. Edwards Deming said, "Experience by itself teaches nothing" rather than the ill-conceived, 'Experience is the best teacher' (no, not true), while, "The best teacher is a master" as recommended by other masters of a craft. However, a way to help the learning process would be to have study materials to clarify the valid use of wp:IAR (versus self-righteous "consensus of a few") in cases where there is a lack of policies to improve the system. I think if WP moved to a trust/reputation-based system, where users with long-term activity (or expertise) in an area were given priority in decisions, then I think the results could be better. Perhaps Jimbo, if he has time, might add some more advice about this topic. -Wikid77 (talk) 07:40, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't think this is worth bringing here. I see only one editor pushing the issue, either attempting to make a subtle point, but failing, or simply out of touch. No one else has supported the odd notion, and my sense is most others are just ignoring it. That sounds like a good course of action until or unless some others decide to support the odd notion.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:25, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Acoustic harassment

Wikipedia is censored. This a very notable subject. I can give lots of other examples, but this one occured today and is particularly glaring. I'm sure the usual bullies will come out attacking me, but the deleted article and the Google Books results speak for themselves. Candleabracadabra (talk) 18:26, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

The subject was so 'notable' that none of the sources cited even used the phrase. Clear synthesis, and an unambiguous attempt to get around the deletion of the entirely non-notable 'voice to skull' conspiracy-bollocks-article first by the use of hyphens ('voice-to-skull') and then by renaming the same cobbled-together collection, while leaving the content untouched. Wikipedia isn't a platform for the promotion of kookery. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:36, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
...and as for the Google Books search results, what exactly have books on marine aquaculture got to do with ""neuro-electromagnetic devices" supposedly developed to transmit voices into peoples' heads? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:50, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  • The article started as Voice to skull, an article that was deleted at AFD a month ago, deleted at MFD this week after failed attempts to pass it through AFC, and has already caused one editor to be warned about discretionary sanctions due to it falling under ARB's ruling on Fringe science topics [1]. The community has spoken loud and clear about this article, on multiple occasions. So I full protected the redirect and G4 deleted and salted the current title, both for 3 months. None of the actions required authority under WP:Discretionary sanctions / Fringe Science, even if they clearly would have them. I had "talked down" the last article creator, thus was familiar with the article. If you want to complain to Jimmy, please do, just be accurate in how you describe it. And I've not attacked you, although you have made a number of personal attacks calling me incompetent, abusive, involved, etc. I'm just stating the facts, all of which are easily found with diffs. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 18:47, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Some technology exists + theoretical military uses + Dennis Kucinich introduced a bill to ban such theoretical weapons + people claim they are being targeted by such weapons + examples of similar but unrelated technologies used by fish and wildlife management = synthesis not citable to any reliable sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:26, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Fortunately we now have Deletionpedia which shows that some typical WP:RSes using the specific term 'voice-to-skull' and the abbreviation V2K are provided in their version. I find that the people trying to purge Wikipedia of 'fringe science' are overbearing and uncompromising -- for example, I abandoned any effort to make Rupert Sheldrake's article follow BLP, even on little things like not having a special "Notes" section detailing all the derogatory terms used about him article by article (let alone covering what his books actually say), because there's simply too much power lined up behind the current version, and I watched someone agreeing with me on those points get hauled off to ArbCom for arguing the issue. Please note that I am not saying that these are true; only that Wikipedia should not shrink away from neutrally disclosing the details of these ideas in addition to their criticism. Wnt (talk) 00:05, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Typically, those are best covered in parent articles, rather than stand alone, so the ideas don't have to prove stand alone notability, just WP:due and WP:v. Personally, I don't care either way, I didn't vote in the discussions and know nothing of the topics, but when the community says "no" multiple times, editors should respect that and at least wait a bit before attempting to reintroduce the ideas. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 00:19, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

The article is at User:Candleabracadabra/Acoustic harassment in my userspace so I can work on it. There is nothing fringey about it. It's based mostly on a series of articles by American journalist Sharon Weinberger in Wired (magazine). The article I created had nothing (as far as I am aware) to do with the article that was previously deleted. Dennnis's dishonesty not withstanding.

Let's let the facts speak for themselves. The proof is in the pudding. The article is legitimate and well sourced. It was new and was getting improved. His actions are grotesque and abusive obliterating something that was under discussion so people can't even see what was there and then making a series of outrageous misrepresentations. Bullying at its worst against someone he was already in conflict with after he repeatedly posted to my talk page after being asked to stop again and again on an unrelated issue that was over and in which he had no involvement other than being buddies with the editor who disagreed with me. That is all. Candleabracadabra (talk) 01:45, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

So fringey that there are already existing articles on aspects of this science on Wikipedia. See Microwave auditory effect for example. The conspiracy is huge Doktobuk!!! Crazies all around. Seek shelter with the other ignant people who can't accept reality. Candleabracadabra (talk) 02:26, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
The reality is that you've concocted an article from multiple sources, none of which discuss the technology as any sort of collective group. You are mixing acoustic technology with (alleged) microwave devices and lasers, and throwing in bird-scarers for good measure. It is synthesis, plain and simple - 'spooky stuff written about in Wired' isn't a legitimate article topic. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:37, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Note that just above Dennis Brown suggested combining topics in "parent articles", while you're suggesting combining similar content is improper synthesis. That's a problem. Wnt (talk) 03:10, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Nope. Microwave devices belong in our articles on microwave-related topics. Lasers belong in our articles on laser-related topics, and so on. What doesn't belong on Wikipedia is a ragbag collection of different devices (real or hypothetical) using different technologies, and intended for different purposes, collected together for no reason other than that someone wrote about them in Wired magazine. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:38, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
What about acoustic harassment and acoustic harassment devices? Candleabracadabra (talk) 06:52, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Cite a source that (a) defines the term(s) and (b) includes the devices you describe in your article in the definition. Otherwise, it is synthesis. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:34, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, to be fair, so long as full coverage of 'voice-to-skull' claims is permitted at microwave auditory effect and so forth, that isn't a bad way to organize the content. An article electronic harassment would need to show RSes that there actually is such a phenomenon, i.e. implying (I suppose) that someone actually looks at a situation and decides which method to use to attain that goal. (Though the idea may be implausible, there's nothing implausible about collecting RSes, since there are a lot of sources that have discussed such ideas. I should add that personally I think that it is noise pollution with "infrasonic" sound, which is formally dismissed as not even existing under the dBA scale used in U.S. regulations, that needs more attention) Wnt (talk) 11:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
Synthesis is never a good way to organise content. And as for 'voice to skull', there is a single source for this which passes WP:RS - and it tells us next to nothing [2]. The rest is just the usual conspiracy-theory nonsense. Any claims that such (supposed) technology has actually been used to harass anyone are untenable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:41, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
What's the matter with the Washington Post? [3] People who want to document this phenomenon, no matter whether it is social, hypothesis, or scientific fact, should be able to freely cite sources like this and get the facts down, and the purpose of moving the content one place or another should be to organize it, not some kind of surrogate argument over whether they're stupid for taking their time to write about it. I mean, they could be covering Pokemon. Let's be glad someone wants to navigate the literature and see how much can be put together. Being open minded and systematic is more important for a scientific attitude than being "right". Wnt (talk) 21:44, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
There is rarely a one-size-fits-all solution for complex issues, so encouraging inclusivity has merit. However, the above fails to address what would follow from such encouragement—today, acoustic harassment, tomorrow drone harassment, and within a few months it would hard to find reliable encyclopedic content because there would be so much woo-woo. Johnuniq (talk) 23:51, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Cleared 95% of cite red-errors

As expected, the cite gnomes have hand-fixed another 3,100 pages in April 2014, working with the final "few" 400 170 pages (originally 10,000), for the wp:CS1 cites with message "Unknown parameter |xx= ignored; see (help)" viewed last year in over 8,500 pages. At this point, when a major article is "scarred" with a red-error message, it can be spotted faster among the remaining final 2 sections of pages in:
• Category:Pages_with_citations_using_unsupported_parameters
Recently, I was able to correct red-error cites from major pages botched within 30 days ago, and now such major glitches can be tracked and fixed within 2 days. Long-term, plans for wp:autofixing cites would provide instant auto-correction in over 99% of cases (plus archive and user-space pages), but due to the wp:Page Reformat Crisis, the hand-fixing of cites was a faster remedy than the 7-week reformatting of 2.2 million pages to display updated cite templates. Along with your advice to curtail the rampant use of templates, we need to augment a guideline to reconfigure templates into half-million-page sets (depending on parameter choices), so that changing a template could apply new results within 1 week, rather than waiting 2-3 months. More later. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:32/14:39, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

  • Partioning templates into half-million-page sets: To provide faster results when a mega-template is changed, the template could branch into separate sub-templates, or Lua modules, depending on the parameters in use for each page. For example, when a cite names a 2nd author with parameter "last2=" then a redundant Lua module could be invoked, only for use with cites containing multiple authors, as indicated by using "last2=" in 123,000 pages. Because many of the major articles use multi-author cites, then changing the redundant Lua module first would trigger reformatting only those 123,000 pages with related major pages, but skip the other 2.1 million pages which do not use "last2=" and thereby, reformat the pages with "last2=" in a few days, as 21x times faster than the typical one-module structure which would trigger reformat of all 2.2 million related pages. If the installed change is "not perfect" then another cite update could be installed, to again reformat those 123,000 (major) pages for additional cite features. After broad inspection of results, then the same new cite features could be later installed in the other redundant Lua modules, triggering total reformat of all 2.2 million cited pages over the next 6-8 weeks. By using such partitioned templates, with selected redundant modules, then many mega-templates could be redesigned for rapid deployment among the major WP articles, while still providing the much slower but massive, mega-deployment across millions of pages by updating all other redundant modules. Currently, the one-module mega-templates have became a "logistical bottleneck" in allowing only a few massive updates to be deployed per year. That has led to complaints of "waiting 46 days" for the updated template results, while still not finished reformatting pages. -Wikid77 15:24, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Accuracy in science articles

Hi Jimbo, There's a big problem with an editor inserting bad material into hundreds of science articles through incompetence. [4]

Instead of checking the articles and fixing them, it looks like the GA/FA reviewers are circling the wagons.


In your view, is it better to have lots of incorrect articles or fewer, correct articles? Hell might be other people (talk) 11:09, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Where in our GA process are either completeness or accuracy, let alone a readable narrative explanation, a requirement? We're good on commas. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:04, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
I looked at one of this editor's recent DYKs[5] and didn't find a single complaint that I could really hold up and say was justified. I looked at the critic's talk page and his complaint that mollusc taxonomy is wrong, all wrong, was not being backed up by sources, whereas the taxonomy the "incompetent" editor used is based on sources from the articles listed in the taxobox. The standard applied for 'close paraphrasing' was stricter than that I've seen applied, or applied, to other editors. I see a good editor who has produced many interesting articles for us, who I would rate at "96-99% accurate", being followed by a critic who so far I'd rate south of 25% accurate. Why doesn't WP:COMPETENCE apply to people who run around after an editor trying to find fault with everything?
General rule: if someone tells me an editor is incompetent and something needs to be "done about" her, I would need to see some articles she's written that are so inaccurate that the community decided the best thing to do with them was to delete them or pare them down to nothing and start over from scratch. If, on the other hand, her articles are good enough that we don't turn our noses up at the thought of using their text going forward - even if we find some errors and make modifications - then it follows that the editor who made those articles is also good enough. Wnt (talk) 14:54, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Fewer, correct -- nonetheless, putting it in perspective, it is known and studied that general interest encyclopedias are prone to error in the sciences, major and minor, as are textbooks. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:56, 15 April 2014 (UTC) One further thought is, and I wonder if this has been studied, are Wikipedia's science articles (and other articles) readable - or are they filled with jargon and incomprehensible (while, perhaps, arguably correct and comprehensive) detail. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:27, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
See Category:Wikipedia articles that are too technical.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:32, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Vacation

I'm on a rare actual vacation (as opposed to a half-working semi-vacation) and will be unlikely to post much here until next week.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:39, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, have fun! Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 18:46, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Enjoy the vacation, we'll all try not to wreck the page while you're gone. Novusuna talk 20:36, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Enjoy your vacation Mr. Wales. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 16:10, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Head to Head interview

Jimmy, I thought this was one of your best-ever performances. There were finely honed and immediate responses to what were some of the most politically challenging questions I've seen aired recently about the WMF; there was humility and then humour against the griper in the audience; there was a steadfast yet approachable demeanour that went over well. Also nice was the professional flow enabled by the excellent Aljazeera interviewer.

Well done indeed! Tony (talk) 05:59, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I also think this was the best JW interview that I've seen. The questioning was tough and frequently unfriendly, the answers were good without being testy, and it was informative. If barnstars on this page weren't so lame, I would lay one down. Kudos. Carrite (talk) 15:58, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  • That went really well - helped by an excellent (and obviously sympathetic) interviewer. I was struck by how much Bob Ayres seemed like a caricature of an "intelligence officer" - exactly the kind of clueless straw man an opponent might set up to knock down (though I have no doubt he was genuine). I was astounded by how he didn't know the difference between quantitative degree of surveillance and qualitative categories of surveillance. And isn't Oliver Kamm an arse? And that Wales chap? The lad done good :-) -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:21, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Indeed well done. The mention of 17-year-old Jack Andraka using Wikipedia to invent a cancer test was particularly impressive to me - I had no idea that you could make an application for antibodies and carbon nanotubes for three cents - though later on the article on him tosses some cold water about what it means for cancer detection. The weakest point was the "responsibility to try to be neutral", which I don't think quite represents policy or best practice. In practice many of our issues remain on a battlefield with an admin-declared winner. In principle, we need for 'inclusionists' (essentially) to make a better showing, because the way for peace on these issues is for articles to be written by those who have a genuine interest and desire to document the data. For those who add what they like and remove what they don't like there can never be peace, but for those who respond to an issue by wanting to understand what the other side thinks so that they can be refuted and reeducated, there need not be conflict. Wnt (talk) 20:51, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Commons issue (again)

Hi Jimbo,

I think this is an issue you are personally concerned, so you should be aware. I nominated this image for deletion on Commons (commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Obvious troll.jpeg), but it was kept. What do you think about that? Regards, Yann (talk) 10:21, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I guess the argument made by that one Commons admin — what's his name, Russavia? Something like that — was more compelling than that of the nominator and the one person who opined "Delete." Commons is a wonderful thing, hurray for them. Carrite (talk) 16:01, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

stack exchange attribution

Could you take a look at Wikipedia talk:Copyright problems#Stack_Exchange_attribution in your capacity as a Creative Commons advisory board member? I think Stack Overflow is trying to obnoxiously re-interpret the BY-SA license to impose additional requirements. If you have any thoughts to post to that talk page, that would be great. Thanks. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 14:48, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

You need a new format to accommodate dissent

Most Wikipedia articles are good, but a number have real problems that a reader may not be able to identify. The article on Crimea, fore example, is pretty balanced, but check the article on cryptography and the section on "politics of "cryptography." You would never know that China, Russia France and other all have crypto policies that are very different from the US. The article on the International Space Station makes it sound like it was a Russian idea. Crucial facts are omitted. The article on espionage discusses the US and not much else. Sometimes this is politicized history. I've found this a number of times on Wikipedia, sometimes in reading about events in which I have direct knowledge, sometimes in reading articles that diverge significantly from the research literature. Some of these issues are politically contentious, but this contention needs to be reflected in the article.

You might want to start a discussion within the community on how to deal with problems of accuracy and dissent. One idea would be to make it easier to flag dubious articles. You also might want to consider a new format that allows contending views to be posted. The flame war "battle-for-truth" approach doesn't work because you simply get competing editors. It might be better to use a format where an article could present contending views on the same page. I Changing the format to improve accuracy by accommodating debate might be best. Wikipedia is a great project, but a good way to define "truth" is through debate. It might be time to consider a format that makes debate easier and more transparent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jalewis (talk • contribs) 15:07, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't see a "politics of cryptography" section in the cryptography article. The "legal issues" section mentions China, and refers to a separate Cryptography laws in different nations article which could use expansion since it doesn't mention China. I think this is in WP:SOFIXIT territory. If you've got some info to add, just add it with some reasonable citations. Similarly with your other examples, I don't think it's a matter of "dissent" as much as unfinished articles, maybe colored by WP:Systemic bias. The additions you're suggesting would in all likelihood be welcomed without any fuss. I'll agree there are some more contentious articles that are pretty much useless and are difficult to edit. I just stay away from those both as a contributor and as a reader. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 15:20, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Hi Jalewis, I think you are suggesting things we already know and already have.

    Firstly, yes, there are far too many articles that are US-weighted (or generally Western-weighted), and that's usually simply because that's what the writers knew about. It's a well-known problem, and the answer is to fix those articles. So if you know more and have reliable sources to support you - please, expand them!

    As for "a new format that allows contending views to be posted", well, we already have that - Wikipedia articles are supposed to reflect the real-world balance of contending views, weighted according to reliable sources. So if you see any unbalanced (and again have reliable sources to rectify the imbalance) - go balance them!

    Finally, you're absolutely right that "the flame war "battle-for-truth" approach" doesn't work - so it's fortunate that we don't use it! What we use instead is consensus through discussion based on that good old balance of reliable sources. -- Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:12, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

  • One idea would be to make it easier to flag dubious articles.
Jalewis, there are thousands of articles that have been tagged (the equivalent, I think, of being flagged) for problems with conflict-of-interest, lack of a neutral point of view, inadequate sources and the like. If you come across an article that you believe has serious problems, look at Wikipedia:Template messages/Maintenance or Wikipedia:Template messages/Disputes and add the most appropriate tag to the top of the article. Liz Read! Talk! 19:54, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation and paid editing

Hello Jimbo, I wanted to get your thoughts as a Wikimedia Foundation Trustee on the scandal surrounding the WMF, Stanton Foundation and Belfer Center.

In February you were asked:[6]

Jimbo, we know and support your firm stance against paid advocacy editors -- they have no welcome here at Wikipedia. What if a paid advocacy editor's company presented you a substantial financial donation to the Wikimedia Foundation? Would you accept that donation on behalf of the Foundation, or would you tear it up in their face?

To which you responded:

I think we should accept their donation and ban them from editing. And then spend their money on a full-time employee to identify and block undisclosed paid advocacy editing accounts.

Is this view widely held amongst the Board of Trustees, and within the WMF itself? In the event it is just your own personal opinion, perhaps you could give this opinion some teeth by using your discretionary powers to ban the paid editor involved in the WMF-Stanton-Belfer threesome, because the Arbitration Committee have apparently refused to act on the matter.

It might be of interest to you that the same donor has now granted $1.39 million to the Wiki Education Foundation, a spin-off from the WMF and which is going to be staff by current WMF employees.[7] It really seems that your views on paid editing are totally ignored within the WMF, and this is not good, is it? 124.120.148.245 (talk) 19:01, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

My views on paid advocacy editing are very firmly supported by the board and the Foundation staff. You're being completely disingenuous here by conflating two issues. To my knowledge there is no suggestion that the Stanton/Belfer/WMF arrangement involved advocacy editing in any way - the problem here is a different one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:22, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
The Daily Dot says that the hired editor "allegedly gave favorable treatment [to] the center's scholars, and contributed little else of value to the encyclopedia." Jimmy, are you saying that this allegation is false; or are you saying that while Sandole gave favorable treatment to the Belfer Center's scholars, that this doesn't constitute "advocacy editing in any way"? - 2001:558:1400:10:D84D:D5FC:284A:8D10 (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
This is the first I've heard of that allegation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:42, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
Jimbo, how many times have you said that you're proud of how open and transparent the Wikimedia Foundation is? Do you believe that the following edits result in content that is more open and transparent?
It certainly seems that even when the Wikimedia Foundation is caught having made a huge mistake that they even admit to, if the details start hitting a little too close to home (or the pocketbook), openness and transparency quickly take a back seat (with a dark hood over each of their heads). - 2601:B:BB80:E0:60C4:D49B:2C63:8D39 (talk) 03:16, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
IP, I am an administrator on the Outreach wiki and if you believe that there is a problem with what's happening with that page you can contact me on my Outreach talk page. --Pine✉ 08:22, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

comments after non-consensus 4-day block

"Anything you say can and will be held against you" department. The harassment and hectoring continue on my talkpage and on various RM closees that were off-vector for other closes by people with less of an axe to grind. The following post of a reply of mine at User talk:Skookum1#Your block summarizes what I have encountered, and is a clear demonstration that "all is not well" in Wikipedia-land:

    • Re systemic bias (including the growing bias against more voluble writers like myself, over those who have latter-day attention spans), in looking over one of the Squamish CFDs or RMs I found a link to WP:EXR posted in support of me (from Moxy maybe?) which had these interesting tidbits, showing I am not alone in my views on the use of "consensus" to impose a tyranny of supposed wikiquette that in fact has very little to do with good content or proper use of the guidelines.
  • RE "cumulatively dysfunctional system":
    • "..... Tribes of influential (= have the most free time on their hands) admins and editors have decided that WP policies say something other than what they actually say...."
    • "People who follow strict and standardized interpretations of policies threaten that and must be stalked and rebuffed."
    • " words can be like flames and real lives can and sometimes really are ruined or at least permanently altered; people who fill up talk pages with nonsense, who see the truth of contrary arguments yet refuse from selfishness to acknowledge them; who endlessly Wikilawyer the most obvious points, and enforce not the policies but the policies as they privately interpret them through the grid of their own private agendas."
  • re "Peer review system in Wikipedia":
    • "The main issue never really mentioned for obvious reasons is that dispute resolution on wiki happens on a personal rather than substantive/professional level. Just look at the any resolution board or such, and observe that ~100% of decisions are made on the basis of trite rule violations or other politics by so and so and almost never on the veracity of the content itself. "
    • "This is result of the fact that most admins (or any editor with social power) simply don't have the background to grasp that there's such a thing as "objective reality", and are evidently more comfortable with people drama than arguing or otherwise working with facts. There's no fix for this sort of system incompetence, and as a whole wiki just falls back on the coincidental premise that technical topics are not contentious enough for the incompetent to get involved."

It appears I am not alone in my views on what is wrong here, and my observations about the tactics in discussions of attacking the proponent instead of addressing issues raised are not unique.

There are vast areas of Wikipedia that have been neglected, e.g. improving English on Asian, South American, African and European articles. I am dewatchlisting thousands of items to avoid having to see the ongoing quibbling that has become the norm, vs substantive contributions, and has become a tiresome bore, in which I am always made the target and guidelines and issues raised are shoved aside by wiki-lawyering and personal putdowns and amateur psychiatry.Skookum1 (talk) 05:03, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Is there anything whatsoever in your behavior that draws criticism in your direction? Or are you entirely blameless? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:06, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
that i find it needful to discuss issues at length in reply to pat, simplistic objections winds up being "TLDR" - which should not be used about discussions but only about articles and is unCIVIL as a putdown, is really the core issue here; that I respond sharply to insults and derisions and erratic/misleading quibbles and non sequitur "apples and oranges" comparisons and have been told, sternly, to not respond to rank NPAs made against me that go unpunished and unaddressed such as this item is becoming boring and "old". Being not-given to point-form and short-paragraph formats favoured by teh post-television generation's biases has been treated as personally offensive by my blocker and others, but it is clear from the guidelines that they point to that their comprehension/reading issues apply to those as well, as they consistently mis-cite them and IMO probably find the articles they are busy passing retitling judgements also "TLDR". That I stand up for myself draws even more heat.......talking back to my supposed betters is not allowed. I have particular examples I could point to here, but I'm tired of the harrassment that continues on this page in response to ANYTHING I say and today have better things to do....like go to the beach.Skookum1 (talk) 05:33, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

--- Note also this reply to XOttawahitech, with his comment first:

It is my understanding that editors are free to edit their own wikispaces however it suits them. I have been getting into trouble about this for years now, because some editors try to edit my space claiming they are trying to help me(?) and I am still having trouble when I reject their good-will even when I use all the tact (I probably need lessons in that area) I can muster.
    • Yes, they're trying to "help" me something like a cult indoctrination, continuing to scold and criticize and demanding I conform to what THEY see as correct behaviour and telling me to shut up when I am confronted by incorrect behaviour. Being lectured by people who have abused me with a hammer and told to play nice etc....I am free to edit my own wikispace, yes, but even here I have been attacked for my own words; I have to teach in a few moments, I will return later with a few comments on the links used to equivocate the non-consensus block as if it were not punishment; which it was [as a certain convo off-ANI said very blatantly; that link I will dig out later].Skookum1 (talk) 05:21, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

It is only because there are hundreds of articles with bad English in need of correcting, and because there are still articles needed in the areas of my much-derided regional expertise in need of creation and improvement, that I am staying at all. Ongoing personal harrassment from people who lack the ability to critically think about themselves and what they are doing, and who don't even know what is in the guidelines they hurl at me like weapons, will no doubt continue, but I will endeavour to ignore it in future. I had high hopes that Wikipedia would be "the document of the age" but now the wikiquette and the self-referential biases of the adminship have now overtaken content as the "project's" primary activity and ..... 'nuff said, this is just an update, and observations that I am not alone in being harassed as I have been; with patronizing comments about "portraying myself as a victim" from those who ARE victimizing me, or claiming I am victimizing others, is just bully-talk that is familiar to anyone who knows what bullying is about. Too many people with small minds and narrow views have adminships, likewise those who apparently wanted and use adminship as bully-club with no real activities helpful to contribution or article writing; rather the opposite and in extremis.

Because my comments here were made an issue at the ANI, and will probably be trotted out as further examples to justify yet another, longer, block - not supported by all, but only by the cadre who have seen fit to take unilateral action without consensus already, I will leave off for now; but I not alone in my discontent and resentment against the b.s. that has been hurled at me, and no doubt I will not be the last.Skookum1 (talk) 05:21, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I am approaching my 5th anniversary as an editor here, and I work largely on mentoring and assisting new editors, creating new articles and expanding existing stubs on what I sincerely believe to be notable topics, evaluating AfD debates in an even-handed way, trying to protect BLPs subject to attacks, and trying to encourage compromise and the de-escalation of disputes. In all that time, I have been directly involved in very few bitter disputes with highly experienced editors, and have been able to resolve those without excessive acrimony. What am I doing wrong? Why am I never involved in these epic, ongoing battles? And why are you? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:46, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
You should try fighting the great conservative (!) bias that exists in political articles. That will help you become engaged in epic, ongoing battles. Resolute 17:08, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Skookum, my friend, you need to let it go. Get thee from the drama pages, including this one!!! Carrite (talk) 15:28, 17 April 2014 (UTC)
    • I hear ya, Carrite, but check it out - I started work on new mountain and river and other items and "look who it is" that's thrown procedure at me to hobble my activities, waste my time, and it seems draw me in WP:BAITing or now throwing stones at me for alleged CaNVASSing by notifying affected WikiProjects (in the hope that people who actually write river articles and work with mountain categories will show up instead of the usual CfD lurkers). Whatever, I tried to get some work done, and now find myself harassed at it by the same person who blocked me and conducted hostile closes of RMs I'd fielded that were completely opposite to the majority of others of the same kind in the same series, in the same situation, and re the same policies and guidelines. Seems even I go away to Philippines and Thai articles I'll be followed and niggled at no matter what I do or how far away from this last few week's cultus ikta as I try to get.

@Jimbo Wales: I don't know if you actually read this board or not, or this is just a place for people to vent so their comments can be hauled off to the adminship for thought-police discipline and punishment.....but I'm a valuable contributor, here trying to put distance between those who have made my wiki-life miserable and needlessly stressful for weeks now......"can't a guy get any work done around here??". Telling me to 'not take it personally' when all the evidence of experience re this ....... person..... says that this is very, very personal....... I am risking my "freedom" and continued presence in Wikipedia by daring to criticize, daring to complain.

Is that really what you intended when you created the position of admin and the processes that govern becoming one and what they can do to ordinary editors? really??Skookum1 (talk) 21:21, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

He's on holiday at the moment., wait till he comes back. KonveyorBelt 22:24, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Cost of being right

This article might be appreciated by some Wikipedians, including some who watch this page.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:54, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it's important to consider broader implications when deciding to engage some problem. Just to play devil's advocate, however, one could also ask, "what is the cost of leaving this problem unacknowledged?", or, "what is the cost of complacency?" I, JethroBT drop me a line 19:33, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Deletion of the GR8BIT article

Hello Jimmy et al, please excuse me for applying to you, but it seems we are stuck.

Would you please read [8] and give your reasoned assessment. Several people (including me of course) were working on the contents on MSX Resource Center (in Wiki secion) and were in Wikipedia, and article has several secondary sources.

Please clarify the following points:

  • can several encyclopedias have same/similar contents on the subject? If not, why?
  • Regarding notability, which was used as a reason to reject article first time:
    • (a) significant coverage is measurable (indicate threshold please), and what to do with specialized knowlegde which by default has limited coverage in general, significant only in specific communities;
    • (b) which rating scheme Wikipedia editors use to measure reliability of sources (i.e. "integrity" of sources' editors)? Is that even possible?
    • (c) Sources: multiple - how many? More than one?
    • (d) "Independent of the subject excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it." - how do you test it? If I bought HP notebook, I became affiliated with it because I am its customer, and under this clause should not have a right to edit information about HP and its products? Even if I know something useful about it? If I want to add value? If this clause would be strictly enforced, Wikipedia would stop its existence;
    • (e) Presumed assumption... one person assumes? Two? Committee? Me? People who creates contents of the article - however Wikipedia states that notability if not about article, but about subject? Can I vote for exclusion of all the articles from Wikipedia which subjects are not known to me? Is it the right way?

I fully understand that you truly strive to have quality and infringement-free contents in the encyclopedia, but this time (at least) editor hitting "NO" button and disappearing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EugenyBrychkov (talk • contribs) 22:38, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Deletion of the GR8BIT article part 2

Hi Jimbo. All tough I can imagine it looks a bit suspicious, I'm the author of the original article about GR8Bit on msx.org This can be easily checked by looking at the article history @ http://www.msx.org/wiki/index.php?title=GR8Bit&action=history

My email address on MSX.org is the same as I used now for my wikipedia account and is a confirmed e-mail address. Eugeny Brychkov and/or everyone else has the right to use and/or publish my Gr8Bit article complying to the Creative Commons Licence. I will update the article on msx.org with this CC license.

I hope this will solve this dispute. Eluppes (talk) 00:00, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

OpenSSL Bug

Since this was brought up recently on this page, I want to mention that:

  • If you would like to test a web site for SSL security (in general) of a website, use this URL:

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html

  • If you would like to test whether your specific browser is secure (in general in terms of SSL), use this URL:

https://www.howsmyssl.com/

  • If you would like to test whether your specific browser is secure in testing whether an SSL certificate has been revoked, use this URL:

https://revoked.grc.com/

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:51, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Could Wikipedia please switch to an EDH cipher suite with forward secrecy instead of what it's using now, that allows old recorded sessions to be decrypted if the server key is compromised? That would have prevented a lot of possible user password exposure. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 23:58, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Vacation reminder

It was archived so I wanted to remind people that I'm on vacation until mid-week next week. And after that I'm at board meetings in San Francisco and so not that much on-wiki bandwidth.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 04:28, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Is it technically possible for such notices (editable by you) to appear above the edit window?
—Wavelength (talk) 04:46, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
It is possible for all administrators to create page notices which Mr. Wales could have used to carry this announcement. It wouldn't have been a terribly bad idea to have done so. Cheers.—John Cline (talk) 05:59, 18 April 2014 (UTC)
Can you tell me more about how to do this?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 05:08, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Editnotice. Simply create User talk:Jimbo Wales/Editnotice. Viriditas (talk) 05:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
You can use this list of search results to see edit notices of other editors.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:27, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

The problem with developing maths rendering

The standard rendering of mathematics is one of the ugliest parts of wikipedia. Its using a outdated image based system rather than the more modern MathJax system. See for example the difference between Formula with the maths rendering preference option changed from PNG to MathJax. Problems with the image based system include differences in font and font sizes between the main text and equations. There has been some good work developing a new system but they are having problems getting enough attention from foundation staffers to get the code integrated into the code base. It seems most mathematicians don't know enough about the code side to help and coders are not sufficiently interested in the maths to want to help.

User:Physikerwelt wrote about this problem at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics#TeX not rendered

That's my point. It's really not a very pleasant work to break down everything into atomic changes. With the new version of the Math extension that Gabriel Wicke and me developed in September last year MathJax is executed on the server side, which solves the performance problems. The problem with this development was that it changed from the old version to the new one in one step. I turned out that nobody from the foundation would ever find time to do a code review for such a large change. Therefore I had to break down this change into a number of small commits. This is really a lot of useless work and causes some unfortunate side effects. I'd really appreciate if the Foundation could allocate some paid developers to review the changes in the Math extension at once. But it seems that there is no money for the math extension so everything has to be developed and reviewed for free.--Physikerwelt (talk) 11:43, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Is there anything the foundation can do to help this much needed extension along?--Salix alba (talk): 13:59, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Very strong support, the Foundation should be leveraging its (our) resources by doing things like code reviews for community developed work, rather than putting them into schemes which don't necessarily have the backing of the community, and don't necessarily work. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 00:45, 20 April 2014 (UTC).
It does not send out a good message to the mathematics editing community that so little attention is being paid to this issue. Does the WMF have a plan for mathematics-based text? What resources do you think they should be committing to this requirement? Deltahedron (talk) 11:21, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
(@Rich Farmbrough) This comment nails it. Sławomir Biały (talk) 13:10, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Corrected numbers in page Formula

I have updated that example page, "Formula" by adding footnotes to explain the correct volume factors as "33.51" and "0.2833" (rather than 33.47 and 0.2933), as typical content errors when people focus too much on presentation style, as a case of "form over substance". The errors were inserted over 3 years ago (11 April 2011: dif962). Because of the widespread problems in the factual content of pages, I often downplay the significance of font styles, or red-error messages, which tend to cause people to overlook other factual details on a page. In general, when citing an example page (such as "Formula"), to emphasize the importance of font styles, first be sure the page is free of more-important factual errors, or else beware the cosmic joke when the font does not matter in comparison to the severity of the content errors, such as incorrect calculations. -Wikid77 10:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

It's alarming that you think that factual errors (especially insignificant ones like those you corrected) obviate the point of this thread. You may not care about formatting, but that does not mean that no one should. If no one did, we would not even have PNG formulas or LaTeX markup. Instead, you would need to decipher ascii art like in the bad old days of usenet. Sławomir Biały (talk) 10:36, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Wait, you're this guy? If anything the cosmic joke is on you. Sławomir Biały (talk) 10:54, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

The "email this user" feature

Maybe a lurker/stalker would like to answer this question, or maybe Jimbo can when he's back from his (presumably luxurious and decadent) vacation.

Seriously, I would like to know whether emails sent using the "email this user" feature have ever been read or recorded by anyone without the knowledge of the sender and recipient. I didn't notice this point specifically addressed anywhere already, though I admit to not having looked very carefully.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:03, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I have no direct knowledge but I'd expect that if the mail were intercepted as part of a law enforcement investigation, the people involved would not be allowed to say so (although, see warrant canary). Keep in mind also that any warrants might be executed at the upstream email provider rather than at WP, in which case WP probably wouldn't even know about it. And of course PRISM is supposedly vacuuming all email everywhere. Wikipedia's normal practice if I remember is that the system logs that you have sent an email, but not its content or its target address. You're right that this info seems a little bit hard to find. I just looked around briefly and don't see it. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 20:20, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. If there's a warrant issued by a court, then that's one thing, but if anyone at Wikipedia or Wikimedia does it, then that's another thing altogether.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:25, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
IANAL but I'd imagine that would be dubious enough that you're not likely to get an answer, because of the can of worms it would open. If you mean something like "can Wikipedia admins see emails that you send", it's a pretty safe bet that they can't, as it would likely require mucking with the server code or deployment at the WMF developer level. Is there a specific incident that you're suspicious about? If you just want a bit more privacy assurance than the email function provides, your best bet is probably use the email function only to exchange initial contact info with the other person, and then handle further communications offline. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 22:10, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
By "offline" do you mean outside of Wikipedia, or outside of the internet? If emailing outside of Wikipedia provides more privacy assurance, then there ought to be a warning when people use "Email this user" saying that people might want to be very circumspect until they can email directly to the other person.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:19, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, former president Carter says he uses snail mail to avoid interception, so if you want to go full tinfoil, don't use the internet or the phone.[9] I don't have reason to think Special:EmailUser is particularly worse than typical direct email with no special precautions. It appears to just collect the message and dump it into an smtp library (after calling some unknown hooks, though), which seems straightforward enough.[10] But, most people probably don't bother using the TLS version of the email page so the message would reach the server in the clear; either participant's email system might also not use TLS; the WP TLS pages don't have forward secrecy and were vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug; the other person could be careless about what you tell him or her; email archived on a server (hello gmail) apparently has less legal protection than email in transit ([11], again IANAL); etc. etc. etc. Your best bet is encrypt your messages with something like GnuPG. An intermediate measure might be for both people to use the same webmail provider with a TLS web client, so the messages are less likely to travel over the public internet other than from browsers. This wider discussion of email privacy probably doesn't belong on Jimbo's talk page. WP:RDC might be a better venue. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 23:01, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm just saying that if neither Jimbo nor anyone else at Wikipedia/Wikimedia would ever stoop to reading or recording messages that go through "Email this user", then why not say so to people using that function? Something like, "we treat your emails as totally private". Instead, people who go to "Email this user" are ominously told: "Wikipedia makes no guarantee of confidentiality for messages sent by this system." Is Wikipedia allowing itself to read or record these emails? That's all I'm asking, and it's a perfectly straightforward and legitimate question to ask here, not into tinfoil-hat territory at all.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:12, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
I think that's just a disclaimer that WP isn't trying to provide a secure user to user communication infrastructure, and probably to give them some leeway to check what's going on if someone abuses the email function such as to send spam. If you're worried about someone at WP intercepting private email to win some stupid wiki-editing dispute, that seems farfetched to me. WMF has historically been pretty conservative about logging, e.g. there's stuff they don't log that could make checkuser more effective if they decided to do so. Email interception would be several steps beyond that. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 00:01, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Plus, there's the fact that once a user hits send, the message leaves Wikipedia's hands. We can't guarantee that an email won't be intercepted by a third party or monitored by the recipient's ISP or email provider. Novusuna talk 00:09, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
I expect that you're both probably correct and there's nothing to worry about. But, that seems all the more reason to provide some assurance that Wikipedia and Wikimedia won't interfere with the privacy of this communication system, after saying "Wikipedia makes no guarantee of confidentiality for messages sent by this system."Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:22, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
The Privacy Policy is what you want. At a technical level the source code for Mediawiki is available, and I would imagine simply opens an SMTP connection to some mailserver. The disclaimer is typical lawyer nonsense, no-one has any reasonable expectation that WMF can control the privacy of the global email system, and conversely no disclaimer absolves it from being negligent within the WMF infrastructure. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 00:52, 20 April 2014 (UTC).
Special:Emailuser (source) is a wrapper for UserMailer.php (source). Summary: "This module performs a direct (authenticated) login to a SMTP Server to use for mail relaying if 'wgSMTP' specifies an array of parameters. It requires PEAR:Mail to do that. Otherwise it just uses the standard PHP 'mail' function." — Scott • talk 00:59, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

To be finicky, the privacy policy specifically exempts the user email feature (see the part about "what the privacy policy does not cover"). SpecialEmailUser.php wraps UserMailer.php but it also calls some hooks that are part of the site configuration, so I don't know how to tell what actually happnens on the servers (those hooks are probably the logical place to put any interception in case of something like an abuse investigation). Overall I'd treat it about the same way as the PM system of a message board, and not send anything super secret through it, but otherwise not worry too much for normal traffic. As someone once said, WP is not a Swiss bank. 70.36.142.114 (talk) 01:45, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

The privacy policy that you point to says (emphasis added): "We provide several tools that allow users to communicate with each other. The communications may be covered by this Policy while they pass through our systems...." May?Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:00, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Oh, I see what you mean, I mis-read it, it's not an exclusion. It says that if you email private info to someone, then the privacy policy doesn't cover what the other person does with the info. "May" is ambiguous and the sentence comes across to me as "it doesn't much help if the privacy policy covers the info, if the other person discloses it". 70.36.142.114 (talk) 02:26, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

If you email anyone (in whatever way), you are living in a fantasy world if you think that that is private... NSA captures all email traffic entering and leaving the country and as such Wikimedia cannot guarantee the confidentiality. Any of the dozen or so parties between Wikimedia and the recipient can do the same. Wikimedia knows this, and that's why they are explaining it to you. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:31, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't care if the dozen or so parties between Wikimedia and the recipient read the email. I care if Wikimedia reads the email. After all, the email will be pretty much irrelevant to all of them except Wikimedia.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:29, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Vacation reminder again

This is another note about Jimbo on vacation until late April. See earlier: /Archive_161#Vacation reminder. Hence, other users will need to answer questions here, or link any related responses which Jimbo stated in prior discussions. -Wikid77 11:07, 20 April, 22:45, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Is Jimbo still active?

Does Jimmy Wales still actively edit on Wikipedia or are all edits under his name done by the Wikipedians which he entrusted to handle his talk page?Nathan121212 (talk) 14:06, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Edits from the Jimbo Wales account are made by Jimmy Wales. There's never been any credible suggestion that anyone else uses the account. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for confirming, that notice at the top confused me a bit. Cool to know the founder still improves the site's content.Nathan121212 (talk) 14:41, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
The notice at the top simply means that his talk page is watched by a great many users, who may step in to answer questions before he can get to them. Novusuna talk 18:14, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes I edit content. From time to time I take up a new project to plod along on. My current one is this: I have set up a link in my browser to random British women writers inspired by projects to improve our poor coverage of female authors. Now and again I click it and look for something I can improve in some small way.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:52, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
@Nathan121212: - It's very cool. And we love Jimbo for it! NickCT (talk) 14:40, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
Snap! What a clever idea. Thanks for this, Mr. Wales. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 14:58, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

URLs ending in period cause issues when copied to clients such as email

Per twitter convo (as @mwiik) w/@jimmy_wales, alerting folks to issue with URLs ending in period. An issue arises when such URLs are copied to clients such as email or twitter. Clients typically link such URLs but remove the ending period, thus causing the link not to be found. I do not know the full list of clients affected, but since this seems quite reasonable client behavior, I suggest a fix on wikipedia's end.

I first noticed this on SCOTUS cases, and surveyed such cases within wikipedia, obtaining the following list of 156 URLs. I do not claim this list is 100% complete and of course there may be other pages not pertaining to SCOTUS cases that may be affected.

Here is the list of 156 SCOTUS cases from my survey. Unfortunately, the wikipedia server (or editor) also doesn't include the final period in a raw URL, so all the below links will not work as they are, you must add a period to the end.— Preceding unsigned comment added by NullSpaceKid (talk • contribs) 19:33, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

List of URLs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willson_v._Black-Bird_Creek_Marsh_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Elizabeth_v._American_Nicholson_Pavement_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylis_v._Travellers%27_Ins._Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._E._C._Knight_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollock_v._Farmers%27_Loan_%26_Trust_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Commerce_Commission_v._Cincinnati,_New_Orleans_and_Texas_Pacific_Railway_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huus_v._New_York_%26_Porto_Rico_S.S._Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Paper_Bag_Co._v._Eastern_Paper_Bag_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_v._Stone_Tracy_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gompers_v._Buck%27s_Stove_and_Range_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanton_v._Baltic_Mining_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia,_Florida,_%26_Alabama_Railway_Co._v._Blish_Milling_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Well_Works_Co._v._Layne_%26_Bowler_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_v._Kansas_City_Title_%26_Trust_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooker_v._Fidelity_Trust_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowers_v._Kerbaugh-Empire_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_of_Euclid,_Ohio_v._Ambler_Realty_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._General_Electric_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_White_Taxicab_Co._v._Brown_and_Yellow_Taxicab_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Kirby_Lumber_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grosjean_v._American_Press_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourdieu_v._Pacific_Western_Oil_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Curtiss-Wright_Export_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Negro_Alliance_v._Sanitary_Grocery_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Carolene_Products_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._Mackay_Radio_%26_Telegraph_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collins_v._Yosemite_Park_%26_Curry_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kellogg_Co._v._National_Biscuit_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Commission_v._Pullman_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Darby_Lumber_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Univis_Lens_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burford_v._Sun_Oil_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skidmore_v._Swift_%26_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Willow_River_Power_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Detroit_%26_Cleveland_Nav._Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securities_and_Exchange_Commission_v._W._J._Howey_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_v._Mt._Clemens_Pottery_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sipuel_v._Board_of_Regents_of_Univ._of_Okla.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woods_v._Cloyd_W._Miller_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._National_City_Lines_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullane_v._Central_Hanover_Bank_%26_Trust_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graver_Tank_%26_Manufacturing_Co._v._Linde_Air_Products_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiefer-Stewart_Co._v._Seagram_%26_Sons,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perkins_v._Benguet_Mining_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securities_and_Exchange_Commission_v._Ralston_Purina_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioner_v._Glenshaw_Glass_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Gas_Pipe_Line_Co._v._Mobile_Gas_Service_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Power_Commission_v._Sierra_Pacific_Power_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGee_v._International_Life_Insurance_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byrd_v._Blue_Ridge_Rural_Electric_Cooperative,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aro_Mfg._Co._v._Convertible_Top_Replacement_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallagher_v._Crown_Kosher_Super_Market_of_Massachusetts,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarecki_v._G.D._Searle_%26_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Gas_Pipe_Line_Co._v._Ideal_Cement_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compco_Corp._v._Day-Brite_Lighting,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears,_Roebuck_%26_Co._v._Stiffel_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Continental_Can_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_v._John_Deere_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_v._Dean_Foods_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_Paint_Corp._v._Flood_%26_Conklin_Mfg._Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Southwestern_Cable_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson%27s-Black_Rock,_Inc._v._Pavement_Salvage_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_v._Sperry_%26_Hutchinson_Trading_Stamp_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioner_v._First_Security_Bank_of_Utah,_N.A.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Glaxo_Group_Ltd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Florida_East_Coast_Railway_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espinoza_v._Farah_Mfg._Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota_State_Board_of_Pharmacy_v._Snyder%27s_Drug_Stores,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioner_v._Idaho_Power_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertz_v._Robert_Welch,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLRB_v._J._Weingarten,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_v._Alexandria_Scrap_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arlington_Heights_v._Metropolitan_Housing_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacchini_v._Scripps-Howard_Broadcasting_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Yankee_Nuclear_Power_Corp._v._Natural_Resources_Defense_Council,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquette_Nat._Bank_of_Minneapolis_v._First_of_Omaha_Service_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_v._Armco_Steel_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_v._Clover_Leaf_Creamery_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond,_Commissioner_of_Patents_and_Trademarks_v._Diehr_et_al.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassel_v._Consolidated_Freightways_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoffman_Estates_v._The_Flipside,_Hoffman_Estates,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_Of_Mechanical_Engineers_v._Hydrolevel_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretto_v._Teleprompter_Manhattan_CATV_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Claiborne_Hardware_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_H._Cone_Memorial_Hospital_v._Mercury_Constr._Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Sells_Engineering,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bose_Corp._v._Consumers_Union_of_United_States,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_v._C.C.N.V.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_v._T._L._O.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brockett_v._Spokane_Arcades,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Skiing_Co._v._Aspen_Highlands_Skiing_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dun_%26_Bradstreet,_Inc._v._Greenmoss_Builders,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Cleburne_v._Cleburne_Living_Center,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_Motors_Corp._v._Soler_Chrysler-Plymouth,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_of_Airport_Commissioners_of_Los_Angeles_v._Jews_for_Jesus,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Richmond_v._J.A._Croson_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonito_Boats,_Inc._v._Thunder_Craft_Boats,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauro_Lines_s.r.l._v._Chasser_et_al.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commissioner_v._Indianapolis_Power_%26_Light_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Lilly_%26_Co._v._Medtronic,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milkovich_v._Lorain_Journal_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Tax_Comm%27n_v._Citizen_Band_of_Potawatomi_Tribe_of_Okla.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_v._Glen_Theatre,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cohen_v._Cowles_Media_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin_Department_of_Revenue_v._William_Wrigley,_Jr.,_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_v._Discovery_Network,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell_v._Acuff-Rose_Music,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Waste_Systems,_Inc._v._Department_of_Environmental_Quality_of_Ore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.E.B._v._Alabama_ex_rel._T.B.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madsen_v._Women%27s_Health_Center,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._X-Citement_Video,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitex_Co._v._Jacobson_Products_Co.,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaut_v._Spendthrift_Farm,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Bar_v._Went_For_It,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Dev._Corp._v._Borland_Int%27l,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markman_v._Westview_Instruments,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasperini_v._Center_For_Humanities,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.L.B._v._S.L.J.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner-Jenkinson_Company,_Inc._v._Hilton_Davis_Chemical_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_King_Distributors_Inc.,_v._L%27anza_Research_International_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feltner_v._Columbia_Pictures_Television,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiowa_Tribe_of_Okla._v._Manufacturing_Technologies,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquez_v._Screen_Actors_Guild_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfaff_v._Wells_Electronics,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmstead_v._L.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_of_the_Earth,_Inc._v._Laidlaw_Environmental_Services,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDA_v._Brown_%26_Williamson_Tobacco_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitman_v._American_Trucking_Associations,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semtek_International_Inc._v._Lockheed_Martin_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrafFix_Devices,_Inc._v._Marketing_Displays,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_%26_L_Enterprises,_Inc._v._Citizen_Band_Potawatomi_Tribe_of_Okla.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper_Industries_v._Leatherman_Tool_Group,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Mead_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnhart_v._Peabody_Coal_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moseley_v._V_Secret_Catalogue,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dastar_Corp._v._Twentieth_Century_Fox_Film_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Corp._v._Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Sherrill_v._Oneida_Indian_Nation_of_N._Y.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Mobil_Corp._v._Saudi_Basic_Industries_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spector_v._Norwegian_Cruise_Line_Ltd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_v._Integra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_Ltd.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Tool_Works,_Inc._v._Independent_Ink,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sereboff_v._Mid_Atlantic_Medical_Services,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_Inc._v._MercExchange,_L.L.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anza_v._Ideal_Steel_Supply_Corp.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medimmune,_Inc._v._Genentech,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ledbetter_v._Goodyear_Tire_%26_Rubber_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Election_Commission_v._Wisconsin_Right_to_Life,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leegin_Creative_Leather_Products,_Inc._v._PSKS,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riegel_v._Medtronic,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caperton_v._A._T._Massey_Coal_Co.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtsaeng_v._John_Wiley_%26_Sons,_Inc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiobel_v._Royal_Dutch_Petroleum_Co.

With apologies for refactoring your comment, NullSpaceKid, I've collapsed the list of URLs for readability. It seems like that simplest solution would be to create redirects on the pages without periods to point to the correct ones. Some of the cases listed above already have such redirects. Novusuna talk 20:13, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that seems appropriate. They should be tagged with {{R from modification}} when doing so. It's probably also worth making a note of this somewhere - at the MOS for article naming perhaps? — Scott • talk 15:24, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
This came up at tea-house. A couple of solutions were proposed, let me find them. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:17, 22 April 2014 (UTC).
Yes indeed, we came up with the same solution. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:29, 22 April 2014 (UTC).
About 139 of these do not exist (Merck v. Integra is a redirect already, but a different redirect was needed). If there is consensus I can quickly make the rest of these redirects. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 02:20, 22 April 2014 (UTC).
I can't think of any reason why not, and it would be a great kindness if you could do that.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:56, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
Sounds like a title for an article I should write, "The Great Kindness of Redirects". You wouldn't believe how often organizations ruin their websites during "upgrades" by changing urls and not leaving redirects to the new locations. One reason Wikipedia is such an awesome website is that we are always thinking about the user. Jehochman Talk 13:00, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

VisualEditor newsletter—April 2014

Did you know?

You can use VisualEditor to make redirects. First, remove any unwanted content from the page. Then go to the "Page options" menu (next to "⧼visualeditor-toolbar-cancel⧽") and choose the "Page settings" item. Click the box to "Redirect this page to". In the box, type in the name of the page that you want to redirect this page to.

You can also set or remove categories for the redirect in the "Page options" menu. Read the user guide for more information.

Since the last newsletter, the VisualEditor team has mostly worked on performance improvements, image settings, and preparation for a simplified citation template tool in its own menu.

  • In an oft-requested improvement, VisualEditor now displays red links (links to non-existent pages) in the proper color. Links to sister projects and external URLs are still the same blue as local links.
  • You can now open templates by double-clicking them or by selecting them and pressing  Return.  This also works for references, images, galleries, mathematical equations, and other "nodes".
  • VisualEditor has been disabled for pages that were created as translations of other pages using the Translate extension (common at Meta and MediaWiki.org). If a page has been marked for translation, you will see a warning if you try to edit it using VisualEditor.
  • When you try to edit protected pages with VisualEditor, the full protection notice and most recent log entry are displayed. Blocked users see the standard message for blocked users.
  • The developers fixed a bug that caused links on sub-pages to point to the wrong location.
  • The size-changing controls in the advanced settings section of the media or image dialog were simplified further. VisualEditor's media dialog supports more image display styles, like borderless images.
  • If there is not enough space on your screen to display all of the tabs (for instance, if your browser window is too narrow), the second edit tab will now fold into the drop-down menu (where the "Move" item is currently housed). On the English Wikipedia, this moves the "Edit beta" tab into the menu; on most projects, it moves the "Edit source" tab. This is only enabled in the default Vector skin, not for Monobook users. See this image for an example showing the "Edit source" and "View history" tabs after they moved into the drop-down menu.
  • After community requests, VisualEditor has been deployed as an opt-in feature at Meta and on the French Wikinews.
The drop-down menu is on the right, next to the search box.

Looking ahead:  A new, locally controlled menu of citation templates will put citations immediately in front of users. You will soon be able to see the Table of Contents while editing. Support for upright image sizes (preferred for accessibility) is being developed. In-line language setting (dir="rtl") will be offered as a Beta Feature soon. Looking further out, the developers are also working on support for viewing and editing hidden HTML comments. It will be possible to upload images to Commons from inside VisualEditor.

If you have questions or suggestions for future improvements, or if you encounter problems, please let everyone know by posting a note at Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Feedback or by joining the office hours on Monday, 19 May 2014 at 18:00 UTC. If you'd like to get this on your own page, subscribe at Wikipedia:VisualEditor#Newsletter for English Wikipedia only or at meta:VisualEditor/Newsletter for any project. Thank you! Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Partial autotranslation of Italian/Spanish cites

The new Template:Cita_news provides interwiki support for cites written in Italian/Spanish, with auto-translation of date/month names into English (using Lua string replacement). One of the tangent issues with wp:autofixing cites has been the use of Spanish or Italian cite templates in enwiki text. For many years, German-language parameters have been supported in some infoboxes (such as Template:Infobox_Town_AT), and a similar need has been shown for occasional inclusion of Spanish (or Italian) cites.
The leftover cites from Italian/Spanish text translated into English seem to arise due to expertise needed in 3 areas:

  • basic knowledge of Italian/Spanish for English idioms
  • knowlege of parameters of the Italian template or Spanish plantilla
  • knowlege of Template:Cite_news on English Wikipedia

Some editors forget to handle all 3 aspects, and so the results have included a mix of English and invalid Italian/Spanish parameter names in cites, which Template:Cita_news now handles by autotranslating any into English. Also, people forget to replace Italian/Spanish dates with English month names, so the template translates dates as well. A similar approach should be used for non-English infoboxes, but also translate numbers for dot-comma separator, where "25.600" would be displayed as "25,600" (or "1,25" as "1.25") for an English infobox, using a quick Lua module to translate numeric formats. Invalid numbers such as "3,25" have existed in hand-translated infoboxes for years. A major benefit of autotranslation is to catch every tiny detail which hand-editing has overlooked for years. The overall strategy is to have smarter templates, periodically maintained by "template-gnomes" (among the wp:template_editors user group), rather than spend hours each day tediously hand-fixing dozens of pages which the smarter templates would autofix instantly (without months/years of waiting for hand-fixes). More later. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:03, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Is it true?

Admit it, this is all just a social experiment, to see what happens when a society is created from the ground up with no rules and no government. The fact that it's online keeps people from killing each other, so it's a safe place to conduct the experiment. Right? Am I right? You don't have to answer. One wink for "yes" two winks for "no." USchick (talk) 21:16, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 21:23, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Ha ha, I knew it! USchick (talk) 21:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Personally I would disagree with you, but we certainly have critics who claim this is all a big game of Calvinball. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:49, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
I find it a lot less stressful just to assume it is a game of Calvinball. DuncanHill (talk) 22:51, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
See "Nomic".—Wavelength (talk) 23:35, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
A lot of what has happened is covered in Wilfred Bion's book "Experiences in Groups". "Elites and Society" by Bottomore and "The Gift Relationship" by Richard Titmuss also have a little something to say. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 07:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC).
  • Also, The Chilekings by Jessamyn West (writer), or the phrase "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" when term limits are not given. For years, I have recommended to shift to a system of demerits/merits, where an accumulation of points (attacks, COI-edits, nonconsensus deletes) could lead to a temporary block as "proportional punishment" even for admins who continually skirt the rules, but I was told WP is not a student academy, yet we have many teenage users in age or temperament. Instead, there has been a rise of double-speak practices, as user sanctions are given to "protect WP from disruption" such as users who disagree with policies so topic ban them for at least a million years, and last year the practice of opposing false claims was termed "badgering the opposes" as a form of prior restraint to limit replies. Yawn. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:08, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
    • Looking up this general subject, I was surprised to find that the Hog Farm is still extant after 50 years, although they haven't produced an encyclopedia yet (they did raise some hogs though, so I guess it's a 1-1 tie so far). There're probably some examples, both instructive and cautionary, at Category:Utopian communities. I'll just point at that while the Oneida Community is no longer extant, they did turn into Oneida Limited, the largest supplier of dinnerware to the foodservice industry in North America, which is a useful thing to be. So who knows? Herostratus (talk) 15:07, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
      • 1-0 to the Hog Farm. We have neither raised hogs nor written an encyclopaedia, though we are working on one of the two - no certain which. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 04:28, 26 April 2014 (UTC).

Edit-a-thon invite

You're invited to the Peabody Essex Museum Edit-a-thon Spring 2014

On May 3rd, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts will be hosting a Native American and Chinese Art edit-a-thon from 9:00-5:00 pm. You are more than welcome to attend, as there will be free food and drink, and an outing afterwards. If you are interested, please sign up here, as we would love to see you there!

If you have any questions, please leave a message at Ed Rodley's talk page. You can unsubscribe from future notifications for Boston-area events by removing your name from this list.

Sarah Jane Brown → Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown)

Yep. Really. Talk:Sarah Jane Brown#Requested move 8. (And the same crew are challenging the close of the failed Hillary Rodham Clinton → Hillary Clinton discussion.) --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 21:02, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Has she stated a preference? Would it be useful for me to inquire?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:13, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
IMHO, no. The only consequence of doing that on the proposed Clinton move was to promote a divisive and distracting debate on whether it was proper to do so. More importantly, it did not figure in the closers' decision. And Anthonyhcole, when you say "same crew" I only see one user in common. DeCausa (talk) 21:23, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Regardless, eight move requests is getting silly. There is no ambiguity, and the request to move to "wife of Gordon Brown" seems to me to be calculated to belittle the subject. Up to the early 20th Century she'd have been referred to as "Mrs. Gordon Brown" in official correspondence, we have (thankfully) moved on from that. Guy (Help!) 21:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Not that I'm aware of. The discussion, opened by a very slick IP (as was the Clinton move proposal) has been closed down by Guy (Jzg). Personally, I oppose that - I'd like to confirm where the project stands on this question. It was moved away from "wife of" 10 months ago. (A recent proposal to move to "Sarah Brown" was defeated largely on the basis that Ms Brown is not the clear primary topic for that name. Though it should be taken into account if known, the subject's preference would in my estimation normally be subordinate to the principle that defining a woman as a man's wife is inappropriate. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 21:35, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
I am the user who made the current move request. I have played absolutely no part in what is currently happening at Hillary Rodham Clinton. Move request 6 (which was actually a request for comments) took place nearly one year ago. Move request 7 was made at the beginning of the week, and editors there suggested an alternative name. Since there was consensus against move request 7, yet the calls for an alternative suggestion, I followed WP:BOLD and closed move request 7 early and began move request 8. The current title violates WP:CRITERIA, WP:COMMONNAME, WP:MIDDLES and WP:NPOV. Because of this, and also the suggestions of other users, I think it is unfair and fundamentally untrue to describe it as 'calculated to belittle the subject': it is a genuine suggestion after carefully considering Wikipedia's guidelines and policies and considering the subject too. I have explained all of this properly at the move request. I suggest, instead of causing unnecessary discussion elsewhere, that users look at the move request, consider Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and come to their own opinions whilst following WP:NPOV. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.185.66 (talk) 21:44, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't see any implications for NPOV here. What is non-neutral about it?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for asking and assuming good faith instead of just assuming something negative, Jimbo (and I apologise for forgetting to sign my contribution). Instead of repeating the same arguments here, I recommend you read the move request, or at least the part of it that relates to WP:NPOV. I have taken the time there to think carefully about all of the possible issues and have addressed them individually. 131.111.185.66 (talk) 21:58, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
I find the argument unpersuasive. 'Sarah Jane Brown' is neutral. It may not be the best title, but the problem with it is not about neutrality. 'Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown)' is highly non-neutral - a desire to avoid a possible BLP problem like that doesn't make 'Sarah Jane Brown' non-neutral.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:02, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Also, just so I have made this clear, my suggestion has absolutely nothing to do with sexism on my part. I would have made precisely the same suggestion if this were a non-notable husband marrying a woman Prime Minister. 131.111.185.66 (talk) 22:00, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
"Non-notable"? If it hangs on that then the answer is easy: AfD. DeCausa (talk) 22:06, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
This is where all of the confusion and contention lies, DeCausa. WP:NOTINHERITED explicitly states that people such as Mrs Brown are entitled to their own articles simply because of the position (the page mentions 'First Lady'). This means that the page cannot simply be deleted or merged. 131.111.185.66 (talk) 22:10, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
It is clear that were there no disambiguation issue, we would choose "Sarah Brown". Given that there are other notable people with that title such that we need a disambiguation page, the question becomes: how best to do that. There will be minor problems with all approaches. 'Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown)' is viewed by some (most?) as sexist, particularly since she's clearly notable in her own right for her own work. But names like 'Sarah Brown (philanthropist)' or similar strike me as odd, since she is most famous for being spouse of the Prime Minister. So 'Sarah Jane Brown' is a neutral and uncontroversial option to deal with the disambiguation problem without implying anything about the reasons for her notability, which is best left to the full text of the article to explain.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:18, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
That sounds like an entirely commonsense approach which should be difficult to disagree with. DeCausa (talk) 22:24, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
One point (not the only point) is that a person with a disambiguation should receive it based on their notable position, not how they obtained the position. For example, if we needed to, William Rehnquist (Supreme Court justice), not William Rehnquist (Reagan appointee). If someone has a position which confers notability, the position ought to have some neutral name. Wnt (talk) 00:27, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
How about William Rehnquist (Gore Vidal character)? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 07:11, 25 April 2014 (UTC).

I was asked by the IP to post this, as they have been blocked (nb: more eyes on that block justification would be welcome):

Thank you for your reply, Jimbo. I am sorry I was not able to reply sooner. It turned out that a reasonable discussion was not possible and the request has turned out horribly. I have ended up being blocked by an administrator and I can only edit my user page.
My whole argument on the page was that, even if 'Sarah Brown (wife of Gordon Brown)' is considered by some to be sexist, because it is how she is best described by common sources, then I think policy means that it is still the best option. My concern with 'Sarah Jane Brown' is that she is never called Jane: in a discussion one year ago, only one reliable source was found for Jane, and that was an article written in The Guardian on her wedding day (which also used her maiden name). I would be more supportive of something like 'Sarah Brown (philanthropist)', because she has actually been described as this by reliable sources on multiple occasions.
Whatever I think, though, it seems as if the issue is too problematic for users to consider calmly. I made the request in good faith and considered the policies carefully, yet the request has caused multiple arguments spread throughout various pages. The actions made by various users last night, by both administrators and non-administrators, have destroyed my confidence in Wikipedia. I no longer feel that I can trust administrators as a regular editor should do. Because of this, I have decided I shall withdraw from editing completely, even after the block has expired. This is a shame, but it is what I feel is most appropriate for myself. I genuinely, however, wish you and your project the best of luck in the future. 131.111.185.66 (talk) 10:09, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

(posted by --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:55, 25 April 2014 (UTC))

More eyes than the admin noticeboard and the unambiguous support for the block on that page? Frankly, I find your behaviour bizarre. We closed the move request with an embargo on further discussion for a month (as you'd expect having reached move request number EIGHT, which is, bluntly, farcical), and you obdurately insist ion continuing a debate speculating as to what title you might all ask for next time you request a move, which is basically the same thing. Jimbo's statement above is unambiguous and accurate: there is no NPOV problem to fix. Every single one of the suggestions made to date introduces either a BLP problem or a WTF problem. That's why there was no consensus for the last request. Guy (Help!) 11:20, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Jimbo has said of that discussion "I think this is a very reasonable discussion. I like discussions like this." Anyway, you are welcome to join and suggest alternatives, I think brainstorming while not under the gun of a move request may prove fruitful. Best regards, --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 11:30, 27 April 2014 (UTC)


  • Sooner or later, we're going to have to hold a larger discussion on the apparent anti-woman agenda carried out by obi-wan, born2cycle, timrollpickering, and others who have frequented the Hillary Clinton move, the Sarah Brown move. Several times a year these Move Requests are filed by mysterious "new" IP editors, soon followed by endless Walls o' Text and badgering of everyone who dares to oppose their point-of-view. At some point this behavior must be seen as disruptive and detrimental to the project, the inability to accept that one's opinion, even after repeated deliberation, falls into the minority. Jimbo, if you'd like specific diffs to review;
Hillary Rodham Clinton
  • 05-18 June 13, Obi-wan attempts to impose a non-admin closure on a contentious name move review. This user did not vote in this RM, but participated alongside many of the rename supporters in the Sarah Brown discussion, which was ongoing at this time.
  • This n.a.c. was overturned by admin Good Olfactory, Obi-wan badgers him into overturning it, and Move Review eventually restores sanity.
  • 01 April 13 - present, It was decided that for HRC requested move EIGHT (!) a panel of 3 admins would be solicited to put a hopefully firmer hand onto this and stop the repeated noms. They again found no consensus to move.
  • The "outrage" begins.
  • Born2cycle drafts yet another protest.
  • Another mysterious IP files Move Request NINE (!!!), quickly squashed.
Sarah Brown
  • And people wonder why the number of active admins is dwindling? Who wants to be a volunteer to make decisions on anything but the most mundane, non-controversial discussions? There's a line between admins being held accountable for their actions and outright harassment by the losing side. This whole affair has been far, far over the line for awhile now. Tarc (talk) 13:11, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Latest BBC website piece on Hillsborough incidents. For info

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-27165844 Note the screenshots of some diffs and the reference to 34 IP addresses, obviously linked to govt depts revealed to the public domain by Angela Eagle. There is a short video piece accompaning it. Irondome (talk) 18:22, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
The image in the BBC story showing IP 81.100. 90.5 does not match the edit on Wikipedia which is the following diff. The image edit shown in the story is from this diff by 195.92.40.49 (talk · contribs · WHOIS). Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 23:44, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Of interest is that the IP was blocked for 3 months for vandalism the same day as the above edit. See block log. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 00:02, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

COI editors - "use the Talk page"

Jimbo, you have repeatedly said that editors with a financial conflict of interest with a Wikipedia subject who spot an error in the article should not edit the article directly, but rather solicit assistance on the Talk page. What happens if the request made on the Talk page is simply quickly deleted by the administrator who introduced the error into the article? What would be the next step, then? - 2001:558:1400:10:A091:D7AD:501E:A877 (talk) 15:57, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Why on earth would the administrator do that? --Jakob (talk) (Please comment on my editor review.) 16:11, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
One next step would be to move from hypothetical to actual. What talk page are you talking about and what requested edit?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:40, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
So, there is not an overall policy regarding this scenario? It should be a case-by-case basis? Okay, here goes. - 2001:558:1400:10:A091:D7AD:501E:A877 (talk) 16:43, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
There is overall policy but application of policy depends on the actual facts. In this case you omitted a rather important fact, Mr. 2001. Having said that, BLP considerations apply here and I hope people will review the situation to determine if there is merit in the concerns expressed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:05, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for that considerate response, and I look forward to what the good Wikipedia community will do to restore factual and sourced information to the article in question. Still, I am honestly curious what "the next step" should really be. Surely, you don't want it to be "come running to Jimbo_Talk"? In this case, my next step was to ask a friend if they would restore the deleted request (upon their own neutral judgment), which they did. - 2001:558:1400:10:A091:D7AD:501E:A877 (talk) 17:14, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Things will always be difficult for long term banned users.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:19, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Is the intention that things be made this difficult, though? - 2001:558:1400:10:A091:D7AD:501E:A877 (talk) 18:32, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes. In your specific case, which is unique as far as I know, you'd be better off working through OTRS than attempting to edit Wikipedia. It is only under my umbrella and excessive tolerance that you're allowed to post here on my user talk page.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:42, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
I bow deeply to your generosity, Jimbo. - 2001:558:1400:10:A091:D7AD:501E:A877 (talk) 19:01, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
I bet I can guess which article. The answer is: WP:RBI. Guy (Help!) 22:34, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
While accepting the RBI policy, the concerns expressed were IMO, valid. As Jimbo noted, the right way to address them is through OTRS. I picked up and handled the OTRS ticket (and had not seen this discussion at that time.)--S Philbrick(Talk) 12:54, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
In what way is the fact that Kohs is permanently banned after being blocked by Jimbo, a BLP issue? Kohs' online presence is dominated by his vendetta against Wikipedia, after all. Not that I care much, but the fact is that anybody paying someone to edit Wikipedia for them is risking thier reputation - not just via Kohs' former services, it applies to everyone, and that's the obvious context of Jimbo's advice to avoid his services. Guy (Help!) 11:14, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't believe anyone asserted that the permanent ban is a BLP issue. The issue is that he identified what be believed to be a BLP issue in an article, and raised it on a talk page. Per RBI, the issue wasn't reviewed, but simply removed. We desire that if someone feels there is a BLP issue, that they should raise it onwiki by posting to a talk page of a notice board. If we automatically remove any such posts, it could result in a process problem with no way for the affected person to report it, but as Jimbo noted, there is an alternative–writing to OTRS. Which he did, and which I reviewed and which I felt deserved action.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:51, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Also, JzG is fudging some facts above. Saying "that Kohs is permanently banned after being blocked by Jimbo" is a bit like saying "that the Japanese Imperial Navy lost the Battle of Leyte Gulf after attacking Pearl Harbor". Yes, it is technically true, but it certainly leaves out quite a bit of activity in the interim. If facts be told, Kohs was actually community banned after Jimbo unblocked his account, and then JzG rallied a campaign to have Kohs banned. If anything, JzG fiddling with the MyWikiBiz article to place misleading information into Wikipedia is just an extension of JzG's campaign to antagonize Kohs. But no harm shall come JzG's way, because he is an historically abusive admin whom Wikipedians are afraid to confront, for fear of being told "shut the fuck up you whining twat". - 2601:B:BB80:E0:95DC:87B2:D746:6679 (talk) 11:05, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
But he was banned, right? The precise timing is important in what way?--MONGO 11:30, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, removing the material is necessary because of the policy about primary sources and undue weight, rather than because as claimed it's not a reliable source. Under WP:CIRCULAR a Wikipedia reference is indeed a reliable source when Wikipedia is being discussed. However it is considered primary and may not be important enough to include in the article if there are no secondary sources. Ken Arromdee (talk) 04:59, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, WP:RBI is an essay. WP:BLP is a policy. Essays can't override policies. Ken Arromdee (talk)
WP:NOTPOLICY. --k6ka (talk | contribs) 16:15, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikinews or Wikiwoos?

n:Glasgow cannabis enthusiasts celebrate 'green' on city green

"One speaker, who produced a bottle of cannabis oil he had received through the post, explained this cured his prostate cancer. Others highlighted the current use of Sativex by the National Health Service, with a cost in-excess of £150 for a single bottle of GW Pharmaceuticals patented spray — as-compared to the oil shown to the crowd, with a manufacturing cost of approximately £10."

There is no evidence for the claim that marijuana can literally cure cancer, and a concentrated spray of a specific chemical is not the same as a random mix of chemicals vaguely related to it. This is pure advocacy of fringe views.

How long must English Wikinews drag the brand down before it's put out of its misery? Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:44, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Good news though. Reading the main page of the Africa news portal, I have just discovered that Nelson Mandella's health is improving! Unfortunately, thousands of people from Burkina Faso remain displaced following a flood that hit five years ago. Wikinews is a complete joke, but it isn't going away though anything on this page. I can't remember when shutting down the project was last discussed at Meta, however. Resolute 04:29, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
The problem is that, if you attempt to discuss it on meta, English Wikinews puts a banner up, and the entire group of editors run over there to shout people down before any sort of coherent front against them can form. Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:19, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
If you want to get the thing fixed, you read what I mentioned at your talk page — this little essay at Meta:
When something needs done, make steps, reasonably small and balanced, to get it done.
...and please continue discussion in the right place, at Wikinews itself, without canvassing around your biased opinion. If you want more people to participate in that discussion, give them a neutral summary, not an exciting breath-taking op-ed with a flashy headline.
A cry for attention is incompatible with neutral intercourse. See. --Gryllida (talk) 10:32, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I see Adam considers your talk page an appropriate place to WP:FORUMSHOP, Jimmy. Sorry about that. However, the stretch he's had to make in claiming reporting that an individual stated something, to being Wikinews stated something, is quite remarkable.
Is this going to be a tolerated near-annual "Jihad"? --Brian McNeil /talk 12:00, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Actually, Jimbo has specifically stated in the past that posting to his talk page is not forum shopping - I don't necessarily agree with that view, but c'est la vie. You gotta take the good with the bad. Resolute 14:50, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
The utter baseness of the efforts to suppress the medical use of marijuana cannot be exaggerated. Spiritually rooted in the witch hunts of the Middle Ages and the open racism of the 1920s, they cast aside the work of three millennia of physicians to put forward a faith-based theory that "herbs cannot work", which can be enforced only by open violence against millions of people. Based on an outright lie (not out of character) by Nixon, they 'temporarily' permanently banned medical use of marijuana, then doggedly ensured that NIDA refused to study the mechanism for two decades, insisting that a drug with specific and reproducible effects on the brain literally had no receptor, then used bureaucracy to hold back all practical research for another decade. We don't have any idea of all we have suffered because of this - we don't know what drugs against pain, obesity, inflammatory diseases, sea-sickness or any other nausea, and other common maladies have been lost. There definitely is reason to consider use of cannabis against prostate cancer, though it isn't the first herb I would have thought of for the purpose. While I would not accept an anecdotal account as scientific evidence, I cannot blame a patient who tries using cannabis and sees remission from drawing the personal conclusion that it worked. To assert that Sativex, based on the two most prevalent active chemicals in cannabis, should have effects that cannabis does not, when it was created solely as a method to placate the bureaucracy while extorting a patent toll from ancient medicine... contemptible! But to insist, like a Putin or an Erdogan, that an entire method of distributing news be abolished because they allegedly made a single word error, already corrected (though perhaps not visible via the magic of "Pending Changes") that is worse. Wnt (talk) 15:06, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
It's cute that you think anyone is arguing that Wikinews should be shut down because of a "single word error". Would you like to try again, but without the logical and argumentative fallacies? Resolute 16:42, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Oh yes, I see you also investigated and found out that they have old news articles in their archives. But I was responding to the OP (one colon) so as to avoid getting into that. Wnt (talk) 18:19, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
The entire paragraph quoted is advocating for fringe claims, but I like how you decide I'm objecting to a single word, despite explicitly discussing the next section as well. And I don't think merely changing one word to "asserts" is enough to atone for repeating claims that something will cure your cancer. The claim is downright dangerous, and would be deleted on sight if it was on Wikipedia and unbalanced, but Wikinews apparently is happy to be the worst kind of irresponsible tabloid. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:38, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't think it's reasonable to take from that sentence that Wikinews was signing on to it curing prostate cancer. In any case, guesses about serious medical conditions are the mainstream media's bread and butter. How often were people told that partially hydrogenated vegetable oil was better than animal fat? Anything about fat, salt, "complex" carbohydrates, whatever, sheerest guesswork pervades the news. They are so bad about this that Wikipedia pushes a special policy 'MEDRS' about it (though that goes too far). The difference is, any statement Wikinews appeared to make was at most parenthetical and accidental, whereas the mass media actively pushes fad ideas based on popularity or other forms of profit. I'm not keelhauling them over a word choice. Wnt (talk) 22:15, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
For what it is worth, I don't have a major problem with the passage outlined above if there is a single word change. One of the most important concepts in writing about what others have said is the concept of a "success verb", and the nuances around different word choices. Compare: "John explained that 2+2=4" -> implies that I agree that 2+2=4. "John said that 2+2=4" -> mostly neutral on the question. "John claimed that 2+2=4" -> expresses that the matter is not proven at all. Other choices that are unlikely to be right for Wikipedia/Wikinews also exist: "John made the surprising claim that 2+2=4" -> I don't really believe him. "John lied that 2+2=4" -> I don't believe him, plus he said it maliciously rather than through simple error.
Often we should avoid "success verbs" and stick to the more neutral formulations. Not everywhere, though. "John Doe, an astronomer, explained that planets in this size class and this distance from the sun are less rare than previously thought." That's perfectly valid if that's an uncontroversial claim, because using a neutral term like "said" or a questioning term like "claimed" will mislead the reader.
All of this is quite separate from the question of what should be done about Wikinews.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:38, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Butting in here, it seems to me part of the problem with many of the sister projects is lack of editors. I recently raised a question elsewhere about maybe creating a WF "community portal," a link to which could, maybe appear below the extant c.p. in the standard skin, discussing active efforts in those entities. Maybe one of the first things that could be done might be a survey of what editors would like to see those entities do, and establish lines of demarkation between them.
It might also help if we could some of our topical WikiProjects in some way more actively involved in the other WF entities.
Specifically regarding WikiNews,maybe expanding its scope a little to include some "this month in (music, film, football, etc.)” columns might help a little, along with "feature stories" on topics like food and fashion which could present dubiously encyclopedic content, like, for instance, the various kinds of meat loaf.
If something like periodic columns could get started soon, they might be useful forthe upcoming US congressional elections. John Carter (talk) 15:03, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Definitely a good idea. It would also improve participation if there were a mechanism so that "stale" and archived Wikinews would be flagged for incorporation into relevant Wikipedia articles as appropriate, so that there would be less of a sense that rejected/deleted articles are wasted effort. Wnt (talk) 15:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)What if there's some sort of a partnership set up between the folks who do the "In the news" section here and Wikinews with a little link about it? Getting some admins here and there to work together to promote Wikinews shouldn't be too hard, I wouldn't think, and it'd be a nice start. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 15:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Re those other kinds of articles, there are things Wikinews doesn't do on principle and things Wikinews don't do because nobody chooses to write them — but this page is not, sadly, a viable forum for in-depth constructive discussions about Wikinews. Constructive discussion is of course welcome at the Wikinews water cooler.
Regarding the non-Wikipedian sisters in general, local shortages of editors are symptoms of non-local problems, flowing both from the Foundation central authority downward, and from Wikipedia outward. (The foundation's neglect and dissing of non-Wikipedian sisters hardly seems relevant here; the problems of Wikipedia, though they pain me deeply as Wikipedia was my first love amongst the Wikimedian projects, I would not expect to go into here without being accused of trolling and Wikipedia bashing.) --Pi zero (talk) 16:29, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Derogatory word 'woo'

I, for one, am unimpressed by those who use the neologism "woo" to designate pseudoscientific concepts. Certainly pseudoscientific concepts should be subject to critical and even scathing review where appropriate, but the users of the word woo tend to lump possibly useful concepts into the term, tarring the good along with the bad if there is any remote connection. The term is derogatory and dismissive, setting up a no-win barrier to discussion. I think Wikipedia talk pages ought to be free of this particularly offensive neologism. Binksternet (talk) 19:38, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

It is a standard umbrella term used by science advocates and skeptics, I don't know of any other term encompassing the full gamut of pseudoscience, non-science, nonsense, unproven medical claims, paranormal claims and so on. Feel free to suggest an alternative term of equivalent breadth. No, potentially useful things are not included in the general term "woo". There are, for example, specific medicinal uses of cannabinoids, the term woo refers to the inflated claims made by those who believe it can be smoked without risk (false) and it cures cancer (which it doesn't). The problem was that Wikinews published a completely uncritical presentation of claims that fall into the "woo" bracket, according to the judgment of at least a few readers. Sticking only to the factually supportable claims for medicinal cannabis would have been fine, the problem was precisely that they didn't. Guy (Help!) 21:57, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I don't find the term very helpful myself. It is a standard bit of jargon in skeptical circles, very fashionable recently, but I think it is not widely enough known to engage people outside of those narrow groups. Even as advocacy, I don't think it's a very helpful term of mockery for the same reason: it doesn't mean anything in the mind of someone in the general public, whereas "pseudoscience" or "quackery" are perfectly serviceable words.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:32, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Looks like woo to me. Barney the barney barney (talk) 23:05, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Used to be called "woowoo" could we try that instead? -Roxy the dog (resonate) 23:16, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
I wonder if you regard Sanjay Gupta's story about Charlotte Figi[12] to be "woo". If I see a child like that I want to stand with the people trying to grasp at some hope, not the heartless marching morons who would smash her medicine and condemn her to a life of endless seizures. P.S. I just looked it up and she's down to one seizure a month.[13] God bless "woo"! Wnt (talk) 23:54, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
To quote from the wiki article to which you linked - "there is insufficient medical evidence to draw conclusions about their safety or efficacy." -Roxy the dog (resonate) 00:27, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
And what do you do in those circumstances? Do you dismiss the observations as "woo" or accept that unproven does not mean disproven? It is a scientist's job to take speculative action based on inconclusive results - that is how we get conclusive results. The same is true of the journalist. This means, quite simply, that it is appropriate for Wikinews to give serious attention to anecdotes, reporting them faithfully, neither exaggerating nor ignoring them. It is the duty of politicians to refrain from cruelly attacking families who also need to make decisions based on a balance of risks and benefits, not just what is known.Wnt (talk) 00:56, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
"Random thing some unqualified guy said while probably high" (seriously, this was a pro-marijuana rally) might be reportable if and only if research was done to see if there's any accuracy, and to make clear what the objective facts are. Just because some random person says something doesn't mean that the journalist should simply report they said it, then not bother to check the claims. Checking claims is the heart of good journalism, reporting whatever crap you're told uncritcically is the heart of garbage journalism. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:20, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't think I've seen this standard of journalism. By and large, in those rare cases where reporters go to a public protest, it's enough of a miracle that their paper covered the protest - they don't follow people home and ask for copies of their X-rays and prescriptions and interview their doctors to see if the remission had some other explanation. True, on occasion this goes really, really badly, but I don't see Wikinews doing anything worse than other news outlets. Wnt (talk) 03:30, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
So if Wikinews doesn't provide anything the MSM doesn't, what purpose does it serve? Hell, even Wikipedia itself does a far better job of reporting news than Wikinews (albeit partly because of greater editing mass). Resolute 16:19, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I feel like you've forgotten why Wikipedia was first started -- as a free-as-in-freedom alternative to the Britannica. Nobody imagined it would be better, not at first. Wikinews may not be in a position to routinely surpass MSM - not in general, though any single editor is free to go all out, drive that extra mile - but the point is, it's free. Wnt (talk) 16:27, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
You're trying to apply the "notability" concept to news. Don't. If a yellow dingo said that sky is red during a FIFA world cup, it will be reported as such, as insignificant as it was. Gryllida (talk) 07:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Why exactly would it be? and why would the readers care? Notability certainly applies to news, just not in the way it applies to articles on Wikipedia. KonveyorBelt 17:13, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I would find it better to be honest and include all observed detail. (No, I'm not speaking of a separate article dedicated to just that. Don't assume that.) Gryllida (talk) 22:47, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
The Wikinews criterion anlogous to (but different than) notability is newsworthiness. --Pi zero (talk) 23:04, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo, curious as to whether the following was an endorsed action or a third party acting independently?

Jimbo, I'm curious as to whether this excision was an action explicitly endorsed by you? Or was it instead a third party acting independently and unilaterally upon your talkpage? Or ... ?

I find it odd to have come across a third party removing another user's question on yet another person's talkpage two minutes after the inquiry was posted. The user's question seems fairly straightforward to me—though Wiki-politics loaded—and doesn't appear, to me, to harbor any signs of blatant vandalism.

Wassup' wi' dat'?

--Kevjonesin (talk) 22:31, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

p.s.— In addition to being concerned about 'what' was done, I also find the 'how' to be questionable. i.e. Reversion with no explanation in the edit summary and flagged as a 'minor' edit. --Kevjonesin (talk) 23:04, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
I was unaware of it but very strongly endorse it. The question is pure trolling, and there is no way I, or any other Wikipedia volunteer, should be expected to put up with that kind of abuse.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:25, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Is this then to be interpreted as precedent that anyone is welcome to arbitrarily delete threads they deem unpleasant from your talkpage—without even an explanation in the edit summary—and then flag such as 'minor'? And would this then be endorsed as a comportment example for the community regarding talkpages in general? --Kevjonesin (talk) 03:38, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
p.s.— BTW, I can see how the question that had been posted, while not vandalism per se, could be seen as rhetorical and baited; i.e. trolling. And understand if you are disinclined to engage with it. For the most part, it's that someone else appears to have made this decision for you, sight unseen, without explanation, and tagged such as 'minor' that is attracting my attention. --Kevjonesin (talk) 03:56, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
See WP:DENY. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 13:26, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
See what Dennis has posted for more understanding, also you could have asked the editor why they did what they did. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:57, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
There comes a point where WP:DENY simply loses its effectiveness in the face of dogged persistence, though. There can't be an expectation that every question posed will be done in a nice, good-faith manner. Wouldn't it be better to just answer it, even if it is with a "this question is inappropriate" hatting? We'd at least have a record of it without having to delve into reversions. Tarc (talk) 14:24, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
There is a very strong expectation that every question should be made in a nice, good-faith manner. If we don't have that expectation then we encourage the bad behavior of baiting/trolling and give ourselves an incredibly unpleasant environment. It is very well known that I will try in good faith to answer all kinds of questions, even pointed ones, but even I have limits. In this case, the editor was asking me to compare two completely unrelated things, bringing up a person I consider to be a danger to myself and my family, for reasons that I am not entirely able to share based on professional advice, as a way of (apparently) attacking another user, without even posting diffs or explanations of who they were talking about (and I have no idea). If this were a good faith question, it might be of the form: "Are you aware of a user saying things like this(link) and that(link) and who hasn't been blocked or even warned? What do you think of this and related situations?"--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:48, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't disagree with that, I'm just saying that it's like an endless game of whack-a-mole, and WP:DENY'ing them does not seem to act as a deterrent. We all have limits, even those of us who occasionally revert on your behalf (apologizes for language) hit a short fuse once in awhile. I just wonder if the reversions may do more harm than good in that they feed the monster and just make them keep coming back. I've said before that if there was some feasible way to be more accommodating of critics...even the atrocious ones...there would be less of a need for Wikipediocracy/Review types of sites to exist. Tarc (talk) 15:56, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Accommodating critics is one thing. There is no reason why those engaged in trolling and harassment should be given the same leeway. Resolute 16:01, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
  • You can't appease someone whose only goal is to cause trouble. Ask Neville Chamberlain. WP:DENY, if done properly, is more effective than anything else. That it is not 100% effective is irrelevant. Of course, if others war over it or discuss it, it just undermines the effort. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 16:06, 27 April 2014 (UTC)


Further clarification as to what I'm attempting to address

Jimbo, you may be missing my emphasis. I'm not particularly concerned with the content of the removed question. I came across it—in a kinda' round-a-bout way—while looking into this situation and presume that the first part of User:50.146.163.252's post refers to the same. As to the second part, which mentions a scenario involving Facebook, I as well have no idea—and am not really curious enough at this point to dig into it.

Again, it's the procedural specifics of how User:50.146.163.252's question was dealt with that I'm asking about. To use your phrasing:

'Are you aware of a user [doing] things like [removing another user's question on yet another person's talkpage two minutes after the inquiry was posted without explanation and flagged as 'minor'][14] and who hasn't been even warned? What do you think of this and related situations?'

Seeing someone censor—apparently arbitrarily, as it was unexplained and veiled as 'minor'—what gets viewed by the 'Top Dog' (i.e. you) is something I find concerning. If someone had presumed to do the same on my talkpage I certainly would have addressed it. At least in a "I appreciate the sentiment, but ..." manner. However, as this is your talkpage, I'm not really in a position to judge whether the action was presumptuous in this case as it's unknown to me as to whether (or not) you may have explicitly delegated such privileges to others. Is this to be taken as precedent? And if so, is it a general precedent or is there a select subset of the community who are privileged to do so? And is 'unexplained and veiled as 'minor'' the recommended way to implement such?

--Kevjonesin (talk) 21:18, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

  • People do it here all the time, and Jimmy knows this. I've probably reverted a half dozen times on Jimmy's page, and it isn't usually on my watch list. I've even semi-protected this page once (see the protection log), which is when admin shut out all new and IP users from making any edits. People revert stuff off my page all the time, I do for other people all the time. Being an admin, I get a fair amount of IP vandalism from blocked editors, etc. Jimmy, being more high profile, gets more. All one has to do is look at the history of the page to see what was removed, surely Jimmy knows how. You seems shocked at this, but this is common practice. It isn't censorship, it is cleaning up. If someone trolled on your page and I saw it, I would naturally revert it without even thinking about it. If you see vandalism or trolling on my talk page and revert it, you will probably get a "thank you" notification. I wouldn't assume you were censoring, I would assume good faith. If someone does reverts good faith edits by an IP, then someone else would have reverted them back in. People aren't shy about that either. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:01, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
  • The fact is that trolls and troublemakers do exist, and given that anyone can posts on this page, a significant number of trolls and troublemakers have discovered that they can pose "questions" designed to spread FUD. Removing such posts is not censorship—it's just part of the cost of running an open house. Responding or hatting just provides encouragement, and that would drown out legitimate criticism and discussion. Re the question posed above: of course Jimbo has not "delegated such privileges", but of course he is aware of what happens here, and is fully capable of addressing unwanted actions. Johnuniq (talk) 01:29, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I'd like everyone here on both sides of the argument to consider that this is Jimbo's user talk page and not a noticeboard, and act accordingly. Jimbo has the last say on what belongs, and can easily revert removals or remove things himself as he sees fit. KonveyorBelt 17:07, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I'll second: "I'd like everyone here on both sides of the argument to consider that this is Jimbo's user talk page and not a noticeboard".
In most scenarios, I'd personally be likely to chastise most anyone who presumed to remove something from my talkpage before I'd had a chance to personally decide whether to perceive it as 'irate criticism', 'trolling', or perhaps even a poorly phrased 'eye opener'. Perhaps some aspect of it might 'hit home' in a manner not immediately apparent to spectators. Even if something were unkindly meant I might still find some diamonds amongst the coal, wheat amongst the chaff, to hold onto before discarding the rest. I could even see a well intentioned third party collapsing a post under a heading like "seemed like trolling", but to presume to remove without explanation while obscuring as 'minor' ... Nope, that wouldn't sit well with me on 'my' user pages.
However, I do realize that the talkpage of founder Jimmy Wales is subject to an exceptional amount of attention and hence may well benefit from different approaches than I might apply to my own. And anyone else might just even have a different opinion about how they encourage people to interact on their 'own' talkpages. Within a few defined guidelines, it's their/his prerogative. Hence, I'm here asking User:Jimbo Wales where he stands on such, rather than questioning/grumbling at the editor who made the reversion. While I would have objected, the edit didn't occur in 'my' userspace and so it's certainly not my place to chastise. Especially as I didn't even know if the person on whose page the reversion occurred was even bothered by it. Perhaps they'd even specifically encouraged such behavior. I came across a situation that appeared to me to be playing out contrary to my ideals and am proceeding to explore that contrast. Maybe I'll learn something about both myself and others in the process.
"and can easily revert removals or remove things himself as he sees fit" Note that Jimbo has previously mentioned that he hadn't in fact in this case noticed that the reversion edit had been made on his behalf. Perhaps he has the option to not display 'minor' edits in his watchlist toggled on? It is concern for such that has been leading me to emphasize "veiled as 'minor'". I, and I imagine many others, have come across article edits before which appear to have been flagged as 'minor' under an absent or disingenuous edit summary in an attempt to slip through something contestable. ... But let me reel-his-back-in a bit .. it occurs to me that I don't actually know specifically why the edit was flagged as minor or unexplained. Something inadvertent may have figured in on the human error and/or technology SNAFU front. But regardless, is anyone really going to assert that third party reversion is an appropriate place for a 'minor' flag?
--Kevjonesin (talk) 07:10, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
It is in the ethos of WP:Deny to make it all appear as minor as possible. So, while there is no "rule", in such a case, one way or the other, regarding the 'm' mark, in practice, I have seen it often done that way. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:31, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Wow, I find that unnerving. The first thing that came to my mind is that it sets up an excellent mechanism to rationalize sweeping all sorts of things under the carpet as long as one attaches a 'trolling' label to them first (... or after-the-fact for that matter). Something akin to how terms like 'freedom fighter' and 'terrorist' get arbitrarily applied depending on desired spin.*
"Goebbels be doin' the 'happy dance' with Ed Bernays sauce"—
*(e.g. compare Osama Bin Laden's U.S. press when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan vs. Osama Bin Laden's U.S. press when the U.S. occupied Afghanistan)
--Kevjonesin (talk) 13:03, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Invoking Godwin's Law is not a good way to be taken seriously, dude. And I have no idea why you would find it unnerving for trolling posts to be removed. It happens all the time in forums - and make no mistake, Jimbo's talk page is a forum as much as anything else. It is the proper and correct course of action as well. Resolute 13:18, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, other people find it "unnerving" to be "trolled" and "harassed." You'll just have to live with that. So, stop trolling with your Goebbel's/Nazi/Bin Laden/Soviet nonsensical comments. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:31, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

It's so hard sometimes to differentiate in text between 'obtuse' and a genuine lack of imagination. Am I really the only one who finds it astoundingly easy to read Orwellian overtones into a statement like

"It is in the ethos of WP:Deny to make it all appear as minor as possible."

? O.o
Godwin's Law be damned, it's the "Ed Bernays" part of my aside that contains the most salient bits. 'The secret's in the sauce' as they say.

But getting back to the meat-of-the-matter ...

Sigh, let me take a breath and muster up a bit more benefit-of-the-doubt and form a direct emotionally sanitized counterpoint ...

If enclosing a comment in double quotes and then connecting it to a winking smiley face via an m-dash with line breaks fore and aft isn't enough to convey that it was intended to be taken as an aside ... IDK ... I'm literally, IRL, open mouthed and shaking my head as I type this ... and settling into a stunned feeling of having left Kansas ...

Sigh, I think I'm failing at the "emotionally sanitized" part at this point. I'll give it a rest for a bit.

Apparently an attempt at a whimsical aside followed by a footnote—which suggested looking into a specific aspect of the historical record and making a specific comparison—provides y'all with an excuse to fling the 'trolling' label. Lingua franca cast like a net to subdue dissent. 'Infidel' they cry ... 'Heretic' they cry ... I sigh ... and shake my head ...

ltr --Kevjonesin (talk) 15:53, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Rest is good. That's all that was asked for. As for Orwellian, that's just more of the same -- one can't turn a minor removal into a show trial. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:34, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Less abstract more to specifics at hand

I previously expressed concern in terms of conjecture about general hazards of third parties burying unexplained reversions under 'minor' flags. It's since occurred to me that there's a case to be made surrounding the original incident at hand. User:50.146.163.252 had started off by alluding to a situation which connected some past unsavory stories in national media with recent disciplinary activity on Wikipedia. Leaving the post—which was addressed to Jimbo directly—up at least long enough for Jimbo to personally take note of it might have provided him the opportunity to get curious. Even a simple response (in thought or deed) along the lines of "Does anyone have any idea what this crank is getting on about?" might have led to some dialog between the curious and the informed. Personally, I think if I was in Jimbo's position I would have preferred to know ASAP that a situation had unfolded which plausibly risked bringing Wikipedia into a ripple of unflattering press. Rather than get caught playing catchup in an after-the-fact scenario. --Kevjonesin (talk) 12:27, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

There is no a priori reason why informing him in public about "some crank's" thoughts makes any sense, as it would just lead to publicizing some crank's thoughts, which he has told you he finds to be "harassment." Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:38, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo, has your advice changed on this, need a steer from you

Hi. Some time back you stated this; Wales, Jimmy. "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information", WikiEN-l, May 16, 2006: "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons."

I have been gnoming tonight (needed to chill) and I have been tagging a brilliant but totally uncited article, or at least I was about to, when a wikiwander took me to your quote. I totally get the BLP aspect, but what are your current thoughts on this on non-BLP articles? Have you had any additional thoughts to add based on your experiences since 06? There are so many excellent but virually uncited articles out there. An uncited article could theoretically section by uncited section be removed? It is not being done on any wide spread scale at the moment, but do you still advocate a deletionist method, or has your thoughts on cite bombing modified to being a bit more charitable to it. After all it provides a respite to an otherwise sometimes a potentially great article :)? I would favour a balance of the two, co-existing. Any thoughts would be most kind. Cheers Irondome (talk) 00:35, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

It would be interesting if you could link to the original email so that I can absorb the entire context, but as I recall I was speaking primarily there of BLPs. I would extend that approach to information that might in some way be dangerous if false (medical information, safety information, etc.) and possibly a couple of other categories such as uncited claims likely to inflame nationalist passions and similar. I think that in other cases, a citation needed tag is the right way to go. But even there, I think that if something has been tagged as citation needed for an extended period of time (a year, say, but I'm not strict about the number) it begins to be highly suspect as being a hoax.
Hoaxes are damaging to Wikipedia, but they are fortunately rare. At least a liberal sprinkling of citation needed tags warns the reader that something may not be quite right.
In my own work I tend to pause to look for a cite if there is uncited information of any kind in a BLP.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:30, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Link to the original email. Not much context, since you started the thread. Lots of discussion thereafter, though. The nearest BLP work on wiki that you did prior to your mailing list post involved a massive deletion of content from Playboy's Miss November 1992. - 2601:B:BB80:E0:D592:F716:EA4:5293 (talk) 11:11, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks Jimbo for the clear response, and to our colleague for finding the link! Cheers all Irondome (talk) 11:26, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Jimmy, you said, "I think that if something has been tagged as citation needed for an extended period of time (a year, say, but I'm not strict about the number) it begins to be highly suspect as being a hoax," but I disagree. In my editing, I routinely come across citation needed tags that are many years old. Almost always, they turn out to be accurate and easily sourced. Hoaxes are very rare here and with all due respect I believe you do a disservice to Wikipedia's reputation by saying that statements which have had a citation needed tag for a long period of time are "highly suspect as being a hoax". It is much more likely to be the simple case that no one has taken the time to verify an easily verifiable statement. -- Ed (Edgar181) 11:28, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I agree with your correction to my words. As I said in the very next sentence, hoaxes are "fortunately rare". As a revision, I would just say that I get very nervous when I see a statement that has been "citation needed" for a long time - and I am uneasy about how long many of them stay that way.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 22:44, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I tend to tag, and if the claim is particularly outrageous I go to talk and give reasons for, and a deadline for removal. If the party is still shtum after about a fortnight, I delete. Usually I infer from that the claim is unsupportable. Only done it a couple times, but I'm tending to think of that as my SOP from now on, Irondome (talk) 22:54, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I think the idea of people spreading mass hoaxes on Wikipedia is largely an urban myth enhanced by isolated incidents. There are very few times I've seen a claim that was ridiculous, and for the most part it was obvious vandalism, not sneaky little unsourced edits. KonveyorBelt 15:57, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
The numbers are exaggerated but the damage they do is very real, out of all proportion to their (discovered) works and their amount. The recent User:ColonelHenry chaos demonstrated the complete FUD they create, or as us Brits of a certain age may say, spreading Alarm and despondency. No matter how infrequently they emerge, they are hugely diruptive. Irondome (talk) 23:16, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

BLPGROUP Right Sector

Voice of Russia has been rebroadcasting passages from a BLPGROUP (Right Sector) with the citations removed, branding the subject group and its leader as “neofascist” or worse. Example: “Ukraine’s Yarosh Put on International Most Wanted List, Accusations Brought In Absentia,” Voice of Russia, 5 March 2014 (“Right Sector is a radical Ukrainian nationalist paramilitary and opposition group. It is described as having right-wing, ultra right-wing, borderline fascist or neofascist views.”). Readers can’t tell whether the passage is citing Financial Times or TASS.

The group’s leader now seems to have been marked for execution. Can the current revision of the article be rolled back a day to a version that relies more on mainstream sources? --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:35, 29 April 2014 (UTC) 10:33, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Discussion going nowhere. --Dervorguilla (talk) 08:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Maria Danilova, “After Ukraine Protest, Radical Group Eyes Power”, Associated Press, 14 March 2014: “The Associated Press and other international news organizations have found no evidence of hate crimes … and some Jews have served in the Maidan’s self-defense units side-by-side with the Right Sector.” --Dervorguilla (talk) 10:02, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

You seem to be misinterpreting policy - there is no such thing as 'a BLPGROUP'. The shortcut is merely a link to a section within WP:BLP policy which indicates that (a) the policy does not apply to 'legal persons' and (b) the degree to which WP:BLP policy applies to groups of actual people is a judgement call depending on circumstances - particularly, the size of the group. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:10, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Hillsborough

Hello, I've no idea if it's appropriate for you to get involved, but there's some discussion about whether the recent events regarding vandalism should be mentioned in the Hillsborough article itself (current consensus: no) Talk:Hillsborough disaster#Removal of the section about the government IP edits. 2.25.112.149 (talk) 13:52, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo. Please also see this, reported on the BBC website today. Thanks. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 08:12, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

"Jews and Communism" article

I've never done this before, but I guess there's always a first time: Jimbo, if you're back from vacation, I'd be curious to get your reaction to Jews and Communism. I just became aware of its existence because of an ANI thread. I am deeply disturbed by this article, as it has an all-encompassing title and yet deals only very skimpily with the main intersection between Jews and Communism, which is one of hostility, persecution, anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and conflict. Instead the point of the article is a simple-minded "hey, look at all the commie Jews." To my knowledge, there is no article on Gentiles and Communism or Russian Orthodox people and Communism, so I can understand the outrage that some people feel concerning this article. It doesn't help that there is an opening illustration that could have come from the pages of Der Sturmer. [The illustration has been pushed down the page since I wrote this] Anyway, I'm curious how you feel about it, and whether the discomfort some editors feel about this is well-warranted or not. Coretheapple (talk) 19:54, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

You are conflating the Soviet Union with "Communism" when you characterize "the main intersection between Jews and Communism" as "one of hostility, persecution, anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and conflict." Actually, the subject of the relationship between Jewish radicalism and emergence of the communist movement is well documented in the scholarly literature. I urge you to haul this piece to AfD if you think this is not the case. I'm sure there is an article somewhere entitled History of Jews in the Soviet Union or some such, which is an entirely different, also encyclopedic, topic. Carrite (talk) 20:52, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
"You are conflating.." Uh yes I am, you betcha, just as I would "conflate" "Nazism" and "Nazi Germany." "Actually, the subject of the relationship between Jewish radicalism...." Such an article deserves to exist. But this is not it. This one is about "Jews and Communism." Coretheapple (talk) 21:15, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
There's this little country called China... Another place called Cuba. And so on... Just saying. You may have a legitimate gripe about the current article title, I'm not saying you don't. But, really, are we going to argue content here? Like I say, this topic is a 100% drop-dead certain GNG pass, in my view, but you are free to differ and challenge the piece. Carrite (talk) 21:26, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
The topic Germans and the Nazi Party is just as notable, but there's no article about that. Wonder why? USchick (talk) 21:30, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
Other stuff does not exist... What's your point? Like I say, take it to AfD, see what happens. "Other stuff does not exist" will not work for you as an argument there though... Carrite (talk) 00:09, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
It's actually been to AfD and then to Deletion Review, "no consensus" on both occasions. I'm kind of disappointment that Jimbo hasn't weighed in on this. I hope he does. Coretheapple (talk) 13:33, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Wow, that's scary. The main reason I participate at AfD is so that encyclopedic-but-uncomfortable-for-some-people topics like this are never thrown under the bus... Carrite (talk) 16:32, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
OK, look, here's the thing. I wasn't trying to whip up a discussion here, believe it or not. I've tagged the article for neutrality (my only edit to the article) and it can be discussed there. However, I did react in a strongly negative way to the article, it repelled me in a way I've never experienced before, and I just wanted to appeal way on up to the top man to see how he felt. That's all. If possible, that is, if he'd be so kind. Coretheapple (talk) 21:30, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
I think a neutrality tag is the way to approach it, as long as that's just not a drive-by tagging, followed by no discussion. And I think there is a legitimate case to be made that the title is bad and needs to be fixed. Carrite (talk) 00:11, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Heh, I started a discussion, but so far no takers.[15] Operators are standing by. Coretheapple (talk) 04:04, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm coming up on 10 days with very little time for WP, if this is still simmering then I will play with it a little. Carrite (talk) 16:29, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
That would be welcome. This needs to be hashed out in a thoughtful manner on the talk page, but I sense that people are a bit worn down there, as well as gotten caught up in conduct issues (which, as you know, tend to be a highway to nowhere). Coretheapple (talk) 13:14, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
Jewish revolutionary movement and international communism? That might work. Here's one off my shelf, by the way: Melech Epstein, The Jew and communism: The story of early Communist victories and ultimate defeats in the Jewish community, U.S.A., 1919-1941. It's actually a reasonably big literature, it would probably Speedy Keep at AfD, definitely Keep. Carrite (talk) 00:21, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
History of the Jewish revolutionary movement in Europe? Carrite (talk) 00:30, 25 April 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 00:36, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Just because a topic makes someone uncomfortable is no reason to delete. It may be that the article could better be addressed with a split, e.g. into one about Communist attitudes toward Jews and a second about Jewish attitudes toward Communism - I certainly don't know that's a good idea. This isn't a matter for AfD, just content organization. We should be glad we have an article on the topic, though given that it doesn't use the word "doctor" except in the refs it seems like it could use some expansion. Wnt (talk) 00:41, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for bringing this issue here Coretheapple, I considered doing so myself. I will only say that I hope there will be lots of editors, including Jimbo, who see this, go on to look at the article, and decide to help to improve it, or change the title, or delete it, or whatever, but it definitely needs participation from a wide part of the community.Smeat75 (talk) 01:06, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, my purpose was not to argue for deletion, which I actually don't advocate, but to get Jimbo's input. True, if I were him, I wouldn't touch the subject with a ten-foot pole. There's an old Jewish saying, "silence is also an answer," though I am not sure what it means in this instance, Jimbowise. Coretheapple (talk) 03:57, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm at the Wikimedia Board meeting and therefore unable to comment at the moment on what looks like an issue worthy of serious study.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:44, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
OK, I gotcha. I would really love to get your view on that when you get a chance. Thanks. oh, and while you're at that board meeting, remember to ban paid editing.... just sayin....Coretheapple (talk) 17:02, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Working on that. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:10, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
Both, I hope! tx. Coretheapple (talk) 13:11, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
I too am very keen to hear any comments from you about this article, Jimbo.Smeat75 (talk) 23:00, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
While not binding, I think that it would have a very positive impact on the talk page discussion, no matter what. The talk page, as you can imagine, is not exactly the Garden of Eden. Coretheapple (talk) 14:31, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
Carrite, there are no reliable sources that discuss "Jews and Communism." There are of course sources about Jews and Communism in one country in one period. Hence your source The Jew and communism: The story of early Communist victories and ultimate defeats in the Jewish community, U.S.A., 1919-1941 is about Jews and Communism in the U.S. from 1919, when the Communist Party was founded, to 1941, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union became allies. There is no source that ties that together with Jews in the Soviet Union, or the role of Jews in the Chinese or Cuban revolutions. So we have no sources that summarize the relationship between Jews and Communism or identify the literature. As a result the article is just a collection of mentions of people of Jewish background who became Communists. TFD (talk) 01:34, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Why don't we have an article Redheads and Communism or Christians and Communism? This article Jews and Communism looks like synthesis, a polite veneer installed over ugly bigotry. Perhaps there could be an article about Jews and communism (antisemitic canard) if it is notable as such. Jehochman Talk 01:40, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
There is an article "Jewish Bolshevism" also known as "Jewish Communism", which is about the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. TFD (talk) 01:56, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
True, but I think that Jehochman hits the nail on the head. That gets to the heart of the problem with this article, that it is phrased so broadly that it could say practically everything. As it happens -- purely a coincidence of course! -- it winds up reading like a Stormfront article. (see below). Coretheapple (talk) 12:39, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, I saw the article mentioned somewhere too. I will admit I tried to avoid looking directly at it, for fear to see what I thought. Nonetheless, I looked and saw. To describe this article as merely 'uncomfortable' is a vast understatement. I searched the article name in Google and the first page was.....disgusting. Just look at the page as it was created February 27, 2014. Absolutely disgusting. WTF? Something definitely needs to be done here. Dave Dial (talk) 02:41, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Some of us are trying to do something about it Dave Dial, can others please come and help us at the article and on the talk page.Smeat75 (talk) 03:14, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
There is nothing to do there. The page should be deleted. The obvious result for this AfD should have been "Delete". Now, there just needs to be an admin to go there and delete the page, and start issuing blocks to editors who want to recreate the page. It looks like a straight forward POV Fork that has no reliable sources that equate being Jewish with communism. As I pointed out, if you search the title of the page, you get this. The AfD and search results should be enough for anyone to just do what needs to be done. Dave Dial (talk) 04:10, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
It's all very well saying that Dave Dial, and I completely agree with you, but admins are not going to do that, Coretheapple and I are trying to ring alarms about that article all over the place, but admins etc are just ignoring us. For instance a current AN/I I started - [16]- about an editor who in my opinion controls that article in combination with one or two others, has not seen a single comment from an admin, it seems they just don't want to get involved. So once again I ask you, or Jimbo, or anyone who sees this, to try to help us, maybe you can think of some way to get an admin to do what you suggest that I don't know about. In the meantime, that dreadful, dreadful article is sitting there on this site and I feel we have to try to do what we can to alleviate its poison.Smeat75 (talk) 05:01, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Well I sure can't do anything about it. Jimbo, maybe. Probably. Admins definitely can. Look, Jimbo is well aware of White Nationalist trying to get their POVs inside Wikipedia. Here are some threads from Stormfront calling for editing Wikipedia and inserting their POV on WWII and Jewish articles.
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t993499/ I just found out that you really are not free to edit Wikipedia pages]
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t225536/ Group of jews taking over Wikipedia]
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t187311/ Edit Wikipedia articles (or anything else on the Internet) anonymously!]
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t888431/ Wikipedia Founder Mocks "Neo-Nazis"]
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t273483/ HELP: Wikipedia EDIT Billy Bragg!]
And you have the White Nationalist/Stromfront recent tirades about "Jews and Communism", many of which are almost word for word mirroring of the article in question.
  • Jews and Communism in Lithuania (1918 to June 1941)
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t709086/ Quotations/Sources on Jews and Communism for Wikipedia]
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1023698/ Russian Lawmaker: 'Jews Destroyed Russia']
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t999837/ PROOF of how communist jews took over America]
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t1017422/ Putin: 80-85% of communist Russian government was Jewish]
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t784103/ Communism is just another Jew tool]
  • [http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t343009/ Wikipedia rewrites history: jewish communism]
So yea, in any case there are hundreds upon hundreds of threads on White Nationalist websites talking about "Jews and Communism", and Wikipedia. The article should have been deleted. There were way more editors who stated the article should be deleted as a POV content fork. Dave Dial (talk) 05:51, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
An admin already voiced their opinion in the AfD and DELREV yet you wish to find some other admin, since you don't agree with the outcome, and have him/her flat out delete the article and block any and all dissenters. Reiterating knee jerk emotional outbursts that you are "disturbed", "disgusted", "disgraced", or whatever is not helping your case nor is suggesting that other users are covert "neo-Nazis" of some kind and digging up threads on this "Stormfront" forum as a pathetic attempt to discredit users by tying them to a conspiracy of some sort. Coretheapple has compared this article's title to absurd ones like "African-American rapists" (communism is inherently as evil as rape apparently) when its title is derived from Oxford University Press's "Jews and Communism", claimed it has illustrative propaganda from "Der Sturmer" when it's actually a Soviet creation (spin it as anti-semitic regardless, who cares about reality right?), and even projected onto other users as having employed derogatory terminology like "commie" (apparent anti-communist feelings of Coretheapple). You now also have Smeat bluntly canvassing by asking like-minded users to "help" at the talkpage. The incessant and false claims of TFD that there are no reliable sources that discuss "Jews and Communism" is flat out nonsense. There are a litany of reliable scholarly sources in the references section with the most prominent being "Jews and Communism" by Oxford University Press which alone includes the works and opinions of at least 14 different scholars on the subject yet he's quick to deem the topic non-notable. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 08:01, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I think Dave Dial raises an alarming point. It underlines the concern that I expressed originally that this article is fodder for bigots and has no place on Wikipedia. Jimbo, you've been silent. I posted this here to get your input. I know your busy, but I think that this is a content issue that could really use some help from you. So, when you have a chance.... Coretheapple (talk) 12:39, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh please. You're citing a user who had a "fear" of even taking a look at the article due to an apparent personal taboo. All articles are subject to possible abuse especially, for example, ones under ARBMAC and ARBPIA, but that does not mean we should allow that nor what some extremist forums parrot dictate what articles should and should not exist. This is WP:IDONTLIKEIT wrapped in a cloak of moral superiority. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 14:06, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
No, I didn't want to look at the article from personal experience. Not some taboo. I know what these types of canards are for. I have a lot of experience in working with the ADL and SPLC bringing light to these attempts to promote antisemitic conspiracies. And yes, having an article titled "Jews and Communism" is definitely an attempt to promote that same conspiracy theory in an article we already have, Jewish Bolshevism. The fact that you created the article on February 27, 2014, with "A near majority of Jews dominated the top ten to twenty leaders of the Russian Bolshevik Party's first twenty years and the Soviet Union's secret police was "one of the most Jewish" of all Soviet institutions." The article went to AfD and the majority of editors wanted to delete the article or merge it with the conspiracy Jewish Bolshevism article, by a count of 25 to delete/merge to 14 keeps. In which the closer starts out his reasoning with an "Oy vey, what a mess". As if it's a joke or funny that antisemites have been pushing this conspiracy and there is no reason for concern of a WP:POVFORK. Either the closer is ignorant of the "Jews and Communism" canard or thinks it's funny. And no, your line of "what's wrong with communism" isn't going to work with me. I've heard all of the end round justifications before. It's not the communism that's the problem, it's the promoting that somehow the Joos! controlled it and lead us into WWII. There are no neutral sources called "Jews and Communism". None. And there is a reason for that. It's an antisemitic canard. Period. Dave Dial (talk) 14:43, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Is the book "Jews and Communism" by Oxford University Press also immediately an "attempt to promote that same conspiracy theory"? What anti-intellectual nonsense. The article did indeed go to AfD and DELREV, but they both have results you apparently can't come to terms with. One should know that Wikipedia's WP:NOTAVOTE so it doesn't matter how many emotional outbursts are mustered: it's about arguments. For your information (I doubt you bothered to read past the lede) that line is directly from American-Jewish historian Albert Lindemann so feel free to "report" him to ADL, SPLC, and whatever else organizations you may be connected with. The only users I see that are throwing around this nonsensical "Joos!" and "commies" rhetoric and absurd theories are coming from those who want to delete it. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 15:14, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
What does Albert Lindemann's religious background got to do with anything? Coretheapple (talk) 15:18, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Who said he was religious? This is how reliable sources describe him. [17] --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 15:26, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
What's your point in bringing it up? Coretheapple (talk) 15:27, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Do you take offense? What's your point of dragging it out? --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 15:31, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Because (to repeat myself) I'd like to know why you think the religion of the writer is pertinent. I don't see the pertinence, but obviously you do. What is it? Coretheapple (talk) 00:15, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, it's very important for you to identify a source from a Jew, right? Can I ask you something? Where did you get the material to create your article from? I ask this because it's strikingly similar to the article on Metapedia(for those who don't know, Metapedia is a White Nationalist Wiki) titled "Jewish Bolshevism" http://en.meta pedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism. So similar in fact, that I looked at your original article you created on February 27, 2014 and the references you used and compared them with the Metapedia article http://en.meta pedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism.
Comparison of Metapedia article sources to Wikipedia
  • Strange that the references are almost identical, eh? Down to the exact page number. So, did you just look at the Metapedia article and decide to make one in Wikipedia, and just pretty it up a bit? Or did you create the Metapedia article too? Note, We are not even allowed to link to Metapedia articles. So you have to take out the space between Meta and pedia to go to the link. Dave Dial (talk) 16:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Somebody should figure out what to do with Jews and Communism. Perhaps it could be redirected to Jewish Bolshevism, deleted, or edited. I'm not getting into that issue. The AFD and DRV discussions were seriously disrupted by a few bad actors. Any editor can try those processes again. What I've done to help resolve the matter is to block User:DIREKTOR and User:PRODUCER who seem to be tag team POV pushing. Their behaviors individually are blockable, but there's a pretty strong suggestion that they might be working together given the obvious connection between their usernames. I don't doubt that a bunch of single purpose accounts will show up to POV push at future discussions of the topic. Please label them with {{SPA}} and make judicious use of checkuser. Also, request that an exerpienced admin close the discussion, somebody who is familiar with these sorts of ethnic battlezones who would not so easily be confused to say "no consensus" when there is a clear consensus among reasonable editors being disrupted by a few loud, bad actors. Jehochman Talk 16:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • There is a reason why antisemitism is regarded as political death. There is a reason Markos purged DailyKos of all Truthers and antisemitism. It's unacceptable. There are no "sides" to compare with. Most rational people much rather stand next to some person who thinks God talks to him than the filth associated with Neo-Nazi/White Nationalism. To even state that the people who produce such filth as a "side" is far too much. I for one, totally support the move to ban these two. As for anyone else, I can see people not realizing what was going on. Dave Dial (talk) 16:44, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • An encyclopedia can cover an antisemitic topic without itself promoting or proselytizing the antisemitism though. We have an article on Israel and the apartheid analogy that discusses the matter of the state of Israel being accused of apartheid-like actions against the Palestinian population under its control. The article dos not take a side, nor advocate that the analogy is true or untrue; it tells what it is, the history behind it, who says it, and who rebuts it. The article has survived at least 9(!) AfD attempts by the pro-Israeli/Jewish editors here because they claim it does indeed advertise and push antisemitism. It doesn't, and nether should this article, if written properly. Tarc (talk) 16:51, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I for one, totally support the move to ban these two. - so do I. Many thanks Jehochman.Smeat75 (talk) 16:59, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • You don't seem to get the point. The canard of "Jews and Communism" is already covered in the Jewish Bolshevism article. All this article does is prove to the rest of us that the pro-Israeli/Jewish editors may have a point. Those who want Israel to stop the settlements and occupation of the territories are taken aback by the blatant antisemitism that still exists, and in fact seems to thrive in certain parts of the world(Easter Europe). These types of articles do nothing to help people who want a fair solution in Israel, it HURTS them. It just shows that we are still not ready. Dave Dial (talk) 17:06, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • To respond to Tarc, what makes this article problematic and, in my view, irredeemable, is the was it is titled and focused (albeit by now-blocked editors with an obvious agenda and oozing-out-of-pores prejudice). This would be like an article on African-Americans and crime, and for it to be exploited by Klan-leaning editors as a laundry list of African-American hoods over the years, rather than African-American organized crime, which is neutral, specific and focused. Coretheapple (talk) 17:15, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I "get the point" entirely, I'm afraid, and this is why I have very little to do with the I-P topic area these days; the complete inability of the Israeli/Jewish side to see criticism of their state/ideology/religion/everything in any manner save through the lens of "OMG ANTISEMITISM!"...and the few occasions when the other side points out "OMG ISLAMOPHOBIA!", they are usually pooh-pooh'ed aside and ignored. A notable exception being the WP:CAMERA affair, something that was too big to fit under a rug. We even see it here right now, with you two freely slinging around comparisons to the KKK and to "oozing-out-of-pores prejudice". If Direktor or Producer hurled a similar comment to one of you, the block would be swift. Will Hochman or another admin be swift to block you for such severe WP:NPA transgressions? I won't hold my breath. This isn't a Wikipedia-exclusive problem, out entire Western culture walks on eggshells every time AIPAC gets their hackles up. They harassed Chris Christie last month for having the gall, the audacity to refer to the territory occupied by Israel as...gasp, the occupied territories. It's systemic, endemic, whatever-demic bias, from the top of society on down. Tarc (talk) 17:29, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • As a matter of fact this is really the first time I've blundered into the subject matter. It was raised on ANI at the same time that I was following another thread. I read the article and was disgusted by it to the point that I decided to raise the issue with Jimbo. First time I've ever raised a content issue here, and boy am I glad I did. This is the kind of article that gets Wikipedia in extremely deep doo-doo. You seem to be conflating with some kind of "Israel-Palestine" set-to that has no bearing on this article and still gets your dander up, evidently, big time. Coretheapple (talk) 17:35, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • None of what you said had a singe thing to do with what I said, actually. Yes, I am well-aware that you're a Jimbo's page and ANI dweller, not an I-P regular. One point missed is that you think it's A-OK to denigrate two editors as racist pigs on a highly-trafficked and public page such as this, and suffer no repercussion whatsoever. Yet they get no chance to offer a defense, no "let's bring this to ANI for community input", just a single "off-with-their-heads" by one administrator. Tarc (talk) 17:58, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
  • No, you're right there. I've struck it, and can delete if you think that's better. But that was by no means your only point. Your principal one was to place this article in some kind of universe of Israel-Palestine bickering. I think that's totally off base. Coretheapple (talk) 18:01, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Wait a minute, did you say "ANI dweller"? God forbid. Coretheapple (talk) 18:05, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Point of order: Jewish <> Israeli. These are two different, but overlapping, groups. You should not assume this is an I-P dispute. Jehochman Talk 18:10, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Oh c'mon. From 1948 Arab-Israeli War to Messianic Judaism to Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, or even to apparently unrelated areas like Martin Luther, the same cast of actors play the same roles, over and over and over. Tarc (talk) 20:04, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
What do you mean by "actors"? Coretheapple (talk) 20:19, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
No answer? Well, if by "actors" you mean "Wikipedia editors" (as in, same editors going from article to article) then I am strongly persuaded that you're wrong. Coretheapple (talk) 17:54, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned about the recent blocks of User:PRODUCER and User:DIREKTOR as being perhaps overly bold. Do see Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/DIREKTOR/Archive#Report_date_February_22_2010.2C_21:52_.28UTC.29 for a prior review of a similar concern. I don't see WP:DE, personally - each pushes the envelope, but, sadly, so do others on this article. I have no opinion on the quality of the article - it clearly irritates some, and I don't understand the topic well enough to offer a fair assessment. However, the information brought up today about the apparent origin of the article in Meta Pedia is disturbing. JoeSperrazza (talk) 19:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

The book Jews and Communism which PRODUCER introduces as his coup de gras is actually a collection of articles by different authors about Jews and Communists in different countries at different times, and no attempt is made to tie this together. As the editor states, "The truth is that, as of today, there is still no study examining the overall history of Communism and the Jews." (p. 8)[18] Until there is the article fails notability and there is no way to determine the weight to assign various aspects. TFD (talk) 19:54, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes of course, and beyond that, as Joe points out, there is the possible connection between this article and a similar one in the far-right wiki Metapedia. That was discussed above and I think needs to be thoroughly examined. Everything else may pale in significance, depending upon how that plays out. This may very well turn out to be the thwarting of an immense embarrassment for the project. Coretheapple (talk) 20:02, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
The Metapedia article, "Jewish Bolshevism", is largely copied from this article. Compare the edit histories of the two articles. Still, odd that they would do that. TFD (talk) 21:06, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
A four year old sock puppetry report with a negative finding does not prove the accounts are unrelated. There could be two people working in coordination, or one person with two network locations, or one person with two browsers and a proxy. Lots and lots of ways to fool checkuser. You have to look at the user's behavior. In this case it's very simple because each is behaving badly on their own, sufficient to justify a block. The fact that they might be coordinating with one another is further tipping the odds, but not the key to determination. Jehochman Talk 20:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
And who do you think you are to simply ignore and override a CU finding? Leroy Jethro Gibbs, going with your "gut" feeling? Why even bother with the CU process at all if any admin and just set a finding aside and decide "yep, they're connected, so *BLOCK*" ? Tarc (talk) 21:26, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Checkuser is not magic pixie dust. It cannot reliable establish that two accounts are unlinked. And in particular, WP:MEAT applies. —Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:43, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Anyone that has been around these two editors can tell that they are not connected. RGloucester — ☎ 21:54, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
The blocking admin has unblocked User:DIREKTOR. It has also been reported that the article on Meta was copied from WP, not vice versa. See User talk:DIRECKTOR JoeSperrazza (talk) 22:26, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
The blocks are probably no longer needed, and if I prove wrong, they could be reinstated later. Pharos is reviewing and revising Jews and Communism. This is a positive development. DIREKTOR gave good answers to some of my questions, enough that I must give them the benefit of the doubt. Jehochman Talk 22:43, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I can understand why you would unblock DIREKTOR, since he didn't create the article and TParis has stated he is pretty sure they are not sock/meat puppets. But that still doesn't explain how PRODUCER creates an article that is so admired by the White Nationalists over at Metepedia that they copy the article into their space. Has anyone here read Metapedia? This page en.metapedia.org/wiki/Jewish_group_tactics (called "Jewish group tactics") is indicative of the type of 'articles' on that site. This is a problem here, and one that editors should keep an eye on. I don't think Jimbo(or any average Wikipedian) wants to be associated with that type of filth. Dave Dial (talk) 00:35, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
That is the most immediately alarming thing about it. If we suffer it's existence, (I personally would like it gone and quick) then it should be radically different to a near copy on a neo-nazi wiki. It should be rewritten urgently at the very least. I think we ahould be rid of it. Irondome (talk) 00:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
That's a rather ugly guilt-by-association trip you're both pulling there, tbh. I'm sorry if some skinhead website happens to agree with an article on the Wikipedia, but per the WP:CC BY-SA we cannot put restrictions on how others use material taken from here. I'm sure there's any number of distasteful organizations that celebrate the parts of the Wikipedia the agree with and ignore the parts they loathe. We don't delete content because external groups condemn it (e.g. images of Muhammad) nor do we delete content because a repugnant org loves it. Tarc (talk) 00:47, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
That is a bit OTT. I was merely saying it would be wise to materially alter ours. Nothing to do with guilt. It just looks crap. Irondome (talk)
Would you say the same thing if we had an article like the other one I gave(en.metapedia.org/wiki/Jewish_group_tactics called "Jewish group tactics")? Your reasoning(to me) doesn't make sense. It's not like some Skinhead likes a flower article or something. It's an article titled "Jews and Communism", the same old canard the Neo-Nazis/White Supremacists use to prove that the Joos were at fault for WWII. Jews and Banking, Jews and Communism and Jews and Homosexuals. And on and on and on. Anyone that knows the devious nature of the Neo-Nazis knows this type of sneaky stuff is what they thrive on. Tell a big lie and such. I've put away my investigative hat long ago, and am not getting back into this bullshit. I saw the article and avoided it, because I don't want to delve into this type of filth again. I thought it would be deleted and I could ignore it. It's greatly disappointing to me that it's still there. The closer should be ashamed of themselves. Dave Dial (talk) 01:03, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Again, having an article on an antisemitic topic doesn't mean that the Wikipedia is supporting or legitimizing it. The existence of Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories doesn't give credence to the Tea Partiers, does it? Tarc (talk) 01:09, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
G*d dammit. As I have already stated, we HAVE an article called Jewish Bolshevism that covers the canard already. Dave Dial (talk) 01:16, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I do note the word "theories". Theories on Jews and communism would at least be a start. Something in the title that notes its contentious aspect Irondome (talk) 01:20, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
And let me just add, since you brought up the Obama thing. We have an article called Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories, in relation to the article being discussed here(Jews and Communism) it would be akin to some Yahoo making an article called Barack Obama and his fake birth certificate. See? Jewish Bolshevism =Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories and Jews and Communism = Barack Obama and his fake birth certificate. Is there any doubt by any reasonable person that the Jews and Communism is a WP:COATRACK for every yahoo that believes that stupid canard? I mean, really. Dave Dial (talk) 01:29, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
"Jews and Communism" is not a coatrack for "Jewish Bolshivism", from all appearances it is a wholly separate topic. (Redacted) Tarc (talk) 12:33, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Dave Dial, I do understand that you don't want to look at filth, neither do I, but if we just turn away we are allowing filth to be promoted on this site we are participating in. I hope you won't do that. I cannot. I hope all who have posted here or see this will, as you say, "keep an eye" on that page.Smeat75 (talk) 01:28, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

I can only describe this entire incident as being the equivalent of a Wiki-lynching. I and Direktor are indef blocked on a hunch by Jehochman (an admin who is personally involved in the discussion and considers the article "ugly bigotry") with an apparent "shoot first, ask questions later" policy. No benefit of the doubt for editors with thousands of edits and who've spent years on Wikipedia. He throws a clear CU finding under the bus in favor of believing that some elaborate conspiracy is in play and when asked for evidence to back his preposterous acts he "points to long discussions to justify [his] actions" (as one admin put it) or later claims he's "too busy" to do so. [19][20] It's only until numerous editors tell him how ill-advised such an act and reasoning was that he decides undo this nonsense. [21][22][23][24][25] One uninvolved admin characterized the matter as Jehochman "running in and blocking one side on completely false grounds." [26]

Over the course of this block a tirade of insults and slurs is thrown by users that claim or infer that I or Direktor are anti-semitic, affliated with Stormfront, similar to KKK members, have an agenda, ooze "pores of prejudice", etc. All without any fear of sanctions. Accusations are thrown out liberally knowing those who they are directed at are blocked and can't defend themselves in any capacity whatsoever and backpattery is sent to those complicit in this demagoguery and for winning the "battle". [27][28] Evidently these sorts of editors are not interested in discourse, but rather in passionately attacking, villifyng, and browbeating - in every single possible way - the editors that they disagree with. Etiquette? Who cares we'll get away with it, attribute rhetoric like "Joos!" and "commies" to them, associate them with loons. Sources? Theý don't conform to our opinions, they are all anti-semitic "canard" or extremist "memes", toss them aside.

This Wiki-Meta COPYVIO plagarism accusation was brought up before by TFD and debunked. Anyone who bothers to spend a maximum of thirty seconds(!) checking the edit histories of the articles can see that it was Metapedia that copied Wikipedia. But no, an editor chose instead to create a photoshop image of the websites as definitive proof of some sort and have others join in this charade. I cannot be held personally accountable for what information some fanatics choose to copy and abuse from Wikipedia for their own political gain. I don't own the website, I don't endorse it, I don't frequent it, and I certainly don't edit on it. It is disappointing, to say the least, that such charges are blindly accepted as fact by some and that this demonization continues to be pushed. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 08:22, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

    • The "oozing" comment was wrong, and I struck it out, and I'm sorry about it. But I stand by the comments about the content. What you and "director" and another editor, whose name escapes me, have done consistently in that article's talk page and elsewhere is conflated comments about content with comments about you and the contributors aligned with you, with "director" issuing childish threats in the form of "formal warnings" as a way of intimidating editors who have serious concerns about the content. There are indeed serious WP:OWN issues in that article, and I was initially ignorant of them. You've given me an excellent education of how serious they are. By the way, I'm still awaiting your response to my question above as to what the pertinency is of identifying the Jewishness of a particular author you cite. Coretheapple (talk) 15:29, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Hi PRODUCER and you are really funny. First you fight tooth and nail to create and WP:OWN the Jews and Communism article, then when the neo-Nazis and White Supremacists basically post it unedited on their shitty blog you run away from "owning" it -- hahahahahahaha, well sorry old man, you must OWN what you PRODUCE and you cannot run away from what you have directly helped the neo-Nazis via creating venomous crap on WP. You created the cancer and now it is metastasizing. "Mazel Tov" ! IZAK (talk) 09:04, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
    • With that sort of reasoning feel free to demonize and condemn every editor that edits in fields like this, ARBMAC, ARBPIA, etc. since their contributions can be used at any minute to push something (be it political, religious, or something else) on a blog, forum, or wiki. I'm sure my articles on Chetnik commanders have been used as WWII collaboration bragging rights by some, but I don't allow this possibility to dictate what content I write, much less foster the anti-intellectualism and censorship you appear to prefer. --◅ PRODUCER (TALK) 09:57, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
      • PRODUCER I am as opposed to censorship as you are, otherwise I would not have spent a good part of latter years on WP, so please stop spouting that nonsense and please stop endlessly spinning words like a propaganda meister to mean something they were not meant to say or imply. Unlike most others who oppose you, I am not opposed to writing on this topic and having it, I just feel that it must be presented in a thorough historical context such as part of the History of Communism, but as you can tell from the fury that has been unleashed almost from the day you chose to unveil the topic (without consulting anyone) if I read everyone correctly there are two big problems: (1) The way you and DIREKTOR have presented the topic, as you can tell there are plenty of other editors, a vast majority who would deal with this topic in a far different manner than the two of you. (2) The tone and attitude you and DIREKTOR have displayed to other editors in the course of discussions. The endless put downs, the tiresome threats to run to ANI, the personal insults and snide remarks that are so stupid and babyish that makes the work environment and dealing with you guys so toxic. I actually agree with almost all your content but I disagree with the way you set it up and present it and the way you defend it by the way you almost viciously confront others who see it differently. Someone once said that "facts presented with bad intent beat all the lies you can invent" (I think it was someone famous who said that, maybe we should Google it) but I think you should get the idea by now. Otherwise this drama will go from bad to worse, and like in nuclear warfare there will not be winners only survivors and no one will be happy and WP will be worse off for it. Take care, IZAK (talk) 11:36, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I must say that I share some of the concerns regarding behaviour of Direktor and Producer which were expressed here. I have had years-long debates with them regarding the Chetniks issue and I felt on my own skin their partisan attitude towards editors that oppose them. The main problem was that they grabbed the articles with the intention to maximally expand their collaborationist activities and shaddow the resistance ones, so that is why Producer is aware and mentioned it, how "his" articles about Chetnik commanders must be the favourite ones ammong right-wingers. They basically refused to acknolledge some basic facts such as an existing animosity that existed between Serbs (majority of Chetniks) and Germans, as they were historical enemies and had just fought a nasty war (WWI) two decades earlier. We even had a 2-years long mediation which concluded that the nature of the collaboration between Chetniks and Axis was opportunistic (as they both fought the communist Partisans of Tito). Direktor even today doesn´t acknolledge any resistance efforts to them. What they did was picky-cherring numerous sources, and it wasn´t difficult because Chetniks lost the war, so the official communist Yugoslav history labbeled them as collaborators and was pretty much a tendency followed by many authors, as there was no interest in defending the loosing side. They refused to acknolledge the complexity of the issue and often used numerous tricks to eliminate opposing editors, and with some admin help, aften succeded. I was very bitter with WP because of it and because of the failure to stop such an agressive attitude in such a sensitive issue. Numerous editors simply ended giving up because they noteced that entering in conflict with the two would only bring fristration and trouble. Now I see that same pattern they applied in Jewish subjects, and it didn´t passed unnoteced as in Serbian one does. However, I don´t beleave any of them is really anti-semite or racist. They do however have some bias: both are Croatian and in Croatia the word "Chetnik" is strongly associated with the Serbs that fought Croats during the 1990s, so their edditing pattern regarding that issue is probably influenced by that. Also Direktor is leftist, Yugoslav Partisans sympatizer, so I think the subject of Jews and Communism for them was more about communism rather than Jewish people, however they should change the agressve pattern they often show in numerous discussions. 18:34, 29 April 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by FkpCascais (talk • contribs) [29]
It was not I who got sanctioned for POV-pushing & DE in that particular affair, Fkp. Further, I am not the topic here, and this is not the venue to discuss some petty grievance you might have with Chetnik collaboration not being actively covered up. Even the Inquisition used to ask people to name others not well disposed to them, so as to avoid biased witnesses. In my case, I must say you're near the top of the "Not Objective" list. -- Director (talk) 12:17, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Christ is risen

Did you know that on Easter Sunday this hook appeared on enWikipedia's main page:
Did you know that "Jesus Christ is Risen Today"? Being discussed at ANI here.
--Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:55, 28 April 2014 (UTC) Added link to ANI discussion 18:04, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Point being? Matty.007 17:59, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
It's nice to see us getting the Good News out there. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 18:06, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
Heh heh! If memory serves correct, we have The C of E to thank for the hook (and the article?). Best, Matty.007 18:21, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
I think the point here is that many are insulted that Easter was used to make DYK nothing but a tool for our christian editors and that this same thing cant be done if we wanted to make a DYK for "Did you know God is dead". My very first DYK appeared a short time ago and the hook was: Did you know... that the kāhili standard (pictured) of Hawaiian royalty was made from the bones of an enemy king and the feathers of a bird of prey? I was pretty damned proud of that and it got 8000 hits the day it appeared while the Christ has risen only got about 3000. So the issue isn't really about the christian editors. Although, as I said, it makes it look like Wikipedia used Easter as an excuse to allow christian editors more privilege than the average editor. The issue is, that DYK appeared with no fact hook from the article and was purposely made to be a promotional christian claim on a day they find holy.
I don't really care about the actual DYK and what it said and what it appeared to claim as fact. I am concerned that DYK was and is being used a promotion for one particular sect of editors and went against the policy and guidelines of the project. If we allow this once, and it is fine, we really do have to allow it for everyone. Point blank, am I going to be able to add a DYK that presents as a fact, all of the legends and unproven claims in articles I expand. I tell ya what...I sure as hell expect it now. My personal opinion is that there never really was a man named Jesus and that he never came back to life or was raised from the dead...but that is just me. But the real issue and question is this....can DYK be used this way from now on? Can any religion or group or individual now be allowed to do the exact same thing. Currently the discussion at ANI seems to show that editors seem split. I would like to know what the wider community consensus is regarding DYK and the fact hook?--Maleko Mela (talk) 02:16, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I think it's kinda sad that people treat "Christ" as if it is a dirty word. I found this DYK hook to be rather clever. Tarc (talk) 02:31, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes it is. The amount of "promotional" hooks on DYK may be an issue worthy of debate, but the people singling out this one are the worst. Calidum 02:39, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't give a crap how "christ' is treated. If it is a dirty word to some...cool. If it is the most important thing in your life...cool, but don't fucking make the people trying to get a straight answer to be the issue. Calidum, THAT was a personal attack. I see that there is never going to be a straight answer as the entire fucking point appears to be to blur the god damn lines. Cool...it seems to have worked.--Maleko Mela (talk) 02:46, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
It's a new article that satisfied the criteria for the DYK requirements, so it should have the exact same rights to a DYK as any other article, even if it does mention a controversial topic. WP:CENSOR is a great thing IMO, and going by that, "Jesus Christ is risen today" and "God is dead" each have the same rights to getting on the Main Page. The issue, at least from what I'm understanding, is that some people are getting up in arms over a Christian POV that this one supposedly is causing, and the Christians and uncensored people are fighting back (Bias alert: I'm Catholic, so I might be a little biased, but that's what it looks like to me). If there was an easy answer to religion, the whole world would be of one faith and be done with all this fighting, but as we can see, that's not the case. I'm a little surprised that this hook made it through DYK, but I enjoyed it; however, we should probably put in a written requirement that the hooks have to be more than the title to prevent stuff like this from happening again. God knows there's plenty of other controversial topics to write articles about. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 03:30, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
The problem that people are mentioning is one of presentation, if I understand correctly.. That is, in present form, it read as such "Did you know that…"Jesus Christ Is Risen Today"? This, of course, implies 'fact', when the 'fact' in question is disputed. If the hook was written more appropriately, and didn't present one disputed viewpoint as fact, there would've been no problem with it. Perhaps something like "Did you know that…some Christians believe that "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today"? And then one could link to the hymn, without implying anything about anything. That's not necessarily a good hook either, but merely an example of a way to sidestep the problem that people are talking about. Personally, I think it is more or less a mountain-out-of-a-molehill. RGloucester — ☎ 03:37, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
As I said wherever else this was raised..AN or ANI or whatever...I myself am not Christian and really didn't view this as offensive or as a "presentation of fact". It just made use of the title as the complete sentence. In my wild and capricious youth I used to be an angry atheist, railing against every utterance of religion, taking offense when others expressed their faith in my presence, and so on. Reading Maleko's diatribe above, he sounds like every bad caricature of the type of stereotypical religion-hating liberal that Fox News invents every Christmas season to rail against. Sooner or later, one grows out of actually acting like that. Tarc (talk) 03:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Great comments, Tarc. I think Maleko is just writing off the top of his head and is a bit upset. I know when he calms down everything will be fine. I totally respect him and have the utmost confidence in his abilities. Viriditas (talk) 04:47, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't view it as offensive. I don't think anyone was rationally making the claim. Instead, I think people were concerned about presenting religious truth as encyclopaedic fact. Like I said, personally I think this is somewhat overblown in importance, but the concern is genuine. For full disclosure, my relationship with 'religion' is complex, but I'm not an atheist by any measure. RGloucester — ☎ 03:57, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
The current arguments are a mix of religious views and other non related issues. But to me this is simple. Either we allow everyone the same privilege or we restrict everyone to the same standard. At the moment it does appear that Christians are given a greater leeway to proclaim their beliefs as fact but that pagans and non blievers are told to shut the fuck up. Harsh, but that is indeed what I am seeing.--Maleko Mela (talk) 04:10, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

For Jimbo's birthday I should send him a ten foot pole so he can edit some of these topics with it. ;-)--Maleko Mela (talk) 04:42, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

This is how Chinese Whispers works: a hook says that Wikipedia now has an article on a hymn that is so familiar that I (reviewer) thought it could go without a clumsy '... that a hymn is called "JCIRT"', a hook that also possibly didn't present a concept our readers had never heard of. And now this thread is named "Christ is risen", without quotation marks, without question mark. Interesting. Repeating (from ANI): I think it was not a good hook because what it said was too familiar to be interesting, but it made me smile, and possibly others. I apologize to those who didn't, and will not do it again. - Now I wonder if all this attention was planned ;) - Death is fact, I wrote two hymn articles in memory, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 06:45, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Nobody would write a DYK that says 'Did You Know that "The New York Times"'. The DYK was only phrased the way it was so that the song title could be (mis)read as making a claim that Wikipedia has no business making. Common sense seems to be sorely lacking in favor of "as long nobody admits it's trying to make a claim, we can't know that it is". Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:28, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Common sense also argues that making mountains out of molehills isn't a great way to spend one's time. Yet, here we are, with people complaining over numerous forums simply so they can look angry. (And your example isn't really valid given "The New York Times" isn't a complete sentence.) Resolute 23:21, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia gets destroyed by the accumulation of tiny problems. It's no more insignificant than, say, a single wrong date in an article, or a single misspelling. Furthermore, it's only a small problem from your perspective as a Christian.
And of course "The New York Times" isn't a complete sentence. That's the point. The DYK is written using a title that is a sentence, in order to encourage the reader to misread the whole thing as Wikipedia claiming that Jesus has risen. Doing the same trick with a title that's not a sentence wouldn't work, because it wouldn't be possible to misread that. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:51, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

And did you know that in the year A.D. 797: "The Romans cut out the tongue of Pope Leo, put out his eyes, and drove him from his see; but soon after, by the assistance of God, he could see and speak, and became pope as he was before." Count Iblis (talk) 00:56, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Look, I'm a Christian myself, but I think this was a misuse of DYK. DYK is supposed to present a fact from the article, as in "Did you know that... "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today" is a hymn about Easter?" As Makelo says, the way this was done would be exactly equivalent to promoting the article "God is dead" with a hook saying "Did you know that... God is dead?" Or to get away from the religion angle, it would be like promoting "You Don't Know Jack (video game series)" with the hook "Did you know that.... you don't know Jack?" Too late now, but I think it was inappropriate for any article - particularly this one since it appeared to give Wikipedia's imprimatur of fact to the resurrection of Christ. --MelanieN (talk) 04:00, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Storm in a teacup comes to mind here. I feel I need to remind people that this was on the nominations page for a month before being promoted. There was plenty of time for objections to be made. Since none were, it was promoted as usual after further checks by the admin who promoted the queue. Even on the day, I saw no complaints at the Main Page talk or at WT:DYK about it. It is only a few days later where we have the complaints when it is too late to do anything about it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 10:10, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, user Maleko Mela/Mark Miller has been removing references from the article. [30] [31] [32] [33] —Neotarf (talk) 04:46, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Donated pictures as Fair Use

Hello ! In order to make this free webb-Encyclopedia even better, I think that pictures taken before 1995 and with analogue based technique (with negatives/Dia-positives as original, and perhaps black/white photos only), where an editor asks an archive, photographer or museum - "Can we please use a picture with intact copyright at English Wikipedia ?" - and if/when the copyright owner agrees, such photos could be used as Fair Use. After all, in a historical sence, this is only a temporary deal that both Wikipedia and the copyright owner could benefit from. In the end all pictures becomes free anyway, it's only a matter of time. A long time for a human being, but a much shorter time in a historical perspective. Why must we wait ? - if the copyright holder has no objections ? And the copyright owner only don't want other (third part) users to be able to money of the work of others. But Wikipedia is free ! And I've got a stong feeling that many would like to contribute, if they just could keep their copyright intact. And we (Wikipedia) actually do have a rather limited amount of pictures from the late 1940's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's. The world wide webb made internet available for millions and billions, and "the birth" of the digital camera have indeed contributed with Public Domain pictures, since then. Regarding the current Fair Use some pictures are concidered "not importaint enough" while others may pass through (even without approval from the copyright owner, in some cases), the problem becomes always a matter of subjectivity, which never is good. I strongly feel that when an editor and a copyright owner agree of the use of a copyright photo as Fair Use [and indeed temporary, until the copyright expires], we could cover the "picture gap" of the second half of the 20th Century. As I see it, it will not rock the basic fundaments of Wikipedia. Photo archives are not very fond of allowing f.i. copyleft of their works [or the work of someone else, who has not agreed to Public Domain nor Copyleft], but they do seldomly object to use at Wikipedia for the remaining time of the copyright. I cannot quite comprahend that the rights of third party is of higher importance, than attempting to solve the problem with rather few illustrations we have during the mentioned time. And by setting a time limit to around when "www" and the digital cameras were born, we will not get fewer uploads at Wikimedia Commons. We just cannot get back in time and f.i. take shots of the first Supel Bowl Tuch Down ever, for instance. So while waiting for the copyright to expire, we instead temporary, in the cases where an editor and a copyright owner can agree, show the pictures "prematurely" so to speak. Or would that realy be outise the fundaments of Wikipedia ? I feel some users defend the old principles just by habit, and cannot really see what we, Wikipedia, could gain with a small expansion of Fair Use pictures. I watched You at that Norwegian "Skavlan"-show , by the way. Well done, I also think we could benefit from more female editors. Best regards Boeing720 (talk) 14:00, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

I really like that idea and I'm pretty sure it'll work. One addition though: We'll need to get something in writing to confirm that yes, they did give us permission. How we'd go about that is something I'm not sure of, since it'd be easy enough to fake it on some variation of the current picture upload form. It'd be interesting to hear what a WMF employee has to say here. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 14:09, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
I am not an employee of the Foundation, but this is a high level policy decision that is up to the board. And, it isn't going to happen, there would in my estimation at the present time be no support for this at the board level, and I would personally oppose it very strongly.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:01, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
If possible, could You just give a brief explination to the big trouble, why You would oppose this idea. Please. As I see it, not even third party users will loose anything, since such pictures are out of their reach anyway. And we simply can't go back in time and take new and free shots of historical events. And as principle it would only be a tepmorary change. Boeing720 (talk) 17:05, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
A picture from the early 90s will easily be in copyright 100 years from now. That's hardly temporary. The biggest reason not to do it has been discussed elsewhere on this page: it reduces the incentive for people to work to get access to genuinely freely licensed work. And it turns out that it's generally not that difficult to do. Most of the cases that people cite of it being impossible to get a freely licensed picture aren't really persuasive - I think the Kim Jong Un example is one of the very best that I've ever heard, and it won't surprise me if everyone reading this chips in with ideas and emails to people who own the copyright to such photos so that we get one. Maybe even Dennis Rodman. :-)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:25, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
;-)--Maleko Mela (talk) 22:05, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

To Jimmy, thanks for the explination and sorry to have bothered You. (but don't forget that Einstein prooved time to be relative... :) Boeing720 (talk) 10:07, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

  • @Boeing720: You might want to read #What is the Wikimedia Foundation's stance on the unsuitability of a non-free image of Kim Jong-un, Publishing non-free media can actually harm the creation/release of free media. Given that the events you want to illustrate have tens of thousands of attendees percentage of those have cameras and if you contact them and explain things correctly you may get the release you want. You will get told no by a lot of them, but the issue is just like selling something, you need to overcome their objections. Given that you dont understand copyright, copyleft, and the differences you probably cannot do it, but wikipedia editors have had major success in doing it. The German Federal Archives actually release quite a bit of their collection under a free license (80000+ images). Werieth (talk) 15:14, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes I do understand that IF also photo's from the last 20 years or so could be uploaded un-free, it might for sure could harm free uploads at Wikimedia. Hence I suggested the word wide webb and the digital camera as possible limits, for such fotos. (But aggreement including some kind of confirm, analogue based photos only, earlier than 1995 or 1990 even, and possibly only in black/white at upload - no then I don't believe in any harm to Wikimedia uploads. In fact non at all). If You want me to be come a salses man, only demanding more this time, regarding soon 80 year old Bertil Persson - NO I will not insult an old man to explain Wikipedia details. (And he's got a real large archive for my home town and surrounding areas) The museum is different (and their photo was also a better shot). If I was wrong in understanding Your explination of "copyleft", why didn't You reply when I asked ? And like You know I'm trying to learn, as late as Yesterday, so find I parts of Your comments here a bit uncalled for. Boeing720 (talk) 17:26, 30 April 2014 (UTC) Almost forgot Bertil Persson. who has donated his collection of 100.000+ negatives to http://www.arkivet-landskrona.se/ - for most use but commercial - in the light of that, 80.000+ photos from all the German states isn't much at all. And I presume they have with the period 1933-1945 to to. Or can You find some photo that is related to the Baader-Meinhof league or the killing during the 1972 Olympics in Munich ? Boeing720 (talk) 17:43, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
I never said anything about insulting a person. Using the common sales tactic of overcoming objections is used in other fields than sales but that is where it is most common and easiest to reference. It boils down to identifying what specifically the user is saying is a problem, and either explaining why its not a problem or by countering with a different solution. Often people object to something because they don't understand something or misunderstand it. Once you take the time to explain it in terms that they understand and can work with they are far more likely to agree with your position. In the case of the person you are dealing with why are they objecting to releasing the files under a free license? Given that the user has a large collection, and is willing to donate it if we explain it correctly and in terms that they understand there is a very high probability of success. Im not being offensive when I use the phrase terms that they understand, as one can phrase the same thing in quite a few different ways using different terms, depending on whom you are speaking with how you phrase and explain things differs. Take the explaining gravity two people, one of them is a 7 year old, and the other is a PhD in physics, odds are how you explain the same topic isnt any where near the same. Werieth (talk) 19:00, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

[I'm sorry to plunge in between users] But to Werieth - I'm very sorry if You got the impression that I thought Your ideas were insulting (or something alike). This was either unintentional from me, a misinterpretion from You or a combination. I only said that I it might be insulting to Bertil Persson, if I approached him again, given his age (around 79). I don't think You approve of people being insulting, and have never done. But regarding other archives (like the museum) , I sure can get more pursuasive and explaining. But I think I have to learn little bit more, f.i. the hints You gave me. Boeing720 (talk) 10:54, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

To begin with, Fair Use doesn't need an owner's permission - that's the point of it. I'll therefore interpret the suggestion as a suggestion to obtain limited free licenses to display these images.
The key issue about Fair Use comes into play when you imagine making a mirror of Wikipedia. For example, you might want to translate articles en masse into another language Wikipedia, a Wikibook, a CD you hand out to people without internet access, or (alas) some sadly bowdlerized Wikipedia mirror set up in another country to carry the subset of its content that complies with local censorship laws (or the same sort of thing done to comply with a notion of what is appropriate specifically for children in your own country). Now Fair Use is a standard that doesn't require permission, so any mirror hosted in the U.S. would be able to use all the same Fair Use images for the same purposes legally. You'd at least have the beginnings of claims of fair dealing in some other jurisdictions. However, if you have a sack full of letters from various museums saying that yes you can use it in this article on en.wikipedia for this duration of time ... you have an intractable mess. The mirrors wouldn't be legal without going back in, finding all such images, and either deleting them or belatedly finding that you had a reason for Fair Use after all. Wnt (talk) 18:34, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
The museum I'm talking about agreed to let Wikipedia show a certain image - until its copyright expires, nothing no specific duration was mentioned (around 2040, since author is unknown and picture is from 1970). Besides, I'm the kind of guy that thought a mirror was a contraption used for watch yourself in... (OK I've seen download mirrors, haven't really bothered about such matters) I think I'll give Werieth's and Jimmy's suggestions a try first. Is Dennis Rodman, the Mayor of Toronto by the way? Boeing720 (talk) 10:59, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

QuickiWiki (improved Wikipedia)

QuickiWiki claims to have an improved version of Wikipedia.

Some editors already know about it. Here are search results for quickiwiki.
—Wavelength (talk) 17:57, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Can they legally do that? Simply copy the entire content of Wikipedia, updating as Wikipedia does? Thanks, Matty.007 18:00, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:21, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Hmm. They aren't allowed to sell it, are they? (The about page details that they have made a pretty penny selling on websites). Thanks, Matty.007 18:23, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Mirroring Wikipedia is a good thing ... nonetheless, I can't picture really using this site. To begin with, by default it uses scripts from quickiwiki.com, akamaihd.net, google.com, zapim.com, doubleclick.net, pingdom.net, grabz.it, facebook.net, clicktale.net, and facebook.com -- that's a lot of tracking for a page that doesn't even have any visible ads yet. If you actually enable all those scripts it's not all that fast, either; a better way to speed up Wikipedia is just to turn off the javascripts here, which so far as I know has no particular disadvantages unless you're doing Scribunto module writing. (Their site doesn't even work with all scripts turned off, though you can enable just quickiwiki.com for what seems like the identical output) And of course the site doesn't let you edit directly. It's also not fully working yet - the article on SN 1006 currently on their front page has black boxes where the infobox field descriptions should appear. Still, the site seems like a more genuine attempt to do mirroring than I've seen before. It even includes a fully up to date copy of this page, not just article space ( [34] ). Wnt (talk) 18:57, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
The correct spelling is important: there is an i after Quick. The websites http://www.quickiwiki.com and http://www.quickwiki.com and http://qwikwiki.com and http://www.qwiki.com (blacklisted) are all different websites.
—Wavelength (talk) 19:16, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Good catch - I fixed that in my comment above. Wnt (talk) 19:29, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
You can do whatever you want with copies of Wikipedia, including selling them, sure. The only conditions are more or less that you credit the original authors, and that you allow anyone to use any changes you make under the same licence. WilyD 07:25, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
It's perfectly valid and not sleazy or bad to make a mirror of Wikipedia, and this one is quite "pretty". So that part's not a problem. Where I see a problem is that after a few pageviews in Chrome, they asked me something like "Do you want to upgrade your Wikipedia" and wanted me to say yes to installing a chrome extension asking for a rather astonishing set of rights: to "access your data on all websites" and to "access your tabs and browsing activity" after installation it automatically rewrites all access to Wikipedia articles to access their site instead. It is unclear to me at the present time whether this is a major password phishing attempt or what, but it certainly is icky behavior. Also, the language "upgrade your Wikipedia" strikes me as a trademark violation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 21:21, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Consider sending them an email—not from the legal team, but from you personally, to ask what their intentions are. But also consider dropping a line in there about potential legal implications. KonveyorBelt 01:23, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your reply. Someone might wish to add it to Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Pqr.
—Wavelength (talk) 18:25, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia Slogan Change to: The Global Encyclopedia!

Beloved Jimbo and the Inspiring Wikipedia Community:

Please, let me humbly suggest that for better branding, communications, strategy, media outreach, public relations, fundsourcing and sustainable growth, since the framework and functioning style of this truly valuable and worldwide Wikipedia has been established, we should smartly change the tagline or slogan from: "The Free Encyclopedia" to The Global Encyclopedia! - in all Wikipedia languages. The word "Free" in the slogan is really so redundant for our times and the future; in terms of semantics, stylistics and worthy branding, strategy, communications, public relations, partnerships, marketing and beneficial support from grants, resourceful well-meaning people and wealthy citizens of the world - with no-strings-attached - so that we can keep Wikipedia's structure and original idea in tact, while changing reasonably and responsibly with our digital communications times, internet rights and real time information plus technological developments.

Removing the world "Free" from the slogan and replacing it with Global - does not stop Wikipedia from still remaining "free" in the original idea sense established by the founders, rather, this smart move will strategically place Wikipedia in an internationally brilliant brand position of attracting much needed, freely-given financial and assets support from all humankind! .

In simple conclusion, please, I heartily and abidingly call for the Wikipedia slogan to be wisely changed to: The Global Encyclopedia! - with an exclamation mark at the end. For example it should be as follows, on all online pages and physical documents where the tagline or slogan is now and will ever be:

WIKIPEDIA
The Global Encyclopedia!

What do you think, Jimbo? What do you think Wikipedians? Have a blessed rest of the year, my good sisters, brothers and friends in the human family!

With respect, love and good wishes:

Lord777 03:12, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I doubt that will gain a consensus of the community, but thank you so much for your suggestion. Seriously.--Maleko Mela (talk) 03:28, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, too, dear Maleko Mela. Your serious encouragement is much appreciated! I pray one's relevant and realistic suggestion will be given objective consideration by our inspiring Wikipedia community. Lord777 03:41, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Fine - except that describing Wikipedia as 'global' would be hard to justify. The English-language Wikipedia suffers from a systematic bias in coverage that I can't see being dealt with any time soon, and most of the other Wikipedias are even more restricted. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:03, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Dear AndyTheGrump: You are warmly welcome. Well, if "describing Wikipedia as 'global' would be hard to justify," why then should Wikipedia have the Globe as its Logo? And take a look at the Languages Map/List of Wikipedia[[35]] - what's that if not truly global? Thanks. Lord777 04:48, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Though I am not quite as cynical as AndyTheGrump, I almost always appreciate his input on such matters. I think that every general purpose encyclopedia strives to be "global" with greater or lesser success, but only ours truly strives to be free. I am old enough to remember door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen (never met a female) and that was a respectful enough job for half a century ago. It is the "free" volunteer-created aspect of this project, combined with our incomparable breadth of coverage, that makes Wikipedia distinctive. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:29, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Free, in this case, actually means free, and due to the long-standing popularity of Wikipedia, people know that it's not "free if you register" or "free with a lot of ads". Those aren't necessarily bad, but Wikipedia is as free as permitted by copyright laws allow it to be. Point being, if we change the slogan from free, people will think that something changed, while "global" is actually the one that's becoming more redundant in today's internet. Supernerd11 :D Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 05:36, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

And not just free as in free-of-cost, either, though that certainly is true (Not counting the cost of accessing the internet in the first place). Wikipedia is free in the sense that everything we do is freely available to be used by anyone for anything. The only restriction we place on what people can do with our work is that they must give credit where credit is due and they must license any changes with the same license we use here, CC-BY-SA. Most encyclopedias try to have global scope, with varying degrees of success, but none before Wikipedia that I know of made their content free to use. Novusuna talk 08:15, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
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