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Inclusive growth relative to employment growth per tax incidence

Hi Jimbo,

Would you please respond at Talk:Tax policy and economic inequality in the United States#Top marginal rate versus job growth graph again?

For reference please see [1]. This is particularly important because your pre-Wikipedia activities may be contributing to systemic bias starkly opposed to WP:SECONDARY economics evaluations of peer reviewed academic journals as per this discussion.

Thank you. Best regards, EllenCT (talk) 10:43, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

As far as I can tell my views are not controversial in this matter, and reflect the ongoing consensus of the editors in this area. I think rather than fighting about this one clearly misleading and oversimplified graph, your time might be better spent documenting in some detail the specific "evaluations of peer reviewed academic journals".
Note well that my position is purely editorial here: I take no position at all on the underlying question of the relation between income inequality and tax rates on the one hand, and growth/prosperity on the other hand. The point is that the reader deserves a clear and appropriate explanation of the current state of research into that question, and not a cartoonish oversimplification of the question.
And finally, my views do not determine what belongs in Wikipedia, so it isn't me you have to convince.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:57, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you. Do you have any reason to doubt the accuracy of the data presented in the graph? Is there a source which you believe contradicts the implications of the graph? If not, why do you say it is oversimplified and misleading? There is a popular treatment of a corresponding correction stemming from a different error at [2], which may be more accessible than the Ostry and Berg work. As those corrections agree with each other, I urge you to reflect on whether your views are in fact controversial relative to the secondary sources in economics. EllenCT (talk) 10:05, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
I think it's not controversial to suggest that the post WWII boom had nothing to do with high marginal tax rates, and more to do with strong demand for goods and services. Where in this Wikipedia article do you see any reference to high marginal tax rates for the wealthy? If EllenCT were correct, and high taxes and growth were causally related, you'd think reputable economists would have mentioned it.Mattnad (talk) 14:38, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
Strong demand for goods and services is the result of a strong and growing middle class. You ask an excellent question. As the sources above show, economists have been mentioning it by correcting a series of math errors since 2011. EllenCT (talk) 23:54, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
You are quite close to economic consensus on this. The examples chosen are all ones where specific external factors (that is, other than "income inequality" are rather easily noted. The WP article on Cameroon states An economic crisis took effect in the mid-1980s to late 1990s as a result of international economic conditions, drought, falling petroleum prices, and years of corruption, mismanagement, and cronyism which gives a couple or more other factors other than "income inequality" for the economic problems at that time. The reader is invited to guess why Chile had instability in the early 1970s, and it has nothing to do with "income inequality." Jordan ditto - I suggest the authors of the "correlation" failed to note major external events. Brazil is interesting -- as the military left it with hyperinflation, which means that "income inequality" was among the least of its problems. Chart 4 manages to leave out "major regime change", "hyperinflation", "war" and "major drought" as factors at all, yet any economist would note those as quite substantial factors indeed. Collect (talk) 16:24, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
Anecdotes are not data. EllenCT (talk) 23:54, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
Yep. Wars, droughts and hyperinflation are "anecdotes." Collect (talk) 00:07, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Are there any reasons to believe that those factors are more significant predictors of the duration of growth spells than the five which Ostry and Berg identified as the principle components in their study of several decades of data series from 140 countries? EllenCT (talk) 10:05, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
For starters, yes. A world war has a bigger impact on an economy than marginal (and not even effective) tax rates. Also, we're not discussing the esoteric Ostry and Berg graph, but a graph with selective data created by an editor that has been critiqued extensively as WP:OR and misleading.Mattnad (talk) 00:14, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo, you may also be interested in [3] and [4]. EllenCT (talk) 23:54, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

BLP violation in signpost?

Hi Jimbo. Happy Memorial Day weekend.

I've enjoyed some of the recent updates in the signpost, but today's entry on the election of Narendra Modi in the notes section of the Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-05-21/Traffic report troubled me and looking into it more I find it problematic.

Perhaps I am nitpicking, but why is Narendra Modi tied to the assassin of Gandhi and is it appropriate to call his campaign "slick"? Wouldn't "effective" be more appropriate and neutral wording? This seems like a badly biased entry.

I looked into it a bit and the assasination of Gandhi appears to have occurred 2 years before Modi was born and the assassin was a former member of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh who left to form a more militant group according to sources in our article on the subject (the signpost entry describes him as having been a "proud member" of the group). Wouldn't this be a bit like mentioning the Democrat Party's support for segregation in an article on a Democrat Party politician? It seems awfully smeary. This bias seems to extend to the RSS article as well. I think we should be careful about throwing around terms like right-wing wily nily (for example).

India is the second most populous nation in the world and I think we can do a better job covering their elected leaders. Thanks for any insights and input from you and your talkpage watchers. Have a good one. Candleabracadabra (talk) 03:48, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

Hmmmm. I would love to hear user Sitush's opinion on this.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:52, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
I looked at the Modi article and the actual article looks pretty good to me. So it's not all bad news. Candleabracadabra (talk) 04:00, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
Looking at it again, perhaps the word "slick" doesn't have the same negative connotation in Indian English as in American English (especially in relation to politicians)? Trying to see things in the most positive light. Candleabracadabra (talk) 04:10, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Note the hypocrisy. "Democrat" as an adjective is a smear already, and that party's support of segregation dates from quite some time ago. One might as well generalize that US whites approve of owning slaves, also a statement that was at some point in time perhaps partly true. Someone doesn't like to be reminded that the Civil Rights movement wasn't powered by Republicans--but the point was to stir the shit pot, of course. Drmies (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Curiously enough, MLK sr. and jr. were registered Republicans (According to his niece and records as of 1956 at least), and the 1964 Civil Rights Act was primarily supported by Republicans. Goldwater opposed it on constitutional issues, but the Senate vote had 82% of GOP support, and the House had 80% GOP support. Cheers. Collect (talk) 16:24, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


I just noticed that the signpost is editable? Can I change it? Or should I leave it be for the sake of discussion? The editorializing does seem to be intended to be provocative and thought provoking, so I'm willing to grant some latitude. But the factual discrepancy seems a clear problem. I fixed it in one of the articles where the source said the assassin was a former member and the article said "active member". Perhaps that's where the error came from? Candleabracadabra (talk) 04:24, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I did not realize the Signpost was a newsletter I could edit, so the mistake is mine. I could just have fixed the problems. Have done so now. Candleabracadabra (talk) 14:20, 24 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Signpost is not neutral in the sense of NPOV, nor is it intended to be. Among other things it advocates for open knowledge, obviously. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 20:46, 24 May 2014 (UTC).

DRN

A misunderstanding about which apologies have been offered and accepted --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:24, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Non admin OP closing per admin.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:04, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Jimbo, as I know you have been involved with the DR process, I felt you should be notified that an admin has completely removed the bot to update the case requests at the DRN board. The last message from the admin, Earwig seems to suggest that they have gotten upset and removed the bot and told everyone if they want it, they know where the code is[5]. I am not at all sure what is going on. I just found all this moments ago and began an AN discussion. Please weigh in if this is of interest or concern to you. Thank you.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:15, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Nah...doesn't seem worth your time (that is my opinion and not that you haven't responded...as was the accusation at AN. No, I just feel this isn't worth yout ime. I don't think that is what you feel). Just another admin that decided to take things personally and take it out on Wikipedia I guess. If this is how bots work on Wikipedia....I strongly urge editors to lose every bot being used as soon as they can. Bots are operated by users who do not need a consensus to shut down the bot over bad feelings. Professionalism is not something we seem to look for in bot operators. Oh well. So much for DRN. Perhaps it is time to shut Down DRN entirely. Seems like a huge waste of time when this is the second attack on DRN by an admin. Seriously. Just shut the board down. Perhaps that is a discussion worth talking about.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:50, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Please tone down the rhetoric. An editor must take responsibility for bot edits. If the editor no longer wishes to take responsibility, then another volunteer must be found or the bot is shut down. --NeilN talk to me 03:57, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
There is no rhetoric. Please tone down the accusations. This is really a stupid situation caused by an editor/admin that got upset over some comment someone made. I have every right to be extremely upset. This is highly disruptive and I am uninvolved with the situation.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:12, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
So, basically, you are upset because you lost something you took for granted? Resolute 04:40, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
i'm sure another bot owner would be willing to step up, perhaps Σ or Legoktm. -- Aunva6
Of course, that is a good point, but first, lets see if the consensus is for another bot or a simpler DRN. I, myself have lost faith in Bots now.--Mark Miller (talk) 05:17, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

talk - contribs 05:14, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) No. I never took for granted the bot. I never take for granted anything on Wikipedia. I thought this was a community of collaborators, but now I see there are a few cracks in the old "collaboration" thing when a bot operator can just get upset and stop. Now....did others (those involved in the actual discussion that ticked off Earwig) take the bot for granted? Maybe.....even probably. By the way...I was the one trying to explain how the freaking bot operates to those that were getting confused but they still kept complaining about it. It is their thing. I just walked in as Earwig was leaving in their huff....and that is exactly what they did whether they have every "right" or not. No one has any real "rights" here. They just have the ability. Earwig took advantage of that ability. And no...I am not asking Earwig to come back. If they want to, that may be up to the consensus of editors at DRN to accept or not anyway. At this point, I think DRN has been struck a very bad blow by someone who we trusted. I, for one thank Earwig, but will never trust te=hem to operate a bot....and frankly I have no further trust in bots or operators. Not because i think they are bad people, but because this clearly shows that a bot operator that has become upset, can just stop everything over personal issues. too bad....I kinda like the way bots made things simpler...but i have lost faith in them now.--Mark Miller (talk) 05:15, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Do you apply the same logic to contributors? Will you no longer trust contributors because they are under no obligation to stay here indefinitely? If not, what's the difference? Please explain this to me. — Earwig talk 05:35, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
We are all contributors. Even bot operators. I hold everyone to the same standard. If an editor takes a comment so personally that they up and stop (and the comment wasn't that horrible. Not very respectful, but not horrible) yes....I would be very upset if suddenly they decided to just disrupt a noticeboard by stopping something that was an intrical part of that board....but I am also one who thinks that bots are bad for Noticeboards. --Mark Miller (talk) 05:42, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
  • (ec) "I see there are a few cracks in the old "collaboration" thing when a bot operator can just get upset and stop." - Erm, that's not a crack. That's an intrinsic part of the Wikipedia model. You know, volunteers? I could just up and leave today (as an admin, FL delegate, and whatever else you want to count) and no part of policy would require me to stay. Looks like you're taking something for granted. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:37, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
I think the part that you miss Crisco is that I was not aware that bots operated in this manner and that we are allowing editors to take such an intricate part in the role of a noticeboard on Wikipedia that can be stopped at any moment. Had I been aware of this, I doubt very much I would have been as supportive of the bot to begin with. If anyone has taken advantage of the bot.....so what. What is the whole point of that question anyway? Again....I was not a part of this situation and have supported the bot, so the accusation that I have taken the bot for granted is actually bull shit but hey....I see bullshit flying around Wikipedia all the time...on a daily basis. This was just new bullshit for me. ;-)--Mark Miller (talk) 05:50, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
  • One should not blame others for one's own lack of knowledge. Heck, bots can be blocked and/or the operators banned, just like any human editor. There's little reason to believe that they cannot be withdrawn. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:12, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
That is true. We are not hear to teach others how Wikipedia works. I won't bother doing such for anyone else again in the future. Learn or lose....period. Sink or swim....don't expect me to help anyone further. If someone does not understand how a complicated process works....let them squirm in their own ignorance. Clearly that is the how it works.--Mark Miller (talk) 07:55, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
  • So you are saying that you wanted others to tell you that bot owners can retire their bots without prior consensus before you someone did so and it upset you? So now Wikipedia editors are psychic? Did you ever ask beforehand? People at all three threads you've opened have been trying to explain that bot owners are volunteers too, and can retire as well. That's the education. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:21, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
No. I am not saying that.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:28, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Most bots just automate tedious edits that human editors can and would do. For example, HBC AIV helperbot11 removes entries from the WP:AIV list once admins have blocked editors. Another bot posts newsletters to user talk pages. Even if these bots can be withdrawn at any moment, why wouldn't you support something that frees up editors' time, however long they operate? --NeilN talk to me 07:04, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Because my trust has been broken. This wasn't an article, this was part of the process this editor helped set up and then abandoned. Look, no matter how much I may feel the editor is truly a professional (and i think they have proved that much to me at least) they have still broken my trust and will never get it back. Ever. Not with this. I like the way Earwig handled this after I commented, but I am still discouraged by their lack of commitment to the project over trivial matters. But hey.....as another said , just find another bot operator. I probably won't participate in that DRN. I truly feel bots are not worth the effort and this was shown clearly that a bot operator must be a truly trusted member of the community or...DRN is not worth the effort? Don't think the latter is what i would agree with.....but it is still what some may think.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:03, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
I find it ironic that the whole escalation to multiple venues, display of ABF and overblown sense of entitlement is connected to something called dispute resolution noticeboard. Naïve me would have thought that on the talk page of such a board, you'd find some of the cooler heads of the project. More to the point, if a bot operator pulling a bot that doesn't function to spec that he cannot maintain to its primary users' satisfaction is breaking your trust - something everyone else has called out as commendable and the sensible to do, particularly when the operator goes beyond the call of duty offering the source code, then that trust seems like a currency not worth investing in. I hope by the time you return to editing you will come to realize that you owe The Earwig quite a bit of an apology. MLauba (Talk) 17:22, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

BLP concerns - James T. Butts, Jr.

I would like to take advantage of Jimbo's prior offer for editors with a COI to use his Talk page to vet concerns about a particular article.

This BLP page about a marginally notable city mayor in California has stuff like:

  • Accusations of "bias, bigotry, and sham investigations" cited to an op-ed
  • Two more op-eds[6][7] are used to say he has contentious relationships with the community.
  • It also makes extensive use of weak, primary or advocacy-type sources regarding allegations of police abuse. And it doesn't mention that these allegations were launched by convicted criminals and killers he arrested as a police officer.
  • It uses a statement from the owner of a marijuana dispensary that was shut down (source) for broad statements about an alleged campaign he has against marijuana
  • It uses political attack pieces from CityWatch[8] in order to say that he had a contentious career.

Links:

A better use of your time.

I bring it up here because I felt the BLP violations were severe enough that my sense of urgency in addressing them was reasonable, but have been unable to do so in a Bright Line fashion over the last week. Note that most editors (I think) seem to support my depiction of things, however user:Tomwsulcer feels the current article is neutral and should remain as-is.

Thanks in advance for your time and attention. CorporateM (Talk) 12:16, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion for Jimbo? Ignore this request. You're much too important to get bogged down in this controversial subject. Rest assured there are numerous competent editors hashing it out, and will continue to hash it out until the next Big Bang. How about? Enjoy a fresh cup of coffee.:)--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:46, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
When it comes to issues like this, I am important - as important as any Wikipedian. Because a BLP is at issue, I recommend that we put the dignity of the subject first and respond promptly to the concerns raised with a bias towards initially removing all remarks with even somewhat questionable sourcing and then having a discussion about adding back whatever is most helpful to the reader attempting to learn the full story ( good and bad). As a side note, as of this moment, I have not look at the article or any of the discussions at all. My main point is that the community should try very hard to deprive unethical editors (and I'm not saying CorporateM is one, since as I understand it he works hard to observe the Bright Line rule) of all kinds of the opportunity to claim that they have to do things the wrong way in order to prevent BLP violations.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:35, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you Jimbo and user:Candleabracadabra. I know there is some sensitivity about COIs being demanding, but I felt this was a situation where my sense of urgency was appropriate. This is the kind of non-controversial edits I make routinely that are not Bright Line compliant, but I think even you wouldn't find to be problematic and are too mundane to bother other editors with. (we discussed this previously) As I was doing my best to over-compensate for my COI in the draft, there are still some questionable things. Like if you watch the video in this source it's questionable whether a single member of the audience heckling him really belongs in his biography. However these are more or less areas where editors may disagree I think and more reasonable to take at the normal NORUSH pace. CorporateM (Talk) 17:29, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Regarding the recent changes, notice anything missing? Butts was a named defendant in a court case that was upheld by the Supreme Court. His police officers continued to question suspects even after they asserted their Miranda rights to remain silent. The ACLU filed suit in 1995; in 1996, it was initially dismissed for lack of standing, but appealed in 1999, the the 9th circuit court ruled against the officers; see here also. Check out this source. In 2000, a law firm advised their clients about the law firm advising clients about the ruling. Here is another source. In 2000, the ACLU applauded the Supreme Court decision. In 2000, the Santa Monica city council, in closed session, discussed the Butts case. Essentially, in February 2000, the Supreme Court, by deciding not to review the Butts case, let the lower court case stand (the 9th circuit). In 2004, Supreme Court Justice Souter cited the Butts case. So, what is going on? All this information was artfully removed from the article, and now the focus seems to be on Butts' SWAT team efforts and such. Butts is a politician; it is likely there are public relations people working hard to obscure this information. As I said, this article will be constantly the subject of much battling, on and on, on and on. I hope you don't mind that I spent my Sunday drinking your coffee.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:10, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
It looks to me like there's an entire paragraph in the article about it. It's also discussed on the article talk page with a request for quality sources covering any role Butts had in the case beyond being named in the suit. Probably best to discuss it there and I would note that content requests are best served with specifics about exactly what additions are desired along with the sources that support the assertions. Candleabracadabra (talk) 20:26, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
The current treatment says there was a disputed lawsuit, but fails to mention that it went to the 9th Circuit Court and was upheld by the Supreme Court. CACJ v Butts is the law of the land. This detail gets lost among Butts and his SWAT teams fighting gangs, Butts building the Forum, Butts rising from the ranks, etc etc. Look, I got involved in this article a while back when the anti-Butts people really took him to task; I strove for a neutral tone; now it looks like Butts is ready for governor of California. Best version was the most recent one by Drmies -- solid, right tone, neutral, not the current puff piece.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 20:47, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
I have previously notified user:Drmies about the misleading use of "Drmies' version". He made a couple edits is all and that does not make the article "his version". Regarding the lawsuit, the only thing stated in reliable, secondary sources like The New York Times and the Seattle Times is that he was one of the defendants named. We have no idea if his involvement was trivial or more substantial. It is seriously questionable whether it should be in his article at all, because it veers off-topic into describing this lawsuit and not his involvement in it, of which we know nothing about. It's also difficult to evaluate if we are covering gossip, when the media reports on speculative accusations, but does not also report on the actual outcome. The article is about the BLP and if the lawsuit was substantial enough to have an abundance of source material, the proper place for it would be as a separate article, whereas his article would only describe his involvement in it. CorporateM (Talk) 21:13, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Puh-leeze. What about Police Magazine? Supreme Court Justice David Souter is the ideal secondary source: an impartial judge, writing a Supreme Court opinion, asking readers to refer to the CACJ v Butts decision since it is the law of the land, or would you say Souter is a biased source?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:27, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Drmies (that's me) indeed made only a few edits, removing some of the not so well-written material, and trimming some of the lengthy quotes. In no way did I stamp my approval (whatever that stamp may be worth) on anything, and I do believe that I noted also that quality, non-primary sources are needed. BTW, CorpM is a fairly regular and most welcome visitor on my talk page; COI or not, I have some faith that they are editing properly, and I always appreciate their openness. Finally, hey Jimbo, how are things? Hot down here in Alabama. We're having a little pool party tomorrow and you're welcome to drop by. Drmies (talk) 21:57, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Town, What is needed is a secondary source that says "James T. Butts was found guilty/innocent of <insert> and fined/imprisoned for $<insert>" or something. The sources need to have information that is actually about James Butts. I do notice that Police Magazine says that a police officer Chavez was found guilty of forceful questioning, but doesn't say anything about Butts, just about the case in general. It does show that his name is in the case title, but presumably that is because he was the commanding officer. Also, please keep in mind that WP:BLPPRIMARY, specificaly says "Do not use... court records." Your suggestion that it was "artfully removed" (when it wasn't actually) suggests to me that this conversation will not be productive between us. My advice is that you seek input from other editors besides myself. A request for comment is a good way to do this. CorporateM (Talk) 22:06, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
It seems straightforward to me, that when you have a police chief, responsible for the conduct of officers under his supervision, whose department is charged with improper procedure, such that the police chief's name goes on the court case upheld by the Supreme Court, that it merits attention in Wikipedia, particularly when the sum total of references (LA Times, Seattle Times, NY Times, Police Magazine, Souter's opinion) point to improper procedure.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:06, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
They point to allegations of improper procedure and those allegations are from convicted criminals. If a source like The New York Times said "James Butts led a department that was charged for improper procedure" then we would be in business. However, we can't make assumptions. OTOH, I think there is an acorn here, that we can reasonably assume albeit with poor sources that the lawsuit went on for quite some time and it was not dismissed immediately as baseless or as legal harassment, therefore it definitely warrants inclusion. Additionally, you provided what I could not find myself, which is a proper secondary source that seems to identify the case outcome, which is something we always want to include. Anyways, it is best for you to have this conversation with other editors I think, who are not subject to the same speculation regarding spin or deception. CorporateM (Talk) 00:52, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Harassment of the incoming executive director

Mr Wales, this appears very unprofessional and extremely unkind. [9] Please remind the people on the list that Mr Tretikov is a person too. Hell might be other people (talk) 08:16, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the concern. It's Mr. Sinclair, tho. :) ,Wil 17:53, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the link—that thread is a real eye-opener. However, the very good advice being offered to Lila Tretikov's partner is not at all unprofessional or unkind. The thread starts here. Johnuniq (talk) 11:07, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
I consider it helpful advice, and it hasn't struck me as unprofessional or unkind. That said, I also haven't been convinced that I should stop posting on WO, and I continue to post there whenever I feel that it would be constructive to do so. Jimmy, I'll answer some of the questions that have come up here, but let us know if you think there are better forums for this discussion. ,Wil 17:53, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Obviously my interests are a bit narrower in some respects than other editors, but I noticed in a WSJ article here about the appointment Jay Walsh says that Wikipedia is pushing for "more transparency" and "reinforcing that paid advocacy is not welcome". However in the string provided above she says she prefers to focus on the message, not the messenger, and that she listens to advocates from Wikipediaocracy despite their corrupted motives and habitual spin. So I was rather getting the impression that she might be soft on paid advocacy, but perhaps I am drawing a false comparison between different types of POV pushers. In either case, I was wondering how her appointment may influence issues like the new Terms of Service or the Wiki-PR legal dispute and what the latest was on these. CorporateM (Talk) 13:23, 25 May 2014 (UTC) (A frequent COI/marketing contributor)
It seems unlikely that her appointment will have any impact on the ongoing trend to root out and further ban paid advocacy editing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:31, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
As pointed out before, I believe that was something that I said. I'm afraid that this might get old, but I emphasize again that I am not Lila and don't have any association with the WMF. ,Wil 17:57, 27 May 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wllm (talk • contribs)

@CorporateM: re: "However in the string provided above she says she prefers". (Emphasis added) Unless I've missed something the thread is by and about her partner, so the above should read he. He's stated multiple times that he is operating independently of his partner, the new ED. When I first heard about him contacting Wikipediocracy, I thought it was a nice, if somewhat naive, gesture on the part of the new ED to offer an olive branch to WO. So I was confused about who was contacting them, and many others likely were as well, but that confusion should now be cleared up.

Since he is an independent editor, he should feel free to ignore my advice, which is:

  • Pick a role of either "totally independent editor" or "Caesar's wife" (avoiding even the suspicion of doing something improper), and maintain that distinction without fail
  • You may be sorry if you don't take the Caesar's Wife role
  • Never trust the "facts" or even the motivations of WO contributors, check everything, assume nothing
  • Ignore most of the advice you've gotten on the matter - just folks blowing off steam in a contentious area.

Smallbones(smalltalk) 21:22, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

Oh thank you very much for clarifying. It seems I falsely presumed the comments in the string were from her. CorporateM (Talk) 22:10, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the advice. I believe I have picked the role of "totally independent editor" already. Sorry if that's not clear. I can't imagine that- come what will- Lila or I would be sorry for asserting our individuality under any circumstances. I don't trust any facts without evidence in any forum, including WO or Wikimedia-l. In fact, I would greatly appreciate links that made fact-checking easier. Beyond that, I don't make up my mind about any contentious issue before discussing it with at least one person representing opposing views. Finally, I don't think it would be useful for me to express opinions on these matters even after I've formed them; it seems to be much more productive for me to stick to discussing effective communication and asking questions. I never ignore advice (although I frequently choose not to follow it), but I appreciate your insight on the thread. I'm still a relative newbie. ,Wil 18:05, 27 May 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wllm (talk • contribs)

Mr Wales, I don't know why this thread is being hijacked to talk about corporate editing, but I am very concerned by the tone and contents of the messages on that official wikimedia mailing list. If you could please read the thread there and do something about the horrible harassment I would appreciate it. Hell might be other people (talk) 01:28, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Has the subject expressed an opinion that they feel harassed? Tarc (talk) 01:40, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Many people read this page and would have viewed the link in the OP. The fact that no one has commented about "horrible harassment" is a good indication that there is no such harassment. The linked message is blunt, but it comes after a long sequence of messages providing very accurate and sensationally helpful advice—advice that unfortunately is falling on deaf ears. As noted in the thread, the mess will give the new ED a wonderful opportunity to show her negotiating skills. Johnuniq (talk) 01:51, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
'The subject' has a name. Please at this point, do not objectify him. Wil seems to be keeping a positive spin on events, but which of us can really know if he feels harassed. I cannot incorporate, but just the tone of the veiled threats are a form of harassment, even if he does not issue an audible or visible complaint. So there, I have complained about harassment against Wil, but I will stop short of naming it "horrible". Fylbecatulous talk 20:47, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
It's not so much a matter of opinion as fact: I don't feel harassed. I'd like to hear everything that everyone wants to say, and I feel lucky that so many people have chimed in on what I've said and how I've chosen to participate as a member of the community. Thanks. ,Wil 18:11, 27 May 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wllm (talk • contribs)
  • I'm pleased that Wil showed up at WPO and launched a transparent account there. I also think he is right on when he says "Here's where I get confused. If they [WPO] are exposing serious problems that desperately need fixing, then what does it matter what their motives are? They may or may not choose to be part of the solution, but if we want to build the healthiest community possible isn't it important that we know what's not going right. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I personally care more about the message than the messenger, so it seems to make sense for me to participate there, too..." Of course, his very reasonable perspective has been met with a torrent of abuse of WPO from The Usual Suspects, but that's to be expected. I'm sure that as an intelligent man Wil can figure out who is who and why the shrill people are so shrill. Carrite (talk) 04:52, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey Jimbo,

Is it just me, or do you find it incredibly problematic that we have a 160KB article about Incest in popular culture with only thirteen references? I mean, I get the point of some discussion of it, but… Christ, this seems like incredibly creepy cataloguing. Sceptre (talk) 23:50, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

'Popular culture' = 'unsourced trivia'. Hadn't you noticed? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:21, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
The article in question is worrisome in more than one way. Beyond questions about verifiability and potential uneasiness about incest, the exclusion of Lot (biblical person) from the list strongly implies that the text which Guinness World Records calls "the worlds best-selling and most widely distributed book" is not considered a part of popular culture. --Allen3 talk 00:30, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Heh, I've been banging that drum for other half a decade, Andy. Sceptre (talk) 01:06, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
And have you seen the quality of most of those "references"? What a load of.... If it wasn't after 2am here and I was about to go to bed, I'd take it to AfD right now. If nobody has by the time I'm back tomorrow, I will. Anyone willing to beat me to it? — Scott • talk 01:11, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Out of curiousity... is the intention to AFD just this one article due to squick factor, or to go after all of these ...in popular culture articles? Resolute 04:57, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Neither. It's because this list is a colossal heap of unreferenced crap, as Allen3 explains below, and an embarrassment to the project. It's been that way for at least seven years without any sign of improvement. Spartaz has started a new AfD. — Scott • talk 11:44, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
I'd rather get rid of most IPC articles, but this one is egregious. Sceptre (talk) 05:06, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
"X in popular culture" articles tend to all share a common set of problems. First, they almost always violate Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought by introducing the new and novel concept that X is in some manner an important part of/concept in popular culture. Second, because reliable sources defining the scope and limits of popular culture rarely exist they require the editor(s) creating the article to perform some form of "I know it when I see it" test to determine what is or is not part of popular culture. Third, the way to avoid the second problem is to ignore Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and crowd source an unbounded list of anything that kinda, sorta looks like X. --Allen3 talk 07:32, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
E.g. Necrophilia in popular culture (...1 reference). DeCausa (talk) 07:48, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
I have to disagree here. First this is about pop culture, not history or mythology. "Creepy" is a matter of opinion. Sorry, but it is. I have a few incestual relationships in my genealogy. That is how things work in the real world so, yes, pop culture does reflect that. The best example in pop culture are the two characters portrayed by Patricia Quinn (Lady Stephens} and Richard O'Brien in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Magenta and Riff Raff are brother and sister and carry on an incestual relationship throughout the film. I believe this is what the category should be about. And yes...this can be sourced.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:45, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Maybe, but that doesn't have a bearing on what's actually in these articles. Allen3 has it right: what we actually have is a crowd sourced list of what people think is an example of "X in popular culture". For it to be retained as an article there needs to be sourcing to RS discussing the topic "X in popular culture"...and that rarely exists. But sometimes it does so it's a question of sorting the few specks of wheat from huge amounts of chaff. But most times these articles are just a huge pile of WP:SYNTH DeCausa (talk) 08:58, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Yes. it has a direct bearing on what is in these articles. As I said, this is pop culture not history. The article should not be touching on subjects outside its scope. I agree that sourcing is important but seriously disagree that it rarely exists.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:13, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
And just about everything in Wikipedia is crowd sourced.--Mark Miller (talk) 09:16, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't follow on the comment about pop culture/history. It doesn't matter what the subject area is, to establish encyclopedic notability and avoid OR/SYNTH the topic needs to be discussed in RS, rather than editors deciding a topic exists and then hitting the internet to find examples.DeCausa (talk) 09:33, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
For example, in a historical context we would write about actual, historical figures only. But in pop culture we write about examples only found in popular culture such as "Game of Thrones" or other significant Pop Culture relationships. It doesn't have to be fictitious, but must be a part of the pop culture phenomenon.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:12, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't think anyone said that "X in popular culture" was a problem because it didn't cover actual peolple/things. DeCausa (talk) 20:00, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree in general, DeCausa, but I suspect that this might ironically be a justifiable in popular culture article topic. Certainly the use of incest is a known trope due to its squick factor (i.e.: Cersei and Jaime Lannister). I wouldn't be surprised if there is a reasonable amount of literature from which to write an actual article. These bare trivia lists are no good, however. Resolute 18:55, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
I really agree that "Bare trivia list are no good". I generally don't like those bullet listed pop culture sections. I like fully researched and sourced prose and I prefer it be more along the lines of "Cultural impact" or "Cultural significance" or something along those lines. I tend to dislike the straight trivia listings.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:07, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

I've added the following remark at the deletion discussion (addressing Scott):

  • "The Beatles' influence on popular culture likewise consists of hundreds of snippets of information and has just 22 citations. Of course you wouldn't have the slightest chance of getting that article deleted, although the arguments you cite here are just as valid there. In reality there's no need to cite most of the assertions here, verifiability is easily accomplished simply by turning to the work cited (a review perhaps, or its own wiki article) and checking that what is asserted for it is matter of fact true. Just as there is a genuinely encyclopaedic article for the Beatles, so is there scope for a genuinely encyclopaedic article for Incest in Fiction. Since you're proposing a total re-write, why not just write it under that article name and allow this one to coexist? "

It worries me that Scott has brought the discussion here. This is the second AfD discussion for that article. I can't relly see what's changed. This time the article is faring badly, Keeps being reverted to Deletes under prompting from Scott. One can surmise that a more sophisticated editor, less likely tolerant of popular list type articles, congregate here at Jimbo's Talk page. I don't think it's quite fair. Can someone suggest a Talk page of an administrator known to be sympathetic to popular articles where I can raise the article in an effort at counterbalance? There is already a scholarly article Transgressive fiction that addresses inter alia the theme of incest in fiction. If Scott feels there should be a scholarly article devoted to incest alone, then I think in the first place he should take the time to write it, or at least provide a stub making it clear the kind of treatment he would wish to see. We can then sensibly debate whether the popular article should or should not coexist. I'm quite clear in mind it should be allowed to coexist. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 19:34, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

  • I think you'll find that this discussion was not "brought here", it was started here; nor was it started by me; nor did I file the AfD first. Also, what, exactly, has my being an administrator got to do with any of this? I'll answer for you: nothing. As to if Scott feels there should be a scholarly article devoted to incest alone, I think in the first place he should take the time to write it - no. That's not how it works. — Scott • talk 20:02, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
    Ah yes, that's right about "bringing it here". Beg your pardon. I made no suggestion about your being an administrator. I meant someone likely to have a frequently visited Talk page as Jimbo has. With respect, I'm suggesting that's how it should work regarding the rewrite. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
    This apparently is how it works (a young admin encourages an elderly editor to contribute an article to Wikipedia):
Oh please, please, do enlighten "us" (who's that again?) about the true nature of my agenda. After that, why don't you go and produce that article you're dangling over us, oh great writer of our times, since it's so easy for you? Because, you know, you wouldn't want us to think that you're full of hot air. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 03:56, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopaedia. Can you point to any other encyclopaedias that have 'popular list type articles' of the form our article takes? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:39, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Don't believe I can. That's one of the things that makes Wikipedia special for me. An article like The Starry Night (Vincent van Gogh's most popular painting) contains elements of both scholarship and popular culture, and I applaud that and would want to encourage it. I can't believe this has not been debated before. If you want to get rid of all these popular culture articles Andy, then reopen the debate at an appropriate forum, but I don't see why a particular example should be singled out in this way and in this manner. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 19:46, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
It is being 'singled out' as a particularly obvious example of something that doesn't belong in anything describing itself as an encyclopaedia. Or are all the other encyclopaedias wrong to exclude lists of random examples cobbled together for no good reason? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:59, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
No idea really why it's being singled out. Creepy as far as I can make out, perhaps because it's an easy target? Your guess as good as mine. But it is being singled out is it not? The same points apply just as equally the Beatles article. Yes they are in my view. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Ok, if you think that other encyclopaedias are wrong to exclude such material, what arguments would you put forward for its inclusion if you had the opportunity to make the suggestion? AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:28, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
The point is that other encyclopaedias aren't able to provide these kind of articles. Wikipedia is uniquely able to and does so. I would like to see Wikipedia eventually become a repository of ongoing commentary about the world we live, a digest of social media commentary. Thus I embrace the popular. I notice you oversee at the Strauss-Kahn affair article. You might have noticed I started a "Popular Culture" section there, including in it the recent 2014 film Welcome to New York in the section. It's consistent. But this is not the discussion I came to contribute here. Rather I wanted to express my concerns about this particular article that Scott said he would AfD, whether it was he or not that eventually initiated. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 20:55, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Ok, if you think Wikipedia should transform itself into "a digest of social media commentary", make the proposal in the appropriate place. Meanwhile, since it purports to be an encyclopaedia, I suggest we carry on acting accordingly. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:04, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
No, I'm saying the popular should be allowed to coexist beside the scholarly, and I look forward to a time when Wikipedia becomes a repository of ongoing commentary (I imagine a store of digital ostraka) but I wasn't implying "transform itself". Off to watch Kick Ass and get drunk. Enjoy the rest of your evening with someone else. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 21:19, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

personal privacy verses free information

Suzannah Lipscomb - I thought wiki was a reporter of reported stories? this persons unreported birth name is being publicized by your website, why is that violation of privacy ok with you? Is this primary location http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2010030157.html something you want wiki to be republishing? Do you think investigative reporting is something your project should be doing?

Mosfetfaser (talk) 13:08, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

This is currently being discussed in a thread at Talk:Suzannah Lipscomb, so it would be best for any interested parties to reply there.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 13:23, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Not really - this is a question for Jimbo Wales- a question , a simple one, about his project - I thought wiki was a reporter of reported stories? this persons unreported birth name is being publicized by your website, why is that violation of privacy ok with you? Is this primary location http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2010030157.html something you want wiki to be republishing? Do you think investigative reporting is something your project should be doing? Mosfetfaser (talk) 13:33, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
I believe that on both full names and dates of birth we should consider the wishes of the subject as one of several key factors in deciding what to publish. Reasonable requests from subjects should be honored whenever we can, but of course if a full name or date of birth is widely reported in multiple sources (as this one may not be?) it's not reasonable to ask us to omit it. Primary sources should be used with care and existence in a database record of births is not generally sufficient to show that the name is notable in the sense of Wikipedia. It can, however, be a nice way to give support to a subject's preferred name, if it is the same as their birth record although reported differently elsewhere. In this particular case - which I have not investigated in any detail - is there evidence that the subject objects? That's relevant.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:37, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Addendum - the reference in this case is not to a birth record as I had originally supposed, but to "found: Maids, wives, and mistresses, 2009: t.p. (Suzannah Lipscomb; Univ. of Oxford D.Phil. thesis) thesis cat. inf. form (Suzannah Rebecca Gabriella Lipscomb; b. Dec. 7, 1978)" If I understand that, it's from the publication data of her D. Phil thesis. That doesn't make it notable, I think, I'm just saying where it appears to have come from!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:40, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
thank you for your comments Jimbo Wales - it is clear that the support is from a primary external not reported anywhere else but wikipidia - sadly - attempting to remove it will get me blocked - Mosfetfaser (talk) 13:48, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
privacy, unreported detail - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suzannah_Lipscomb&diff=prev&oldid=610205867 - Mosfetfaser (talk) 13:55, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Replaced by one of your administrators - User:NeilN with the position,If the *subject* objects, then we'll discuss.- so is it the position of your website is publish any primary details about living people and only remove it if the subject objects is it jimmy? - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suzannah_Lipscomb&diff=610208508&oldid=610205867 - Mosfetfaser (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
1) Not an admin. 2) Yes, we do publish full names and birth dates unless there's a good reason not to. We are an encyclopedia after all. Our articles contain standard biographical details. Have you looked at Encyclopedia Britannica perchance? Full birth dates in their biographies. 3) Discussing it here won't affect article content there. --NeilN talk to me 17:37, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
1:User:NeilN - Not an admin - good - 2 - you claim " we do publish full names and birth dates unless there's a good reason not to" - jimmy do you support that comment when the details are from a primary location such as this ? http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2010030157.html - is your website supposed to be the primary reporter of that source? Mosfetfaser (talk) 17:45, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
I believe I have already given you a thorough answer to the same question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:56, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
yes - you have, but your website and user Neil do not follow your position - I removed Neils addition again - with a comment of remove primary source - wikipedia is a reporter of secondary details about living people - it will be replaced jimmy - please answer - is is this websites place to report primary personal details about living people from sites such as http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2010030157.html Mosfetfaser (talk) 18:00, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
User:NeilN is threatening to ban me - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Mosfetfaser&diff=prev&oldid=610235794

Jimmy, is is this websites place to report primary personal details about living people from sites such as http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2010030157.html - Mosfetfaser (talk) 18:07, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Where did you get the idea a primary source shouldn't be used? "Policy: Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them... A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts..." DeCausa (talk) 18:09, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
So is that it Jimmy? - is that the policy that allows primary reporting of unreported personal details? - Mosfetfaser (talk) 18:13, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Sadly I can answer my own question Jimmy, although you have good intentions you are unable to implement them on your website - I predict that because you do actually care that one day you will disown this site Jimmy - Mosfetfaser (talk) 18:23, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

To add: it's subject to WP:BLPPRIMARY: "Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses." DeCausa (talk) 18:26, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
Yes. See Talk:Suzannah_Lipscomb#Date_of_Birth_per_WP:BLPPRIMARY. JoeSperrazza (talk) 18:27, 26 May 2014
Also see User_talk:MdeBohun#WP:OTRS_regarding_Suzannah_Lipscomb_Date_of_Birth_and_middle_names. JoeSperrazza (talk) 22:25, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
I think that the whole idea in a nutshell is power: the more power someone has, the less you're allowed to know about them; the less power you have, the less you're allowed to say. This is an international state that allows surveillance, not sousveillance. Those who come to Wikipedia and countless other sites online looking for the advertised inexhaustible well of knowledge ever so gradually need to be re-educated to understand that they must trust their betters to decide what is true, and what they're allowed to ask about at all: to transition from communication to worship. It is a long, slow process, and it may not end until one day their descendants are single cubic feet of neural capacity slotted into the instrument panels of the star-crossing gods. Wnt (talk) 02:17, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps as a librarian I can explain the source of the data: The information is the LIbrary of Congress authority file, the primary repository of publicly known basic data about individuals who have written books. It is used universally for all library cataloging in the United States and, for US authors, internationally by way of the international VIAF file. It is used a as a source in many WP articles--I normally use it to help select the authoritative name and to add the birthdate for all articles on authors which do not have the information. The information is added normally at the time the first book by the author is cataloged, and the information is usually taken from the book itself, or information supplied by the author or publisher. In this case it was taken from the title page and publisher's dust jacket of the book mentioned, and from her doctoral thesis. Since the information comes from sources affiliated with the author, it is not absolutely authoritative, for she and her publisher can use what name they choose, and provide or not provide the year and date of birth. In the past, the information also came from a search of reliable sources, but for over the last 20 years at least, the information is taken just as it is supplied. I do not consider it a "public record" in the usual sense; I consider it just a reliable secondary source for the author's public statement in her published works. In general, I think we would be remiss in not using it. DGG ( talk ) 03:30, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Comment - User:Mosfetfaser appears to be violating both WP:AGF and WP:NPA by their persistent attempts to imply that User:Jimbo Wales is personally responsible for the content of a page that he (User:Jimbo Wales) has, as of the timestamp in my signature, not edited. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:19, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Request for comment

Hello there, a proposal regarding pre-adminship review has been raised at Village pump by Anna Frodesiak. Your comments here is very much appreciated. Many thanks. Jim Carter through MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 06:47, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia need stronger leadership?

Hi Jimmy and the rest of you lurkers... Thanks for starting this amazing place!

Did you see the 2007 article The ignorance of crowds? I think Wikipedia would be better with stronger leadership. Perhaps that ship has sailed, but I'm very interested in your thoughts. For years I've had a brief essay on my userpage about this and how it relates to issues like article inclusion bias. ··gracefool☺ 11:09, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

@Gracefool: - Wow. A fantastic and thoughtful article. Thanks for sharing! Having pondered the strengths and weakness of crowd sourcing, many of concepts in the article have crossed my mind, but I had yet to see them so cogently enunciated.
I liked the observation - "Individual articles are often poorly written and badly organized ..... skewed toward popular culture and fads." That strikes me as particularly true. The crowd is sorta ADD. We're good at grabbing and relaying snippets of information, but bad when it comes to "job[s] that requires a lot of coordination" (i.e. sorting and organizing and clearly/concisely expressing lots of snippets of information).
Perhaps the article's suggestion that WP needs a meritocracy based central authority is right. That path seems like it could be fraught with peril though. It would be very very easy to accidentally damage aspects of WP that make it great. Plus, there's an inherent libertarian nature to WP. I'm not sure how well we'd digest a central authority.
What is this "management team" the article references? NickCT (talk) 13:21, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Study of WP's Health Articles

Predictable but interesting bit that's been doing the rounds of the internet this morning. New study involved scientists looking at Wikipedia's articles on the 10 most costly medical conditions, and concluded that 9 / 10 of them contain errors. Kudos to the editors of our concussions entry for keeping it spot-on. (Time's coverage BBC coverage) ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 16:25, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

I would like to see more explanation of their methods:
  • They appear to have had two reviewers pick out every assertion from an article and fact-check them against peer reviewed literature. However, they say they have "blinded" reviewers for some reason. I am reminded of some disputes recently over remote viewing and whether the experiment would be called pseudoscience if any cues exist that potentially would reveal which data is which.
  • They assess concordance with the literature as pulled out by Google Scholar or PubMed. But it's not clear which literature. If this is truly an automated, blind procedure, does that mean that papers funded by pharma companies in obscure journals were used for comparison?
  • I haven't figured out how the P-values are arrived at, or what the data in Table 3 means. Concussion, the article they approved of (it says that in the paper text also), has 40 24 22 26 62 50 for the numbers of concordant and discordant assertions under three categories of assertions (based on whether reviewers found similar assertions). With no lack of discord, why is that the good one, and not hyperlipidemia where one reviewer found no discordant assumptions?
Bottom line: I regard the systematic test done here of article quality to be an untested procedure. Wnt (talk) 16:59, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
After having glanced over this, I think I have to agree w/ Wnt here that quality of study is dubious. Looking at the authors' credentials leaves something to be desired. As a big supporter of the BBC, I'm a little disappointed they should do such shoddy reporting.
Love the fact that in the BBC piece they say "Up to 70% of physicians and medical students use the tool", while in Time they say "50 percent of physicians admitted using Wikipedia as a reference". Is that a discordance or a dissimilar assertion? NickCT (talk) 18:16, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Nice analysis, guys. I wish they elaborated more on their methods. In regards to the contradicting percentages, looks like BBC grabs their up-to-70% figure from the study itself, which cites three other sources. Meanwhile Time grabs their 50%-figure from here, which cites another separate study. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 18:25, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
I wish the folks at Time and BBC were a little more discerning in their analysis. It doesn't seem like either really took time to pull the study apart. NickCT (talk) 19:15, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Maybe Retraction Watch will publish a retraction.
—Wavelength (talk) 20:38, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

See this discussion on WikiProject Medicine. The paper is so fundamentally flawed it "is utterly meaningless and isn't worth the electrons it's printed on". I suggest if any other newspapers contact Wikipedia for comment on this piece of trash "science" that they be pointed at that discussion and some of our lead editors involved. Perhaps then the journalists might learn something about how actual science works and that publication in a peer-reviewed journal doesn't make something true. -- Colin°Talk 20:06, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Weird - they equated "mental disorders" with major depressive disorder....hmmmmmm Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:29, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
@Casliber: - We categorize it under Category:Mental and behavioural disorders, no? I guess on this point WP and the paper would be making non-dissimilar assertions? NickCT (talk) 20:58, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
So? mental disorder =/= major depressive disorder...the former includes schizophrenia for starters. Also why does cancer convert to lung cancer? Also "Trauma-related disorders" could include...umm..trauma to...say every other part of the body as well as the head...hmm? Just comes across as fumbling and arbitrary. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:07, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I think I wanna see their raw data. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:20, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I think the most frustrating part of all this is that the points of inaccuracy haven't been revealed, so nothing can be done to correct them, if they are wrong. At that point it just seems irresponsible. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 01:25, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
They wanted to look at the 10 most costly "conditions", presumably Wikipedia's information on these is deemed to have a bigger impact, for good or ill, than 10 random conditions. However for 5 of those they had to choose an article representative of the condition, as we don't have an article with that title. For example [[Back problems is a redirect to Back pain.
I look forward to seeing the data from this report analysed by WikiProject Medicine. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:41, 28 May 2014 (UTC).
For convenience, these are the ten reviewed articles. (The one reportedly without errors is in parentheses.)
—Wavelength (talk) 01:45, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I have emailed the corresponding author regarding major depressive disorder - we'll see what happens. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:42, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the reliability of Wikipedia articles, consider the following excerpt from the Verifiability policy,

"Content from a Wikipedia article is not considered reliable unless it is backed up by citing reliable sources. Confirm that these sources support the content, then use them directly."[10]

Seems like this is useful advice also for readers of health articles in Wikipedia when they are using the information for their own or others' health. --Bob K31416 (talk) 03:37, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

There was a time when people didn't think that Wikipedia would be as good as Encyclopedia Brittanica. The fact that now someone is trying to show that Wikipedia is measurably worse than peer reviewed scientific literature, and we're disputing it (with some good reasons), is really a sign of how well the editors have done. That said, I have always regarded Wikipedia as essentially a search engine, its articles meant to provide a detailed map of a topic for the purpose of navigating to the right primary source. It is unfortunate that some make such efforts to push out primary sources, especially in this subject area; but even when going through an unwanted intermediary, you still don't know the topic really until you see the original experimental data. Wnt (talk) 06:49, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
But primary sources are of little use to us, because experimental data needs to be replicated before it can be considered to be in any sense reliable. When the results have been replicated by separate teams and a review paper has been published then it becomes interesting for us. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a tabloid, reporting on individual experiments, something that many seem to find difficult to get their heads around. Eric Corbett 13:34, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
There's a pattern developing where otherwise respectable medical/science journals include papers that are outside of their expert domain and thus fail to apply the same rigour when reviewing them for errors or fundamental design problems. Here we have a paper that is little to do with health or medicine but instead about comparing two forms of literature for agreement. I caution the editors of such journals to think carefully about including "for fun" such trash science as we see here. The consequence is that Time magazine reports "A new study has found that Wikipedia entries on the costliest medical conditions contradicted the latest medical research 90% of the time." That sounds far too much like we get 9/10 of all our facts wrong. -- Colin°Talk 12:01, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Good point. And let's be perfectly honest, peer reviewers aren't always completely, or even usually, unbiased anyway. Eric Corbett 13:34, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
A crucial point here is that the paper appeared in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. If you take a look at our article on osteopathy, you will see that they are not likely to be entirely neutral in the view of Wikipedia -- in other words, they have something to gain by discrediting us. Looie496 (talk) 14:48, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Rather than review our articles on the general categories of disease listed as the ten most expensive - (Cancer, Cardiovascular disease, Mental disorder, etc.) - the authors selected an article on a specific disease within each of the ten categories. This leaves me wondering how they chose the specific articles to review. They had hundreds to choose from in the categories "heart disease" and "mental illness", for example. Nothing in the report betrays the selection criteria.

I see there has been significant conflict on some of our osteopathy-related articles over its characterisation as a pseudoscience, and the appropriateness of describing practitioners as medical doctors. At least one of the authors of this report is very comfortable with our norms and policies. If any of the authors have edited our osteopathy content (particularly anyone involved in the article selection process), or have edited any of our articles reviewed in their study, I think readers should know.

There is a lot more to criticise in this study, including the choice of reviewers (internal medicine residents and interns with no necessary expertise in the topic reviewed), and the failure to publish the actual claimed errors so others could check their assessments; but it is no worse in terms of quality than most of the studies into the accuracy of our medical content. Of the many such studies conducted, only a small handful passed the quality cut for inclusion in Cokoli et al's comprehensive 2012 systematic review of the academic literature addressing Wikipedia. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:08, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

The admission that "we used physicians-in-training rather than content experts as reviewers" is quite insulting really. It would be like being told your degree exam paper is going to be marked by A-level school kids who have been given a couple of the latest student textbooks. -- Colin°Talk 18:58, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I think that anyone who knows how to critically appraise scientific literature will be either shocked or amused that this particular paper was published. Of course, very few science journalists know how to critically appraise scientific literature. The methodology used in this paper to appraise Wikipedia articles is likely no more reliable than a coin flip (although it is much more complicated). (I say "likely no more reliable" because the authors did not provide even the minimal information necessary for simple statistical tests of the reliability of their data).

If someone flipped a coin 400 times and told us that the results indicated inaccuracies in our medical content, I don't think we'd take them very seriously. Let's be clear: that's exactly the strength of evidence here. Of course our medical content has immense room for improvement—I've spent my last 8 years on Wikipedia beating that drum, and trying to actually make a difference—but this paper doesn't add anything useful to our understanding of Wikipedia's quality or how to improve it. MastCell Talk 20:23, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Can we expect to see an extremely diluted version of this study in the Journal of Homeopathy? . . . . dave souza, talk 21:21, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedians' reaction to outside criticism sure is predictable. Cla68 (talk) 23:12, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
True, they often resort to lazy ad hominems, sort of like... well, sort of like you just did. There's always hope for a thoughtful discussion of an actual issue, though. Look, there are plenty of good reasons to be critical of Wikipedia's medical content—this paper just isn't one of them. MastCell Talk 03:52, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

The study itself is weak -- it had "assertions" from each article examined by two interns. Meaning the statistical correlation is not known as they do not state how many "assertions" from any given article were examined by the D.O. interns (only totls found as "concordant" or "discordant" ), what the "assertions " were for each article, and whether any current peer-reviewed journals covered the topic and precise assertion questioned. (Lastly, we did not check the assertions in the peer-reviewed sources, a limitation that may prove important because peer-reviewed sources are often not in agreement. is a caveat a mile deep). Nor is any concrete measure given of the nature of the "discordance" between the Wikipedia articles and the truth given. I personally think Wikipedia should have a clear disclaimer on all medical articles (and have stated so in the past), but this study is not of very high caliber either. It may also be of concern that Osteopathy and other medical disciplines are not always "concordant" either with each other. Cheers. Collect (talk) 23:49, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

In the paper they note that April 25 2012 was the day they checked the articles. Looking at coronary artery disease on that day, Hasty states "Wikipedia’s article states that family history is not an important risk factor in the disease, but according to Hasty’s study, “Multiple studies confirm or support the importance of family history of CAD in determining a patient’s risk.”" - however the article on that date does not say "not important" but "A family history of early CAD is one of the less important predictors of CAD.".....so not too different from, say, NHS page, which has it in a second tier of risk factors. ...I'll leave others to draw their own conclusions on that one, but looks to me like that was not a good example of this "discordance". Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:40, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

They basically invented a new way to measure the accuracy of medical text and then only applied it to Wikipedia. We have a single data point which says nothing. If they would have applied this method to a textbook, emedicine, or uptodate than we would have had a useful comparison. This paper current just says two things 1) the peer reviewed literature does not agree with itself (no surprise here) 2) the peer reviewed process is not necessarily useful as they were able to get their paper published (also no surprise). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 15:25, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

As MastCell, James and others point out, the study has some quite fundamental methodological issues (unfortunately that's not altogether uncommon in the peer-review literature). It really doesn't tell us much about the quality, even in that very specific "Top 10" page sample. On the other hand, the message to the public not to rely on Wikipedia for "medical advice" (per WP:NOTHOW) is a perfectly helpful one, imo. For instance, we're not the kind of site that provides useful diagnostic red flags to alert the public when to consult a doctor. Nor are we outlining patient choices, as such. If I've understood correctly, what we are setting out to do is to provide reliable encyclopedic information to help people anywhere understand a bit more medical topics and conditions, including ones which, for a variety of reasons, may be of personal interest to them. 86.181.67.132 (talk) 15:55, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I think it ironic that the study produced no useful information about the quality of Wikipedia but itself provided plenty useful information about the quality of the journal it was printed in. Is there a word for doing that: where you set out to criticise another but end up embarrasing yourself? -- Colin°Talk 19:32, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Kicking an own goal? A critical fumble? (from gaming) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:15, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Hasty's paper is utter bullshit. Axl ¤ [Talk] 00:49, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I have looked through the paper. It does not give enough detail to understand the point it is trying to make. The detail of discordance is not quantified: are we out of date, running ahead of the evidence, mis-representing the sources? Have "lunatic charlatans" tried to push crank ideas, have "pharma shills" tried to push their expensive treatments? As several people above have noted, the article does not give enough detail to be useful in any meaningful sense, and if it were a Wikipedia article we'd have a gigantic {{citation needed}} tag on it. Which is a shame, as keeping health articles up to date and reality based is a constant challenge given the input of cranks, hacks, flacks and of course Randy from Boise. Guy (Help!) 20:02, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, 86.181.67.132, this sends a warning to our readers. A prominent disclaimer at the top of all our medical articles (about 25,000) would be a more effective warning, though, and would warn them without misrepresenting (presumably) the accuracy of our medical content.

"Nine out of ten of Wikipedia's medical articles are inaccurate" strikes me as wrong. Unfortunately, no one actually knows how accurate our medical content is. No one has done a good study. Not one of the forty-odd studies into the accuracy of our medical content has had a large enough sample size, transparent selection criteria, qualified assessors and logical design. Failure in any one of these factors makes a study worthless, and most fail on more than one.

Jimmy, sorry if I've asked you this before - I don't think I have. Would you be interested in seeing the results of a well-designed study into the accuracy of en.Wikipedia's medical content? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:27, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:COI regarding the Information Society Project

Mr. Wales, there is a major WP:COI violation regarding the Information Society Project. The project's former executive director (Dr. Laura E. DeNardis as User:Drled) apparently edited it as well as editing her own article (Laura DeNardis) despite being warned on her talkpage to not do so. What is your view on this? Ripberger (talk) 07:24, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Huh? Drled (talk · contribs) last edited Laura DeNardis in August 2012 and is inactive, and has not been notified of this discussion. The August 2012 edits are entirely innocuous and not worth mentioning on any noticeboard, let alone here. Their last edit at Information Society Project was in February 2012, and again was fine. If you notice something that warrants attention please use WP:COIN. Johnuniq (talk) 07:45, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm curious as to what Jimbo thinks of this. A person is automatically notified when their username is blue-linked. There is no need to manually notify her. However, I will leave her a message notifying her of this discussion, if she is still around. Ripberger (talk) 08:10, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
My position is the same as always. I frown very strongly on such things. In many or most cases it starts with someone not knowing any better. But once people have been warned, I have little sympathy for it.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:26, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for your response. The Information Society Project was mentioned on the Foundation's blog [11] and User:Drled did plug her book on Wikipedia as recently as December 2013 [12]. Just thought you would like to know. Ripberger (talk) 20:24, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

The attention of thoughtful editors is requested.

A discussion is underway that would benefit from the thoughtful consideration of the widest possible cross-section of Wikipedia's editing community. This page is known to be monitored by the exact class of editor that would be of the greatest benefit to the discussion by their participation. All are openly invited.--Anne F. Figy (talk) 18:14, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

It looks interesting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:35, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

The Speaker of the House of Commons is asking Wikipedians for advice

Please see the project page on meta. It is hoped that the response to his questions will be answered collaboratively, similar to the way Wikipedia articles (and policies) are written. At the end of the process, the idea of using a wiki-approach to parliamentary policy and evidence will be reviewed. So if you want it to go well, you could consider helping out: Connecting knowledge to power: the future of digital democracy in the UK. Please pass this link on to anyone you might think is interested. Mark M (talk) 19:17, 30 May 2014 (UTC)


((Posted here by doktorb wordsdeeds 22:20, 30 May 2014 (UTC)))

Wikipedia responsibles have not ceased to emphasize that "Wikipedia is not a democracy". And now The Speaker of the House of Commons is musing about "the future of digital democracy in the UK" and asks Wikipedia for assistance? The internet already put the fox in charge of the henhouse, Mr. Member of Parliament and Wikipedia is somewhere between a dictatorship and a decadent aristocracy. But this just shows how little the public knows about the intricacies and the real character of this project.--37.230.30.10 (talk) 23:23, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
?--Mark Miller (talk) 23:29, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Having just read the linked to page, my first reaction was that's a really interesting and innovative idea. Then, about 10 minutes later, I thought Oh shit. I really don't want the way we do things here (as enjoyable and interesting as it is, and producing a worthwhile online encyclopedia at the same time) having any bearing on how I am governed in Real Life. I can't retire from being a resident of the UK as easily as I can from WP if I don't like the way things are going. DeCausa (talk) 06:32, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy being "overruled" by "consensus"

Jimmy, as you are no doubt aware, Wikipedia policy on biographies of living people says:

Categories regarding religious beliefs or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question.

Our article on Jodie Foster says:

Foster has never explicitly identified with any particular sexual orientation.

But Jodie Foster is in the categories "LGBT actresses" and "LGBT entertainers from the United States". This seems to be a clear violation of the policy. The justification for this is a discussion on the talk page. Actually several discussions, but it is claimed that one discussion ended in "consensus" that LGBT categories should be added to the article. I bring this to you because I do not think that a few people in a talk page discussion should be able to overrule policy. The discussion was not specifically about interpreting the policy and many of the comments show that the policy was not being taken in to consideration.

I was blocked for trying to remove these categories. One of the admins who declined to unblock me commented "I'm pretty sure that marrying somebody of the same sex counts as self-identifying". I hope you will disagree. I understand that Wikipedia editors think it is important to label and categorize things, but I think that the policy places a very reasonable limit on that activity. Sexual orientation and religion are complex and personal things that are best left to the individual to declare. Some people will we think it is silly for Jody Foster to be excluded from LGBT categories. I hope that you will tell those people that Wikipedia does not decide people's sexual orientation. 69.196.171.23 (talk) 22:45, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I think the question asked above is a reasonable one, the one about marrying someone of the same sex. As marriage is, pretty much, a voluntary thing, when an individual engages in a behavior like what is generally referred to as a "same-sex" or in this case "lesbian" marriage, then that voluntary action itself qualifies as a form of self-identification in the eyes of most. Also, if she has been clearly described by reliable sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy as LGBT in some way, that in general meets our crieria for such description, I think anyway. Again, if you wish to disagree, I think it would help if you indicated what alternative standard of proof you would consider acceptable. John Carter (talk) 23:03, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
John, I would accept what the policy states - "self-identification". Nothing less. 69.196.171.23 (talk) 23:10, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
If she is/was in a same-sex marriage, that counts as self-identification in my book. Unless you're assuming it was done for tax purposes, which seems a worse thing to be accused of. -mattbuck (Talk) 23:16, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't have a particularly strong position on this, but I'd point out that there isn't necessarily a contradiction between "Foster has never explicitly identified with any particular sexual orientation" and the LGBT cat tag, because "LGBT" isn't a "particular sexual orientation". It's an umbrella term, which is also frequently taken to apply to people who don't strictly fit any of the letters in the acronym. It may be either incorrect or impolite to label Foster a "lesbian", but the same doesn't **necessarily** apply to "LGBT". Formerip (talk) 23:17, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
That would be completely at odds with what the policy says. She has not self identified as lesbian or as bisexual or as transgendered. 69.196.171.23 (talk) 23:32, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't think you have understood what I wrote. LGBT can be, and often is, used to apply to people who are not L, G, B or T. It can include, for example, transvestites, people who identify as straight but have sex with people of the same sex, people who identify as androgynous or third gender, and so on. I've even seen it used to apply to the heterosexual partners of gay and bisexual people. On that basis, it may not be unreasonable to say that someone who enters into a same sex marriage has identified as LGBT. Formerip (talk) 23:49, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I did understand. You don't seem to understand what the policy simply and clearly says. 69.196.171.23 (talk) 00:06, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Mattbuck, I haven't seen anyone making any accusations. 69.196.171.23 (talk) 23:38, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
No. As discussed in the closed-as-consensus discussion on the talk page for that article. LGBT is not something one person self-identifies as being, nor is it 'lesbian or gay or bisexual or transgender', rather it's inclusive of all and broader. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:40, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
(e-c) Agreed which FormerIP, and also point out that this is a matter of basically no importance to me as an editor personally, that I don't have an opinion about this one way or another. While I appreciate the IP's response regarding what the IP personally considers sufficient, that still leaves open the question of definition of "self-identification," and that I have not received a useful response there. I assume that this matter has also been taken to the WP:BLPN, which is frequented by editors more familiar with applying BLP to articles. And I also note what FormerIP's point above seems to indicate. I remember reading that a young former New England Patriots punter, happily married with two kids, has been an active LGBT advocate, and that he could on that basis, presumably, be included in one or more LGBT categories, even though there has never been, that I've seen anyway, any indication that he was anything but what might be called a liberal or progressive heterosexual. If the IP is Ms. Foster or someone closely associated with her, I think their best next step would be to contact WP:OTRS. Otherwise, the IP's time might be well spent in proposing changes to the existing BLP policy pages, where they might be more likely to produce quicker responses. John Carter (talk) 23:43, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
John, being an "LGBT activist" is a very different thing from being an "LGBT actress". You seem like a smart guy. Why would you throw that red herring into the discussion? 69.196.171.23 (talk) 00:00, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

The policy is VERY clear, self identification is not by an action of any kind. A good example is Tom Daley. The source for such self identification needs to be very strong. We are not here to "out" people or label them in any way. If the desire to label someone is greater than the need to be accurate....you stand in conflict of interest.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:50, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Who's inaccurate? A Gay marriage is what it is. Her marriage is a legal state, which she, the subject, has openly identified she is in. [13] Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:57, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
Nope. I don't care what your biases are. Just getting married is NOT a self identification. "I am gay" "My partner and I are a same sex couple" these are self identification statements and only a statement is "self identification" period. Nothing more and nothing less.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:25, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
No. Your biases are irrelevant -- you don't get to determine how people come out or reliable sources use language. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:31, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't have a clue what you are talking about. If the source lied or exaggerated it is not reliable. But if the subject made a clear statement it is a self identification. As I said, we are not here to label people.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:33, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
You don't have a clue, evidently. What source lied? You just imagine there's a magic formula for what she says that only you will accept, but there is no reason to put your biases on others. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:40, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Whatever, but I stand by what I said. You are not here to right great wrongs or make claims about others that have not been verified through secondary sources that show the subject to have clearly self identified. If you don't like that there is always the choice to just not edit the article at all. I suggest that.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:46, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Whatever? That demonstrates your level of thought. We follow the sources. Not what you make up to be the proper way for her to say something. If you have to denigrate the reliable sources to pretend they don't say what they say, then you should take your own suggestion. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:59, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
A same-sex marriage does not mean that someone is necessarily gay or lesbian, but what it does mean is that they are not straight, and that then puts them in the category of LGBT, which is really defined by what it isn't. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:07, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
This. Alanscottwalker, calling same-sex marriage 'gay marriage' doesn't automatically make anyone who enters into one gay. But it would seem to put them under the LGBT umbrella. I'm really shocked that this has become this huge thread which is quite needlessly located on Jimbo's talk page. There was a consensus, and even people like me who'd rather have left the whole question alone need to accept and abide by it. At this rate I expect to see the IP OP donning the Spiderman outfit for an ascent of the Reichstag any day now. AlexTiefling (talk) 17:41, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I agree with the OP. For all we know anyone married to anyone else may be the rare asexual marrying another who is a friend, or they could be marrying for immigration status, or it could be a reverse beard and anyway, why are we identifying people as anything here? We don't categorize heterosexuals so why do we categorize anyone else's sexual orientation? I suppose you might say we categorize what's more defining, less common, but being gay or bisexual is hardly uncommon.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:08, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
We are applying the ordinary meaning to what she herself has stated [14] [15]-- your speculation on meanings has no place. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:20, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Right. Could the Virgin Mary have been a lesbian, if as some believe she never engaged in sexual activity during the course of her life? Who knows? The question here seems to me to relate to marriage, which as a lifelong bachelor I may not understand that well. So far as I know, it is legally generally accepted that people in a marriage relationship have unless otherwise specified agreed that their sexual conduct, if any, will be exclusively within the marriage. Doing otherwise is generally considered grounds for divorce. The questkon here, which I admit is at least maybe a bit murky, is whether such legal matters are themselves grounds for categorization. Would a person dismissed from work as a juvenlle sex offender, after a presumably thorough, if not governmental, review qualify in some sort of relevant category? Do independent legal rulings qualify as sufficient for categorization? Also, I suppose, if someone volunarily agrees to baptism within a Christian or other church, is that baptism grounds for saying that they are members of that religious body? I honestly don't know if BLP deals with such extraordinary matters, or even if it would necessarily be required to. John Carter (talk) 00:25, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
It is pretty simple. Don't over think it. If someone has a sex tape showing them doing "the deed" with another of the same sex...is that a self identification? No it isn't and I think everyone should realize this. We are not a scandal rag. We are an encyclopedia.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:29, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I was baptized as a Catholic....but I do NOT self identify as a Catholic.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:31, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I should have specified that I meant someone who has recently, presumably as an adult, received baptism or some other form of religious initiation, and where that baptism or religious initiation itself has been discussed in independent sources. John Carter (talk) 15:11, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
John, why are you asking questions about "juvenile sex offenders"? What does that have to do with Jody Foster or the policy under discussion? 69.196.171.23 (talk) 02:53, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
On this matter, I think that we should report only what Foster herself says about her identity. A same sex marriage in this case is a well-referenced fact, and people can draw conclusions if they wish. This exemplary person has chosen to say no more, and her choice should be respected. We are not a celebrity magazine, and frustration by some editors at her silence is of no importance. We are an encyclopedia. I vigorously support our BLP policy requiring explicit self-identification on matters of religious identification, sexual orientation and gender identity. Let her be. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:45, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
(ec)@Nomoskedasticity: I've been thinking about this, though I have to say that I'm still undecided. On the one hand, Foster seems not to have made any direct public statement regarding her sexual orientation - but on the other hand, a marriage (any marriage) is a public declaration of a relationship. Though not quite in 'is the Pope Catholic' territory, it would seem difficult not to interpret a same-sex marriage as a public acknowledgement of Foster's sexual orientation - or at least, as an acknowledgement of one of the possible 'orientations' covered by 'LGBT', though we should avoid asserting more than the evidence supports. Frankly, I think that Wikipedia would be much improved if we didn't have this obsession with lumping people into arbitrary categories that often obscure more than they illuminate - though we may well be stuck with them until society as a whole finally comes to the same conclusion. And meanwhile, I'd have to suggest that if placing Foster in a LGBT category on the basis of a same-sex marriage is a violation of WP:BLPCAT, it is hardly the worst violation, and I have grave doubts that Ms Foster would be offended by it. I have to suggest though that the truth is probably that it really doesn't matter that much either way. Our readers aren't stupid, and they are quite capable of making their own minds up about such things, regardless of what we say - the presence or otherwise of the category is unlikely to cure the prejudiced of their ignorance, and neither is it going to add anything significant to the sum of human knowledge. If anyone has evidence to the contrary, I'd like to see it... AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:55, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
John Carter might want to review the work of Laud Humphreys, who has a rather informative body of research on whether married men restrict their sexual activity to their (female) partners. The notion that one can read sexual identity (or even orientation) from one's marital status is woefully ignorant. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 05:53, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Um, actually, I don't know that I ever explicitly made the point you are asserting I made. So far as I can tell, was "So far as I know, it is legally generally accepted that people in a marriage relationship have unless otherwise specified agreed that their sexual conduct, if any, will be exclusively within the marriage. Doing otherwise is generally considered grounds for divorce." I acknowledge after the fact that masturbation and other forms of autoeroticism are probably not considered grounds for divorce, but engaging in explicitly sexual activity with someone outside of the marriage is so far as I can tell still considered grounds for divorce, and presumably a person who is married generally does not wish the marriage to end on the basis of a for-cause divorce initiated by the other party in a marriage. John Carter (talk) 15:11, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Fair enough - but one can say the same thing about reading sexual identity/orientation from other public assertions. Which would logically imply that one didn't treat them as necessarily valid either, and accordingly abolished the categories entirely. Which might well be a good idea... AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:02, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Being in a different-sex marriage doesn't make you straight, but it does mean you were (at least at some point) not gay. As a pansexual, I might marry a woman or marry a man, and all the fact tells you is that I am excluded from the categories of "gay" and "straight" respectively. For those excluded from the straight category (by marrying a same-sex partner), that would then make them LGBT of some variety. Oh, and to rebut an earlier point, I believe asexuals do also come under LGBT nowadays. -mattbuck (Talk) 07:11, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Interesting. Different-sex marriage is conclusive proof of non-gayness? Really? AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:50, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, I suppose there are marriages of convenience between opposite-sex couples who may in fact be gay but wanting to present a suitable facade to avoid public scorn, but it seems quite ridiculous that anyone would enter into a same-sex marriage for the same reasons. -mattbuck (Talk) 09:24, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Possibly - but there might well be other reasons for a marriage of convenience. I've seen it suggested that in the UK at least there might be tax advantages in such arrangements, and then there are is always the possibility of marriage as a way to get around immigration law for instance. Ultimately though, we will have to acknowledge that anything that people can do, someone will probably do eventually just out of random wilfulness. And I've seen quite enough 'straight' marriages entered into for entirely inappropriate reasons to convince me that 'gay' ones wouldn't be immune from similar stupidities. In Ms Foster's case this seems highly implausible - but that is no reason to make sweeping generalisations about who might or might not fit into one arbitrary box or another... AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
True, but I'm not sure this affects what we should do. Sometimes people are dishonest, but this can also include people lying about their sexual orientation. We can't really write an encyclopaedia using the basis that it is impossible to ever be sure about anything. Plus, the whole basis of the "self-identification" rule is BLP. If a straight person lies about their sexual orientation or enters into a sham gay marriage, it would be a little absurd to think of ensuing misunderstandings that make their way into a WP article as "BLP violations". Formerip (talk) 11:15, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Participants in this discussion until now seem to have lost sight of the part that comes before the "can we put her in this category?" question - the question of relevance. Is the proposed category actually relevant to the subject's notability? Ms. Foster is a noted actress, she has been notable as an actress for a long time, well before her sexual orientation ever became a matter of public interest. Does her orientation have any relevance to her acting career? IMHO the answer is a clear "no" - thus adding a sexual orientation category (of any variety) is not justified. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:40, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Sadly, that isn't the way policy is generally interpreted - if it were, quite a few categories would be much emptier, though the compulsive shovers-into-arbitrary-boxes would be rather unhappy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:50, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, it's not arbitrary where there are sources (who use the words) but sure if the category is un-useful than it should be deleted. We judge relevance and 'of note' by following sources. No person is just a single anything, however. She's not just an American, nor just a director, nor just a producer, nor just an expatriate, nor just someone in a gay marriage, nor just someone who has come out, nor just an award winner, nor. . . just an any single thing. Categories are merely tools for research, otherwise they should go. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:35, 29 May 2014 (UTC)


This is like asking whether an acupuncture practitioner should be categorized as a pseudoscientist. Whenever we have to philosophize and debate "Is an A a B?", it's time to have a Category:A and a Category:B. BLPs should always go in the specific category, not the inferred one. That way we can put a note at the top of Category B saying how it is defined and that A may or may not be included. For example, we could have Category:Actresses in same-sex marriages and write at the top of Category:LGBT actresses, "Sexual orientation of actresses is defined here by expressed identity. Therefore some actresses in same-sex marriages may not be included." We should not forget that the category pages, for all their flaws, at least allow us to give this guidance rather than making these decisions out of sight. At least in this year I'm sure that a same-sex marriage of just about any actress is still going to be notable and covered in the news, not just as a marriage but specifically as a same-sex marriage. Wnt (talk) 10:43, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Eh? In what way? An acupuncture practitioner is arguably a faith healer without the deity, like a homeopath; this is not in and of itself pseudoscience, it is the exercises in confirmation bias published as "studies" that are pseudoscience. Foster, on the other hand, is in a same sex marriage. That's not a grey area: to be in a same-sex marriage when one is not gay, would be really quite exceptional. However, it's a trivium. I draw an analogy with Joan Armatrading. She is gay, but does not wear this on her sleeve, she is not a lesbian singer, she is a singer who happens, in her private life, to be lesbian. In such cases I think it is inappropriate to include these categories. I understand that LGBT editors are keen to claim their own, but this is not really an appropriate way of approaching biographies. Guy (Help!) 20:10, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

If we were expand this self-identification issue to other issues, the logical end of that would be that BLPs would need to be based on autobiographies. Count Iblis (talk) 11:39, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I think this is a very special case because of the history of persecution that led people to be in heterosexual marriages yet "come out" as homosexual. Religion has at times been similarly contentious. I would actually favor a category name more like "Actresses who have described themselves as LBGT", to be clearer about the definition used there, but provided a note is placed at the top of the category that explains the definition we've used, that's good enough. The key here is to bring categories closer to "verifiability not truth"; we are showing the reader what we have managed to document, not what really is in some pure sense that may not exist. Wnt (talk) 17:43, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I might even go a bit further to create a category of "Recent ...", which might more specifically indicate that BLP is a potential issue. Also, honestly, as we already have any number of foo by century categories and the like, it would not be out of line to have specific categories for living or only recently dead people. John Carter (talk) 19:37, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
  • I just want to make clear that "identifying as LGBT/Gay/Lesbian/&c." is very different from merely acting in a homosexual/bisexual manner. There are many people who engage in what could be called "homosexual" behaviour who do not identify as "Gay". "Gay", and its other counterparts, are particular constructed forms of identity that do not merely entail same-sex sexual/romantic desire. They have other connotations and meanings which many who engage in such behaviours do not identify with. Not all "people with same-sex sexual/romantic desire" identify with the "LGBT community" or "LGBT identity". RGloucester — ☎ 20:13, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Tools

Here are some tools I found at Wikipedia:Categorization of people, that might help in tackling this issue:

I added this template to the two LGBT categories featuring J.F. It would be wise not to remove these templates from these category pages until the dispute is resolved or until J.F. is no longer listed in them. The template directs to the J.F. talk page, so I'd say: discuss there (or re-open the 1st RfC). Note that for inclusion in a sensitive category (as all subcategories of category:LGBT people are, see template on that page) the consensus needs to be very strong, in fact some sort of unanimity, besides being in line with WP:BLP. Failing that, the discussion can only close on no consensus to categorize in the sensitive category. It's clear the dispute isn't over yet, so discuss until it is.

  • Not all categories are comprehensive: For some "sensitive" categories, it is better to think of the category as a set of representative and unquestioned examples, while (etc.)

There is no need for the category to include questionable entries.

  • Check whether you can solve (part of) the problem by making a better category definition

Moving up a few steps in the category tree I see (category:LGBT people):

Articles about notable LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) people who have publicly declared their sexual orientation or gender identity, or whose sexual orientation or gender identity is known and not debated by historians.

See List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people and the individual articles for the justification for their inclusion in this category.
I think there's some room for improvement there... (e.g., not related to this discussion, someone declaring his gender identity as being in line with his gender at birth is not excluded from these categories... go figure the sloppiness of the inclusion criteria). See WP:COP#Clearly define the category. (update: done --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:17, 29 May 2014 (UTC))

--Francis Schonken (talk) 12:55, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Move this discussion

Unless there are strong arguments to the contrary I propose to shortly close this section down and move it to Talk:Jodie Foster. A community-wide RFC just concluded, if you want to overturn the results of that RFC, the only reasonable path is ANOTHER community wide RFC, which should be held there. We can start a new thread at Foster's page - however it should be focused on framing a new RFC vs debating the merits of the past discussion. If you want to do THAT, then open up a formal review to see if the reading of consensus was correct. But 69's approach of edit warring was the wrong way to go - there are reasonable positions on both sides of the fence re: the reading of BLP here. In any case, given we just had a big discussion about this, continuing it here is a form of forum-shopping, and many participants in the discussion at Foster's page likely weren't aware of this discussion. Hence, the proposal to close it and move it, now that this page and editors here have been informed of the debate.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:41, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Editors wanting to improve the inclusion criteria of the LGBT people categories might be directed at Category talk:LGBT people if further discussion is needed. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:04, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps, but category talk pages get little traffic. I'd suggest instead WP:EGRS if people want to improve categorization guidelines more generally for LGBT people, and Foster's page for yet more discussion about her categories.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:16, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't see the content of the Category:LGBT people page stabilising yet [16]. The discussion has definitely started at Category talk:LGBT people. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:47, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Agreed with Obwankenobi, although I think maybe starting a second RfC as a BLP policy RfC might be a better idea. Wnt's proposal for categories for individuals in same-sex marriages might be a good idea, although I wonder how many articles would be in that category and not obviously in others. I think having the policy deal explicitly with actions, like recent adult baptism, which seem to explicitly indicate a personal characteristic, would be beneficial. I suppose the same might apply to people who have in some way "officially" joined a political party, to the degree that such is actually done and in those cases where one by law can only be considered a member of one party, if such actually exist. Here in the US, it qualifies someone to vote in that party's primary for the next election, but may not necessarily mean that they necessarily are supporters of the positions of that party. John Carter (talk) 15:11, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
WP:EGRS is the main guideline for categorization of this type, so discussion about a possible wider RFC on LGBT cats should be held there IMO.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:16, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I would like to hear what Jimmy has to say about this, but you are welcome to start another discussion somewhere else. Since the discussion is about Wikipedia's policy on living people the obvious place would be on the talk page for that policy. 75.119.224.148 (talk) 15:27, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Matter of appreciation, but I go from the idea that talk pages of policies and guidelines are about discussing updates to the respective policies and guidelines.
When there's no incentive of improving these policy and guideline pages (as seems to be the case here, just applying them in the right manner): they're not usually a noticeboard on how to implement the guidance. Besides, the other guidelines quoted above (WP:COP, WP:EGRS) can also be implemented, so which policy/guideline page would be optimal?
But shurely I'd be interested in hearing Jimbo's thoughts too. On another page I just linked to m:The Wrong Version#Involving Jimbo, I like to think he'd have a gentler view on the current discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:46, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I find the wording of the policy to be very clear. Others (who wish to add LGBT categories to Jody Foster's article) disagree with my straightforward interpretation. If the discussion results in a change in practice then the policy's wording will need to be changed. And the usual thing to do would be to remove the categories until any such discussion is completed. 75.119.224.148 (talk) 16:06, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I suppose this one could work too: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard/Archive201#Jodie Foster and BLPCAT --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:49, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Go by reliable secondary sources

I thought that, as an encyclopedia, we go by what reliable secondary sources state. Reliable secondary sources say that Mrs. Foster came out at the Golden Globes - just looking at the first "tier" of sources - [17], [18], [19], [20]. Hipocrite (talk) 21:02, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

"Came out" as what, though? If there had been any subsequent comment by Foster which either confirmed or denied those statements, then I think it would be clear that we might favor those. But, as I've seen elsewhere early today, on an unrelated issue, it can be and sometimes at least is the case that even the most reliable secondary sources can sometimes oversimplify some matters or miss a particular point of differentiation. Also, and I suppose part of the issue might be, I don't know, exactly what Foster's self-identification in general is. If, for whatever reason, she does not see herself as a female, then she might, not unreasonably, not see herself as engaging in behavior which might be homosexual among females. Maybe. Having said that, I really would love to see the guidelines and policies actually address specific, unusual, instances of this type, because it can get really, really easy to overthink these matters and wind up confusing oneself. John Carter (talk) 21:13, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
You appear to be ignoring the reliable secondary sources - "Jodie Foster reveals she's gay, suggests she's retiring" - title of the Fox News piece. "The Oscar-winning actress publicly came out as gay in a speech at last year's Golden Globe Awards." - BBC. Hipocrite (talk) 21:16, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
And you appear to ignoring the ambiguity of what she stated. Everyone else seems to have gotten upset by that very fact. Just because fox news tries to spin this as an outright outing.....it ain't. Get over it and let us move on to writing an encylopedia based on the actual secondary sources......that actually have their facts "straight".--Mark Miller (talk) 21:22, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
And the NYTimes? And the BBC? And ABC News? Where is your source that she didn't come out, exactly? The previous source used to describe the ambiguity was [21], which wrote ".... during which she publicly acknowledged being a lesbian before a worldwide audience." Provide your sources for this alleged ambiguity, please. Hipocrite (talk) 21:26, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Read the sources that were already supplied and if you can't figure it out perhaps Wikipedia is not for you.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:33, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
How freaking much does it take to make people understand that a self identification is NOT what other sources try to spin, interpret or just lie about. Get over it and move on!--Mark Miller (talk) 21:35, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
The point of dissent seems to relate to what it is that Foster came out as. None of the sources cited seem to be of an academic nature. They seem to be using one or more words which have a clear meaning to the non-specialist community in place of what seem to be a broad number of more clearly defined terms used in the relevant academic community. Those terms seem to include heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, asexual, omnisexual (maybe), and I have no idea how many others. The fact that, so far as I can see, those nonspecialist news sources seem to be using the terms they use in a non-specific way in place of what might be considered the more accurate, technical terms, does not mean that their painting with a broad brush should be counted as accurate. Yes, I know it is extremely unlikely that Jodie Foster will be the subject of an article in an academic journal relating to LGBT rights anytime soon, and that it is likely to remain the case that the reliable sources which do discuss her will use terms in a non-technical, potentially misleading way.
For any who might have some sort of conservative or religious orientation, the use of the non-technical term "God particle" to describe the Higgs boson comes to mind. The fact that nonspecialist sources could be seen as indicating that the Higgs is God does not mean that is what the academic world actually thinks. John Carter (talk) 22:27, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
But she herself said "coming out" about herself.[22] What's the point of trying to deconstruct what the accepted meaning of that language is, unless you just want to claim that she does not know what she is talking about. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:42, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
There is no self identification as a gay or lesbian that I see at all. Period.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:48, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Period? What's reliable sources when you got "period" as your opinion. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:18, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Sorry this confuses you but that wasn't an opinion. It was a fact. There was no self identification...period.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:20, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
So you claim, without you having any reliable sources, of course. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:37, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
  • Oh for god's sakes, this is so stupid. OF COURSE Jodie Foster is gay. Next subject... Carrite (talk) 22:06, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
    • Really....and just how did you come to that conclusion? Whether she is or is not is not up to us to state in Wikipedia's voice of authority. This is the very argument being offered up. What we may have an opinion of falls short of what the sources are actually saying or what Foster her self is claiming. Lets not put the cart before the horse.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:10, 29 May 2014 (UTC)--Mark Miller (talk) 22:10, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
      • Mark, I think the point is that people expect this statement to be applied with a healthy dose of common sense and a realization that categories exist for the purpose of navigation, not for the purpose of putting articles into precisely and rigidly defined pigeon-holes, using the most restrictive definition possible. We assume that bishops of the Roman Catholic Church are Christians, even if we've got no documented evidence of the words "I self-identify as a Christian" have ever crossed their lips. The action of being ordained is sufficient for "self-identification". We similarly assume that people who have said that they publicly "came out" and who have publicly entered into a same-sex marriage are (some form of) LGBT. The actions of "coming out" and getting married is sufficient for "self-identification". Self-identification is not necessarily restricted to speaking a specific set of words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:06, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
        • "Sorry" but the term "coming out" is not a self identification and your analogy about Bishops is way off. Seriously. We have standards. Stick to them.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:12, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, I think either side in this controversy can make a reasonable case. My preference is ... (No way am I going to get involved in this!) —Bob K31416 (talk) 22:55, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Copied from above for clarity:
I just want to make clear that "identifying as LGBT/Gay/Lesbian/&c." is very different from merely acting in a homosexual/bisexual manner. There are many people who engage in what could be called "homosexual" behaviour who do not identify as "Gay". "Gay", and its other counterparts, are particular constructed forms of identity that do not merely entail same-sex sexual/romantic desire. They have other connotations and meanings which many who engage in such behaviours do not identify with. Not all "people with same-sex sexual/romantic desire" identify with the "LGBT community" or "LGBT identity". RGloucester — ☎ 16:13, Today (UTC−4)

Why is not being discussed on the article's talk page? Moreover, what we should really do it change the categories themselves! Make them more inclusive. LGBT is an umbrella term, not literally just lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. EvergreenFir (talk) 18:52, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Jimmy?

Jimmy, I didn't start this discussion so that the same tired arguments could be reiterated on your talk page. You understand that this is about more than just Jodie Foster. Some editors add categories to identify people as "one of us". Some editors add categories to identify people as "one of them". The policy right now draws a line about where that game stops. Speak up before that line gets erased. 75.119.224.148 (talk) 23:39, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

And how would the personal opinion of Jimmy Wales be decisive in this matter, I ask? Carrite (talk) 02:08, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
I don't see anything that states Jimbo's opinion would be "decisive in this matter" in anyway. But some people respect his opinion and that is all this seems to be asking for...his opinion. Of course Jimbo may also be wanting to stay out of this. If I were smart that is what I would have done. ;-)--Mark Miller (talk) 02:12, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Jimbo responds

I have not studied the case of Jodie Foster in enough detail to have a legitimate opinion about that issue. But I can speak about my own experience in a way that I think is relevant in this context. For a time, I was categorized in a category of either Athiest or American Atheists (I can't quite remember). I objected to this. I would object to it again if it came up again, because I think it is a matter of WP:UNDUE. Atheism versus religionism is not an issue that I campaign about and including me in such a category would mislead people even if in some sense it might actually be true. (Notice that I'm not saying - not because my own beliefs are uncertain, but because I wouldn't want anyone to take this comment, which is about Wikipedia, as an excuse to add me there!)
I think many categories run the same kind of risk. Unless someone actually self-identifies publicly as belonging to a category, we should be very careful about adding them to that category. I don't know enough about Jodie Foster to know where she fits.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:43, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
We have had precisely the same debate in respect of Joan Armatrading. Wikipedia can cover the facts, but we are not here to allow every interest group to claim their own through categorisation, since this does not allow for any nuance (in the way that list articles do). Guy (Help!) 20:12, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo. You're right about the atheism category - in general the rule is WP:DEFINING as well as WP:EGRS. Someone like Richard Dawkins should clearly be in that cat, but I doubt RS regularly say 'Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and noted atheist, today said...' So for the vast majority of people, no matter their religion, we don't categorize them accordingly since it's usually not an important part of their public life nor discussed in detail in reliable sources. LGBT is treated slightly differently - all it takes is public self-identification to merit the 'gay' tag. As for Foster, it almost seems like a custom-built set up for a Wikipedia battle - rumors have plagued her for years that she was gay, and then finally in a public speech she admits that she came out long ago and mentions her relationship with a woman, but she - whether on purpose or not - does not use the word gay or lesbian, and never says 'I am a XXX'. Then you add the winner-takes-all aspect of categories (eg you're either in or out) and voila, wikibattle royale. The debate here has been raging ever since. And then she marries a woman, adding fuel to the fire. Plenty of reliable sources have claimed she had finally come out as lesbian as a result of her speech, while some editors here state that she could be bi, or could eschew labels entirely - we simply don't know and we cannot trust newspaper's guesses in this matter since they have no means to fact-check short of asking her, again (Foster would regularly stipulate that questions from reporters about her sexuality were off-limits). The compromise arrived at in the RFC was sort of like 'she's said enough to put her in the LGBT tree, but we won't categorize her as a lesbian as that's a step too far' My guess is until she comes out with a clearer statement (which is unlikely as she's guarded her privacy for 40 years and I don't see a press conference in the future) this will go on and on and never be settled - as you can see a recent community wide RFC is now being disputed. I think we should just refer the whole thing to the WMF editorial board. Wait, does that still not exist? :)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:31, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
I object to the queers are special idea that speaks from the previous. --Francis Schonken (talk) 05:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Slightly similar to Armatrading we have Tom Daley, who recently mumbled a vague reply to a jokey question on a UK comedy panel game show, from host Keith Lemon. He does not seem keen to make his sexual preferences public, but still gets three separate LGBT Category templates. By being more of a "celebrity" than Armatrading is his categorisation somehow more justified? The criteria are rather unclear. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:53, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
WP:COP#N could get some more attention I suppose. I'm not such a fan of presenting thoughts just by a shortcut, now I do. Because I think that is one that was lost out of sight for a long time and summarizes part of what Jimbo said as something we already knew but just didn't think of. Of course I should only speak for myself. --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:47, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Obiwankenobi, how is "she's said enough to put her in the LGBT tree" not completely at odds with the policy which says she must "publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question"? Despite what some have argued, LGBT is not a catchall category for anything other than heterosexual. Janeane Garofolo is open about being asexual, yet she was previously married and has been in a relationship with a man for over a decade. Should she be in the LGBT category? Some have argued that it includes asexual people. 75.119.224.148 (talk) 22:30, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Guy, thank you for the further example of Joan Armatrading. I was surprised to see that she is not included in the LGBT Wikiproject. Nor is Queen Latifa and there is no mention in the article of the longstanding press speculation about her sexuality. I wonder why Jodie Foster attracts so much more attention? 75.119.224.148 (talk) 22:35, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
As has been stated several times, because she came out, "proudly" (her very own words), and she confirmed that she married (see, gay marriage). Now questions for you: What do you mean LGBT is a sexual orientation that someone identifies as being? Assuming it is such an orientation, as you seem to argue, how does someone self-identify as L,G,B, and T? What exactly are your requirements? -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
And as also has been pointed "out" She never self identified and her "outing" was not about sexuality but about being single and was tongue in cheek.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:50, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I was answering and asking the IP, we already know that we disagree, but really your dispute is with Jodie Foster if you think contrary to her words, that she did not come out proudly. You have not articulated answers to my questions, so perhaps the IP will. Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:04, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
No, you just don't understand the entire situation. You seem to think that by stating "I am coming out" that is means someone is a homosexual. That is just inaccurate...at best.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:11, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm merely taking her at her word, which is the understanding that is needed. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:29, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
No. You are leaping to conclusions. And you appear to lack sensitivity on the subject of other people's lives.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:32, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
No. You are leaping to deny what words mean. It is you who appear to lack sensitivity to other peoples lives. Taking people at their word is being sensitive to them. But I would still like the IP to answer my questions. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 01:44, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
You don't know what you are talking about and I strongly urge the IP to ignore your question...whatever it was. You lack both sensitivity and knowledge to what "Coming out" actually means. You can come out as anything you want but in this case you are actually filling in the blanks to suit your opinion and even, perhaps, an agenda.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:17, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Alan, I find it strange that you are so sure that Jodie Foster "proudly came out" yet did so in a way that was so ambiguous and cryptic that even supporters were confused by it. Recall that her statements were also taken to mean that she was retiring yet she almost immediately disclaimed this. Obviously it would not be possible for anyone to give you a definitive list of statements that would be acceptable as self-identification but if there is doubt, we should not make assumptions. In this case there is doubt. If someone in the public eye is "proudly out" we can reasonably expect that a less ambiguous statement will eventually be made. This may well be the case for Jodie Foster. 75.119.224.148 (talk) 02:30, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Note, I said she used the word "proudly" to describe her coming out: ". . . I already did my coming out about 1,000 years ago, back in the Stone Age," Foster said. "In those very quaint days when a fragile young girl would open up to trusted friends and family and co-workers and then gradually, proudly to everyone who knew her, everyone she actually met." [23] So, it's not strange to me that sources write what they write, which is now viewed not a few minutes/hours after, but in the light of time and the public confirmation by her of her marriage. [24]. What is strange to me is people demanding more of her. 'Say it louder, Jodie Foster' does not seem to me either respectful or needed by anyone for anything. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:37, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Leaping to make her what you want and not waiting for them to say so is just not anything Wikipedia has as a standard. Where is the "Draw your own conclusion" policy? I've never seen it.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:46, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
No. There is no point in discussing this with you. You've made it clear that you cannot believe that others disagree with you in good faith. That breaches the cardinal rule of discussion on Wikipedia. It's neither unheard of, nor unimaginable that many Wikipedians disagree with you considering what the sources say, and it's no crime to seek fidelity to the sources, quite the opposite. Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:59, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
You are right about one thing, there is no further point in discussing this with someone who throws around unfounded accusation of bad faith just because they believe they have a right and/or ability on Wikipedia to make up whatever they want about living persons. We have policies, guidelines and procedures, which you seem happy to ignore to suit your own opinion. It certainly doesn't improve the project.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:22, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, at least I am right, then. Except, there is nothing unfounded (some assumed "agenda", your words), or outside policy (V, NOR, NPOV, BLP, IAR) or made-up ([25] [26]) concerning what I have said. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 04:47, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Except that you have actually demonstrated an agenda to label Ms. Foster for some reason. That is not a stretch. And you are indeed suggesting original research, POV editing, violating BLP policy as written, violating (what was once called Burden) the first section of Wikipedia:V as well as IAR as this in no way improves the article or the project. While you do all of this, I have never suggested you were doing it in bad faith. Many people have agendas on Wikipedia. Some good, and some bad, while others don't even realize they do have an agenda. However, per Wikipedia:Advocacy: "Advocacy is the use of Wikipedia to promote personal beliefs or agendas at the expense of Wikipedia's goals and core content policies, including verifiability and the neutral point of view. Despite the popularity of Wikipedia, it is not a soapbox to use for editors' activism, recruitment, promotion, advertising, announcements, or other forms of advocacy." You are clearly advocating for the label of LGBT on a person who has never self indentified. Look, we can do this all night. Go ahead, have the last word. I have said what I need to. Thanks for the debate. It was civil until you made accusations.--Mark Miller (talk) 06:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
That's not an agenda. That's an editing dispute. Otherwise, you have just accused yourself of a political or personal advocacy agenda. Of course, you are just wrong. I have not ignored policy by making any of my arguments. (See eg., regarding interpreting policy, in addition to the many editors who have disagree with you.) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
There are just as many or more editors that disagree with you. And you do make stuff up. You just did above.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:09, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Most of this is my fault for using you as an example and the behavior or arguments you use. While I may honestly believe you act a certain way or demonstrate a certain behavior, not everything has to be typed out for discussion. So I offer an apology for any sentiment that you felt was in bad faith. I don't even know if you, yourself, have edited the article. I know I haven't.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:54, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, Jimmy. I think your answer will help guide people to the best result.

75.119.224.148 (talk) 22:36, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thank you Mr. Wales for weighing in on the subject.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:51, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
  • "LGBT" is not a sexual orientation, and neither is "gay". These are constructed identities that entail identification with certain communities and a particular "gay identity". Engaging in either homosexual behaviour does not make one "gay" unless one says one is "gay". The majority of people that engage in homosexual behaviour or desire do not consider themselves "gay". Being engaged in a same-sex marriage does not make one "LGBT", if one does not identify with that label. I don't understand this attempt to pigeonhole people into identities with which they haven't identified. RGloucester — ☎ 01:41, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
    • As an openly "gay" homosexual male who has worked within the LGBT community.......I have to say, this was, perhaps, the wisest comment I have seen yet. A big thank you to you RGloucester.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:19, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
      • It occurs to me that consensus is most likely reachable by reference to WP:COP#N. I think Jodie Foster is homosexual. That she is in a publicly acknowledged same-sex marriage is sufficient to prove it. I don't think there's any serious doubt about that fact, and were it less emotionally charged, we'd probably not have any troubles about it. But I think what might persuade warring parties to put down their keyboards is a close look at WP:COP#N.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:53, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
        • Hmmmmm. This isn't the first time I have disagreed with you Jimbo, but I want to at least be clear. Just thinking they are homosexual doesn't seem to be enough to categorize as LGBT. Gay and homosexual are two different things and while Manning hasn't removed any male parts we refer to them as "her" and changed a name over it because they have self identified, while here we are determining what Foster is based on the rumor, accounts and reports of her relationship. You know we kept all mention of the relationship out of Tom Daley's article until such time that they openly admitted it. I haven't edited the article over any of this. Not sure I have ever edited the Foster article. As long as Foster has outright admitted to being in a same sex relationship and named the person than I can see why we would label them LGBT. I don't think we have a famous homosexual category. Perhaps Lesbian actress? I don't know, but I still strongly disagree with this and don't think anyone has really even bothered to offer much in the way of demonstrating Foster self identification. But, I always support the consensus, whatever it is.--Mark Miller (talk) 19:23, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
        • So, I went ahead a re-read your post Jimbo and the link you left. You stated; "I think Jodie Foster is homosexual. That she is in a publicly acknowledged same-sex marriage is sufficient to prove it." No, it isn't. I know men who, today are married, with children and have been in same sex relationships. Just being in a relationship with the same sex does not make one homosexual. Jodie foster has two natural sons. Using the very same logic we could not categorize Foster as homosexual. We would have to assume bisexuality. Still a part of the LGBT umbrella. But when looking through WP:COP#N I am not seeing the same thing you are. Perhaps WP:DEFINING is a better example where it states:

One of the central goals of the categorization system is to categorize articles by their defining characteristics. Categorization by non-defining characteristics should be avoided. It is sometimes difficult to know whether or not a particular characteristic is "defining" for any given topic, and there is no one definition that can apply to all situations. However, the following suggestions or rules-of-thumb may be helpful:

  • a defining characteristic is one that reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having. For example: "Subject is an adjective noun ..." or "Subject, an adjective noun, ...". If such examples are common, each of adjective and noun may be deemed to be "defining" for subject.
  • if the characteristic would not be appropriate to mention in the lead portion of an article, it is probably not defining;
  • if the characteristic falls within any of the forms of overcategorization mentioned on this page, it is probably not defining.

Often, users can become confused between the standards of notability, verifiability, and "definingness". Notability is the test that is used to determine if a topic should have its own article. This test, combined with the test of verifiability, is used to determine if particular information should be included in an article about a topic. Definingness is the test that is used to determine if a category should be created for a particular attribute of a topic. In general, it is much easier to verifiably demonstrate that a particular characteristic is notable than to prove that it is a defining characteristic of the topic. In cases where a particular attribute about a topic is verifiable and notable but not defining, or where doubt exists, creation of a list article is often the preferred alternative.

In disputed cases, the categories for discussion process may be used to determine whether a particular characteristic is defining or not.

In some ways that comes very close to making an argument for the categorization but by the end seems to defeat it. I also took a look at Category:LGBT actresses. There are currently only three subjects listed. This seems to be a less than notable category. A subcategory is Lesbian actresses‎ where Ms. Foster could not be placed as that is a much more narrow category. Is a woman a lesbian just because they are in a same sex relationship but have natural children? I did notice that the actual category states: "Consider rewording the inclusion criteria of this category if they are unclear.". Perhaps that is something to consider. I don't know. I do have concerns about the other category, Category:LGBT entertainers from the United States. I noticed Nell Carter is listed there but on reading the article I see no mention of her sexuality at all.--Mark Miller (talk) 20:54, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I'm off to start dinner. If I don't get this chicken in the oven we won't be eating till 8:00 pm. Have a good day Jimbo. And thanks again for the discussion. I do feel it is an important one.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

There's still basic technical progress that could be made. A category like "LGBT actresses" should be assembled automatically from a Category:Actresses AND a Category:LGBT. This would reduce the issues involved in small categories. Wnt (talk) 21:34, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

There is a reasonable question regarding "defining characteristic", and I have to say that in this case it does not seem to be defining, although, I suppose, that might depend on the amount of weight and space given to her in an LGBT dictionary, and might be impacted by the amount of WEIGHT such a source might give the topic. This seems to me to be maybe closely similar to a question whether Marranos should be counted as Christians, and to have at this point many of the same potential problems and difficulties. It would not be unreasonable I think in this instance to err on the side of caution and not include such a category yet, although, I suppose, in time, like everything else, this might change as events warrant. John Carter (talk) 22:03, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
It could well be argued (not that I am) that since Foster spent most of her life not being known as gay, bisexual or lesbian, and her supposed statement was very much ambiguous, that it seems less likely for this to be a defining characteristic. However, at the moment the wording in the personal life section on top of the fact that there is nothing in the lead, makes me currently feel it is not considered a defining characteristic.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:28, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

In sum, finding the answer to the question whether or not J.F. came out as lesbian, bisexual or none of the previous is irrelevant for inclusion:

  • For lists this question needs not to be solved, and she can be included [27]
  • For categories this question needs not to be solved and she should not be included: her notability is not (or too marginally) depending on LGBT aspects of her (public) life — a.k.a. following the WP:COP#N recommendation.

--Francis Schonken (talk) 09:44, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

No consensus

There was no consensus for her inclusion in the category. There was a majority in favour, but no consensus by any definition of the word - even Wikipedia's. It's a BLP, and in the absence of a real consensus we should be conservative, and not impose an obviously contentious, no-consensus category on a woman who (if she's made anything clear in this) clearly reserves the right to keep her status private. I see a number of the old Chelsea Manning "he's a guy" crew are elbow deep in this. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:00, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

The closing admin seems to disagree with that. I have asked how long we should wait before bringing this up again as an RFC.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:14, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
The closing statement was, "Consensus appears to be in favour of this proposal based on the strength of the arguments put forward." However, the arguments appear to me to be sound and reasonable on both sides of that question. If the "no" arguments were reasonable and valid - that is, if they're not obvious nonsense - and were put by a significant minority of editors in good standing then they cannot be ignored and so the result was a clear "no consensus". If the "no" arguments were obvious nonsense, of course they should have been disregarded and a consensus for "yes" would be clear - but they were far from nonsense. It looks like, rather than look at the state of consensus (none) the closer decided who won the argument - whose argument had the most merit. Has the closer laid out his rationale for dismissing the oppose argument anywhere? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 09:05, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Whether or not there was a consensus at the end of RfC1, and whether or not the closer of that RfC did a good job in assessing whether or not consensus had been reached at the end of that RfC seem to me quite irrelevant questions and discussion topics. By now whatever consensus that was: it has evaporated. Many more contributors turned their fresh eyes on the RfC1 question since, added new arguments, and came to a different conclusion, at least enough contributors did so, meaning that the (whatever) consensus doesn't stand any longer. No consensus today, and frankly not interested in what it was or was not a few days ago. Shouldn't we look ahead to what the new consensus could be? --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:47, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Question to Mr Wales

El novio de Lila Tretikov, la nueva Directora Ejecutiva de la WMF, Wil Sinclair ha estado activo en una de las listas de correo de Wikipedia en días recientes. El asunto de su participación en Wikipediocracy salió a flote, y aún cuando todo el mundo es bienvenido a participar en tales foros sin más, durante el transcurso de la discusión, lo siguiente salió a la luz.

En MyWikiBiz, Wil ha dado una aprobación así:

<Wikipedia> is lucky to have people like Greg [Kohs]; even if he never directly contributes to WP going forward, we're all well aware that he's a very intelligent and eloquent individual with a knack for investigative reporting. He holds WP and the WMF to their word, and I personally thank him for that.

Ésta aprobación ha causado algo de fricción en la lista de correo, aunque, sinceramente, la gente puede aprobar a quien quiera. Pero señor Wales, le pregunto:

  1. ¿Cree usted que esta dinámica que está encarando la WMF es interesante?
  2. ¿Tiene consejos para el señor Sinclair?

P.D. I apologize for asking in Spanish as I can not English very good, someone can do translating for me please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.165.39.143 (talk • contribs) 09:17, 30 May 2014‎ (UTC)

Mr. Kohs saw a nice testimonial blurb and used it, fully aware of the irony. It's nice that now the issue has abated on the mailing list in question there is an IP willing to stir the pot up again here, in whatever language. We wouldn't want the drama to go away now, would we? Carrite (talk) 16:14, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
HA HA HA!!! I was gonna make a joke about this being from Australia and it turns out it was!!! Nice troll. Carrite (talk) 16:46, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
What irony? I'm not associated with the WMF, and I was very sincere in what I said as an individual contributor. Self-policing isn't usually effective, in my experience. Also, Greg can and will not be ignored away. In fact, he should be seriously PO'd with me that I've made his job harder, because he has taken some advantage of stealth in the past. Eventually, if there is some newsworthy situation at WP, it will get out. If we listened to Greg, we have a better chance of finding out about it before the problem becomes so large that it will have a material affect on all Wikipedians. AFAICT, he enjoys it. It all boils down to: Greg is incredibly good at finding WP's problems, so if we're open to criticism, why not take advantage of that? And there you have the "what's in it for Wikipedia" argument. :) 204.11.226.135 (talk) 17:13, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Don't get baited into this... Carrite (talk) 02:08, 31 May 2014 (UTC) Last edit: Carrite (talk) 02:13, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
"Stealth"? He is as stealthy as a carbuncle. I think "apathy" is a more accurate word, and "amazement at hypocrisy" also captures the reaction he engenders. Maybe that could be boiled down to a single word, but it has yet to be invented in the English language. Coretheapple (talk) 21:57, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Is chutzpah sufficiently anglicized these days? Actually the point of his exercise isn't that paid editing is a bad thing, obviously; rather it is that standards have been applied differently in his particular case than they are for paid editors these days... (But we've gone over this path before...) Carrite (talk) 02:06, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, I know. Old. Coretheapple (talk) 12:42, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Should administrators have the right to erase legitimate and polite requests?

Not just a few administrators regularly delete polite requests bearing no personal attacks, insults etc. without even considering they might be obliged to answer, as a consequence of their responsibility.

Do you think this is right?--37.230.30.10 (talk) 20:52, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

If it is on their user talk page, they may remove any post that they deem inappropriate for whatever reason, but it is my experience that if they don't really see any merit to the question, they just don't reply. Every editor has the right or, more accurately, the ability to remove posts from their own talk page.--Mark Miller (talk) 23:32, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Some context would help here. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:48, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Simply put, it is about editors criticizing the actions of an admin (mostly protection of article pages or user blocks) and asking for an explanation of any kind, doing this politely and without personal attacks. Often times, there's not even a single word of explanation, just reverting the legitimate criticism. I've even witnessed admins adding the word "shoo!" or similar in their non-response. And it's no difference when trying to post the same on the administrator's board: Before an admin of good governance is able to even see the request, the abusive one already has deleted it under some obscure pretense.--37.230.30.10 (talk) 00:24, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
While I'm sure that the occasional legitimate complaint gets deleted inappropriately, there is nothing illegitimate about for example deleting the endless posts of a banned former contributor who prattles on ad nauseum about 'abusive admins'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:27, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I know a couple of administrators that delete legitimate complaints on an almost daily-basis. And you should be aware that those abusive admins bring down not only the other, righteous admins, but also the whole project.--37.230.30.10 (talk) 00:40, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
What Andy said...and, remember, a complaint isn't always worth the time and effort to address. Avoiding drama is certainly a valid excuse.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:31, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Drama is a good point: Just today, I saw several users referring to an editor (who's not banned, btw) as a "poor devil/sausage" (German: "armes Würstchen") and the "admin" adding further drama by playing the personal attack completely down and making other obscure and condescending comments. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzerin_Diskussion:Itti#So_ganz_nebenbei...--37.230.30.10 (talk) 00:40, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, given that the English-language Wikipedia has no control over what goes on on the German one (and vice versa), it would probably only add to the drama further for us to start commenting on what goes on there... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:55, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Indeed. If this is about English Wikipedia, then context would help (i.e. specific examples with diffs). If it is about German Wikipedia, it's not likely that a discussion on my user talk page will be very productive.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:38, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
If your comment is mainly aiming at the language barrier, I can understand the point. Nevertheless, there's online-translators and people visiting here speaking German,too. And for my moral understanding, a mother is responsible for its children...--37.230.25.202 (talk) 19:24, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

In statistics we call that wording the question. Seattle (talk) 20:07, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia retaining what pages you visited indefinitely?

I just clicked on the banner and was not at all pleased with m:Data_retention_guidelines. I had been under the impression that Wikipedia did not make a practice of tracking user reading history at all. But according to the policy, not only do they retain it 90 days, but they then can retain it indefinitely by "anonymizing" the IP addresses by "encrypting" the "most specific" part of the IP address, a process which they admit may not actually protect identity. Now I understand that UKUSA is the supreme law of every land (even in EU, for all the new consumer-end censorship in the guise of privacy that will only affect the peasants), but how did things go this quickly from the situation where it was supposed to be untracked to the point where it seems entirely plausible for an agency to subpoena all the Wikipedia queries for the past ten years and crack the trivial encryption to target one or a million specific users based on their interests? Wnt (talk) 08:11, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

To spell that out, meta:Data retention guidelines includes:
Unless otherwise indicated, we retain the following types of data for no more than the following periods of time:
Data type: Articles viewed by a particular user
Origin: Provided by a user
Examples: A list of articles viewed by a logged-in user
Maximum Retention Period: After at most 90 days, it will be deleted, aggregated, or anonymized
That was added by LuisV (WMF) on 11 February 2014 (diff). That is an enormous change to privacy. Johnuniq (talk) 09:43, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
That wording suggests that the data doesn't even need to be anonymised. WMF could opt for "aggregation" instead, which presumably (?) could just mean migrating or tagging the data. Formerip (talk) 09:56, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Could we perhaps now re-brand our wonderful website to something with a more homely and comforting feel to it? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:07, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Yes, share concerns here. I reviewed the new privacy policy in connection with a matter I posted at the Wikimedia Forum and was absolutely gobsmacked to learn of the pages visited log. A couple of years back, in connection with a request from an activist in the ongoing Arab Spring of the time, I was asked about this and enquired of an administrator about the situation. The reply was that naturally this information was available at engineers' level, but was not routinely logged for individual users. Plainly that's not so. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 10:50, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Hush now there is a lot of money to be paid from selling medical search data to insurance companies. John lilburne (talk) 19:53, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
:) Bugger! I've been blown. Coat of Many Colours (talk) 03:32, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
I will look into it. My most recent understanding of current practice may be out of date, but the last I knew, we were logging 1 out of every 1000 pageviews requests and retaining it for just long enough to run some aggregation statistics, i.e. a couple of days or a few days at most. Note well that the policy about what the WMF *may* do necessarily has to involve a much longer retention time than what the WMF *will* do, just so there isn't a privacy policy violation if a cron job fails to run for a week or something of that nature.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:03, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
Thank you for looking into this. I should explain that my reaction here is shaped by some of the things I don't believe in:
  • Random numbers. See Random number generation#Backdoors. As with a person randomly selected for random screening by the TSA, you never know.
  • Encryption. The policy claims that "Encrypting or removing/masking the most specific portion of IP addresses" is sufficient to protect users. But we know too well that every encryption key is at great risk of being divulged (most likely because someone will show up with a subpoena and ask for it, but it could be by hacking, surveillance, even brute force). Long term storage of encrypted user data will eventually be long term storage of public user data.
  • Security through obscurity. Things like the anonymity of partial IP addresses, "Sanitizing user-agent strings", and so forth are a model for near-perfect user tracking. Even sock-hunting admins, who must be the worst private eyes on the Internet, can track people by a partial IP address and lay charges of various wiki-crimes against people whose identity they have deduced. The NSA is a bit better than that, and given partial IP and user agent string and a continuous list of browsing times and interests I would expect them to have an essentially perfect log.
Now I realize it is unrealistic to suppose that the omnipotent gods of international intelligence would really ever be denied access to our browsing history, no matter how many guarantees are given, but what alarms me about this privacy policy is that it sounds like it's hanging out an open for business sign not just for them, but to every civil and criminal lawyer who wants to go fishing. With these records acknowledged and their existence legitimized, there is no reason why they can't start filing papers, cracking codes, and lining up access dates for whatever reasons they may have. Examples would be a prosecutor looking for proof that a child's few threatening lines in an online game (cf. Justin Carter) were accompanied by ominous sounding research, a Third World police department tracking whether someone they beat and warned against writing an article about someone was still keeping an eye on its content and potentially trying to access via VPN, or a celebrity's lawyers looking for proof that someone is "obsessed" with their client and keeping track of daily developments. Wnt (talk) 16:21, 27 May 2014 (UTC)
A few other things worth noting: the lack of discussion of these things previously may reflect the fact that the discussion was formally closed February 14 at the end of a month-long comment period, and three days after the diff cited above. Also, the policy contains additional exceptions that system backups may contain data for five years (this is the nominal timeframe in Feinstein's bill [28], the one people said they opposed, and presumably would be openly imposed on companies if the NSA delegates data retention officially), or other exceptions as noted on that page (the classic change at any time privacy policy), or in any inadvertent case. What's unusual is the lack of any provisions about when data is released - most companies say that they only share your data with business partners, advertisers, or any government agent who talks about a warrant (not that they have one, or could get one, but that they think they might want to get one). Wnt (talk) 02:11, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Another good reason not use an account here. 188.27.81.59 (talk) 18:22, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't see anything in the policy to suggest they wouldn't keep similar data about IP addresses. Giving an account name does provide an additional bit of information; however, a serious police or spy agency operation would link the IP addresses to names in most cases anyway. The point is, once the database of who looked up what is created in any form leaves it possible to decipher who after the fact. Wnt (talk) 19:32, 28 May 2014 (UTC)
IPs can change regularly though, so it's not such an issue as a permanent username. Thanks, Matty.007 19:39, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

I would like to add that we protested against this feature as early as May 2012, i.e., exactly two years ago, to no avail. Saving this data is against European data-protection law because it is not at all necessary to do so. <sarcasm>I understand they are working hard to make editors go away from Wikimedia projects lately</sarcasm>. --Aschmidt (talk) 14:58, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

  • So, just to comment on the logged-in reader data bit: I find that kind of baffling. I'm not sure why it's an example because we don't currently do that. I deal with the request logs a lot (both the sampled and unsampled ones), and there's nothing in them that would distinguish a request from a logged-in user from a request from an anonymous user - let alone tie it to a specific logged-in user. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 22:51, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
So far I've seen reference here to three types of records of pages read being stored: the 1 in 1000 statistics Jimbo mentioned above, the creation of a welcome page as soon as someone logged-in browses to a new project under SUL, and the updating of watchlist entries to note which revisions were made after the last time a person logged in. So far none of these seem to create - nor to explain - the sort of long-term storage of accesses that the privacy policy authorizes, but with the policy such as it is we aren't really promised there aren't others. I know that Jimbo has said before that he was unaware of any national security letters, but by this point it seems almost unfathomable that Wikipedia wouldn't have received one when so many lesser-known sites have, and I have to wonder, if they had received one, how much could someone unknown be pushing for policy to adapt to better serve its dictates? Wnt (talk) 13:23, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
That's not really a question, it's a theory that (by nature) can't be validated. I suspect that the 'up to five years' clause is a liability thing to avoid "well, we had a task to run every 90 days and the script broke and we only just noticed. Oh dear". I think the legal/analytics people will have more to say shortly, though. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 21:00, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

Oy vey...I was told a while ago that all of the search/readership history was anonymized (like what DuckDuckGo does) before being used for stuff like the Signpost Traffic Report, now it turns out that that's not true? *angry sigh* Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 00:01, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

(All IIRC.) For a long time we had logging turned off because the server (yes... the server) had performance issues with it on. There was an intermediate stage with a volunteer tracker. The benefit of having full logging is moot, certainly the geodata was useful for research purposes. But we could, if we wished, strip out the IP address at the Squid/Varnish/Apache level, and just store the geodata. I think that would be amazing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:07, 2 June 2014 (UTC).
Before responding, I think I should explain why it is that I can be so against the EU "right to be forgotten" even while objecting to the tracking of users here. What both have in common is that I don't believe that retroactive anonymization or other concealment of data for privacy really works - once a record is generated, everything said afterward about "privacy" is really just negotiation over "who gets to look at it". With a presumption that the people who don't get to look at it give you a sense of false security, while the people who will have access will ultimately be those who pose the most danger. We have seen people over and over be assured of things like that it's safe to have a webcam with no lens cover because the software will never let it be used without their permission, only for a million people to be humiliated and blackmailed. On the internet, assurances don't.
So in a case like this, when you say "strip out", you would need to be very persuasive that there was truly no record made that could link reader and article read, not that the record was deferred to an obscure log or not generally available. I think you might be able to manage that technically, but it would take convincing. Wnt (talk) 20:52, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Google right to be forgotten form

Hi Jimbo, please could you give your opinion on the form Google will offer enabling people to have personal data taken out from search results? Thanks, Matty.007 09:18, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

My opinion on the actual content of the form? Or on the broader issue? I think the specific details of the content of the form are not that important - I'm sure they will modify and update it over time to serve the purpose as well as they can. It's the purpose that I object to. Google is in a very tight spot - there is no appeal from the ECJ and so they have to comply. My own view is that Europeans should be deeply upset about this ruling, not because privacy is unimportant, but because this ruling is incoherent and ill-considered. (I take no position at the present time on whether it is consistent with European law. That is, I don't yet know if it is wrong because it misinterprets the underlying law, or wrong because the underlying law is wrong. I just know that as a matter of human rights, it's wrong to ban linking to legally published true information.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:34, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
Obviously the WMF is not in Europe but is the law something we at Wikipedia should be worrying about? Do you forsee it eventually being used by (European) article subjects to massage their image here? Thanks, BethNaught (htalk) 19:42, 30 May 2014 (UTC)
No. It's about what shows up in Google searches in Europe. So it has no bearing on what WP does. It also distinguishes between private and public persons and the quality, relevance and legitimate interests in the information. In short, things that get taken out of a Google search almost certainly shouldn't have been in WP in the first place per our own policies (BLP, GNG etc). These principles have applied to EU based websites for nearly 20 years. The decision just extended well established rules to certain search engines with a European presence. The whole thing's been severely overblown by lobbying by internet commercial interests. DeCausa (talk) 08:12, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
This is the position of virtually no serious analyst. And my own position, which has been covered in dozens of publications, is certainly not one driven by "lobbying by internet commercial interests" - that should be obvious enough to cause to you step back from the ad hominem approach to the issue completely. This is a major blow against the free press in Europe, and a stunning extension to the law. "These principles have applied to EU based websites for nearly 20 years" is flatly false - indeed, the Spanish newspaper continues to publish the story even today.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
This article in the Independent begs to differ. The reality is that some people have no problem with hiring "reputation management" firms to silence discussion. Since only European search results are affected, it is only a matter of time before someone sets off the Streisand effect when it is discovered that certain results have been censored even though they are legally available elsewhere on the web.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:32, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
No! It supports my point given the source it's mirroring: "The era of freely available information is now over in Europe, warns Professor Luciano Floridi, who has been appointed by the £225bn search engine firm to find out how it should comply with a landmark ruling that allows people to ask for personal information to be taken down." DeCausa (talk) 08:38, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
A well-written BLP article probably won't run into difficulties with Google Spain v AEPD and Mario Costeja González, but there is always a possibility that it might. Some people are extraordinarily persistent and resourceful when it comes to massaging their image, and this court ruling has handed them a useful new weapon. In any case, as Jimbo says, it is pretty absurd to block links to material which is legal to publish. Wikipedia article content is not at risk here, but linking to it via a search engine would be if someone mounted a successful challenge under the ECJ ruling.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:49, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
That's nothing new (Jimbo's point). The application of the rules has always depended on context. The same information can be permissable on one website and not on another because it depends on the reason it's held, and whether it's a legitimate reason. It's not the inherent "legality" or truthfulness that it is the only determinant when it comes to personal information of private individuals. This is the long-standing position and the Google decision hasn't changed this. DeCausa (talk) 08:59, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
That is not the long-standing position at all, which is why virtually no serious analyst agrees with your position on this. It would more coherent (but still wrong) to applaud this as what it is - a major extension of the law in Europe to an area that has, until now, been completely a matter of free expression. Here's a useful analogy: suppose 50 years ago a legal authority said "Of course it is legal to publish this story - it is only illegal to display the newspaper in the usual places where people might see it and want to read it - news stands." We'd rightly scoff and understand immediately that this is not about "private" and "personal" information. It is about censorship, pure and simple. If you support it, be brave enough to say it plainly: "I think it should be illegal to link to some news stories. It has never been so in Europe before now, but I thank the court for introducing this new rule to suppress true speech of certain kinds."--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure analogies with traditional media are very easy to make, particularly if you also want to make an analogy with how things were 50 years ago. Google is so completely different from a newsstand. However, my stab at it would be: What if a plumber places a classified ad in a newspaper only to find that the newspaper has a policy of divulging everything it knows about its advertisers just below their ads, so that below his he finds details about a drugs conviction or whatever it happens to be. To make matters worse, the newspaper has a 90%+ market share in his town (as Google has in Europe) and, when he rings up to cancel the ad, he's told he can't, it's just going to run indefinitely, along with the additional info. I'm not sure that allowing the newspaper to behave like that if it wants to, simply on the basis that there's nothing illegal about the information per se, really serves the greater good. Formerip (talk) 19:59, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I appreciate the effort to find other analogies to think this through, but that one is not very persuasive. A good analogy will note that the information is legally published, with solid editorial judgment, by a reputable newspaper who clearly continues to believe (and no court disagrees) that it is in the public interest to do so. In the ECJ case, there is nothing about the fact set which remotely resembles your hypothetical.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I agree I didn't shade in all the detail. For its information on advertisers, the newspaper uses two main sources. The first is a collection of indexed mircofiches, taken from local and national newspapers, held at the town's central library. The second is stuff they have found over the years written on toilet cubicles. Following a request made in the proper format, they will amend future issues so as to exclude information if it was taken from toilet cubicles. In the case that the information is from microfiche, I'm a little unsure (because I don't know exactly what it is Google does), but either the newspaper checks with the originating publication, asking them whether they stand by the information, or else it advises the complainant that they can ask the originating publication to arrange for redaction of the microfiche with the library. Either way, our plumber's drug conviction information was legally published by a reputable publication who declined to withdraw or redact it and there was no law to say they should. So the newspaper decided it was only right to continue reprinting it on a weekly basis, up until the court case. Formerip (talk) 02:13, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Jimbo, there's a huge amount of disinformation and poor journalism flying around about this. Firstly, when I said it was a long-standing position, I was saying that it was a long-standing position that hadn't previously been thought to apply to search engines, and now it it does. That is true. The court was applying existing restrictions that already applied to websites (and others) to Google for the first time. If your involved in a business that involves the processing of personal data for a website in the EU (which I am) none of this is news, except that search engines are now caught by it as well. Secondly, this is about the holding of personal data which is incorrect or of no legitimate purpose to hold it. If there is a public interest, Google will be allowed to display it. There is nothing automatic about it. Thirdly, this isn't about linking to the sites. Google is brought into the data protection regime by virtue of their crawlers collecting the data and their processing it by indexing it etc. Linking alone doesn't do it.DeCausa (talk) 20:46, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I find this entirely unpersuasive. Correct information published in newspapers is not "the processing of personal data". It's completely public information - court records! Again I repeat, if you think it is ok for courts to censor google, then please just say so. Don't pretend this is about private information - it's about things published (legally and properly) in newspapers.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:49, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
It is by definition about "personal information", and there are different rules about "public figures". There's a difference between the statutory publication in a newspaper of a bankruptcy order of a nobody 10 years ago and a news story about a politician's corruption. Despite all the hoo-ha to the contrary, it's the former not the latter that this is going to be about. DeCausa (talk) 21:00, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I disagree. I am unfamiliar with a different set of rules for "public figures" and "regular" individuals. If a newspaper publishes the content, say the regular police reports that some papers do or even the old Hawaiian Supreme Court updates that used to be regularly required by the court and, lets say, a news item about a famous wealthy person or celebrity....it is all published in the same manner. The content can be summarized from the paper as a reliable source. The issue comes down to the notability of the figure. If it has been ten years or 120, the answer should be the same. Joe Schmo's bankruptcy today or even ten years from now may have no meaning, but in 25 to 50 years who knows how that figure will end up.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:15, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
You disagree with what? EU data protection law or my description of it? It's a basic principle that "Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes" to quote from the UK legislation that implemented the EU directive (there's similar wording in each of the EU states). Joe Schmo's bankruptcy can only be kept for as long as there a legitimate need for that data holder to retain it. That's actually close to the facts of what the Google case was about. Certain specific agencies, governmental bodies etc might have a need to retain this for a certain amount of time which could be long, but not the whole world. In the EU there is no right in most cases for organisations to hold "personal data" indefinitely "just in case" it might be useful one day. Just because it's gone into the public domain doesn't necessarily stop it being "personal data" under EU law. DeCausa (talk) 07:03, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
I actually thought what I was disagreeing with was obvious: :I disagree. I am unfamiliar with a different set of rules for "public figures" and "regular" individuals." I don't believe that to be accurate. Now...I will finish reading your post.--Mark Miller (talk) 07:22, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
You basically did little more than summarize the EU ruling which does not apply to the English Wikipedia or published content in news papers. I could almost understand (while not agreeing) that primary sources don't have to be kept online forever, but then, once published in another source, book form, journal or newspaper, there is little they can do. I tend to believe this EU ruling will be challenged and I can't help but believe it will be overturned. Whether the EU believes that information should have a half life it really comes down to suppressing information and free societies just don't go for that.--Mark Miller (talk) 07:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Of course it doesn't apply to WP! It sounds like you haven't followed the thread given that and "little more than...". Anyhoo, moving on....DeCausa (talk) 06:43, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
We're already being asked to provide the same service "right to be forgotten" Mlpearc (open channel) 02:04, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

This is pretty much scare-mongering. "Poor old Google" can easily afford to deal with "right to be forgotten" requests. And I would rather protect the private citizen, as this legislation does, than the corporate as DMCA does. I hope we have not forgotten how our procedures made us subject to the whim of Texas Instruments for several years. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:04, 2 June 2014 (UTC).

I know nothing about that. Please elaborate. Formerip (talk) 00:07, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
[29] We (an anon IP IIRC) posted some info, TI issued a takedown, WMF took it down as an OFFICE action. The OFFICE action chilled reposting by anyone else, who was prepared to issue a counter-notice. Eventually someone issued a counter-notice which shouldn't have worked, but did. Meanwhile other sites had issued counter notices and had the information restored years previously. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:46, 2 June 2014 (UTC).
See also Litigation_involving_the_Wikimedia_Foundation#DMCA_takedown_notices. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:51, 2 June 2014 (UTC).

Andrew Marr interview

Jimbo an hour or so ago on the BBC programme the The Andrew Marr Show. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 09:48, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Who is this beardless imposter?! I think we should be told. (...we'll know in a hundred years - history will tell us). Martinevans123 (talk) 07:36, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
Ha! A small error with the beard trimmer. I had it set to '3' and not '4' and swooped in with eagerness. The damage was done and I had to continue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:43, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
... maybe WMF should be sending out branded "Wikishaves" instead of t-shirts? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:48, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
It grows back.--Mark Miller (talk) 08:55, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

You have one day to answer this question; or else!

Hello Jimbo Wales, it seems that you have one day to answer this question or else it will automatically archive and be removed. Is this the archiving cycle you have picked; and prefer, or has it been chosen by committee; and therefor itself: up for discussion? In either regard, I would offer the suggestion that it appears like it's too quick of a cycle, simply because it is unreasonable that you should always be available, within every span of 24-hours; seeming impossible considering the demands for your attention. Thank ye!--PI 007 (do come correct) 11:22, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

If it's a "useful enough" discussion, one or more of the thousands of talkpage stalkers will comment and typically help either resolve the issue or point the poster in the right direction. If you honestly require Jimbo's direct response, he has provided alternative contact information. As such, if nobody from the project has responded in >24 hours since the last reply to the thread, it just makes sense to archive it the panda ₯’ 11:32, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Plus, it would create a lot longer load time for this page and would be harder to navigate. I've seen it where there's been 21 (if I recall correctly; definitely more than right now) discussions at once, a few with multiple subsections, and that was *fun* to go through. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 16:59, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Per the other comments, and to answer the question, I have found 1 day to be a reasonable archiving time for this page. To understand it, threads are archived daily if no one has commented since the last archiving. The period is therefore 24 hours only if you are very unlucky and post just before the bot comes by on his daily chores. The typical time would be more like 36 hours I would imagine. And then the archiving happens only if no one has commented - and lots of people watch this page and engage in discussions here. And finally, there is no harm in posting a second time if you didn't get an answer the first time. Just say "Hey, I posted this and it archived before anyone responded." Some downsides of longer archiving times are noted above.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:24, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Mr. Wales, and others; I understand your rationale, and concur with its reasonableness. Thank ye!--PI 007 (do come correct) 15:00, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Privacy, peace, and free passage

Dear Mr. Wales; I am happy that you remain accessible to the very community you were endeared to dream; that has manifest. You are this institution's keystone; and the bedrock of its quarry: It is normal that this page has become, in part, the sought haven of refuge, for those seeking a passage of free speech; without fear. I have often seen such posts to this page; and that those with a measure of merit were accommodated that passage. I endorse such an open approach, encourage it, never thought I'd need it, and have ideas to further support it.

Across Wikipedia, culminating here; we see people post a comment logged out, or with a new or other account—and then the ridicule for why they were cloaked in privacy; and not "a complete collection of connected dots" of who they are, or were before. AGF suggests several reasons to give a good listen which I would then do, or would have done except at times, you will see an abrupt blockage: I always figured there was a reason, and while I never fully understood what compelled their privacy concerns; I imagined that I wouldn't do things that way: until one day when I felt a similar need.

Irrespective of the person's motive, people have taken these steps; giving up privacy to seek it; by editing logged out, or facing the SPI trials that tinder beneath every new account. Because of this, I'd like to see the facade of sanctuary that exists with this page, moved toward the sanction of a WikiProject which would incorporate the use of sub-pages of this talk page. This would also free up the lighter conversation for your other threads, where privacy may not be as relevant a factor. And house the longer threaded issues, and the privacy, where it can be sensibly managed.

I am curious as to how you would feel about this, in general; and because I have my own issues of privacy: I would be using User talk:Jimbo Wales/Private Account 0.07 to speak. If you create the page, simply saying: tell me more, I will. Or answer here, about such a project in general. Thank ye!--PI 007 (do come correct) 19:02, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Writing style may give just as many clues to an editor's identity as IP addresses or any other data. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 07:18, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
Yes I'm American. Thank ye!--PI 007 (do come correct) 07:30, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Power Ponies

Say Jimbo, I just asked one of them administrators to delete this article. Does it have to do anything with Jim Davis? Also, I set up a Delete template that it doesn't have to do with Jim Davis, a cartoonist. Scarlet Marines (talk) 13:14, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I've offically contested and removed the speedy deletion tag as 'not having to do anything with Jim Davis' is not a valid criteria for speedy deletion. Tutelary (talk) 13:23, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
It was a hoax, I have restored this as a redirect to My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (season 4). I know nothing of bronies or their burning love for an 8-year-old girl's cartoon, but a few minutes of googling shows that this is the title of a single episode, not a movie, and certainty not based on something penned by Jim Davis the Garfield creator. Tarc (talk) 13:50, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Special Barnstar
Congratulations! Godisgood737 (talk) 15:28, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia for Everyone

I have no interest in this discussion. --Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:22, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Hi Jimmy, I know that you and Greg Kohs have disagreed before. I don't know the full history, but it breaks my heart to see anyone rejected from a Wikipedia event for their opinions and perspectives. IMO Wikipedia should be able to tolerate dissenting opinions. Greg was told he could not attend WikiConf New York. I checked his background to see if I could find any evidence of his presenting a threat. What I found was occasional overheated rhetoric and some jokes that I believe were made in extremely bad taste, and that I have personally expressed my strong disagreement with. But I didn't find behavior that would indicate he is a true threat to anyone. If you have an example of such behavior, I would appreciate it if you let me know. For now I've created an online petition at

http://www.change.org/petitions/wikipedia-make-wikipedia-conferences-truly-open-to-all-by-allowing-greg-kohs-to-attend

stating that I won't participate in any conference that excludes others, naming the specific example of Greg Kohs. I would be honored if you signed it. Thanks! ,Wil (talk) 02:13, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Where have you got the idea from that Wikipedia is for everyone? If it was really for everyone there would be far less blocking and banning and a more rational way to deal with vandalism. Bans are a particularly obnoxious way to deal with unpopular editors though, as they're hardly ever reversed. Eric Corbett 03:15, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
I wouldn't expect Jimmy to ever forgive Greg for some of the truly inappropriate stuff he's said and done regarding Jimmy. Though I doubt he'd be in any way disruptive at the conference, attendance at this kind of thing is always at the discretion of the organisers. If they'd prefer to hold a Scientology-style event, rather than one canvassing a wide variety of perspectives, it's their call. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:32, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
It is indeed their call to opt for a Scientology-style event. Not a brilliant idea though. Eric Corbett 05:44, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't know. It depends on what you're trying to achieve. There's something really comforting about an entirely predictable and harmonious gathering of like-minded spirits. Do we want a drunk in our midnight choir? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:48, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
But if it's entirely predictable why bother to have the meeting at all? Eric Corbett 06:42, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
(ec) I'm not sure that analogy of drunks v. choirboys works particularly well for either party involved here. There is a front page post about Kohs's 11th hour banning at Wikipediocracy that is worth a quick read. I find the decision of event organizers disturbing. They still have not explained their rationale for his exclusion. Carrite (talk) 06:44, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
Bird on a Wire. I've just read the Wikipediocracy forum thread about Greg, and see the Scientology analogy popping up there. The analysis in your first post (as Randy from Boise) to that forum thread seems about right to me. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 08:06, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm disappointed that Wikipedians have decided to other Greg Kohs from their WikiConf. Othering people because they have different ideas than you is very disappointing to see, especially in modern times when we're supposed to be more accepting and welcoming of diversity. Sad to see. Cla68 (talk) 06:39, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
Oh please. His sole purpose in attending any such event will be self-promotion and prolonging the non-existent "controversy" over whether it's a good thing for people to be paid money for promoting a subject in Wikipedia. He needs to find another hobby. Years devoted to a hate-filled agenda against a project that increasingly doesn't even care who he is, cannot be healthy. Guy (Help!) 08:45, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
Then we'll have to disagree about what's healthy and what isn't. Eric Corbett 08:47, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
I am sure we do. There are legitimate criticisms of Wikipedia, and there are criticisms emanating from Kohs. They overlap only by coincidence. let's not forget that his anti-Wikipedia agenda is founded on a grudge: most of us came to Wikipedia because we saw a way we could contribute to something good. He came here because he saw a way to turn a fast buck. When he was stopped, he decided to don the spandex and ascend the Reichstag. More fool him. Guy (Help!) 09:01, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm very uncomfortable about the idea of gagging critics, but obviously your mileage varies. Eric Corbett 09:06, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Printed version of the full Wikipedia

Do you still intend to make a printed version of the full Wikipedia encyclopedia? CorrectKissinTime (talk) 23:28, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

That would take quite a bit of money and resources (a while ago, I heard about a Kickstarter campaign wanting to do exactly what you're asking, but it'd take thousands of dollars if memory serves). If you want a book of Wikipedia articles, there's Special:Book. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 00:47, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, these guys wanted $50,000 to create a 1,000-volume print edition. They didn't manage to raise the money, but apparently some organizations have expressed an interest in supporting the project. Anyway, I don't think it was ever Jimbo's intention to print Wikipedia – WP:1.0 is about creating stable offline versions of a select set of articles, not the entire encyclopedia. DoctorKubla (talk) 06:54, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
That is correct. At the same time, I personally long for a lovely leather-bound set of books - possibly 1,000 volumes - as decoration. But I only long for it in the same way that a child longs for a pony - it isn't actually practical.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:42, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Over 15,000 volumes for all languages illustrated: As I recall, the full text of Wikipedia had exceeded the size of an entire Britannica for each day of the year, plus greatly expanded for the illustrations and infoboxes currently in articles. So now, the size would exceed 15,000 printed volumes to include Japanese texts, Catalan, Ukrainian, Kiswahili (etc.) plus the various illustrations on each page. Comfortably scanning one volume of any language per hour, 8 per day, would take over 5 years. -Wikid77 (talk) 20:26, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Appeal to rethink the Media Viewer's implementation

Today I've started to see the Media Viewer pop up on Wikipedia after being used on the Wikimedia Commons. If you go to the talk page for the tool, you'll see a lot of people point out the incredible harm it is doing and will do to the site. Frankly, the Media Viewer is removing and dumbing down years worth of content and making it inaccessible for most people, all in some effort to appeal to the lowest common denominator and mimic some of today's fleetingly popular designs and styles. This is not a tool for an educational website or resource like Wikimedia. We should not be trying to be Flickr. We are first and foremost a site for knowledge.

Please read the talk page and see how it harms GLAM and pushes away content creators. This is an extremely important issue, because we stand to lose years of content to it. -- Evan-Amos (talk) 00:29, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Multimedia/About_Media_Viewer

New England Wikimedians summer events!

Upcoming events hosted by New England Wikimedians!

After many months of doubt, nature has finally warmed up and summer is almost here! The New England Wikimedians user group have planned some upcoming events. This includes some unique and interesting events to those who are interested:

Although we also aren't hosting this year's Wikimania, we would like to let you know that Wikimania this year will be occurring in London in August:

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

A Wikipedian approach to digital democracy?

Hello Jimbo, I hope you're well. I thought you might be interested in a piece of work that Wikimedia UK is doing with the think-tank Demos at the moment. The Speaker of the House of Commons recently issued a call for evidence to his commission on digital democracy and we thought it would be interesting to see if the experiences and norms of Wikipedia could offer some insight – particularly in areas such as the consensus-based approach to creating and enacting policy. We've created a page on Meta here where we encourage interested people to participate and collaboratively produce an evidence submission to the commission. There's also more information on that page about what we're trying to achieve and a lively discussion on the talk page. I'm happy to answer any questions about this you (or anyone else, of course) may have and would love to know what you think of this approach to digital democracy. Perhaps you might even be motivated to participate! Thank you. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 09:52, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Philosophical discussion of hypothetical BLP situation

In general we avoid original research and original reporting. This is not an out-of-context or random rule nor an absolute - it is a general rule that exists for some very good reasons to avoid some very real potential problems. But it is important to remember that such policies exist to improve the encyclopedia, and whenever they are a barrier to improving the encyclopedia, we should think hard about how to carve out useful exceptions without introducing the problems that the rule is designed to avoid.

Imagine someone (a professor, let's say) with ample academic credentials and credits to be in Wikipedia and about whom there have been written 2-3 personal profile pieces in reputable sources. After a few years, some of the biographical details in those reputable sources have become outdated. Perhaps a relationship has broken down and a couple is no longer together. You can imagine many other possibilities. Because this person is not a celebrity (or is only a minor celebrity, perhaps) and because the academic work which made them notable is perhaps several years in the past, the media takes no interest and no note of the changed life circumstances. But we continue to publish statements that, with the passage of time, have become inaccurate.

The subject only wishes the best for Wikipedia and doesn't want us to continue publishing inaccuracies. Any experienced Wikipedian can see the train wreck that can easily happen next. Editing as anon, in good faith but without a clue, subject removes the false information or updates it. Gets reverted. Puzzled, does it again. Gets reverted. Goes to talk page, gets a warning that a block is imminent for vandalizing Wikipedia, etc. In a really good situation, the subject hunts for an alternate path and emails someone from an official email address and offers to be telephoned for an interview or whatever.

At this point, our no original research rule breaks down. But what should we do? What process could we set up? Do not assume - as we had to at the dawn of time - that there is no funding to cope with a situation like this. One solution could be for the Wikimedia Foundation to hire experienced editors to conduct reasonable due diligence (to the same or better standards that a quality newspaper would use) to get the facts straight. OR... well, I open the discussion. What are your ideas?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:24, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Cutting to the chase: Various legal issues occur around the world which, like them or not, do impact Wikipedia. WMF has only two options: 1. to say it is all in the hands of nameless volunteers (which would likely not work in the current EU courts at least) or 2. accept that the WMF will have to hire people to make sure the articles are in absolute conformance with legal decisions. This is a Hobson's Choice situation - that is, the WMF has no actual choice here. Collect (talk) 20:33, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I think there are virtually zero legal concerns or implications here. And I'm not at the moment talking about legal conformance or the ECJ decision. That's not the direction I'd like this discussion to go. Those are of course interesting discussions to have, but that's not what I'm interested in at the moment. And let me repeat: there is no legal barrier to the WMF hiring some editors to work on things that are either not of interest to volunteers or that need a bit more structure than our usual processes can provide.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:35, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
Great discussion point Jimbo, although I don't think discussion is actually required, the foundation should be able to just do this without the support of the users that are disputing the edits. In really difficult disputed issues I agree the wikimedia Foundation could hire experienced editors, although I wouldn't support any wikipedia connected interviewers, use and pay someone totally independent - independent notable reporters to interview and report on the problematic content issue and report that in a wp:rs source thus giving full independent closure to the dispute. Mosfetfaser (talk) 20:46, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I'm unconvinced that there are no legal implications, but assuming that is correct, we are still stuck with using WMF-funded material as a source. What happens when other contributors dispute its validity? Are we going to rewrite policy to make such 'due diligence' material automatically 'reliable', and automatically invalidating other sources? Or will we still have the requirement to assess the validity of such material through normal WP:RS policy - which, given the requirement for "published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" would seem to imply automatic rejection? It looks a giant can of worms to me, and though it might appear a simple solution for the hypothetical example given above, I can see it leading to all sorts of issues down the line. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:54, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
It is not unknown or hypothetical for the subject of a BLP to say that something is wrong with their article, but cannot provide a reliable secondary source that will fix it. Some users may remember this happening with Philip Roth and Tawakkol Karman and will.i.am. This runs into a problem with WP:AUTO, which should be pointed out to the subject. The OTRS is useful here, and it depends on the change that the person wants made. If it is a factual statement, there is some leeway for accepting the word of the subject, even if original research is involved. If the statement is more controversial, a secondary source should be required.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 20:57, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
I would imagine that the extent of available funding would be the main issue for Jimbo's suggestion. The benign request posited by Jimbo would have along side it a host of more manipulative requests from article subjects. I would foresee a not insubstantial Wikimedia infrastructure needed to weed through these and process the requests. Fine if there's the money to do it properly otherwise it could just opdn up a whole can of worms if not done properly. At the moment, I don't think it's an issue where there are editors involved that can handle the situation with commonsense and an element of IAR with the help of OTRS. The problem is where that is lacking. I think we need to look at our policies to suggest to editors we should be more sympathetic to subject input. For examlle, incorporating the principles of WP:DOLT into WP:NLT. DeCausa (talk) 21:26, 31 May 2014 (UTC)
We often accept our subjects' testimony for matters concerning themselves, if it is published in a reliable source, on their official website, etc. Often we report it as their claim, but more often we just report it and cite the source in the footnotes. Whether the former or the latter seems to depend on editor preference and degree of controversy.
For subjects who don't have an official website where they can self-publish updated biographical and other details, en.Wikipedia could publish confirmed statements from them in a new, protected namespace, and cite those statements, where appropriate, in their biographies. Whether and how we report their assertions would be up to the existing volunteer BLP editors. Setting up reasonably secure protocols for confirming the source of these statements shouldn't be difficult. This may even be something volunteers would be interested in establishing and running, especially if there was unequivocal support from the Foundation. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:06, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
What if we set up a user right-style system for professors, pundits, etc? There could be some back-and-forth between the WMF or sysops or whoever would be in charge of this, and then once it's confirmed that User:Example really is Professor Example of Foobar University, there's a little thing on their userpage similar to an admin userbox that anyone could confirm the status. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 00:36, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Interesting. I don't see why it couldn't be extended to any user/subject who wants to confirm their real life identity on-wiki, though. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:50, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
This reminds me of the time a cartoon artist who's article did not have his date of birth correct, took a picture of himself holding a piece of paper stating in the text, "I was born on.......". This was considered both reliable and published as the image was uploaded to commons. I am not trying to bring up that situation again, as I was scolded and rightly so, for being insensitive to the subject over our current policy and my interpretation of it, but.....why can't this same sort of thing work for updating information where it has not been published elsewhere, like a divorce, the number of children, a new spouse etc.. I know it sounds silly...but then perhaps thinking outside the box is easier than spending cash for something that can be handled in an easier fashion?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:03, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
If we implement Supernerd11's proposal, though, the subject would only have to identify once, and from then on whatever they put on their user or user talk page would be an assertion reliably sourced to the subject: a one-off solution instead of having to contrive a photo/phone call/visit to the office/whatever every time they want to advise of a change to a biographical or other detail. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:41, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
The idea of a special user right for those with articles on themselves leaves me deeply concerned that we would be giving license for autobiographies. But where the image idea was used, it was passed through an admin who uploaded it after verifying that this was really them. I wonder if we just can't set up a special BLP-OTRS system for updating non published information that is imprtant enough to add?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:51, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
Now...in re-reading what you say, putting it on their user talk page or user page - how is that different than, say, COI editing which this comes down to. Why the need for a special user right. Why not just have this as part of the policy to COI editing by specifically saying that subjects of BLP articles may register an account, have it verified through OTRS and then let people know on the article talk page that they have updated content in draft form on their user talk page or sandbox?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:57, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
I just figured that a user right would be a good analogy for how to handle this, it wouldn't necessarily be on par with Reviewer and Template Editor and all the others. I personally feel like the war on COI gets a little overblown, just have them specify on their userpage or somewhere equally conspicuous who they are, who they work for, etc, and let people judge their edits based off of that rather than an outright prevention of them editing the article. Professor Example having this notice that he's been confirmed to actually be an expert in the Casimir effect or C++ or whatever wouldn't really elevate him above everyone else other than the fact that he can use self-published sources, though those can still be easily cross-checked with other sources to make sure they're alright. In cases where his work is the only one of its kind, it would probably be settled on a case-by-case basis.
My idea for the confirmation of who editors are would be more along the lines of a Q&A with the WMF or a sysop that would make sure that it wasn't someone posing as Professor Example. What those questions might be are beyond me, but I'm pretty sure there's someone out there who knows some good ones. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 03:17, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
I think the basic idea is pretty sound, but I would think that OTRSing confirmation or proof you are the subject of an article would be important and doesn't seem worth having them contact the foundation. Once confirmed a special template added to their user page and talk would then be sufficient to inform editors that the content is from the articles subject. I just don't think this would require a user right...if they have no actual right above anyone else. But I do feel this would need real verification. More than just an editor "disclosing" I am subject X of the article "Subject X". We have such a system already set up but we could always create a special BLP OTRS to help keep the other from being overloaded. There already is something of a lag time I think...although that might just be at commons. Are they the same? I never thought about that until now.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:32, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
The Wikipedia community can work with the Internet Accuracy Project (http://www.accuracyproject.org) to assist publishers in correcting wrong information. (See paragraph 4.) Subjects of biographies can work with notaries public to supply affidavits of correct information about themselves, perhaps digitally and perhaps online.
—Wavelength (talk) 01:25, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
The treatment of BLPs on Wikipedia is entirely a matter of politics. People are out to get "Qworty", so half his biography (including the lead) is about him making some edits to his Wikipedia article. People are out to protect "Superhead" (the redirect is even prohibited), so all mention of her video is scrubbed from her article so thoroughly that a top editor is still banned from editing BLPs after two years for once daring to link to the video. Special interest groups take down the biographies of people they find to be 'pseudo-scientists' like Russell Targ, steadily sucking out every single interesting fact, even those that should be of interest to a skeptic, and replacing them with a relentless and monotonous damnatio memoriae. I am so sick of the things that people get away with to skew articles because we don't clearly and unequivocally support the idea that Wikipedia should cover all the available facts from reliable sources, while avoiding putting weight on the truly fringe primary source stuff like Qworty's block notice and Jimbo's comment about him on this talk page. But the owners of these articles are so determined, and the admins so unable to set a consistent standard from any fair policy, that trying to win those unending battles would require the commitment of a full-time job. So my feeling is that if a subject has a favorable audience and asks for something to happen, it will happen, and if not, they will end up banned, and there will be no consistency to it. Wnt (talk) 01:35, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
I pretty much agree with @Anthonyhcole: and @Supernerd11: but think that it could be done more simply. I don't like using OTRS on this because I've seen a problem or two with OTRS responses and ultimately the OTRS system has the same problems of unreliability and slowness as any volunteer system.
So I would allow a limited "right of reply", in which an article subject
    • could email a designated WMF email address with a limited amount of text (500 words?)
    • give a response to specific text in the article
    • supply multiple contact details so that the WMF employed reporter could properly verify the identity of the email sender.
    • publish the text in a special section of the wiki
    • the reporter would then place a small box near the top of the article, say "The subject of this article has exercised his "right of reply". His reply can be found here"
    • Editors can then cite or quote the reply as a reliable source, at least for information on what the subject has said.
How many WMF employees would this take? Probably at least one for the English Wikipedia, but there are also French, German, etc. Wikipedias to consider. Perhaps folks with almost any native language could just email to San Fran, but verifying an identity of someone in Nepal could be quite difficult from SF. Perhaps non-major language verifications could be contracted out, maybe even to newspapers or journalists. Smallbones(smalltalk) 13:46, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I would note there is no general problem for a Wkipedia BLP article to cite a press release, a blog, or any other authentic statement by the subject. (WP:SPS and WP:BLPSPS) The only issue appears to be authentication (which generally means it is really a statement of the subject). Let's just have a way to authenticate a published statement. I think the Wikimedia Foundation could easily host authentic public statements. It should be an entirely seperate project. It should not publish interviews. It should not generally seek to procure statements; but rather just say, if you want to publish a statement about your life, here's one place you may do so (the paid staff person will just make sure you are the one making the statement) and fyi you author are responsible for any legal consequences of your statement (wikimedia could even charge a user fee to make the service a net zero profit without loss). (Also note, in the old days, everyone just knew any bio of a living person was only good for information before its date of publication)-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:34, 1 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I buy WP:IAR here. With a dose of OTRS thrown in if needed. I can think of several cases like this, except for one where the subject wanted us to remove well cited quotes, we have been able to correct the articles. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:53, 1 June 2014 (UTC).
  • Seems to me that enWP should not be making a rod for sister's back. If we have our rules, we should be finding local solutions. The sisters are generally not the place, and OTRS is such an ugly beast and hardly suitable for dealing with the masses or types of information, especially with the access processes required to manage people access. Either use the local talk page, create your own namespace, or maybe maybe maybe look to see if the talk page of the person at Wikidata may be suitable for such information, or just tell people to wait. — billinghurst sDrewth 14:05, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't love having policy discussions on talk pages, but I figured I'd throw in some thoughts here since Anthonyhcole asked for feedback from OTRS administrators. I don't think using OTRS tickets as article sources is really the route we want to be going here. One of the biggest pillars of the site is verifiability and that all goes out the window when we're backing up our statements with e-mails that not everyone can see. There are also the unfortunate cases where article subjects lie or misrepresent details a little in there favor (or, assuming good faith, because they don't remember them well). Things get cloudy when we start relying on this information more than third party sources.
    That being said, we could get around this verifiability problem by just using OTRS or even one of those "upload a picture on Twitter to prove who you are" for the verification part and let them associate that verification with a Wikipedia account. I think the German Wikipedia actually does something like this already, see w:de:Template:Benutzerkonto verifiziert. All OTRS does is confirm that the person is who they say they are with a user box and ticket link (similar to how Twitter would do something like the blue verification note) and the community is free to take what the person says as they want. Cbrown1023 talk 16:13, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
The best way to do something like this would be to do an interview at WikiNews that could be used as a primary source on Wikipedia. CorporateM (Talk) 17:14, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
A few points.
1) I don't think this situation is totally hypothetical, although I'm not that active in WP:BLP/N any more but I'm fairly sure we've dealt with this sort of thing before.
2) Yes I know they are only examples but in the cases you highlighted, that the simple solution is to recognise that sort of stuff doesn't really matter. There's nothing about policy which requires us to write about relationships someone has had (actually it's a common problem for celebrities that people try to add every single person they've ever dated or been linked with in a tabloid) regardless of it being covered in RS. In fact, particularly for a professor it's generally not that significant.
Therefore, the simple solution is to simply remove the information if there are doubts over whether it's still accurate, even if it's the sort of stuff we would often cover if it's also not that important. I don't think we even need extensive verification that it's no longer accurate, simply good reason to believe the person is telling the truth. Unfortunately this doesn't always work out so well in practice, but it does sometimes and the option is there.
3) A good alternative example would be when the information was possibly never correct. This is one case which we have dealt with before. We all know sometimes information is published in reliable sources which isn't correct. Heck sometimes that information originates from us. In a case like Peaches Geldof where the subject is/was highly notably, it's easy for them to clarify that their name is not what a few dumb tabloid sources said it was because they took it from wikipedia. In any case, we can consider the quality of the sources.
However for a fairly obscure individual, if one of the few biographies published on them reports their name incorrectly, we have a more difficult situation. IIRC we a case where someone offered a scan of their passport.
It's all very well telling them to contact the original source and ask for a correction/retraction but asking them to tell some fairly obscure perhaps print (worst case not even in operation any more) but clear RS to correct something few people are going to see in that source seems a little unfair when we are the ones broadcasting this information for all to see. (I'm not saying we should never ask people to get the source to retract/correct the info first. In fact I've done it before and will do it again. I'm simply pointing out that there are some cases when it may be unresonable.)
Note to bring up a sore issue, but wasn't there some similarities on the disagreement surrounding your birthdate?
As to how we handle these, in my experience we are often trusting of primary sources in simple cases where there's no evidence of actual disagreement (of course sometimes sources will note that there is doubt over something such as someone's name or birthdate). Again of course, it doesn't always work out so well in practice but it sometimes does. In other words, if the person has a blog, official twitter account or whatever we can use that where we're sure it belongs to them. The later may not be easy for a professor but the former may sometimes work.
Of course, the other fallback option if there is doubt is to consider whether we can remove the information (as I highlighted earlier). Birthdates can be, our policy arguably encourages it if it's covered in few sources. (Although what this means isn't totally clear, e.g. the recent or current case of a professor? who doesn't dispute his birthdate but doesn't want it in the article even though it is in the LoC.) Even alleged full names IMO can be.
There will undoutedly be cases we the information probably can't be removed (e.g. the spelling of a core part of their name) and the person doesn't have or want to use a primary source for a correction. In that case, it's not unresonably IMO to consider a request to OTRS as sourcing based on WP:IAR etc.
4) Another good example is for court cases and similar. Again I know we've dealt with these before, just a few weeks ago I remember one in fact. It's hardly uncommon that RSes make a big deal about a court case for some reason, but then completely forget about it not long later. So we have plenty of RS saying something but none mentioning the result of an appeal or later court case which significantly changes or affects what we're saying.
In many countries, court cases are matter of public record, so we could probably dig up a primary source somehow if we tried hard enough, although trying to dig up a case in Poland (or wherever the example I'm thinking of was) is probably not easy. With the primary source we can then carefully add the important information (bearing in mind it's a primary source so we do have to be careful how we add the info).
But clearly it's not easy. The person asking will hopefully have a copy of the case they can send to us, of course we need to trust that they are sending us an accurate copy of a real court judgement. Of course in these more contentious cases, it's not unresonable to be more circumspect.
(In the most recent example I'm thinking of, IIRC we did find a source which briefly mentioned the appeal, still it highlights the problem and there are bound to be cases when we don't find any RS.)
Nil Einne (talk) 08:35, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
  • My advice to such people as a former OTRS volunteer was always to publish an uncontroversial factual account of things on their own web page or blog, and then, as long as it's uncontroversial, we can cite it even though it's the primary source. Outdated trivia can be removed. I always point subjects to WP:BLPN as a place to ask for help (the crew there are very good), and where something is genuinely uncontroversial and the user is not up for anything technical, I fix it. It's not perfect, but the existing system can be made to work. There are edge cases. They are usually nice people, and it's a pleasure to help them. So sign up for OTRS. Guy (Help!) 08:52, 3 June 2014 (UTC)
From my experience helping out as an OTRS volunteer, issues like this are quickly and sensitively dealt with; I have dealt with such situations in the past. Even if (using the example of the marriage), if it was still in place and they wanted it removed, if they were a minor academic/borderline notable personality, we would generally still happily remove it per WP:BLPPRIVACY. Even in the pursuit of building an encyclopedia, we should not let the subject's wishes go unanswered. --Mdann52talk to me! 12:20, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Not biography

It occurs to me that because we say we write biography, we create problems for ourselves, if there is confusion about what Wikipedians think, or explicitly agree upon, biography is. If, for a class of article subjects (the lesser known), we don't want biography to the usual extent that includes family life/childhood, etc., but rather want biographical dictionary type articles that only state: name; birth date; and discuss occupation, we could more easily curate these articles and avoid these discussions. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:42, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Outside the physical and biological universes, the world is composed of people and their creations, and it is people and their creations about which readers predominantly want information. Predominantly they are concerned about people, and living people at that, and an encyclopedia that does not cover them is not an encyclopedia but a subject encyclopedia of natural history and of past history. It might be rational to say we are concerned about people's professional and public careers, not their personal lives, but it is precisely these careers about which there is largely controversy. DGG ( talk ) 03:50, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

New record for paid editing

Hi Jimbo. Due to beans I'm a bit wary of posting the link, but in doing the rounds of paid editing ads I came across one that was a bit of a surprise - a recent contract to edit a single Wikipedia article, where the winning editor won the contract after charging something in the five digit range. They haven't been paid, perhaps because they haven't been able to make the requested changes, but that was a surprising amount of money. Most freelance paid editing contracts are in the $50-$250 range. Naturally, I'll be joining others who are keeping an eye on the article, but I though that the situation may be of some interest to you.

Hopefully there has been some progress on requiring disclosure of paid editing in the terms of use - last I checked it was down for discussion at the April meeting, but the minutes from that don't seem to have been published. I'm hoping that it gets up, as it would give some policy-based teeth. - Bilby (talk) 10:18, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

That is serious money. You know what? I can use money like that. If paid editing is not to be prohibited, if the WMF is going to hem and haw, if the community is going to continue to allow it, then why am I being a sap? With money like that, I'd be a fool not to get on the gravy train myself. I'm being perfectly serious. If you guys (Jimbo, the WMF) aren't going to prohibit it, a lot of people who don't like paid editing are going to do it, just because they don't want to be fools. I'm not being sarcastic; I'm being perfectly straight with you. Coretheapple (talk) 15:04, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
A resolution was passed that I think is going to help a lot. The days of the unethical are numbered. Bilby, please do post the link, because sunlight is the best disinfectant and I think some community members are naive about what is going on!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:05, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't take a genius to realize that Wikipedia is ordinarily the No. 1 website in search results, and we are in an increasingly web-oriented society. So it is not surprising that the market for Wikipedia content will increase exponentially. While disclosure and half-measures are good, what they seem to be saying is not that paid editing's days are numbered but that paid editing is tolerated. And if paid editing is tolerated, if it is not against policy and not against the terms of use, then... why not do it? Look, a couple of hundred bucks is one thing. But five figures! That's nice money. What's that line from The Wild Bunch? Something like "a million dollars breaks a lot of family ties." Same principle. Coretheapple (talk) 15:10, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
If you're going to be perfectly straight, it's best not to pretend things you know not to be true. The issue here is pretty clear - the community is okay with math professors editing math articles, but the kind of editing that nets five figures is going to fall into the disallowed range. If you want to get a job as a math professor, and edit math articles, no one is going to stop you (well, we'll see the resolution Jimbo mentions - since the only kind of paid editing allowed these days is of the math professor type, perhaps that is who's getting cracked down on) . But is should be clear if you tried to make the edits this contract is offering, you wouldn't be allowed even if you were doing it for free. (or do you really believe that someone's offering that kind of money to do NPOV, non-advocacy editing?) WilyD 15:14, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Well let's see what they want some Wikipedia editor to do for five figures. We don't know. Maybe all they want is a Wikipedia article. Or maybe they want a stub built up to a featured article. We just don't know. Yes, I'd dearly love to see that ad. Remember what the paid editor defenders are always telling us: that their clients just want content that meets Wiki standards, not puffery. I've always countered that, puffery or not, paid editing skews the content. But I've been outnumbered by the many who say, bah Core, you're a fanatic. Well, screw it. If I'm a fanatic, then maybe I shouldn't be, and maybe I should get on the gravy train myself, if one can churn out content that meets policy and get a nice income from it.Coretheapple (talk) 15:19, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Make no mistake: there are a lot of unemployed writers/pr people out there who would love a five-figure gig like this. If this kind of thing is to be allowed, then all bets are off. Wikipedia is done for. If it is to not be allowed, then no paid editing is to be allowed. Coretheapple (talk) 15:22, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
  • It's interesting that so much money is being paid for a single page. For what it's worth, since WMF seems intent on crashing ahead with a prohibition plan rather than opting for the regulation road, we can expect to see average prices for paid editing to rise in the somewhat unlikely event that additional central pressure in placed against the practice. Paid editors who are good at hiding their tracks will have hefty raises coming, the amateurish and stupid will be in trouble. Supply and demand and so on. See, for example, the pricing effects of 1920s prohibition in the USA and that of the so-called "drug war." Carrite (talk) 15:25, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
A prohibition plan? All I know of is a regulation plan, requiring disclosure. But admittedly I haven't followed the subject too closely lately. Actually quite the opposite is true. If permitted but "regulated," whatever that means, the prices will be just as high. That's because the reason the prices are high right now is the simple fact that Wikipedia is the No. 1 website. Coretheapple (talk) 15:33, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Look at it this way: right now it's a sleazy practice, a grey-hat practice. If it becomes a white-hat practice, the influx of demand from corporations, organizations, political movements and individuals will drive up the price, overwhelming the dwindling number of hard-core volunteers who don't jump on the gravy train. Coretheapple (talk) 15:37, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
It's a mix of grey hats and black hats currently. We all agree that the black hats need to become grey hats pronto or to wind up at Boot Hill. Yee haw. WMF is trying to eliminate both grey hats and black hats by banning headgear. That won't make spottin' the bad guys any easier, pardner! Carrite (talk) 16:04, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
I need to start browsing those parts of the internet more often. 5 bills for an article? Tarc (talk) 16:05, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Now you're talking like a Euro... The biggest "bill" since WWII is $100, ergo 50 bills or 5K or 5G. Carrite (talk) 17:47, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
I'm a bit uncomfortable giving a direct link to the ad, simply because the people who applied used their real names, and therefore a link would risk outing. However, the ad was to rewrite Banc De Binary with provided text (an older version of the page) that removed the negative coverage. It was for the single article. The recent AfD for this article also seems to have included paid editing, in that one paid editor (since blocked) voted delete. I haven't yet identified the job that matched the deletion request, but there have been a couple of ads in recent weeks to delete articles. - Bilby (talk) 16:45, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
It might be helpful if you could post a list of the places on the web where these ads appear. That way they can be monitored and people can reach an intelligent decision concerning the market for this kind of stuff. Coretheapple (talk) 17:26, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
It'll also give folks clued in to the rules of notability and NPOV and verifiability a chance to put up their resumes and get a little work while at the same time contributing to WP. Win win. Carrite (talk) 17:45, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
As I said, if the money is consistently this good I may join them. I don't know the terms of this particular assignment, but it seems to me like a fool's errand if payment was conditional on performance. I notice that one editor seemed to take the job and he/she appears to be an alternate account. Coretheapple (talk) 17:51, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Banc De Binary is hilarious. It was written by a paid editor (since banned) as a whitewash, and then Wikipedia editors got hold of it and converted it to a truthful article about what is clearly a very dodgy company. At that point, socks en masse descended to try to "fix" it for the company, and when that didn't work, more adverts to delete or revert the content appeared. I did like the attempt to CSD#G5 it as having been created by a banned editor though. That was cunning. Moral: if you want an article about your morally dubious company, don't try to create one on Wikipedia. Black Kite kite (talk) 18:57, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
That's correct. But if the company had handled it with more finesse, less publicly, I think that it could have done a much better job whitewashing the article. Coretheapple (talk) 19:09, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Oh, almost certainly. But I think with this example someone would eventually have noticed how non-neutral the article was. Black Kite kite (talk) 19:49, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
Not necessarily. A lot of really bad articles out there. Coretheapple (talk) 22:36, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Here is an offer I noticed today for $5 PER EDIT! https://post.craigslist.org/manage/4504240997/sbpij They don't give a lot of details but it appears to be a series of articles to edit, not the usual stuff we see. Things like this destroy the credibility of Wikipedia.

I followed the link and was surprised to see that it took me directly to the Manage this posting page, the url to which is normally only available to the person submitting the posting to Craigslist. In other words, the person above that "noticed" this Craigslist ad, must actually be its author, since they have a link to the admin dashboard of the post. Their link even allowed me to delete their post, even if momentarily until they undeleted it. CorporateM (Talk) 01:35, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
The first paid editing spam on Jimbotalk!!! Another new record!!! Carrite (talk) 17:02, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Hold up

@user:Jimbo, you have previously stated that you support BLP-type policies for companies. However, this article has a large critical section here that relies heavily on primary sources, such as court records and SEC filings. CorporateM (Talk) 20:30, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Corporations are not people and BLP is an overblown PC joke. And I am a grumpy old man. Carrite (talk) 20:34, 4 June 2014 (UTC) Addenda: The ORIGINAL, good BLP policy was to this effect: all new articles must have footnotes to at least one reliable source and anything unsourced and potentially defamatory should be removed immediately. That's a reasonable take on what the Corporation-articles policy already is. Carrite (talk) 20:40, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
If corporations are treated like people then yes, paid editors will have a much easier job making their clients happy and I presume that rates will increase and people like me might be more willing to get on the gravy train. Our readers are another matter, but who cares about them, right? Not talking about this specific article, but generally. Coretheapple (talk) 22:35, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
there can be remarkably little difference between writing an article about the organization, and writing an article about the principal , or ceos, or whatever. Not all corporations are actually anonymous, and most whitewashing edits here about companies have not been truly distinct from BLPs. The true principle is that no subject of an article regardless of its nature should ever be able to control the information we publish about them, They should not even be allowed to influence it, except for pointing out errors or the like. (They will still of course be able to influence us indirectly by influencing what the RW says about them, but this is not something we can wholly prevent, though we can try to avoid using sources they have obviously influenced.) DGG ( talk ) 03:44, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Bullocks. Corporations are not people. Once we start applying BLP rules to corporations, it will be just used as an excuse to whitewash. There are already plenty of rules that prevent unfair emphasis in articles, especially WP:UNDUE. Let's not propose a solution to a problem that does not exist. Coretheapple (talk) 03:51, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Glad that you and I agree that current BLP practice is a blank check for whitewashing biographies... Agreed also with David that "the true principle is that no subject of an article regardless of its nature should ever be able to control the information we publish about them." I wish that were actually true. Mutter, mutter, mutter... Carrite (talk) 16:36, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Please don't put words in my mouth. BLP is designed to provide living people an extra layer of protection, such as a presumption in favor of privacy, that has no place in corporate articles and would be easily exploited to whitewash corporations. Coretheapple (talk) 16:55, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Awww, I love putting words in your mouth. "We mustn't publish anything potentially hurtful to a subject, their family, and friends" — "We mustn't publish anything potentially hurtful to companies and their investors" ... Same thing, is it not? BLP was a good idea (requiring verifiability and banning unsourced negativity) that evolved into a really bad idea. And, yes, I'm off topic. Sorry. Carrite (talk) 17:06, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't have the energy to deal with straw men today. Maybe tomorrow. Coretheapple (talk) 17:13, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
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