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Your opinions regarding Sushant Singh Rajput

Hello, Jimbo!
Hope you're doing well. I was in talks with various admins regarding Sushant Singh Rajput's Cause of Death. You have replied on twitter to us that we can contact you regarding SSR so here we are. Please read the following threads to get the insight on what's happening. Thank you!

The third thread is too long but is loaded with Solid Statistics and Analysis. Since the page is Extended Confirmed Protected. Many people (Thousands) are depending on me to represent them. It would be really helpful if you could share your two cents regarding this dispute. Thank you - Call me Karthik 😉🤞 (talk • contribs) 12:25, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

The only thing that matters for Wikipedia in a situation like this are reliable sources. By posting here on my talk page, you will have gotten the attention of many good Wikipedia editors who aren't wound up in this situation, and who I am sure will review all the sources carefully. Keep in mind that fan theories or accusations are not of any interest to us, as Wikipedia is not a journalistic or investigative body of any kind. We only reflect what is in reliable sources.
If you have a voice to "thousands of people" then it may be useful for you to tell them that ranting at me on twitter is not a useful way to spend time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:38, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I found these listed in the talk page banners –

Wikipedia is only intended to be a tertiary source. Suggest your efforts may be more fruitful if you redirect your campaign to reliable secondary sources. There are media outlets such as Unsolved Mysteries in America that specialize in reporting on "was it suicide or murder" cases, even when official law enforcement has already decided, or given up their investigation. Perhaps there is an equivalent Indian media outlet that would be interested in investigating this. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:32, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Part of the issue with this topic is that a lot of this is wound up in right-wing conspiracy theories. The outlets that have pushed the murder angle have almost entirely been right-wing outlets like OpIndia or Republic TV, and earlier in the saga they were claiming, sans evidence, that Rhea Chakraborty murdered him, with one outlet even going so far as to accuse her of witchcraft to do it. SSR-was-murdered conspiracy theory adherents are just as apt to reject any evidence to the contrary as those who believe the 2020 US presidential election was rigged or that 9/11 was an inside job. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 20:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I see. Well, Wikipedia should take no note of such things - and of course we shouldn't "shoot the messenger" - that is to say, ignoring conspiracy theories is a good idea, but if genuine questions are being raised in quality media, the fact that crazy things are being said too shouldn't slow us down in terms of covering the facts neutrally.
For example, just because Trump conspiracy theorists think the 2020 election was rigged, wouldn't mean that we shouldn't cover - in a neutral fashion - any genuine media covering any genuine counting problems.
I'm not telling anyone here anything they don't already know, of course. Just stating our values for clarity. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:14, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

A Heartfelt Apology in Behalf of All Indians

Hey, Jimbo! Hope you're doing well!........Hmmm I am not sure you'd feel well because of the past week which I am sure would have been very exhausting. Anyhow, I want to first apologize in behalf of all Indians regarding Late Sushant Singh Rajput. I personally can understand that you can't do much over here. In fact, being a Wikipedia editor is not even your job in first place but you still tried to help us. It was really nice of you to volunteer to put an end to this dispute. Which is something I really appreciate and admire. I can assure you that most of them who are ranting on you using twitter are not getting the complete picture. We don't have a proper report from our law enforcement hence we got into all this mess. Before this whole thing started, Naturally I went on twitter to support Wikipedia (I did this because I learned most of my stuff from here. I have an emotional attachment to our encyclopedia) only to get death threats and my girlfriend got few rape threats too. I know you don't have the obligation to break down the situation and understand but all you can see are angry Indians screaming at you for which I am extremely sorry. People are emotional. The reason they are emotional is because of the way Indian News outlets are portraying this case. They are painting the reality as if the actor was murdered in daylight. A typical example of Media manipulation in my opinion. Whatever the reason, their emotions are blocking their rationality. Please try to not give much weight to these negative comments. Once we get an official report or a reliable article then the editors would change the cause of death and all this would go away. Once again we are extremely sorry and thank you for trying to solve this thing. - Call me Karthik 😉🤞 (talk • contribs) 18:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Nice sentiment but it's a tad presumptuous to think you can speak on behalf of 1.4 billion people! nagualdesign 18:58, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
They're not apt to go away even with the official reports. If that were the case the CBI investigation wouldn't exist. —A little blue Bori v^_^v Jéské Couriano 21:05, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
The main message I'd like to convey is that twitter campaigns are useless. And don't worry, none of it is stressful for me. It's amazing what the wonderful twitter feature of "mute this conversation" can do. The only thing I care about here is that Wikipedia do our job well according to our own values. The rest is just noise. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:51, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Question

Hi Jimmy Jim Jimbo Jumbo Jimmo Jum, I was just curious to ask this question: What was your first edit on the entire website? Pink Saffron (talk) 01:44, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

In an edit that was lost on the first day or so, I wrote "Hello, World!" on the homepage - to test the Usemod wiki software that I had just installed. The earliest saved edit is attributed to office.bomis.com (because I was working in the office that day) and is something like "This is the new WikiPedia".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:17, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
Our discussion of the history of Wikipedia's earliest edits is at Wikipedia:UuU. (This name made some degree of sense at some time in the past). —Kusma (talk) 10:51, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Another question

What made you come up with the idea to create this amazing encyclopedia? I'm an admin on svwp and don't visit here as often but came here to ask you this :-) EPIC (talk) 18:34, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

covid povs

Jimmy, it might be useful if you could weigh in on Wikipedia_talk:Biomedical_information#Survey and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Lab_Leak_Again where there is an interest to censor the history around the covid pandemic, currently discussing (ad nauseam WP:SEALION by a few) if it is suitable to change MEDRS so that it broadly includes all mentions of a pandemic, I suppose to amend the Wikipedia:Biomedical_information#What_is_not_biomedical_information? to prevent inclusion of historical factors (meaning sources like WSJ, NYT, WaPo, etc would be excluded under the grounds that they don't meet MEDRS even for history, politics, etc). Probably important enough from a five principles perspective that you (or others that look here) might want to weigh in on. Thanks Jtbobwaysf (talk) 22:31, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

It would be inappropriate for me to comment without some serious research and reflection. I'm looking into it and thinking about it, but of course the only thing I'm likely to argue for is thoughtful adherence to our best and highest principles, rather than weigh in on a detailed question.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:14, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
Agreed. I think we are facing this sort of 'its urgent and important' (to borrow from the Eisenhower_Method) argument that we should just throw out encyclopedic (historical and political) content since it allegedly could be dangerous or misleading. Maybe wikipedia's first time to face this type of wartime common enemy logic, on a bigger scale. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:54, 28 May 2021 (UTC)
This is not one of the Covid topics where we might be giving incorrect biomedical information and thus produce dangerous consequences. This is rather a disputed hypothesis, where the original hypothesis might properly have been classed as fringe, but which has received greatly increased serious coverage from the most respectable possible sources. The question here is straightforward: do we acknowledge it when the consensus in the outside world changes, or do we hold to what we originally wrote, however divorced it may become from reality? Our Covid coverage has been one the highpoints in WP history in its completeness, objectivity, and rapid response to a critical situation, but failure to recognize change is making us look ridiculous . DGG ( talk ) 00:20, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
Much of this "change" is people taking the quotes of scientists who, in essence, are simply describing the scientific method, and then original research and wild speculation to turn those quotes into endorsements for the theory (often when the person has explicitly said they don't believe it's the likely hypothesis, but rather one that should be investigated). At least a few users have directly said on Wikipedia that China is being cryptic, and that they would only be cryptic if they leaked the virus from their lab, and therefore the theory is true. A fallacious argument, of course.
Collaboration generally relies on trust. Naturally people cannot read entire sources and the context in which sentences were placed, so one often trusts that a user's quote is an accurate reflection of the source. When there's a non-trivial number of users who have been misrepresenting or exaggerating sources for months it becomes difficult to take seriously, at face value, when they say the sources now support the change (something that was said a month ago, and two months ago, and three months ago, etc...) And naturally everyone isn't going to immediately drop what they're doing to scrutinise a (possibly) new swath of sources when the previous set turned out to be a gigantic waste of time. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:44, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
'I'm a scientist, i'm employed but a "trusted entity", i quote the scientific method, i state my opinion absent of evidence, and if anyone disagrees it is a conspiracy.' Then wikipedia editors jump and exclaim 'we have MEDRS and have achieved medical consensus' ;-) Jtbobwaysf (talk) 21:05, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
Still the same old thing... Wikipedia already has an article on misinformation as well as one on investigations, that already make clear that it may take years to really understand some details, that a lab leak hypothesis was suggested and investigated yet also considered unlikely. The rest is classic WP:GEVAL where some editors as well as online campaigns forum-shop and would like WP to always push more speculation and as a side effect, suggest conspiracy theories about the reliability of the WHO, Chinese officials, Wikipedia and its editors, etc. —PaleoNeonate – 22:07, 30 May 2021 (UTC)
This is not entirely clear to me. What I mean is: the consensus in the mainstream media (which is the relevant media for this, rather than MEDRS sources, as it is a social/geopolitical question, as opposed to a medical question) seems to me to have shifted from "This is highly unlikely, and only conspiracy theorists are pushing this narrative" to "This is one of the plausible hypotheses". We can reject conspiracy theorists and agenda-pushers, but we should not in the process blind ourselves to what is being said in reliable sources. I should note: I have not reviewed the relevant article(s) and so I am commenting here about general principles rather than arguing the case for or against any particular change.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:37, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

Exclusion of African American communities, schools, films, actors, and community leaders continues on Wikipedia

It's a frustrating struggle and there are lots of excuses for it. But surely we can make room for Ben Wallace's high school, Draft:Central High School (Lowndes County, Alabama), as he enters the NBA hall of fame. It's a school in Alabama and has Black students, but that shouldn't make it less worthy of inclusion than Larry Bird and Jerry West's high school, or yours Jimbo.

Absolutely the article needs expansion. Photographs. Alumni. Extracurriculars. Demographics. It hasn't happened in the 15 or so years the subject has been excluded from mainspace and it's not going to happen while it's stuck in draftspace with so many important subjects the are being discriminated against in a continuation of a long and ugly history here and elsewhere. 21:03, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Translation: Half-formed stubs continue to be rejected even when the subjects are Black. Also FloridaArmy continues to insist that any criticism or rejection of his articles is due to racism. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:55, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
If we're going to editorialize in the title, let's get to the point. The backlog at WP:Articles for Creation is over 4 months. FloridaArmy is (uniquely) under restrictions to use this process. We need to do something to fix it. I'm not suggesting Jimbo should ask the WMF to pay reviewers to clear the backlog, but we are getting close. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:07, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
力, fair. But also the reaosn FA has to go through AfC is that his articles are so often deletable. And he still flatly refuses to accept this. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:23, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
Which article have I had deleted User:JzG? Why are you always lying about me and my work here? Ugly. FloridaArmy (talk) 23:34, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
FloridaArmy, Per [1]:
FloridaArmy is prohibited from creating new articles in mainspace or participating or AFD. AFC is available for new articles they want to create
Also:
I have closed the ANI discussion having found consensus to limit you to 20 AfC submissions at a time.
I understand that you continue to reject these restrictions, and continue, periodically, to assert that those editors who do not accept the articles you submit, are racist (see numerous prior threads here).
This is the single biggest and most persistent WP:NOTTHEM violation I can recall. Just saying. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:42, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
@力: paying people to do AFC is untenable because (a) financial COIs are the biggest existing problem at AFC and adding more won't help; (b) incentivising quantity of reviewing over quality will just cause NPPers huge problems and make the encyclopedia substantially lower-quality; and (c) there are very few people talented enough to do AFC properly, and it doesn't matter how much money you give people—you can't create that talent overnight. AFC is a symptom of the last 10 years we have spent scaring off newcomers and massively and inordinately overworking the few brave souls who do the bulk of the unpleasant but necessary work none of us want to. First the problem will manifest itself to the volunteers, then to the readers, and then Wikipedia will be an inferior-grade Urban Dictionary forgotten to the ages and replaced by Google's UnbiasedTruthsWiki (paid for by 93 governments and 600 companies) or whoever comes along next. That is, if we aren't ready to hear some hard truths and make some drastic changes. — Bilorv (talk) 14:05, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
Bilorv, in part, yes, but there's also the problem of the transition of the project from the barn-building phase to the curation phase. New articles are, proportionately, much less likely to be about some genuinely important subject, and much more likely to be either news stories or advertisements.
Only one person gets to start the article on general relativity. Directory entries on commercial real estate properties? A rather different matter. Guy (help! - typo?) 14:18, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Someone dishonestly keeps changing the thread title I used to "Long backlog at AfC". I have restored the correct title and it better not happen again. FloridaArmy (talk) 23:32, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
    FloridaArmy, that's because you keep asserting that the slowness in accepting your torrent of often-marginal drafts is due to racial bias, and if you keep doing that then I am afraid you're going to end up banned. We're trying to help you here. Guy (help! - typo?) 07:16, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Maybe it would help it we would categorize drafts, that might attract more reviewers to look at things they are interested in. Also, if the subject is notable and the problems aren't severe, I think it's better to just move a draft to article space. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 14:39, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
    • @Alexis Jazz: I think this would not help, simply because there are such a small cohort of reviewers that review wide subject areas that categorisation would cost more reviewer time than it saved. We just need more people giving a helping hand. It doesn't matter how efficiently you use 20 hours of cumulative reviewer time per day if they've got a job that takes 50 hours per day. — Bilorv (talk) 00:39, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
      Bilorv, there currently is a daunting 5150 submissions on the AfC queue. I could review drafts all day and not make a dent in that number. But if there were a category with Netherlands-related drafts, I could probably clear it out entirely. This creates achievable goals, which is important if you want to attract more people to work on it. I found there actually is some rudimentary categorization at Category:Draft articles so I need to take a look. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 04:15, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
      @Alexis Jazz: yes, I've reviewed at AfC for years (though only a few at a time), so not only am I aware of how daunting the queue size is, but I've seen that increase steadily from 2,000 and I'm worried that it will continue to increase at this space until we reach a breaking point. The categories you've linked to are for drafts, not articles submitted to AfC (and the majority of categorised drafts are currently not submitted). There's no categorisation system you can suggest that would be accurate and not take up more reviewer time than it saves. In the time it will take me to tag drafts as Netherlands-related, I can actually just decline half of them (and leave the promising ones to someone else). And if you make the submitters categorise it then they will not to so or get it wrong.
      I'm aware of the issue of motivation, but the biggest problem is simply what you say: someone could review drafts all day and not make a dent in that number. We have about a dozen heroes on this site (not me) who do exactly this, and otherwise AfC would have collapsed already, but as a result of this never-ending task most of them will burn out, and the problem steadily worsens. The solution is to just get more people so that no one person is responsible for reviewing all-day every-day in order for the process to not collapse tomorrow.
      Forgive me if I'm wrong but I can't see that you've ever reviewed anything at AfC, but you seem perfectly skilled enough to do so. In that case, why not just let your motivation to be to review 2 drafts a day for the rest of the month, and if you need to be held accountable to that target then make a tally on your userpage or user talk page (or hell, my user talk page if you want)? — Bilorv (talk) 11:22, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

For the avoidance of doubt

I think FloridaArmy's section title is wholly inappropriate, it is an implicit accusation of racism against the editors who patrol and review drafts, and it forms part of a pattern of conduct by FA in which he has routinely in the past accused others of bigotry for failing to accept the flood of articles he writes. FA is under two restrictions, one on article creation, the other on rate of draft submission, because of his tendency to produce under-sourced articles that fail to establish notability. The section title indicates that he still views his articles as beyond reproach and still cannot ascribe any motive other than racial bias to his failure to have every single article speedily accepted. That is, to my reading, distinctly unmutual.

Drafts are perennially backlogged. No evidence is ever presented that FA's articles or subjects are being singled out. I think FA has friends here and I would appreciate it if they could persuade him to stop presenting every failed draft as some sort of racist crusade. Thank you. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:05, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

If nothing else, I didn't need to read past the title to know who it was; it was obvious even with the malformed signature. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:06, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
The Blade of the Northern Lights, right. And sooner or later, disruption that is consistently founded on an assumption of bad faith, will lead to more serious consequences. I don't want that. I want FA to understand that sometimes when an undersourced draft is rejected, it's because it's undersourced, rather than because Wikipedia is a giant edifice devoted to suppressing African-American topics. That's offensive to the many people who are trying to help him, but whose help he evidently considers insufficient (because he thinks he should be allowed to just create articles, as he's said many times before). It's also offensive to our community of draft reviewers. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:42, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

My recommendation

Even if a concern is raised in an awkward way, by someone with a long history of campaigning on a subject, the concern itself should be approached seriously and not dismissed based on the messenger. It is entirely plausible - and indeed likely in many cases - that even when contributors are all individually making every appropriate effort to be not-biased, there still is a systemic bias caused by structural issues which we may - or may not - be well positioned to address.

To FA, I recommend that you take this to heart. It's highly unlikely that accusing individual editors of racist motives is correct, and doing so will only tend to irritate them in a way that isn't really going to lead to outcomes that you desire. To others, particularly those who might feel falsely accused of racism, I recommend to set that feeling aside and look to the content - is there an issue which we can and should address around equity in terms of the listings of high schools?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:36, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

In terms of the specific examples given by Florida Army, I have these observations:
  • Larry Bird's high school was Springs Valley High School in French Lick, Indiana - we have an article that is, in my own view, typical of our lower quality high school articles. Other than Bird's attendance there, it appears to be a perfectly normal and not particularly noteworthy school. (I'm sure it's a fine place and no offense is meant.) Whether we should even have articles like that is a related topic.
  • Jerry's West's high school was East Bank High School in East Bank, West Virginia - we don't have an article, so I'm not quite sure why Florida Army listed it as an example for consideration.
  • My high school was Randolph School in Huntsville, Alabama. I note that there are some significant differences here which may be interesting to contemplate. First, obviously I'm not a famous basketball player. Second, this is an independent private school. It doesn't surprise me that it's listed while many others in the area are not. (I'm not saying that is right, I'm saying that it doesn't surprise me.) The school I would have attended based on where I lived, S. R. Butler High School (now closed) is also listed, and it is said that it was on the "failing schools list for the state of Alabama."
What I take away from all this is that there are some interesting questions to be asked here about the systemic issues around entries on high schools in the US. Are private schools more likely to be listed than public schools? Are schools which appear to be listed mainly due to a notable graduate more likely to be so depending on the race of the notable graduate? What is the racial makeup of schools that we list, versus the overall population? Is that right? What improvements could we make?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:52, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
People often write about the schools they attended. Therefore, it is logical that schools with a demographic that does not have a big intersection with that of Wikipedia editors, may be written about less. I am unsurprised that schools in largely working-class or otherwise deprived areas are therefore under-represented. This, however, reflects an issue with Wikipedia as a whole, not one with people working at AFC or elsewhere. Insinuating that AFC are rejecting drafts because they have an antipathy to the subject matter is ludicrous as well as offensive. Black Kite (talk) 12:13, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Correct. My only point on that is that we shouldn't just push back on the offensive insinuation, but also think about potential solutions to the broader problem. I'll note that my quick look at schools in my hometown doesn't give any conclusive results. According to our entry on the city, Huntsville has 6 public high schools, plus a few private schools. Columbia is a redirect. Grissom has an entry. Huntsville High has an entry. Jemison has an entry. Lee has an entry. New Century Technology has neither. And one school that used to be well-known but is now gone, Butler, has an entry. There isn't an obvious socioeconomic pattern to those facts.
I think it would be really interesting for someone (Florida Army, are you interested?) to take a broader look at the pattern across more cities. Do we have a systemic issue with underrepresentation of some schools? With Black Kite, I will not be surprised to learn that we do, specifically due to the reasons mentioned.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:13, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
Madison County where Huntsville is located appears to be 72 percent white. All but one of its high schools seem to have articles. The one in Gurley doesn't. It looks like that's a small community so likely a small school. Greene County, Alabama apparently only has one high school and it doesn't have an article. I looked in order alphabetically at the Black Belt counties of Alabama and the the first one, Bullock County I think, has an article on its school I created in 2020. The second one has the oldest high school in Alabama. It also has an article. That's as far as I've gotten.FloridaArmy (talk) 06:55, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
  • My findings are that schopls that served African Americans are typically excluded from coverage on Wikipedia. This is also true for other subject areas, as I noted in my initial thread title. And even when drafts are submitted they are often rejected.
  • So for example in Alabama's Black Belt the only high school's serving those counties are usually missing. So we know nothing about alumni. Nothing about demographics. Nothing about the very issues you said would be interesting to look into Jimbo. This despite the challenges and controversies of even opening high schools for African Americans before the 1960s Civil Rights movement and the challenge of keeping high schools that did serve African American students open after integration (Blacks were sent to white schools and their high schools usually closed or downgraded). It's an ugly area of discrimination.
  • It's frankly sickening that the outrage and attacks aren't focused on fixing the problem but instead directed at those highlighting the problem and trying to get the situation improved. Ome editor lent a hand on the high school I provided as an example and now it is off to a good start. Alumni cam be added. It's history expanded. Photos included. But very sadly this is very much the exception. Dozens of single sourced articles on unremarkable athletes and other subjects are added every day but dare work on high schools that served African American sudents, often only one in an entire county, or try to introduce and entry on one of Oscar Micheaux's lesser known films and knives come out. Indeed the barn doors are closed. Some editors think the important subject are already covered. We need leadership on this issue. It's a harmful, bigoted, and unWikipedian outlook that has made it more and more difficult to do the work that is needed and make newcomers with and interest in Wikipedia welcome. FloridaArmy (talk) 21:14, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
  • FWIW, our articles on U.S. schools does not properly reflect the 2017 RFC (here) that reduced WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES (which presumed that every high school in the US was notable without having a notability guideline behind it, it was just the common AFD outcome) to effectively an essay, and requiring schools now to meet general notability guidelines and in particularly the more stringent WP:ORG (as to avoid COI issues). I am unaware of any large-scale attempt to go through all existing high school articles to determine which ones clearly pass these notability guidelines, so key here is just because we have articles on high schools should not be taken to mean that these have community consensus to be kept (this is to both Jimmy Wales' point on surveying what's there, and FloridaArmy's point about underpresentation of black schools). We really ought to have a mass review of all US high schools (at minimum as a starting point), of which I assume would number in the thousands, and merge/redirect those that are barely notable to their appropriate locality. Once that's done, then we can talk about surveying what are kept, and determine if we have a systematic bias, if that bias is internal to WP (due to editors) or external (due to sourcing problems), and if there are solutions. I will say that there's absolutely no reason that any high school cannot be mentioned as a redirect and discussion on the article about the locality that the school is in, since nearly all US cities and towns have standalone articles (per the principle that WP is a gazetteer) and coverages aspects like local school systems. We don't necessarily need a standalone article on every single school, but we should have a search term and a reasonable landing space for nearly all public high schools at least. (private ones, that's a different story) --Masem (t) 21:43, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
I think the "systemic" word Jimbo uses is the elephant not in the closet in the sense it is such an overwhelming problem its hard to figure out a workable way in which to address it much less fix it. E.g., in an old movie on TV today a character said "that's awfully white of you" which was a common expression 80 years ago but not so today, however, should people of color, especially children still be subjected to hearing that on T.V. and have to deal with the obvious racism that expression conveyed? Or should all the old movies be scrubbed? If we take the latter view about TV programming then we likely should at least consider such a scrubbing for Wikipedia both in terms of new content and existing content.CONTEXTKID (talk) 00:36, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

More than half of the so-called mankind are women

But neither User:FloridaArmy nor User:Jimbo Wales, nor other self-anointed diversity advocates have even remarked that the Central High School (Lowndes County, Alabama) article says absolutely nothing about how this college deals with gender issues. Having produced one baseball player in 110 years of existence, what a great achievement! But how many soccer players ? Pldx1 (talk) 16:41, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Pldx1, what are you talking about? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 02:40, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Don't forget the chess club. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:50, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
Pldx1, it is a high school not a college. Did you mean one professional baseball player? Any high school with a baseball program will produce countless amateur baseball players. If you are aware of reliable sources describing how this school deals with gender issues or its soccer program (if it exists), then please feel to expand the article accordingly. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 02:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

I think the big problem here is that forcing FA to go through AFC is not an appropriate use of AFC. AFC has a backlog of ~5000 articles and is not good for notability edge cases, which is what FA's drafts tend to be. AFC is good for weeding out spam and other garbage. Notability edge cases should get community review at AFD. (My perspective on FA's article creation restrictions, however, was !outvoted at ANI.) I do think there are problems with systemic bias--including against topics relating to African Americans--in Wikipedia, and I also think there are problems with FA doing a halfass job with the articles he writes, both of which probably contribute to his articles languishing or being declined at AFC. But the big problem is that he shouldn't be at AFC in the first place. If his articles are too much of a burden for AFD, he should either be banned from creating articles or rate-limited in his article creations. I would disagree with either of these courses of action, but I think AFC is an even worse option. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

If FA had only added well referenced articles about clearly notable topics to main space, or if FA had taken on board the criticisms and changed their ways, then that editor would not be subject to those editing restrictions. But FA shows no sign of changing their ways and clearly favors quantity over quality, which is quite sad. Twenty years into this project, the quality of our articles is clearly more important than the quantity of new articles. I write new articles, slowly and carefully and thoroughly. And not a single one of the articles I've written has ever been seriously challenged. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:31, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Typical examples of high schools serving African Americans not being covered

Wondering how others see the text, I use Monobook and view text at 175% and at 100% the text seems so small as to be almost unreadable. Maybe that's just my sense after my brain has adjusted to the larger text, but would suggest at least a little more text size for the default. What size do you view Wikipedia? Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:16, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

A kitten for you!

SadInAShed has given you a kitten! Kittens promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. Your kitten must be fed three times a day and will be your faithful companion forever! Spread the WikiLove by giving someone else a kitten, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend.

Spread the goodness of kittens by adding {{subst:Kitten}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message, or kittynap their kitten with {{subst:Kittynap}}.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by SadInAShed (talk • contribs) 21:35, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Real life Wikipedia globe puzzle?

Hi Jimbo, please consider the following:

  1. There is an official Wikimedia store (although it's currently on hiatus).
  2. The Wikipedia logo is a 3D puzzle globe.
  3. If you Google 3D puzzle globes, you will find various companies that make them, such as Ravensburger and 4DPuzzle.

When you put these facts together, I think it becomes clear what needs to happen! So, when will we be able to buy a real life, interactive version of the Wikipedia jigsaw globe on the Wikimedia store?

Thanks, WanderingWanda🐮👑 (talk) 00:36, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I for one would love to have a little puzzle globe on my desk. Also, would love for the Wikipedia store to reopen so I can pester my family to buy me stuff from there for the holidays :P CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 00:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
Ask and you shall receive. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:32, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
But it's an incomplete puzzle globe! How do you think that makes puzzle addicts feel?!? ---Sluzzelin talk 00:58, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, I think this would be a golden oppertunity to complete the globe, as it were. A while back the the glyphs for the "hidden" pieces were defined, and now at last the glyphs for the "missing" pieces could be revealed as well!
Incidentally, apparently the idea of making physical Wiki puzzle globes has been done before, at Wikimania 2007. WanderingWanda🐮👑 (talk) 04:25, 3 June 2021 (UTC)
I have one. Following the Wikimania in 2007, I found out the source and bought one for the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia party that I held in London. Here's a picture. It was stored for several years at Wikimedia UK, but when they moved to a smaller office at some point, they asked me to take it back. It's here at my home (disassembled in a box!) - I had hoped to get it out for a new London party for the 20th, but covid made that not possible. Maybe I'll get it out for the 25th. :)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:34, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Please make mobile lite apps (Progressive web app) for all Wikis

Please make Read & Edit Progressive web applications (mobile lite apps) for other wikis, especially Wiktionary, Wikivoyage and Commons which are very well suited for contributing from a smartphone.

2) These wikis are losing huge number of potential edits due to the absence of an app. Many wikis are in direly need more contributors. For instance, the translations content in English Wiktionary is very less and will be much needed for the new Wikifunctions project.

3) For a majority of population, a smartphone is the only device they can afford/have. So please ensure the services reach them and that they also can contribute. The old Wiktionary mobile app had 1 million+ downloads, but app development stopped.

4) Wikimedia should have been in the forefront of having Progressive web apps. Other top websites already have it.

5) Progressive web application developed for one wiki can be easily adopted for all other wikis as well. And can be maintained by a small team.

6) It is an obligation of WMF to develop Mobile apps with full editing capabilities for the community.

So please make it. Thank you! - Vis M (talk) 00:52, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Vis M, smartphones suck. Nice to have to consume media, not so much to create it. (except for photos/videos) For a majority of population, a smartphone is the only device they can afford/have. In Africa and rural China maybe. How much translations content are you expecting from those areas? You can buy a used Core 2 Duo laptop for $100. (less if you shop around) And that's including COVID-19 price hike (such machines used to be closer to $50) The price will be a bit higher in developing markets, but still. If you can't afford that you have bigger problems, like paying for food and rent. To provide access, there has been Wikipedia Zero in developing markets. Great source of copyvios that was. (I'm sure there was legitimate use as well) See also User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 245#The tragic case of User:CejeroC and WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU. These apps for the most part just need to die. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 01:55, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
That should be blamed on WMF's irresponsibility to fix issues. A lite/progressive web app actually prevents such issues as the exact web app is just put inside a wrapper to act as a mobile lite app.
I beg to differ on the "apps should die" part, they should be well maintained but more simplistically and with full functionalities including editing, navboxes, categories, etc. I really like responsive MonoBook/Vector-new skins for mobile and I wish that they will just put it in a wrapper to make a lite app - Vis M (talk) 05:18, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Vis M, just make a shortcut to https://en.m.wikipedia.org on your homescreen? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 06:07, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, actually lite apps does the same. Shortcut url to homescreen will make it into an app. Twitter's story. I was requesting lite apps to make wikis accessible for more people and potential editors. - Vis M (talk) 22:36, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
If I'm reading this right as an explicit dismissal of potential editors from Africa and China, I'm shocked. I don't know what makes you an authority on access to technology in the developing world, but from my own anecdotal experience I know many communities in India have (pragmatically) access to smartphones only (I don't really care what you can buy for what price on Amazon in your country), and that living in poverty is not really anything to do with whether you are reading Wikipedia (in which case, you can be editing as you read) or whether you have some amount of free time. Of course, many people in India and Africa do speak English, but there are other language editions of Wikipedia too. China is a special case because of its firewall. — Bilorv (talk) 12:48, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
Bilorv, actually it's a dismissal of smartphone editors, particularly for major text contributions. Some exceptions exist, but generally smartphone editors have a hard time producing major text contributions. And the few that do just use the mobile site. Apps for editing are not the solution here. (I have no objection to apps for reading wikis) If you can't afford food or rent you should not be wasting time editing Wikipedia while starving under a bridge. If you can afford food, rent, a smartphone and internet you shouldn't have that much trouble getting a Bluetooth keyboard and using the mobile site. It doesn't matter how much you spend on app development: until smartphones get keyboards (they used to, but really tiny ones) you can't edit too comfortably on them. It's a hardware problem. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:31, 21 May 2021 (UTC);
I don't know why you think it's acceptable to say sentences like, Even in Africa and China: if you can't afford food or rent you should not be wasting time editing Wikipedia while starving under a bridge. Astonishing. — Bilorv (talk) 15:46, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
Bilorv Oh, that's not right. I re-wrote my reply at some point before publishing it, the first part of that sentence you quoted is some strange Frankenstein leftover of the initial version that ended up in a different context, which made it rather unacceptable. I've adjusted it. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:52, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
Bth sides are, well, I think the most accurate word would be "over-extreming" this. In most poor countries, people are not SO poor that they are living under bridges; rather, they can afford rent, basic necessities and perhaps a luxury or 2. And most of all, nearly everyone in poor countries have smartphones. Poor countries do not mean everyone there is poor; rather, people are poor in relation to the world. In their respective countries they might be middle-class. Either way, people are not so desperate as to not be able to afford basic necessities and things like that, but they certainly don't have enough in the bank to afford fancy laptops (not to mention the electricity cost, my parents still bother me about it even in America). A mobile app would be a great help to people with smartphones wanting to maybe make a few edits to Wikipedia, help out with things they know about (perhaps things in their own nation!!!). It is generally known that apps are better suited for mobile use than mobile sites, and an app is a great idea, requiring minimal work and upkeep while extending access to millions, or even billions.RealKnockout (talk) 16:51, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
RealKnockout, an idling laptop with the screen turned on (no monster gaming laptop, low/medium screen brightness) consumes <10W. Running for 16 hours/day would cost roughly $1/month in Europe. In the US I think about half that because less tax. I assume (given the US flag on your user page) that you use America as a synonym for the US. Your parents are not concerned about $0.02/day, they just want you to get away from the computer. In a few places it could be considerably higher, but electricity should generally not be the problem. an app is a great idea, requiring minimal work and upkeep Are you a developer? An app is a ton of work and an massive burden to developers. They already have to make sure that changes in the software work well on the desktop site, the mobile site, in various browsers, on various devices with various input methods and screen sizes and resolutions. (and they already can't fully test/manage this!) Having to develop and support apps for Android, iOS, Windows 10 Mobile (on a tight budget you don't get the latest model smartphone), KaiOS and possibly others is just a pain. Improve the mobile site? Fine. Platform-specific apps? Don't waste developer time. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 18:32, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
A simple lite app for major platform can be adopted by many other sister wikis as well. Can serve millions of people by spending mere few hours of developer's time- Vis M (talk) 05:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Please don't. I'd rather energy be put towards making the regular mobile editing experience great. So few of our editors or readers use the app. Apps just aren't as popular or necessary these days, when you can make a stunning mobile site. The phrase "there's an app for that" reflects the fact that there are too many apps, not too few. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 17:22, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
    The single-task-oriented user interface of mobile phones doesn't allow serious use of tabs/windows and IME this makes adding rule-abiding citations a much worse chore than on desktops/laptops. Perhaps this is the root cause behind Alexis Jazz's complaint. What I don't see is how a PWA could fix this problem. It's really just a HTML/JS webpage, and possibly one that breaks compatibility with older and/or non-ubiquitous browsers. Daß Wölf 23:12, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
    Daß Wölf, you're pretty much hitting the nail on the head there. I frequently see mobile users adding unsourced facts which may or may not be true, and desktop users are left to go on what often amounts to a wild-goose chase for the source. The single-task-oriented user interface is also at least part of the reason for WP:THEYCANTHEARYOU. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 01:58, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
    this part of the problem has always had an easy workaround. We should encourage people with inadequate interfaces or connectivity to just put free-form references as best they have them in the articles as they go, and not even think about the details of getting them formatted correctly. We have no shortage of people who know citation formatting. It bothers me every time I see a draft rejected because of improper formatting when the information needed is actually present in some manner. DGG ( talk ) 06:11, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
    DGG, fully agree. Fixing citation formatting is no problem. But the only person to know the source for some added fact is the person who adds it. If a URL is provided in the edit summary or inline that's okay, it's fixable. If it's missing, there is nothing to fix. I also think that if a draft is about a notable subject, is comprehensible (fairly low standard) and adequately sourced (even if that's done inline), it's better to stick some problem tags on it, move it to article space and let the WikiGnomes do their magic. This as opposed to rejecting it and tagging it for G13 6 months later. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 06:45, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
    CaptainEek My request with this "lite app" post is that the mobile website should be developed so well according to the best modern standards that it should be possible to just put the mobile web app in a wrapper to make lite app. I am not requesting a native mobile app. Mobile apps would actually offer better quality edits than desktop to certain wikis like Commons, Wikt & Wikivoyage - Vis M (talk) 07:59, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
  • I will state my contrarian opinion based on many years of experience. There are 7.8 billion people on Earth. In the past five years, 7 billion Android smartphones have been sold. Almost every prospective editor on the planet has access to a smartphone. The so-called "desktop" site works perfectly on modern Android phones and is fully functional. I have done 99% of my edits on Android phones for almost ten years. I have written many dozen new articles, expanded hundreds of articles, taken articles to GA, became an administrator with over 300 support votes, blocked thousands of bad actors, answered thousands of questions at the Teahouse and help desk, all on Android phones. They function exactly like miniature handheld "desktop" computers on the "desktop" site. The only time I use an actual desktop computer is to work on large image files. When a smartphone user edits using the desktop site, the WMF has no way to track and analyze those edits. It is as if editors like me do not exist and are therefore entirely disregarded and ignored. And vast amounts of money and programmer time are poured into apps and the mobile site, none of which have never worked as well as the desktop site for editing, and still don't in 2021. It is an ongoing tragedy and I see no prospect for change. Smartphone editors continue to be sent by default to an inferior way of editing, and the vast majority have no way of learning what I know by experience. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 01:03, 29 May 2021 (UTC)
I learned in the board meeting last night that the WMF is taking a good hard look at the mobile strategy, and the discussion on this page was specifically referenced as an inspiration for that. So the good news is that I think your pessimism is too strong here. I asked for support (for me) in terms of someone letting me know where to best channel discussions like this, because I'm pretty sure that "chatter on Jimmy's talk page" isn't really the most efficient line of communication even if in this case it appears to have made a difference!
Another point is that it isn't strictly speaking true from a technical perspective that "When a smartphone user edits using the desktop site, the WMF has no way to track and analyze those edits". Generally speaking, when you're using the site, your browser identifies itself with a "user agent" string. You can see yours at a number of sites like this one - it just reads it and prints it back to you.
Having said that, I suspect that it is true - and hence the need for a new hard look at this question - that very very few people have discovered that the desktop site works perfectly well on Android mobile phones, better than the app. So the number of editors like you is vanishingly small, and that will of course impede analysis.
Finally, I don't think it is correct to say that "vast amounts of money and programmer time are poured into apps and the mobile site". I think the issue is the opposite: not enough money and programmer time have been poured into it, given that mobile in various forms accounts for at least half of our traffic (I don't know the exact number personally).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:25, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
It is excellent news that the WMF is looking at mobile editing again. I'm not as awesome as Cullen, so I can't write proper articles or on my phone, but just for discussion edits, the responsive monobook skin on the non-mobile site works perfectly on my phone, better than the mobile site. —Kusma (talk) 15:46, 2 June 2021 (UTC)
Thank you very much! :) - Vis M (talk) 18:32, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
Absolutely right about the desktop version Jim. I always go right to the desktop version of the Wikimedia pages if it has started on a mobile version (silk browser, etc.), because for the functionality and design it does work better than probably any larger scale site I can think of in this context. Thanks for all the hard work through the years.
--JLavigne508 (talk) 17:46, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi Jimmy!

Hi Jimmy, co-founder of Wikipedia! It's nice your still around in the 20th anniversary year. – ChannelSpider (talk) 07:34, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

,

Thank me later. Pink Saffron (talk) 11:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Pink Saffron,  ? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 21:16, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
I remembered the link it is rick roll. TigerScientist Chat > contribs 20:52, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Editing news 2021 #2

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Junior contributors comment completion rate across all participating Wikipedias
When newcomers had the Reply tool and tried to post on a talk page, they were more successful at posting a comment. (Source)

Earlier this year, the Editing team ran a large study of the Reply Tool. The main goal was to find out whether the Reply Tool helped newer editors communicate on wiki. The second goal was to see whether the comments that newer editors made using the tool needed to be reverted more frequently than comments newer editors made with the existing wikitext page editor.

The key results were:

  • Newer editors who had automatic ("default on") access to the Reply tool were more likely to post a comment on a talk page.
  • The comments that newer editors made with the Reply Tool were also less likely to be reverted than the comments that newer editors made with page editing.

These results give the Editing team confidence that the tool is helpful.

Looking ahead

The team is planning to make the Reply tool available to everyone as an opt-out preference in the coming months. This has already happened at the Arabic, Czech, and Hungarian Wikipedias.

The next step is to resolve a technical challenge. Then, they will deploy the Reply tool first to the Wikipedias that participated in the study. After that, they will deploy it, in stages, to the other Wikipedias and all WMF-hosted wikis.

You can turn on "Discussion Tools" in Beta Features now. After you get the Reply tool, you can change your preferences at any time in Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing-discussion.

–Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk)

Good job!! Atsme 💬 📧 21:05, 16 June 2021 (UTC) 00:27, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Blocking

Has a admin ever blocked you? TigerScientist Chat > contribs 18:55, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, a few times. see log here. A variety of cases: In error, jokes, once my account was compromised, etc.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:36, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
You seem to have had a rough year in 2007, with a minor relapse in 2016, but happily you’ve become a model Wikipedian since then. Jehochman Talk 10:03, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, I don't know, 75% of his edits are on talkpages... ;-) Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:58, 12 June 2021 (UTC)
Well, Jimmy was always a model Wikimedian (I'm saying this as this isn't my home wiki). Just the other admins aren't ;) SHB2000 (talk) 09:44, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

WMF bullying of Harej, Deskana, Anomie and Adamw

Harej, Deskana, Anomie and Adamw have been bullied by their employer, the WMF. Former bureaucrat WJBscribe had already asked if Jimbo could offer assurances that this will be properly investigated before Deskana, Anomie and Adamw joined Harej in stepping forward. Jimbo, I understand you're a busy man - but a response could be really reassuring here. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 21:32, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

  • Clearly I am unable to comment on specific personnel matters, particularly since I've not been informed in any way privately of any details beyond the statements that have been made publicly. I can offer assurances - which may not be as meaningful as you and I both might like - about the general principles of a proper investigation and resolution of any allegations of bullying is incredibly important and of course the right thing to do. I have a regular call with Amanda Keton (normally to discuss global public policy issues that regularly arise) and we briefly spoke about this on our last call, and it sounded to me like the WMF is on the case.
Please do keep in mind that I do not work at the WMF, no employees report to me, and so in a very real sense I'm a community member hearing about this in the same way that you are. I promise to be a strong voice for our movement principles, as represented for example by our Universal Code of Conduct, and a strong voice for WMF being a great place to work, absolutely free of bully, harassment, and discrimination.
As I say, it would be wrong of me to speak about specific personnel matters when I'm not informed enough to do so.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:37, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm glad you made this statement and I understand you can't comment on specifics. I also share Adamw and Deskana's view that an "appeal to Jimmy" shouldn't be the way to get this on the WMF's radar. But it's more or less all we've got? It feels like your talk page is the primary "in" for the community to make the WMF aware of something. Most of the WMF staff hardly ever responds to anything on-wiki, or if they do, they have no power to do anything. Hearing you say that you don't work for the WMF, no employees report to you and that you are more or less just another community member is a bit scary. Because it means that one "in" to draw the attention of the WMF was an illusion after all. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 10:16, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
@Alexis Jazz: It would be highly inappropriate governance for the Wikimedia Foundation for any staff member to report to Jimmy or any other Board member. The Executive Director reports to the Board as a whole, and then all staff ladder up to the Executive Director. Also, Board members are almost never considered employees of the company they direct. The Board is supposed to handle strategic direction and vision, not individual cases like those reported here. There's nothing unusual about any of this. --Deskana (talk) 10:41, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
Deskana, I was repeating the points Jimbo made, the more important one of those was him being "in a very real sense a community member hearing about this in the same way that you are". If Jimbo as a board member and founder can't put an item on the agenda and demand it doesn't get ignored, maybe no one can. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:48, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
To be clear, I can certainly get things on the agenda at board meetings - as can any board member. And of course I agree with everyone who has said "If the channel to get the attention of the WMF is discussion on Jimbo's talk page, then that's not good" - but that fortunately isn't true. I don't think there *is* a channel for "some community members are unhappy about a personnel matter that is between a staff member and their manager" but nor should there be, for the same reasons. That is not to say that there should not be appropriate mechanisms (HR department, whistleblower policies that are enforced correctly, etc.) for this sort of thing (there are, and as in every organization they should be constantly re-examined for potential improvements), just that a stir on talk pages isn't really a particularly ideal way to handle any of this. (That isn't a criticism of anyone or anything that has happened here - it's a comment about a desire for a better set of arrangements.)
In this case, I wouldn't expect any board member to respond to any specific questions about a specific personnel matter, and I don't think community members really expect that either. It would be... unhealthy... to say the least.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:59, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
It would be nice to see more two-way communication at WP:VPWMF, our official place for community-WMF discussion. (Clearly, that's not a place for discussion of individual former WMF employees' workplace experience). There may be some corporate culture issues preventing that page from working (who is authorised to speak and are these the same people that understand the issues?), something the Board could think about. —Kusma (talk) 12:05, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
@Deskana: Other organizations sometimes have impartial ombudspeople that report directly to the board and circumvent the existing "chain of command" so to speak. While appealing to Jimbo here might be inappropriate, the general idea of wanting a neutral figure that can bypass the WMF structure in cases of harassment is a good one. In my opinion the WMF should consider having an organization ombudsperson (not the existing m:Ombuds commission but someone to deal with complaints from WMF employees) so these issues have a better way of being addressed in the future. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 07:01, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
  • In my case, a now-former WMF "Vice President" set up a meeting with me (a rank and file developer) and refused my polite request to share the topic or agenda for the meeting. When I came to this meeting, the now-former WMF Vice President of Human Relations was also in attendance, though unannounced. I was informed that an internal staff email I had written, pushing back against what I saw as excesses of management, was cause for putting a formal complaint on my personnel file. I had used the phrase "red herring" and was told my "tone" was too forceful. The HR manager also told me that a handful of messages we had exchanged, a (in my opinion) friendly discussion about the potential for reform and possible ways to accomplish it, where this manager encouraged my exploration, were in fact undesired and they implied this would be recorded in the complaint as well.
Coincidentally, at the time I was also trying to organize a union with many other employees, and as the main breadwinner for two small children I felt it necessary to shield myself from further retribution by pointing to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other protections for whistleblowers and labor organizers. Perhaps also a coincidence, my full-time pay was soon reduced by at least 65% for several months while I lived in Peru, although I made it clear that I would be returning to the San Francisco Bay and would need every penny of my projected savings to re-enter the housing market there. I do feel that "bullying" is the right word for what I experienced. I've kept detailed notes and hardcopies of the context and exchanges, which I'm happy to provide.
However, Jimmy Wales was a key member of the group I was pushing against: the Wikimedia Foundation Board. He still sits on the Board and as far as I can tell there has been no significant reform of the antidemocratic structure which legitimizes this Board. I resent the patriarchal premise of this talk page, that contributors are left to beg the most famous of Wikipedia's founders to investigate already well-known issues, in his volunteer capacity, rather than having a proper democratic means of oversight. I don't see what good can be accomplished by having a conversation here, and I will not be reassured short of a really extraordinary statement. —Adamw (talk) 08:35, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
That sounds a lot like union busting. MarioGom (talk) 23:28, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
  • @Alexis Jazz: I wasn't bullied. My experience left a bad taste in my mouth but it was quite different from what Harej and Adamw have described. Unlike Adamw, I have no issues with Jimmy Wales or the board; I acknowledge Adamw's concerns as legitimate, and I don't personally share them, and that's fine. I personally have little interest in pursuing this further. I shared my experience with Harej so that he'd know he's not alone, not so that it could be turned into some kind of investigation at the board level. I agree with Adamw that that an "appeal to Jimmy" has a strangely patriarchal tone to it, and I agree with Jimmy that speaking to him about it isn't an appropriate way to address this and that it'd be inappropriate for him to comment on specific cases. So, in summary, I don't think it's helpful to lump our experiences together, and I don't think a conversation on this page is the right way to do this. --Deskana (talk) 09:09, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
I am baffled at how people who grew up in tiny Connecticut towns where 95% of the people are white and the median income is over $200,000. were ever picked to run the outfit ? I mean, wtf is going on with the management selection process? CONTEXTKID (talk) 02:11, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
That's a very odd comment, I must say.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 08:48, 9 June 2021 (UTC)
I'm saying our last CEO had a background of Council on Foreign Relations,Wilton, Connecticut,Eurasia Group which seems to me to be a background much too tilted toward American political, generational, and privileged Establishment to have been picked to run perhaps the broadest and least classist entity in existence. An entity which would likely require lots of experience managing a wide range of personalities, especially difficult and esoteric personalities; not just the predictable, flag waving, blue blooded, American types. I'm blaming the selection process, not the person selected. CONTEXTKID (talk) 03:16, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
That kind of attitude exposes a bias that is just as unwanted as any other bias. Where you worked before is not who you are and does not determine your suitability for a role (or not) or make you more likely to be a bully. QuiteUnusual (talk) 08:30, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
Speaking as someone from another one of those Connecticut towns, a little further northeast (close enough that I'm within easy driving distance of Wilton), you seem like you'd be stunned if you met me in person before I told you that. People here are just as varied here as anywhere else, hardly all of us are stereotypical scions of wealth; I, for one, am from a comfortably upper-middle-class family, but you wouldn't confuse me with the Kennedy clan, since the Irish on my side was very much working class. It always amazes me that people who say such things about diversity seem willing to reduce us to some monolith. And if you think Connecticut, about the most ridiculously Democratic state in the country, is a bunch of flag-waving bible-thumpers, you should come here sometime. I've been to every town in this state, and the KKK doesn't have their operations in the "Gold Coast"; they hang out up in Shelton, and no one would confuse that, the gateway to the Valley, as the region of generational wealth around here. (We can be a bit laconic, but seriously, we're generally happy to have anyone out of state actually stay for a visit!) The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 16:02, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Enrique Tarrio article... propaganda photos allowable on Wikipedia?

Hi, Jimbo. At the Enrique Tarrio article, there's a discussion I started called "Propaganda image must go" regarding the lead image used by that article. I claim that image is clearly propaganda intended to show the subject in a positive way and therefore violates our NPOV content policy. Other editors, and I'll paraphrase here, have opposed my objection along the lines of "doesn't matter, this image is high resolution and shows his face" or the more challenging line of "that's just your interpretation that it's propaganda and therefore it stays" (not noticing that their view also entails interpretation).

This is not the first case where I've seen ultra high quality posed images uploaded by close connections to a subject in a way to clearly try to manage and influence their public reputation... usually to portray somebody disreputable in a positive light. I've brought this here directly because this is a very high level topic. How do you see NPOV and its applicability to images? If NPOV applies to images, how can it be enforced when editors seem very willing to ignore these violations. In particular, what's your opinion on this particular photo? Does or should it violate NPOV? Is this kind of image what we want to encourage on Wikipedia? Jason Quinn (talk) 14:13, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

I've read the discussion with great interest. I very much agree with those who are arguing that us deciding "this is someone we don't like" and then making sure the photo is not too positive is very much the wrong approach for us.
At the same time, I have to say that many people in the discussion accepted the core premise that this is an appealing photo that portrays him in a positive light. I think he looks ominous in the photo, and the particular flag behind him is one which has been used to symbolize far-right ideas: [[2]]. If he wanted to look patriotic, he might have used the contemporary American flag. But in current discourse it's a way to be oppositional to Colin Kaepernick and the Black Lives Matters movement. I therefore think that the picture is illustrative of who he is and the role he apparently seeks to play in society.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:42, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

"Constitutional Monarch of Wikipedia"

Hey, Jimbo. Just a thought: upon reading about your self-identification as the "constitutional monarch of Wikipedia" in your 2014 interview with The Guardian cited in your Wiki bio, as well as reading the Wikimedia movement article, and refreshing myself with a bit of Roman history, it occurs to me that as the Wikimedia Foundation is a body authorized by the state to act as a single legal entity in the State of California, I've come to the conclusion that a more appropriate title for you should actually be "Pontifex princeps de Collegium Wikimedia" or "First priest of Wikimedia College" (shortened in conversation to Pontifex princeps), because if the Wikimedia movement is a social movement that holds forth as its purpose the goal of making the sum of all human knowledge freely available to everyone, what we are effectively doing is creating common knowledge of the information necessary to proliferate the social institutions that enable representative democracy within a framework of laws where no administrator of the law is free from its administration to be able to exist. As the Wikimedia movement is a social movement dedicated to such a moral purpose, this arguably makes Wikipedia contributors, administrators, and Foundation executives effectively the monks, grandmasters, and priests of a democratic civic religion by inscribing this knowledge into electronic stone.

Apologies that my Latin isn't that great; only studied it once when I was 12. I also would like to take this opportunity to deliver to you my sincerest thanks for having begun this project two decades ago. I believe that all of the time that I have dedicated to it has all been well-spent. -- CommonKnowledgeCreator (talk) 01:04, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

:-) Thank you for this amusing note!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:58, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Inside Wikipedia's endless war over the coronavirus lab leak theory

CNET, for the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:34, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

OTRS image decision appeal

I know, you don't overrule things any more. But in the spirit of WP:IAR, I need to try. I'm writing an article about an actress (also game inventor, TV producer, singer, author ... yeah, she's impressive ... but actress is the important part here). I wrote her and asked if she would release some photos under a free use license. She did, she sent in half a dozen head shots with a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike release. (They're gorgeous. For example:

). Head shots are images that actors use to apply for jobs, they mail them in to shows to get auditions, owning the right to reproduce them in the hundreds or more is the whole point. If she had put them up on her website with a statement that she owns the rights to them and releases them under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike, we would be accepting that without batting an eye. But I said she could also email them with that statement to permissions-commons@wikimedia.org, per the OTRS form. OTRS says they accept her identity, but won't accept her word, she needs to produce the contract for the images. The images are 30 years old. The photo studios she had them taken have closed. Who of us keeps paperwork for a relatively minor purchase for 30 years? If she had put the statement up on her website, we'd have accepted it; but because she emailed it, we won't? Can we ignore some unreasonable rules to clearly benefit the Encyclopedia here? --GRuban (talk) 22:21, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, obviously I won't intervene directly as that would be unwise for a number of reasons. But I'd love to hear more. In particular, rather than recriminations or blame, I'm interested in how we might improve the situation. Perhaps those involved in the OTRS process might explain how decisions like this are made and we can all reflect together on whether that's the right thing to be doing.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:03, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
It's theoretically possible that the photographer still owns the copyright on these photos. People often think that they own the copyright on their wedding photos only to find that they don't.[3] Although it might seem excessive to ask for documents for photos that are thirty years old, OTRS has tried to get it right.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 06:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
But how about the notion that if she had posted the photo on the website with a caption saying it's licensed CC BY-SA, it wouldn't be questioned at all? Is that true? There are two separate policy questions here: (1) what degree of proof should we require? - a valid question about which there will be multiple plausible contenders and (2) are we reasonably consistent across different paths of uploading? For now, I'm more interested in that second one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:21, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Jimmy, do you see what I was trying to relay to you earlier? Everybody has a their own version of what does or doesn't make it acceptable, and there is no verifiable way for us to prove otherwise. OTRS/VRT agents/members are not WMF copyright lawyers. You might want to reconsider Google's approach and possibly use the e-sig method I suggested earlier, which places the responsibility on the uploader. The e-sig process requires some form of valid identification so that further substantiates that the signature comes from the actual person or authorized personnel if representing a company. It's a relatively inexpensive Adobe .pdf/e-Signature form that realtors and banks use. Atsme 💬 📧 16:28, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
I think this misses the point of what we are concerned about though. The safety of the WMF, given the way section 230 works, is not really a massive issue. It's already absolutely the case that everyone is responsible for their own uploads. We also care, though, about re-users - the content is not just meant to be safe *on this website* but part of a repository of human knowledge that is free (freely licensed) for everyone. I have no doubt that an e-sig process is a good idea - my point is that the comparison to Google isn't very compelling.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
If one posts it on their website, they are taking the responsibility, and not asking us to post it on our website. In that case, we can more readily assume, their public act of asserting the rights is known to the world including any other person who could putatively claim rights. Also, in that case everyone in the world can go to that website and take the photo, so republishing it here is almost of no additional consequence. Without that public act, when they privately ask us to post it on our website, we in our care ask them to demonstrate they have the rights, and 'it's a picture of me' does not do that, whereas 'it's a picture by me' or 'it's a picture I have contracted the rights for' does. We can then tell the world, when we publish, they say, it's a picture by them, or its a picture they say they fully own, and they are licensing to you world. (Now, somewhere in the process before or after, doubts may arise, as for example, 'how can you say it's yours when it's published elsewhere with credit or apparent ownership to another') Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:53, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
I don't find this argument very persuasive. People post things on their website all the time and it might or might not mean anything. People upload stuff to flickr and claim it is CC licensed and it might or might not be. That seems very different from someone writing to us from an official address and making a specific claim in writing. I don't see how we should be lax in the first case and strict in the second case really.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Your argument is quite meritless. It's not a matter of being lax, it's a matter of seeing what actually exists. When there is already a free publication of the picture, we literally see the rights are already given away. (then too, in seeing a contract, we literally see the rights are already given away.) Moreover, your 'lax' assumption is invalid, we can still question and make objections to the prior publication. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:50, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
But she did say 'it's a picture I have contracted the rights for'. --GRuban (talk) 12:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
GRuban, There is saying and there is saying, a very concrete way to say it is, 'here is the contract.' Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:27, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
It is not reasonable to expect people to have a copy of a contract like that. They typically won't. And a physical paper contract is not required *at all* to be a legally binding agreement.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
But the point is that we accept "saying" on people's websites without demanding they post the contract. It's not reasonable that now that the "saying" is by email the contract is required. --GRuban (talk) 14:31, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
This is what I do find compelling. It makes no sense to me that if someone says it in email, we pretend they might be lying and demand a contract, but if they post it on a website, we automatically assume it true.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
So what? Yes, we accede to their very public act, because it is so public as notice to the world. But when they choose to make us determine in private, then we ask for the contract they say exists, to know notice has been given to the other party. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:47, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
That strikes me as completely invalid. Since the information they tell us in email is added to the image page here, that's an extremely public notification - generally more public than anyone's private website would have been.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Since this contradiction is felt to be compelling, I wonder if we could have some examples demonstrating that it is actually true and routine. Does OTRS typically accept a CC BY-SA or personal copyright declaration underneath a studio photo on an actor's personal website? Or indeed, professionally taken photos on anyone's personal website or blog? It strikes me as a little gullible. -- Colin°Talk 17:06, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
More than that, it depends on the OTRS person taking the ticket! Here, read this:

Hi, I'm a Commons and WP:en admin who responded to a protected edit request at en:Talk:Brianna Wu to use these images, which the subject apparently released with the express purpose of use in Wikipedia, therefore I'm aware of the problem. From my point of view, the assertion by the pictured person that she releases the images as CC-BY (and, we assume, has obtained the rights to them or the photographer agrees) should be enough. My understanding of our usual practice including at OTRS is that with PR photos or headshots submitted by the depicted persons, we tend to take it as a given that the depicted people have obtained the rights to them. It's not as though we could realistically verify the existence or contents of the agreement between them and the photographer (and that person's identity) in any case. I don't think that there's any particular need to deviate from this practice here and let the subject jump through additional bureaucratic hoops. Would you reconsider your deletion of these images? Thanks, Sandstein (talk) 10:42, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Hi! Sure will. First of all, I didn't tag the files. I just deleted 1 week after the tag has been placed without any reaction by the uploader. The files have been in the pile of media missing essential information. We don't have time to check and search the web for each and every file. Yes, some generally valid fall through the cracks. The problem is that uploaders just make too many mistakes and don't follow up. You probably know. :-) Another problem was that the uploader only gave the url to the original photographer, therefore the file has been tagged by another user (a sysop as well) as no permission. I found the file on her website. I'll restore and change the source. That should take care of it. Will leave msg on enwiki as well. Thanks for letting me know about the discussion on enwiki. --Hedwig in Washington (mail?) 17:08, 28 May 2015 (UTC)"

If the OTRS responder was Hedwig, it would have passed fine. It wasn't. --GRuban (talk) 17:55, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Whoever that is is just making it up, poorly. It is not at all customary to assume that the person in the headshot owns it. Indeed, as a matter of the customary trade the statement is preposterous. Professional photographers customarily retain the copyright, it is part of being a professional. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:27, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
User:Sandstein is still, as he wrote then, an administrator on EN Wikipedia and quite respected - since 2005. He wrote there he was at the time also an administrator on Commons, and I have no reason to doubt him. User:Hedwig in Washington is still an administrator on Wikimedia Commons - since 2006. I don't think insulting either of them is called for. --GRuban (talk) 18:56, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
No one was insulted. They are just plainly wrong. And no length of being an administrator is any vouch-safe of being right. Indeed, the idea that someone would argue that -so in so is an administrator so they are right -- just makes no sense. As I said, it does not matter who they are, they are still wrong. So, there is no reason for you to go into who they are. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:18, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
The experience and reputation of those offering their opinions is not a guarantee of being right, but is still rather important. As to the first point, you may not feel insulted by being told you were "making it up, poorly", but let me assure you, most people would. At the very least, you should say they were making it up well! --GRuban (talk) 20:14, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
It's not at all important who they are, either they know a simple custom of the photography trade or they do not. It is making it up poorly, to claim the professional head shot photographer does not retain the copyright. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:25, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
What you describe is plainly invalid, worse, it is unethical. In what you describe, there is no public notice to anyone before free, possibly faulty licensed publication to the world. Our publication cannot be the same as the notice, you've stripped the putative rights holder of all chance of notice before giving their rights away to the world. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:23, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
No, actually, OTRS is specifically saying, since you emailed us, we will no longer accept a note on your website, don't bother to make one. --GRuban (talk) 16:26, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
This appears to be a photograph, executed by a professional photographer in a Canadian studio. Initially, the copyright is owned by the photographer or the studio. An assignment of copyright appears to be possible in Canadian copyright law (see here). But then there should exist a contract for this. Otherwise, we would normally assume that the photographed subject received an ordinary license to use it which does not imply the freedom to sublicense these photographs under a Creative Commons license. The inherent problem we face here is the risk for possible users who re-use such photos as they trust the free licenses at Wikimedia Commons. --AFBorchert (talk) 08:11, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
The same issue has also been raised at the Commons OTRS board and answered. --AFBorchert (talk) 10:56, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
The strict standard of proof would be a contract, as the photographer usually retains the copyright unless stated otherwise in writing. This is similar to someone uploading an image to Flickr and claiming that it has a CC license, which sometimes it doesn't; this is known as Flickrwashing. The admins on Commons usually accept that an image on Flickr is CC as long as it does not produce multiple hits on Tineye etc.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 12:18, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Which is exactly what is being asked for here. Here is her Instagram, with a (slightly blurrier) copy of this photo since 2019. But OTRS says they need a contract; and now that she sent it in email, just putting a CC-BY-SA license on her Instagram will no longer suffice, though originally it would have. --GRuban (talk) 12:57, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Free licenses on other sites are not always taken at face value, see c:COM:LL and c:COM:PRS. We maintain blacklists for various sites like, for example, this one for Flickr. --AFBorchert (talk) 15:29, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Sure - I've nominated plenty of false licensed images for deletion myself - but they are accepted in general for reasonable cases, which this is one of. Note no one is saying otherwise, no one is saying "if you had put this up on your site we'd be demanding a contract". They're just saying "since you emailed it, now we are demanding a contract". --GRuban (talk) 16:23, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

I am not a copyright lawyer, but my understanding is that when there is a work for hire the default state is the person hiring gets the copyright. I do understand that many photographers have a contract that allows them to retain ownership, but in the absence of a contract I don't think they would. I could be wrong. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 12:34, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

The photographer is generally considered to be the first owner of copyright unless stated otherwise. Since Naruto was found to have taken the famous monkey selfie photos, they were ruled ineligible for copyright under US law.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 12:43, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Work for Hire for studio photography is unusual, and generally discouraged.[4][5] Look at all these famous people -- yet all of the photos are (c) Rankin Photography Ltd. A professional would have a contract, but even assuming there wasn't one, it default would be that the photographer has the necessary rights. GRuban, there are lots of "rights" one could have, including a right to make copies and distribute them. If I buy a DVD, I have the "rights" to play it at home and I can sell it second hand on eBay. I have no more right to offer Star Wars with CC BY-SA than Laura McKinlay has for their studio photos. I am sympathetic to the problems that copyright duration is long and often simply a hindrance to reuse rather than something actively being monetised. But this is not Commons OTRS team's fault. Have you tried asking if they have more recent photos? -- Colin°Talk 13:37, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
But she didn't buy a DVD for the purpose of personal use, she bought a head shot with the explicit purpose of copying and redistributing it to as many people as she needed. A better parallel would be George Lucas being unable to offer Star Wars unless he included a copy of every contract with every cameraman! I'm not saying the Commons OTRS team is evil, I'm just saying they're wrong. Since we would have accepted her claim for this on her web site if she hadn't mailed it in, we should accept her claim now that she has. --GRuban (talk) 14:12, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Analogies wrt copyright don't always work because it isn't rational. I'm just saying that having "rights" is too vague. See this: "You must own or control copyright in the work. Only the copyright holder or someone with express permission from the copyright holder can apply a CC license or CC0 to a copyrighted work." It is a specific right, and it isn't necessary or even desirable for a photographer to transfer that right just so someone can make copies. For example, the CC BY-SA licence I attached to my photo of the Royal Albert Hall allows anyone to make as many copies as they like and distribute them to as many people as they want. But I still own copyright in that work. -- Colin°Talk 15:11, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing this up, GRuban. See the section directly above this one User talk:Jimbo Wales#If Google can do it, why can't we? wherein I presented a case about fair use uploads on en.WP relative to situations not too unlike yours. See my comment, as it addresses the logical fallacy of verification. While we encourage images to be uploaded to Commons, OTRS has much stricter, legal considerations relative to copyright infringement because the licenses they approve are free licenses, whereas en.WP can approve a fair use license (educational, historical) that is restricted, and basically protects intellectual property and arguably, the market value of the image, the latter of which is the only real reason for copyrighting. It's all about the money. I just attempted to get Jimmy to review our Fair Use criteria on en.WP because images that pass the fair use criteria get deleted from time to time (more likely by mistake). My suggestion to you is that if you cannot find any comparable free images, reduce the size of the image you have to around 200kb and try uploading it directly to en.WP using the fair use license option. If anything changes relative to OTRS (VRT members) acceptance of images, I proposed a e-Signature type of form by the uploaders which can be written in a way that places the liability directly on the person who signed the form. Atsme 💬 📧 15:32, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Atsme She is a living person. Fair use won't work. Non-free content should not be used when a freely licensed file that serves the same purpose can reasonably be expected to be uploaded, as is the case for almost all portraits of living people. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:41, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
ONUnicorn, they're historic images to show who she was 35+/- years ago, so living or not, it would not apply in this instance. Regardless, the images will probably qualify as PD anyway because there is no valid copyright license on the work. The dates the images were taken probably satisfies "published" if she distributed them to an agent or magazine, whatever, for public distribution: The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display, constitutes publication. Atsme 💬 📧 16:14, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
GRuban, you are legally responsible for your uploads. While few of us take legal advice before uploading, I would strongly recommend ignoring advice that suggests you use a mythical "fair use license option". Fair use is something publications fall back on in the absence of any licence or instead of acquiring one; it isn't a kind of licence. Wikipedia's policy Wikipedia:Non-free content is considerably stricter than US law. -- Colin°Talk 15:55, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
There is nothing mythical about historic "fair use" so please stop spreading misinformation. Atsme 💬 📧 16:30, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
I quoted your "fair use licence option", which is very much a mythical and entirely imaginary concept, not 'historic "fair use"', whatever that is. -- Colin°Talk 16:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
There is nothing in my comment that refers to "fair use" being mythical which appears to be your opinion. Following are some links to helpful information that you may find useful: very informative, Digital history, see subsection Historical photographs and this link. Atsme 💬 📧 10:36, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Every working actor (and many people who wish to be working actors) have studio photographers take "headshots". As someone said earlier it is a case of "work for hire". The photographer takes the picture for a one-time fee and the actor owns the copyright. These pictures are used by casting directors and agents. Even in today's digital world the 8 x 10 headshot still exists. Pack My Box (talk) 15:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

There's also the following in copyright law: Under copyright laws that were in effect before 1978, a work that was published without copyright notice fell into the public domain.[1] If the work did not include the word “Copyright” or a © (a “c” in a circle) and the name of the copyright owner, the work would enter the public domain. This rule was repealed; copyright notice is not required for works first published after March 1, 1989 (although works first published prior to that date must still include notice). It would apply to all of her images that were published prior to March 1, 1989. And that would include this headshot, as well as all the others. First have her check the back of the photographs to see if there is a © symbol or proper notification stamped on them. She can submit a photo image of the backs of those originals under the same ticket number. If was I was handling the case, I would apply the PD tag on them because based on first appearances, they are actually public domain if they've been published. If they are unpublished, then her CC-BY-SA 4.0 license would apply. Atsme 💬 📧 15:49, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
That's for the US, she's Canadian. --GRuban (talk) 16:23, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
As an OTRS/VRT member, I'm trying to help you here because you have helped me so many times in the past, but if you've already made up your mind that because she's Canadian I can't help you, then fine. I'll move along. Atsme 💬 📧 17:06, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Quite, let me rephrase with apologies. It's not that you can't help because she's Canadian, it's that the copyright law you're citing is US law, so won't apply to a Canadian copyright. Thank you for your support. --GRuban (talk) 18:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
No headshot does not mean work for hire. When it is work for hire. There is a contract that says it is work for hire. Show the contract. Handing photos to people to use in their hiring is not publishing the photo. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:58, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
You are right. I just talked to some industry friends and they tell me I'm totally wrong. It's not a "work for hire" situation. Photographer generally retains copyright but the client has the the right to use the images for personal publicity. That covers the normal use of headshots. Pack My Box (talk) 18:16, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

If we accept the idea that the person who pushes the button on the camera is the initial owner, there are many ways that that can transfer without having a written contract. For example if, while on vacation, I ask a stranger to to take a picture of me with my camera, it's clear to both that I own the picture. Whether you want to consider that to be an implicit verbal contract or whatever. IMO demanding a copy of a written contract to prove ownership is taking it too far. North8000 (talk) 16:08, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

It's not in the least too far, to expect contracts from professionals, who are in the business of promoting themselves. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:19, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Some real world examples are a semi-professional musician who has a photo which was taken by their spouse or a semi-professional band who had a friend snap a picture of them. In each case there would seldom be a written contract.North8000 (talk) 16:30, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
North8000, that's not a straightforward situation, but is a commonly asked question. See [6][7][8][9], and many others. But this isn't the friendly tourist case; it's a professional studio photograph. -- Colin°Talk 16:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Alan, are you honestly saying you have all the contracts from every purchase you made in the course of your business 30 years ago? --GRuban (talk) 16:36, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
GRuban, your frustration with the unfairness of this is quite understandable. But it is what it is. -- Colin°Talk 16:40, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Certainly, every one where I claim rights arising from it. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:34, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
I understand that it being taken by a pro probably calls for some extra scrutiny, but the fact that it was 30 years ago certainly calls for some slack in the other direction. That said, do you have a copy of the contract so that you can use your grade school picture of yourself, taken by a professional photographer? :-) North8000 (talk) 20:43, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Why would I promote myself with a eighth grade picture? Moreover, it's not not in the least difficult for me to take a picture of myself, right now. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Copyright law lasts 70 years after the death of the photographer. So 30 years after the photo was taken? pah! Blame Disney. That contract wouldn't have allowed you to post it on Wikipedia anyway. I don't know about your school photographer but here they do not get paid by parents just for the pleasure of taking the photo -- that bit is free. They only get paid when you buy prints. And if you want more prints, you pay more. So why on earth would their contract give you the rights to make your own prints? -- Colin°Talk 08:00, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
@GRuban: I haven't read the whole thread, only the part that mentions me. As far as I can remember, the uploader/user/photographer(?) had difficulties with our requirements on how to write what where. I helped a lot of customers by fixing sources, licenses, and whatnots. Lots of whatnots. Still do. Happily. For more details, an OTRS volunteer has to take a look if there is some info in the system. I do make mistakes, espacially in the beginning as an admin. At +160k edits, I'm still not 100% error free. If someone thinks that my decision was wrong, a deletion request needs to be started. Cheers C(_) --Hedwig in Washington (TALK) 02:27, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
No complaints about you, Hedwig! You did the right thing then, I only hope the right thing happens again now. Kohlrabi Pickle's note below terrifies me. --GRuban (talk) 02:36, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Folks, the inimitable Atsme may have saved the day here. She found this https://capic.org/copyright-laws/ which says that until 2012, in Canada, by default, unless a contract says otherwise, the purchaser of a photograph taken on commission owned the copyright to the photograph. Not the photographer! As there were 1980-1990 photos, they should thoroughly qualify. I'm going to repeat this to our OTRS contact and see whether he accepts it. Thank you all. (Backed up in these places also: http://www.open-shelf.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Copyright-in-Photographs.pdf https://www.dpreview.com/articles/0451558518/canadian-photographers-own-copyright). Atsme, if this works, I owe you big time. Jimbo, my apologies for hijacking your page, that was not my intent, but it certainly got there. I still think we need to accept subjects' word in email if we would accept it on their web page, but for me at least that will be an argument for another day. --GRuban (talk) 00:06, 23 June 2021 (UTC)

Not a problem, the "hijacking". I'm glad this particular issue was resolved, and I'm glad to have hosted (and I hope it continues a bit longer) a conversation about the broader question of inconsistency between different modes of testimony to us.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:01, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
This has always been my understanding. Though I was not aware of the 2012 change, good to know. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 00:09, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
If this is the case, then it is certainly useful for Canadian bios. However it is important to recognise that this is not the case in other countries and other time periods. If copyright was something folks could work out rationally and with sensible arguments, we wouldn't be in the situation where "pre 2012 Canada" was some exception, or "pre 1989 USA if there's no (c) statement", etc, etc, was the only way to use some works. For that reason, I think we should remember that the admins on Commons who deal with this have a jolly hard job and cut them some slack. It must be a little tiring for them when folk turn up and assume they can work out copyright law from first principles of basic common sense. -- Colin°Talk 08:00, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
I am accustomed to dealing with these issues on a daily basis, and focus primarily on permissions tickets in English speaking countries so this was a relatively easy one. It was my pleasure to help. In an effort to benefit submitters and VRT members alike, I have also put forward suggestions for changes to the OTRS Release Generator that will streamline the process and substantially reduce the seemingly infinite back and forth issues we have to deal with in the permissions process but finding the right tech to carry out the process has not been easy. Hopefully Jimmy can help. I have also made a suggestion that may do even more to streamline the process and combine everything in one docu-sign style submission by the uploader, as well as take the guesswork out of the process and provide uniformity. The process would utilize either the Adobe e-Sign/docu-sign verification process, or other alternatives such as this one. I believe it will provide the verifiability we need and establish responsibility where responsibility is due. It will also eliminate a lot of the frustration we encounter when people upload their images and other intellectual property. Atsme 💬 📧 09:55, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
@GRuban I had exactly this discussion with OTRS some time ago, and sadly it didn't go well. I had written to Singaporean politicians to ask for their photos for Wikipedia, and the position is exactly the same in Singapore copyright law: the purchaser of a commissioned photo owns the copyright, not the photographer. Sadly, the consensus at OTRS was that I still needed to produce the contracts between the politicians and the photography studios. While I appreciate that they were just doing their jobs, I found the position unreasonable and overcautious. There are safe harbour provisions for content hosts like Wikipedia so that we are free from liability if the copyright is contested and we take down the photo within a reasonable period. In any case, our full discussion is here: Commons:Deletion requests/File:Gan Siow Huang 1,jpg. Kohlrabi Pickle (talk) 01:27, 24 June 2021 (UTC)
Hurrah, hurrah! OTRS says "Dear Laura, dear George, thanks for your efforts! Your permission has been added to the file pages." Happy, happy, joy, joy! Kohlrabi, my fine pickle, we may well investigate and appeal your issue as well if it is really identical ... but later! Just for now, I am breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief, and treasuring the few hairs I have left that did not turn white at your notice just above. Thank you all here one more time, and especially Atsme. --GRuban (talk) 15:44, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

If Google can do it, why can't we?

Per this statement:

Can Google determine copyright ownership?

No. Google isn’t able to mediate rights ownership disputes. When we receive a complete and valid takedown notice, we remove the content as the law requires. When we receive a valid counter notification we forward it to the person who requested the removal. If there is still a dispute it’s up to the parties involved to resolve the issue in court.

WP has some qualified and unqualified but well-meaning volunteers who are making determinations as to what is or isn't a copyvio, and at times are removing legitimate images as copyvios or not fair use because they don't fully understand either, and that doesn't even scratch the surface for the many varieties of copyright/fair use laws in different countries. WP is an educational source which already protects us in many ways under fair use, so why are we not taking advantage of that in our project wikis like en.WP, de.WP, fr.WP, etc.? I can understand the repercussions that apply to Commons uploads but some of what is happening on en.WP is concerning. Why not make the uploader responsible, or is that already the case? Atsme 💬 📧 21:04, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Google is a search engine and by design and intent, its human curation is minimal. It links to web search query relevant websites with little regard to reliability or unreported copyright violations. If you go searching for unreliable garbage, Google will serve it up to you, within reason. Wikipedia has an explicit goal to create freely licensed text summarizing reliable sources, without copyright violations, curated by intelligent human beings, and made freely available to humanity in every significant human language. Both ventures are important and worthy, but their underlying principles are different. Attempting to apply Google's policies to Wikipedia just won't fly. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 04:25, 17 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, Cullen. I get your point, but I'll just add that, technically, Google is a tad more involved than just being a search engine: Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, a search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. OTH, the WMF, is an NPO (charitable foundation) that consists of several WikiProjects, sister projects, and of course Commons, "a media repository of free-use images, sounds, other media, and JSON files". I think it's safe to classify en.WP as an educational resource of sorts, and as such, it opens all kinds of doors to fair use. Of course, copyright laws and all other legal decisions remain with WMF attorneys, not WP contributors, few of whom are copyright experts. It's always better for us to err on the side of caution - I get that - however, I am somewhat concerned that, far too often, some editors tend to disproportionately give more value to the interests of for-profit businesses over the educational/historic value of fair use inclusion where applicable & very much needed, such as a biography or BLP that has no images. I admittedly get a little frustrated when creating or editing articles of historic/educational significance when they lack coverage, which is customary for notable women throughout history. When I get lucky and find the perfect image for an article, upload it as fair use, and then discover a half-hour later that it was deleted per CSD, despite it being legal fair use, it can be an incentive killer. WP bureaucracy, policy and rules are typically the culprit, and IAR only works when there's consensus. It makes no sense to me for us to have criteria in WP:NFCCP policy that contradicts the very reason we opt for fair use in the first place.

WP's mission statement reads “to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally”. I get all the legal aspects and the why nots...but are we inadvertently empowering or engaging for-profit businesses to develop free or PD licensing if we are disportionately respecting the "original market role of the original copyrighted material", and not properly utilizing fair use? As a former professional in that industry, I was supportive of the protections but I have a much different perspective today that aligns more closely with education and history. I'm of the mind that some editors are simply working too hard at diluting our fair use options when the opposite should be true. Jimmy's an idea man, and I trust his judgment, so hopefully he can contribute some ideas to this discussion. Atsme 💬 📧 19:47, 17 June 2021 (UTC)

I think we get the balance right. Fair use is important, and we both should and do rely on it in relevant cases. A canonical example would be the Pulitzer Prize winning photo we show in Elián González.
But encouraging more use of fair use opens the door to a lot of nonsense, and closes the door to a strong incentive for people to create freely licensed content.
I strongly support Wikipedia:NFCCP.
But this is the sort of discussion that might be more informative all around if we were discussing specific examples.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:25, 18 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree and hopefully will have something to share by tomorrow - stay tuned. Atsme 💬 📧 01:45, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
With respect to the non-free content policy providing a "strong incentive for people to create freely licensed content", File:Olympia Dukakis still at Pride Parade, from film Olympia by Harry Marvomichalis.jpg is a good example. It was originally uploaded as non-free content but the copyright holder agreed to release it under a free license when its use as non-free content to was challenged. See this FFD entry for the discussion. -- Whpq (talk) 13:59, 19 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Jimmy, the above image works fine to demonstrate part of what raises my concerns, but there are many situations that are similar and some not so similar but with the same results. To begin, based on my experiences, the aforementioned image identified under Ticket#2021041810000446 would have been fine as a fair use image, would it not? WMF was protected legally; however, by not accepting it under a fair use license, an Otrs (now Vrt) volunteer obtained permission from the (possible) owner of the copyright under circumstances they did not/could not properly verify, and that is what concerns me because of potential liability resulting from licensing an image under a free license without actually verifying that the license came from the actual copyright holder. It affects all volunteers, because we do not have the ability, much less the legal knowledge to pursue a proper license under a substantial number of situations. We cannot provide positive identification in various situations that the emails actually came from the copyright owners - we simply AGF. Our forms are not Adobe sign E-signatures. In the first example, the email address did not originate from a person's or authorized agent's identifiable email address, rather it came from a wide-ranging info@[whatever url.com] address, so anybody (including those without authority within the business or organization) could have sent us the free use form. Does that put the WMF in a precarious situation, and/or the volunteer who accepted the email and tagged the image with a free license that possibly should have remained "fair use"? That is one of the concerns that I would like to get cleared-up, if possible, and I hope it's not an issue but if that is the case, then I point to my original question in this thread.

    Another situation involves potential misunderstandings by good faith volunteers relative to wire services, and the fact that wire services don't automatically own copyrights of material they distribute when acting as a PR wire service. See the following sequence of events that created a substantial time sink - and I am not saying any of it was acted out in bad faith. In fact, I believe the opposite is true. One of the involved editors Whpq provided the first example above, another is an admin Fastily who did everything exactly as they should have and is an admin whose judgment I respect and trust, and two other contributors, Clindberg and Marchjuly who I would collaborate with in a heartbeat, despite my concerns of disproportionate respect for wire services et al (based on the policy you support, Jimmy) vs fair use that contributes to the stated mission of the project. I am not here to complain rather I just want your input for guidance, so please do not misunderstand my intentions. I truly do appreciate the diligence and reserve of the aforementioned thoughtful editors, but we need a more efficient system. Following is a chronological sequence of events to demonstrate the time sink for all of us:

  1. Original question after a file was tagged for CSD.
  2. Challenge and discussion
  3. Commons Village Pump discussion


It's all relative to the following:
  1. Stanford
  2. Cornell
Complex copyright laws that most volunteers do not fully understand (and are not expected to because we're not lawyers), including editors who are far less experienced in such situations or perhaps lack professional familiarity with relative copyright processes, are typically at the root of the issues. I do not claim infallibility because one law in particular that causes confusion is this one 1926-1977 that resulted in the Commons license PD-US-defective notice tag, not to mention all the variables that it entails. Not unlike other editors, I take my work seriously, and when an image I've uploaded under fair use is deleted within 20 minutes of the upload I am motivated to question it from both an en.WP and Commons perspective. I'm of the mind something needs to change to make the process more efficient in light of what I have presented above. I have also seen situations that have cost the project historic images, or useful images in general - it happens all the time. It is always better to err on the side of caution, but I'd rather not see hair-trigger deletions of historic images resulting from over-compensation or disproportionate protection under the misinterpretation that wire services own the copyrights to everything they distribute. But again, that's just one of several issues that I believe can be made to be far more efficient, but because of the potential liability to WMF, it may (or may not) be something for legal to consider. Atsme 💬 📧 18:36, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
Since I was pinged in the above post, I guess it's OK to comment. I don't think I've ever actually posted anything here on this user talk page. It is a bit intimidating to be honest, but here I go anyway. The terms "fair use" and "non-free content" are used interchangeably on Wikipedia by many editors and even in some templates/notifications related to non-free content use created by the community, but they're not really the same thing when it comes to non-free file use on Wikipedia as explained here and here. I think it’s important to keep this in mind when discussing this kind of thing. So, while Astme might have uploaded a file in accordance with fair use, the disagreement was over whether the file was uploaded in accordance relevant Wikipedia policy. I don’t have firsthand knowledge as to why Wikipedia's policy was set up to be more restrictive than fair use (there are probably discussions buried in the WT:NFCC archives), but it was. So, relevant Wikipedia policy requires more than fair use, and a non-free file needs to meet all ten of the criteria listed here for it to be considered OK to use. When an editor has concerns over whether these criteria are being met, they may tag, prod or even nominate the file for deletion/discussion. An administrator review almost always takes place before any file is deleted and any deletion of a file can be challenged after the fact per WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. That is my understanding of how things are supposed to work.
So, Atsme uploaded a file as non-free content and added it to an article. Another editor (Whpq) came across the file and found what he believed was an issue and tagged the file for speedy deletion, and administrator (Fastily) reviewed the tag, felt that it was appropriate, and then deleted the file. The speed by which the file was deleted might seem to be too fast, but I've seen other pages and articles deleted just as fast if not even faster after they've been tagged for speedy deletion by someone. I've also seen pages speedily deleted by administrators without any tagging, warning or notification. Anyway, the file was deleted and Atsme posted a query on Whpq's user talk page about it that began with Are you auto tagging?. There were probably lots of other ways to to ask about the file than one which might be seen as an accusation of WP:MEATBOT, but Whpq explained why he tagged the file, and I commented on what I thought the issues were.
The file was restored by Fastily, who started a discussion about it at FFD (the link to that discussion is provided above by Atsme) where further discussion takes place. At this stage the file was still licensed as non-free content which meant that the discussion was about whether the file met all ten criteria. A couple more editors participated in the discussion and you can read what they wrote yourself. That discussion was closed after Atsme, based on some new things she learned about the file, uploaded the file to Commons as "PD-ineligible-no notice" and requested that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. The only problem I have with any part of that FFD discussion is this Based on some of the delete arguments, I am now wondering if other legitimate images have been deleted based on the same or similar reasons - and I must say that it is not a good sign when we're trying to build an encyclopedia. Collaboration/inclusion is key to building whereas resistance/deletion for no valid reason is quite the opposite. comment made by Atsme in one of her later posts in the discussion which like the Are you auto tagging? comment above seems to imply that others were automatically wrong just for disagreeing with her assessment. It's not only that they were wrong this time, but possibly on prior occasions as well. There have been lots of FFD discussions over the years; many ended up with a consensus to delete or remove, and many ended up with a consensus to keep or relicense. Atsme is more than welcome to dig through the FFD archives looking for files which she believes were incorrectly deleted due to "wrong" WP:!VOTEs being made. She can then seek to have the files restored based upon CLOSECHALLENGE.
The FFD discussion was ended when Atsme decided that the file was actually PD and uploaded it to Commons. I didn't agree with that assessment; so, I started a discussion about it on Commons. I didn't nominate the file for deletion, but rather started a discussion about it. Another editor responded to my query and expressed similar concerns. Atsme's first post in that discussion included the sentence I already explained in detail at the FfD that those images are PD. The links you provided are capitalizing on PD photos. The email correspondence I received from newspapers.com in response to my query to them about their copyright clearly states, and I quote (my bold text): "Our Newspaper.com Basic subscription only covers non-copyrighted content on the site." I don't understand why you followed me here to Commons to beat a dead horse. which once again seems to automatically assume that she was right and those disagreeing with her were wrong. Another editor (who is a Commons administrator, a Wikipedia administrator, and a VRT volunteer) subsequently posted his concerns about whether the file is really PD; so, it's not like just one person was expressing concerns about the file's licensing. The rest of the discussion is there for anyone to see (the link is provided above by Atsme) . Eventually, things were resolved when Atsme was further able to clarify the provenance of the file. She apparently was working on tracking down the real source of the photo while all of the aforementioned discussions were taking place. It probably would've been helpful at the time to know she was making such efforts and most likely everyone disagreeing with her would've been happy to wait until the VRT team could resolve the matter.
In my opinion, I don't think the process failed. A file was uploaded, concerns were raised, discussion ensued, and things were eventually resolved. There was a lot of disagreement along the way, but things ended up being resolved. I imagine that the same thing happens quite a lot in all type of WP:XFD discussions. Is Wikipedia's non-free content use policy too restrictive? I don't think so, but there are plenty of editors who feel strongly that it is. So, maybe the time has come to have another discussion about such a thing at WT:NFCC. If the policy as a whole is OK in principle, but rather some of the individual ten criteria need some reassessing or even possible need to be dropped altogether, then that's fine too. Once again, though that seems to be a discussion better suited for at WT:NFCC than on any one editor's user talk page. A consensus can change over time, but it should be changed the right way.
FWIW, I personally think things would be much easier if the WMF and its copyright experts stepped in and took over non-free content assessment on Wikipedia. There are almost 900,000 files currently uploaded locally to Wikipedia and my guess is that the vast majority of these are non-free. That's with the current non-free content use policy having been in effect all of these years. So, if the consensus turns out to make this policy less restrictive (which is fine if that's what the community wants), then I think it would be reasonable to expect that the number of non-free files uploaded will explode in a relatively short period of time. However, unless someone is going to start trying to track down US copyright lawyers who are also Wikipedia editors and convince them to start participating in FFD discussions and assessing non-free content use, it's going to be left to discussions involving volunteer editors. If part of the problem is, as Atsme posts above, that these volunteer editors include those editors who are far less experienced in such situations or perhaps lack professional familiarity with relative copyright processes, are typically at the root of the issues., then maybe only "copyright experts" should be allowed to participate in such discussions. Moreover, maybe if all non-free files were be vetted by a group of "copyright experts" before they're allowed to be used, then there would be problems to try and sort out later on. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:22, 20 June 2021 (UTC)
I posted quite a bit of wall of text above and my apologies for that. If people don't want to wade through it all, then I completely understand. I think it's important, however, to figure out what (if anything) is wrong with current Wikipedia policy and then perhaps what to do about it. The best place to do that would be at WT:NFCC, but I think the relevant question that needs to be answered before anything else is tacked is "What should Wikipedia policy on the use of copyrighted content be, total fair use or limited fair use?". If the community as a whole is unable to agree upon that, then trying to figure everything else out seems pointless. The current policy seems to reflect a "limited fair use" approach and although that might've have worked fairly well up to now, maybe it's time to reassess and figure out if its the best thing moving forward. -- Marchjuly (talk) 02:10, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree with a lot of what Marchjuly said, except for the bit about WMF getting involved, which I think won't happen for lots of reasons. Atsme, lots of people get upset when files they upload get deleted or nearly deleted, particularly if the file required a lot of effort to get and appears to get deleted after a few mouse clicks. But I think it important to see the process too from the POV of those admins and volunteers who review images for deletion and an awful lot of images are deleted for good reason. Most people have not the first clue about copyright but upload stuff anyway. I think your argument for just trusting the uploader would be less instantly dismissible if your example wasn't one where your upload under the non-free criteria was so quite obviously wrong. In one sense you are right, the uploader is legally responsible for what they upload, and the community isn't legally responsible. But the community believes that our free content mission requires community review of content to ensure to our best ability that it is freely reusable. It isn't perfect but then neither are we all professional writers and that doesn't seem to stop us trying.
You ask if Google can do it then why can't we? But a Google approach would require Wikipedia to say "Wikipedia is not free content. You can't just freely reuse it. Most of the content here was likely just copy-pasted off some other part of the internet, and its owners haven't got round to sending us a Take Down notice. Our volunteers are deluded and clueless. They think they are creating a free resource. But a lot of it isn't. We don't know which bits. We haven't even looked. Honestly, if you are looking for a picture to use, go to a stock photo agency. Photos cost pennies these days, so why risk it?". -- Colin°Talk 07:53, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
I happen to be one of those volunteers as a member of VRT (previously referred to as OTRS agents), so you're preaching to the choir, and I would very much appreciate it if your responses would be less condescending, intentional or otherwise. I've long since learned that flat-out calling someone wrong has contributed to a dwindling crow population. I believe Commons should more strictly adhere to copyright law and reject fair use as we're doing now but en.WP should be less strict and more open to accepting fair use images for our articles. I am very much up to speed on licensing and what copyright entails, not only because of my work on WP, but because of my RL professional/first-hand experiences. I initially posted to Jimmy's TP for his input, although I also appreciate input from others who are knowledgeable about copyright and fair use as I work to gather information/thoughts/ideas for a potential WP:VRT presentation during Wikimania. Jimmy requested examples of cases which I provided with respect and consideration for the editors I mentioned (and courteously pinged them), and I would appreciate the same consideration in return. My current focus is on the degree of risk and liability on behalf of volunteers and WMF relative to their extent of involvement in determining what is or isn't copyright infringement or fair use in instances where we actually have no means of verifying that a person/entity actually does own the copyright. I tend to liken the depth of involvement in making such a determination to be on parallel with the risks involved when a homeowner hangs a "Beware of dog" sign on their yard fence, and their dog bites the meter reader. IOW, WP editors/WMF are assuming responsibility when making such determinations, all with good intentions in an effort to protect the copyright holder (thus, the dog owner taking the extra step to hang a sign to protect innocent people from being bitten by their dog). By taking on such a responsibility, are we admitting that there may be a copyright issue? Does that open the door to liability if we tag an image under a free use license only to later discover that the license submitted was an incorrect license and not free use after all? What happens then? Who takes responsibility for having accepted the free license? I'm of the mind that a fair use license provides a bit more protection for volunteers & WMF, especially in dubious or questionable situations wherein we cannot verify the person who submitted the license as being the copyright holder. Perhaps Commons should adopt an e-sign process to replace the OTRS release generator? On en.WP, our first consideration should be on improving articles and providing our readers with the kind of information they need to better understand what is presented - and pictures speak a thousand words - but the current process sometimes fails us when a CSD nom made unwittingly by a volunteer results in the deletion of a fair use image. That doesn't even count the back and forth discussions after a file is deleted and what transpires afterward, or the time sink it creates for volunteers. Efficiency, accuracy and making good judgement are important to building an encyclopedia, and that is pretty much the crux of my concerns. Atsme 💬 📧 19:47, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Atsme, your opening post: "WP has some qualified and unqualified but well-meaning volunteers who are making determinations as to what is or isn't a copyvio, and at times are removing legitimate images as copyvios or not fair use because they don't fully understand either" (my bold). I would suggest heeding some of your own advice about "flat-out calling someone wrong". The other editors at those discussions seem to understand both fair use law and Wikipedia's non-free content policy. Uploading an image that didn't meet policy suggests you didn't understand the latter, are unhappy about what you learned, and now would like it changed. I'm not sure what alternative explanation there might be except that perhaps you fully understood our non-free image policy but uploaded an image you knew would be deleted in order to make a point. You don't seem to be arguing the policy is unclear or that your image was an edge case. Your post here is to change that policy and, apparently, be more like Google. The others in the linked discussions managed to avoid personal attacks, whereas your approach both then and now is to claim you alone are right, extremely knowledgable, and yet surrounded by idiots who just don't understand.
Your rational for changing policy -- "some editors tend to disproportionately give more value to the interests of for-profit businesses over the educational/historic value of fair use inclusion where applicable & very much needed, such as a biography or BLP that has no images." -- isn't particularly original. When it comes down to "very much needed", I'll side with the press photographer who takes photos for a living and has to pay their mortgage and feed their kids, over "My Wikipedia biography article has no lead image".
But I very very much hear your condescending "I was talking to Jimmy, actually" message, so, you know, unwatching. -- Colin°Talk
(edit conflict) I'm not sure I get what you mean by but the current process sometimes fails us when a CSD nom made unwittingly by a volunteer results in the deletion of a fair use image.. Obviously, it's in reference to the initial tagging of the file by Whpq and again implies that he did something wrong even though you don't you don't flatly come out and say he did. What should he have done differently? Should he have done nothing at all? He tagged the file for speedy deletion because he thought it didn't meet WP:NFCC#2 of Wikipedia's non-free content use policy and thus was eligible for speedy deletion per WP:F7; he didn't tag the file for being in violation of fair use. You originally uploaded the file with this non-free use rationale which gives its source as "Associated Press International"; that's the information Whpq was working on when he assessed the file. For the sake of argument, let assume that Whpq did make some error and tagged a file for speedy deletion that shouldn't have been tagged; maybe he was just "auto tagging" files without giving them any thought to them like you seem to suggest in your original post on his user talk. OK, so now there's still just a incorrectly tagged file awaiting administrator review and nothing has been deleted yet. Fastily who is an administrator and also is a VRT volunteer reviews the tag and deletes the file. He then posts this on Whpq's user talk page stating that he felt the tagging and deletion of the file were correct, which it my book means that Whpq did nothing wrong. You posted an admin Fastily who did everything exactly as they should have and is an admin whose judgment I respect and trust above which seems to mean that Fastily should've deleted the file. Is that correct?
Fastily did subsequently restore the file so that further discussion about it could take place on FFD where it was better to do so. So, the discussion moved to FFD and continued to discuss the non-free use of the file. Fastily started the discussion and didn't !vote. I, Whpq and you pretty much restated what we posted on Whpq's user talk page, two new editors showed up mainly to discuss the possibility of the file being within the public domain (they didn't really !vote either way on what should be done with the file). It's possible that some more editors would've commented on the file if the discussion had remained opened, but you uploaded the file to Commons as PD and then requested that local non-free file be deleted. I'm assuming that's where you think the discussion should've stopped, but I didn't agree with your assessment that the file was PD; so, I asked about it at COM:VPC.
Some other editor's commented at Commons that they also had concerns as to whether the file was PD for the reasons you were claiming; one of them is a Commons administrator, a Wikipedia administrator and also a VRT volunteer. More discussion ensued, but that pretty much stopped as soon as you posted that you had clarified the original source of the file. Nobody was criticizing you throughout any of this, they were disagreeing with you over first your claim that the file met the WP:NFCCP and then your claim that the file was PD; moreover, once you clarified the original source of the file, everyone pretty much backed off and thanked you for your efforts.
Near the end of the Commons discussion, you posted Over the past week, I have been in correspondence with an executive and his assistant at Santa Anita Park, and just today received copies of the original photographs that were taken by the track's staff photographer at the time. I'm not sure what over the past week exactly means, but you made the comment June 19 (per my time zone). When did you start discussing things with the race track? Was it part of your research of the file before you uploaded it as non-free content? You newspapers.com about the photo so maybe you also contacted the track at roughly the same time. Did you try and contact them after the file was deleted the first time? Whpq tagged the file for speedy deletion on June 17 (again per my time zone) and the ensuing discussions about it took place over the next two days. Were you discussing things with the track while all of this was taking place? Why didn't you let any of the others involved know you were in contact with the track? Perhaps, if you did that, then the time sink you're unhappy about might've been mitigated. It wasn't only myself and Whpq who were disagreeing with you, but also others including administrators and VRT volunteers; so, at some point, if Whpq and myself were completely wrong and wasting everyone's time, then one of those others would've or should've said so.
Anyway, moving forward, it's not clear how we should proceed. If you feel actual changes to the policy are necessary, then you can propose them at WT:NFCC. If you want complete "fair use", then propose so; if you want a lesser degree of "limited fair use", then propose that. If you feel that non-free content review and assessment should be left to VRT volunteers and administrators and perhaps those who have RL experience in the matter like you do, then you can propose that as well. I'm not sure how often frequent FFD, but if you feel you can help make things better there by making sure nobody !votes incorrectly, then please do so. There are always lots of files being discussed and not lots of editors discussing them. If we all mucked things up this time around, then perhaps through your efforts something similar can be avoided in the future. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:42, 21 June 2021 (UTC)
Please re-read my opening statement. BTW, I pinged you as courtesy which I felt obligated to do, not as an invitation. My concern continues to be focused on the process and stringent criteria that, from my perspective, conflicts with the purpose of fair use. My concerns were not specifically about any editor(s) who participated in any of the discussions. The accusations that it was anything more are what I consider aspersions and PAs. My statements support my position and represent a pragmatic and wide-ranging view relative to both scope and time frame, and covers at least a decade of experiences with fair use deletions. If you and Colin are of the mind that every FfD and CsD over the past decade are 100% the result of flawless judgment calls by qualified editors who understand copyright law, then I recommend reading this article, and while there, keyword search "hegemony of the asshole consensus" and read it. CSD actions disappear quickly so it's difficult to gather supporting evidence to make a fact-based determination. Not every admin responds as thoughtfully and commendable as Fastily did when he reverted his action, and respected my challenge by opening a case at FfD. Also keep in mind that not every editor challenges a CSD, perhaps because they don't feel qualified enough in copyright law to do so (not intended to be an insult). I certainly understand why Jimmy believes the balance is right - we can't prove a negative - which may explain why he requested specific examples.
Whpq provided what he believed to be a good example, and so did I, but because my example included your comments, opposed your POV, and unexpectedly turned out that I was correct about UPI not being the copyright owner, my argument has been misrepresented as a flawed example starting with Colin's comment followed by the aspersions and attempts to discredit me. I would much rather think of successfully challenged deletion cases as lessons learned which lead the way to a better understanding of potential flaws in a process. Now that you've brought editor behavior to the forefront, let's analyze your behavior, Marchjuly, starting with the FfD discussion and how, after I ended my participation there, you followed me over to Commons and started a discussion at Village Pump about that same image. It seemed more like WP:DIDNTHEARTHAT behavior or worse, a bit like wikihounding because it didn't stop at FfD or Village Pump. You also followed me over to the BLP which arguably left an ambiguous impression as to your motives because articles about female jockeys don't appear to be of special interest to you based on your long list of contributions. I'm sure you have valid reasons for that pattern of behavior. I chose to AGF, and I'm certainly not saying that you have not done good work on the article because you have, and for a while, I was actually enjoying the collaboration until I read your most recent comments about me here. I appears to be a passive-aggressive approach which is supported by your walls of text, aspersions, recent interrogation of me, and scolding instructions as to what I should say, how I should say it, and how I should present my case, as if you are Captain Thought Police and that I need schooling, all of which was based on yours and Colin's misinterpretations and misrepresentations of my intent. It's that kind of behavior that serves to reinforce my concerns about our fair use criteria and how that criteria is being enforced. I think the behavior deserves a higher level of scrutiny. I've decided to take the high road and end my participation here rather than subject myself to what is beginning to feel like bullying and abusive behavior which is clearly noncompliant with WMF's Code of Conduct. Atsme 💬 📧 14:45, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Disagreeing with you does not violate the Code of Conduct. Marchjuly clearly and civilly explained the basis of his disagreement with you (and, frankly, he and Colin have a point in that your initial comments don't seem to demonstrate an understanding of the difference between fair use and WP:NFCC). Your treatment of Marchjuly, and your invocation of the Code of Conduct to threaten him, is deeply inappropriate.

You frequently cite Rob Fernandez's article, usually to imply that people who disagree with you are part of an "asshole consensus", but I'd invite you to read it more carefully. One of his central points is that Wikipedians win disputes by raising the cost of disagreeing with them, rather than by having better arguments or understandings of policy. This is exactly what you've done to Marchjuly. The next time he sees you upload a file with a dubious or incorrect rationale, he'll probably think twice before tagging it—not because you've suddenly developed a better understanding of WP:NFCC, but because you've demonstrated how viciously you'll go after him if he crosses you. Fernandez's point is that this dynamic is unhealthy but also dominant on Wikipedia. MastCell Talk 16:52, 22 June 2021 (UTC)

Classic tu quoque, MastCell, and yet again you misinterpreted my comment. It’s quite obvious that you are prejudiced against me. What you’ve been doing is wikihounding. Your accusations are, to use your terminology, "deeply inappropriate" and unbecoming for an administrator. The pattern you’ve established dates back a few years now, and I've asked you in the past to stop your relentless attempts to disparage me. That diff demonstrates your patterned behavior and how far back it goes. Lo and behold, here you are again with your one and only edit in this entire discussion on Jimmy's TP where you showed up to purposely disparage me. Marchjuly and I don't need your interference; we have worked through our differences because there's mutual respect between us. Atsme 💬 📧 19:07, 26 June 2021 (UTC)
@Atsme: My disagreement with you over this file, first on English Wikipedia and then on Commons, was nothing personal. I don't think it amounts to bullying or stalking, but it's not my place to tell you how to feel. So, I'll step away from that now, but you can decide to take further action if you want.
My edits to Tuesdee Testa were also what I believe to be have been good faith attempts to improve the article. Since this is where the file was being used, I looked at the article. I don't really know anything about the subject herself or women jockeys in general (I know a bit more now), but thought there were still some ways that I could try and improve the article. Same goes for my comments at Talk:Tuesdee Testa. Just for reference to anyone else reading this, another editor (who is a Commons and Wikipedia admin as well as a VRT volunteer) who also disagreed with you on Commons is also participating in those article talk page discussions. I'd like to think that if my edits or behavior in either case were a problem that he would've let me know. Again, if you feel my edits to the article were unconstructive or disruptive, then you can revert them if you want or improve upon them as you deem necessary. If you think my talk page posts were unhelpful, feel free to ignore them or even collapse them per WP:TPG#Off-topic posts. I will be stepping away from that as well. FWIW, I do have a copy of a source that was sent to me per WP:RX#1969 The New Yorker article that might have value for the article. I'm not sure whether you can access the source yourself. If you can't and want to see it, then I'm sure the person who sent it to me would probably be happy to send it to you too.
My edits here on this user talk page might've been a bit defensive, perhaps because I felt a bit under attack. I know an editor doesn't need to be pinged to participate in a discussion, but this page is (to be honest) not really just any other talk page. I was pinged though which I thought meant that it would be OK to post my take on things. If that was a mistake, then my apologies to all involved, particularly the editor whose user talk this is. I don't think I posted anything uncivil and I tried to support my comments with quotes or links whenever I thought it was necessary to do so, but again if you or anyone else feels I crossed some line and posted something inappropriate, then you or they are free to seek my sanction. I'm not trying to play the victim here, but everyday brings new learning moments and I will treat all of this as such. I won't be posting any more here except to answer direct questions if someone has any, but would prefer they be made on my user talk. — Marchjuly (talk) 20:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict)@Atsme, I mean maybe people are disagreeing with you cos you're wrong? Something to consider when a lot of people disagree with you? If editors are "removing legitimate images as copyvios or not fair use" I'm fine with that. I'd rather err on the side of caution. OK? We just disagree. You know -- better X allowable images be deleted than one be wrongly allowed. I don't know what X is but it's not zero. (Full disclosure: I only skimmed the material above, but I get what's going on.)
You know, we shouldn't really have fair use pictures at all, because a tip-top priority is to be reusable, and a person copying a picture without the accompanying discussion -- she's turning a fair-use image into an illegal one, and probably doesn't even know. (Full disclosure: I personally don't care a tinker's dam about downstream users and I'm not alone, and I frequently ignore rules. But this is a rule that I feel must be followed even tho I don't agree with it. So should all. It's core. If this is where you're coming from -- you don't care that much about downstream users, and that is coloring your approach, that's fine and only human, but: be like me.)
Anyway, we do allow fair use. I'm glad, it's a fair compromise because it makes the Wikipedia a lot more fun to look at and more informative too. But it is a compromise of a core value. I wouldn't push it.
So if there's an image, and four people are saying it's OK to use, and three are saying it isn't, that enough for me (assuming reasonably cogent arguments): out it goes, for my part. Disputed? Out it goes. There's no way to know for stone sure -- "a law is guess about what a judge will do". Better safe than sorry. (Yes I get that we won't really be sorry in real life, but I also won't be sorry if a slip a pack of smokes off the counter into my pocket when no one's looking... but I still don't do it. There's more to all this than what we can get away with. Don't forget, we're huge, that means we have to be especially careful.)
And good grief do I run across a fair amount of copyvio for text (I don't much deal with pictures). People paste in whole long paragraphs, and man you can't do that. It's annoying to have to boil down 15 sentences into two for a subject which I don't know or care about. It's energy wasted. So my wish is that editors would be stricter about fair use. At least for that. Probably pictures too.
I mean, I get it though. I get the emotion. Gads I'm so gosh-darn frustrated right now because I just wrote Loyal slaves monument and I can't find a free picture, which would greatly enhance the layout and be a little bit informative, and there's even one that's free to use but not by commercial entities. But the text description is sufficient, there's no discussion of the layout of the bas-reliefs and so forth, and no need to shoehorn that in -- it shows a reaper and a mammy stereotype, it doesn't matter their exact poses etc. And, you know, my articles are my babies, I want them to be as snuggly and user-friendy as possible. So I get it! I know how people feel about this stuff! But the Wikipedia doesn't care about our feelings nor should (in this case).
We've lost good editors because they just can't accept this. User:SchuminWeb, another guy I forget his name, and surely more. It's a shame. We don't want to lose any more. Herostratus (talk) 21:02, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
Marchjuly - perhaps you missed the following in my opening statement (my bold underline for emphasis): Another situation involves potential misunderstandings by good faith volunteers relative to wire services, and the fact that wire services don't automatically own copyrights of material they distribute when acting as a PR wire service. See the following sequence of events that created a substantial time sink - and I am not saying any of it was acted out in bad faith. In fact, I believe the opposite is true. One of the involved editors Whpq provided the first example above, another is an admin Fastily who did everything exactly as they should have and is an admin whose judgment I respect and trust, and two other contributors, Clindberg and Marchjuly who I would collaborate with in a heartbeat, despite my concerns of disproportionate respect for wire services et al (based on the policy you support, Jimmy) vs fair use that contributes to the stated mission of the project. I am not here to complain rather I just want your input for guidance, so please do not misunderstand my intentions. I truly do appreciate the diligence and reserve of the aforementioned thoughtful editors, but we need a more efficient system. I have also complimented your work on the article, and strongly believe that my quoted statement expresses my sentiments about you and everyone else who was involved. It wasn't until the wrongful accusations about me started appearing in this thread that I became defensive. I don't want to rehash it because it was hurtful - bygones now - and I happily accept your olive branch and will throw in a big air hug. Misunderstandings happen, but I want you to know that I sincerely meant everything I said in the aforementioned quote. 🤗 Atsme 💬 📧 10:59, 23 June 2021 (UTC)
I've read through the associated discussions but basically at the end of the day, the issue is that there's no such thing as there exists for other types of copyrighted works (such as recorded music) to easily track down an image's origins. Thus, the onus on this is on the image uploader to do their best to try to validate it as much as possible to make sure if the work is free or non-free. If one of the volunteers that reviews images seems something that looks clearly wrong (eg: the use of what appeared to be a press image (which later turned out to be initially published in what is now PD) being used against NFCC#2), they're going to follow policy. In this case, it took work to correct, but that's the work that should have been done before uploading knowing that the image appeared to be a NFCC#2 failure. But in more general cases, I myself often turn to Flickr to look for free images and even after finding something marked CC-BY or CC-BY-SA, I still have to ask myself, "does this uploader appear to have the rights to have published that image as CC?" and avoid the flickr washing issue, and that usually requires a minimal amount more research. Maybe this onus isn't stated in policy but in practice this is how it is handled - it is up to the uploadered to make sure they justify the image has the correct licensing (which includes researching origins as necessary) and meets NFC, if its non-free. Maybe in the future, Google or some other site will have an engine that you can plug in a image and it will spit out the original source, the original copyright owner, and its current copyright status, but that's well beyond Google's own capabilities right now. --Masem (t) 23:35, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 27 June 2021

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:15, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

Unprotection discussion

There is currently a discussion at WP:AN#Protection review: User talk:Jimbo Wales regarding the semi-protection of this page. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 14:49, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

An interesting twitter thread

This thread is worth a read. It's distressing. (tl;dr "My Women in Computing History class students are improving some history of computing pages this week." - and it didn't go well.) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:33, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

It's a shame that there's no indication which page that happened on to see context. It appears to be related to the addition of a quote to the source "Recoding Gender" by Janet Abbate (likely involving women in computing obviously) around this last March but I don't know if there's a way to search on that (Wikiblame?) Going off Wikiedu and her teaching background, I can't find any active Wikiedu work that seems to be tied with her class, so that doesn't help either. --Masem (t) 14:15, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I think that would be good - she's basically refused to give more details as her complaint isn't an effort to help her current students but rather a complaint about the problem more broadly. Of course, specific details would help us to think through the issues, but I'm not sure those will be forthcoming. There's a chance that someone knows more so hopefully someone will post here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:38, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
[10]? Usedtobecool ☎️ 15:02, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
That's possibly it, yes, but that's quite some time ago (March) and the twitter thread had me thinking that this is more recent. It's probably a good example - the removal is clearly wrong and the edit summary is unpersuasive. While it is true that the job title "programmer" didn't exist in World War II, it is how we would speak of it today. And it is just wrong to say that the work done (programming ENIAC for example) was not what we would today call "programming".--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:48, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
The twitter thread is also from March (3 or 4 days after the diff). --JBL (talk) 15:57, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
If editors won't stick around to ask why it was reverted, and by that learn of WP:BRD, I don't know if we can always make sure they dont' quit. It is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Obviously, that would mean that this is an encyclopedia where anyone can come and replace what you've written with something else. Perhaps, that's what we should get out to the world, that edits can be removed, then discussed, and reinstated. I guess we could also make an effort to reach out to the newbies whom we are reverting. I think it's easy enough to guess whether the editor we happen to be reverting is likely to know of BRD or not. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 16:09, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Courtesy ping TedColes and Urwahah, as their edits are being discussed. Usedtobecool ☎️ 16:12, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
That's most likely it with the timing. There was a talk page discussion related to that area 4 days after the revert Talk:History_of_computing#Women_in_early_computing where interestingly enough there is debate involving one of Hicks' own works (the Twitter user here) alongside the work from Abbate (both added in the student's diff). I can sorta see the reasoning of removal diff but I think that would have better called for rewriting (eg talk page discussion and engagement with the editor) to be clear that the women's role in WWII and earlier was around computer operation at the time, less as "programming" as we'd see it today (as the current state of the article now has it and explains well). And of course, now, we have a nice lengthy quote from Abbate in the article. So while the immediate diff was distressing, I think the resolve was a better improvement. However, as I don't see any sign of attempts for engaging with that editor, that editor engaging with others, or that this class was tagged with WikiEd participation, I can see why editors looked to it as just potentially bad information. If there was a clear sign this was coming from WikiEd class assignments, I would expect a bit more careful review and explanation of what issues were. --Masem (t) 16:38, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Also seems worth noting that the material was restored two days later by @JonathanMcPuters:, and subsequently expanded by an IP editor; the IP was also heavily involved in an associated talk-page discussion. --JBL (talk) 16:40, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Now this is interesting

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Left-wing_fascism_(4th_nomination)...I must have missed it in the listing for Central discussion. Atsme 💬 📧 12:46, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

And where's the article on center-wing fascism? As if the center's 💩 doesn't stink! Three wings, like a V-2, and similarly used by all three Eurocentric Empires of the 20th in their aerospace programs: Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States.
Does the perfidy of Wikipedia never end? Clearly, the whole project is in the pocket of Big Centrism. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 21:55, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Blocking users for the Palestinian flag

Dear Jimmy Wales,

A fawiki admin has blocked me for placing a Palestinian flag on my userpage. They asked me to remove the flag from my userpage and when I politely refused their request, they blocked me and removed the flag themselves! What does this mean? I'm flabbergasted. 4nn1l2 (talk) 15:12, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

this fawiki admin is pressuring me now to remove the Palestinian flag from my userpage. Shiasun (talk) 15:50, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
My view is that Wikipedia user pages are not the appropriate venue for political advocacy, but I also know that this is not enforced uniformly. As I am unaware of the particular policies within fawiki, I'm unable to comment in detail. I will say this: to the extent that users are not allowed to engage in (legitimate) political advocacy on their user pages, the rule should be uniformly enforced without regard to what the advocacy might be. I say "legitimate" because there is a big difference between the display of a Palestinian flag and statements/symbols that are actually hateful. Obviously drawing the line can be hard, but drawing hard lines is something we do all the time.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:57, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
they blocked me and removed the flag themselves now too!!! Shiasun (talk) 16:10, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Thanks, this is the said flag:
As you can see, there is nothing hateful or controversial about it. I may be connected to that land (but I don't want to out myself), and I may be proud of that and showing this pride makes me feel better when I edit Wikipedia as a veteran editor. This is not political advocacy.
Regarding policies, fawiki has failed to develop its own policies and completely relies on the English Wikipedia policies, so you can safely use enwiki policies and guidelines. Thanks again for your time. 4nn1l2 (talk) 16:20, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
As I do not speak or read Farsi, I am really unable to comment more. I'd be interested to host (in English) a discussion of the issue with the admins but of course I'm not going to question or reverse their decision - that's not my place to do. Or perhaps you can tell me more about the reasons given for removing the flag? In my long experience, it is not rare for someone to present a dispute to me in a very one-sided way, carefully neglecting to give the full context. Is it possible you could explain further?
For example, you presented this as "a Palestinian flag" but it's clearly not just the flag, but an illustration of a real-world image which features the flag. The original image, as far as I have been able to determine so far, originated in a tweet with a slogan that is widely regarded as anti-semitic. (The image itself clearly isn't, though.) Is that the problem?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:14, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Another admin has since unblocked me and I have reinstated the flag onto my userpage which gives me positive energy to create another dozen of quality articles. But the other user (Shiasun) is still blocked.
As far as I understand this is the picture of Golriz Ghahraman and there is nothing anti-semitic in her tweets or pictures. According to [11], another Green MP named Ricardo Menéndez March has been criticized for their tweets. I don't follow the politics of New Zealand, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
Regarding the context that led to my blockage, I will ping the blocking admin Samuel T.Owen so they can provide their side of story. There was no context as far as I know, and this admin came out of the blue asking me and Shiasun to remove the flags because "political campaign" is not allowed on Wikipedia, while fawiki hosts many radical political userboxes[12]! 4nn1l2 (talk) 15:00, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
this image was on my userpage when they blocked me. Did the name of this image also originated from a tweet? unfortunately, fawiki admins is getting weaker day by day. thats why fawiki suffers a lot. Shiasun (talk) 07:36, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

He made a good block iranians are divided over this war user pages shouldn't divide people bi (talk) 19:57, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Which war? This picture has nothing to do with any war or conflict. It only shows that I'm proud of my potential Palestinian heritage. According to your logic, nobody should raise an Afghan flag because that poor country is war-torn for more than 40 years! 4nn1l2 (talk) 20:17, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
I think a flag itself should not be the basis of the judgement and it should be considered in context. If the subsequent behavior of the user--such as the way to respond to the request to remove the flag, or the way they react to the block--is also filled with politically motivated statements, that clearly shows the user's motivations were indeed political advocacy, and not just a gentle display of beliefs. huji—TALK 22:53, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
This is weird. So you make illegitimate requests to remove innocuous pictures from userpages and actually block the users, then see how they react to the block subsequently, and finally decide if they are politically-driven or not! This is a textbook example of "shoot first, ask questions later."
Speaking about myself, I have made no contributions about Palestine or any conflicts related to Palestine so far, so you can't read my mind or ascribe political motivations to me.
And let's not talk in a vacuum and avoid hypothetical scenarios, because we have an actual incident at hand. I have made no "politically motivated statements" when I got blocked, but only called Palestine as "my dearest Palestine."
Seems to me this user is just trying to save face for the Persian Wikipedia avoiding a possible fiasco. 4nn1l2 (talk) 00:57, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
I am sorry, is that a response to me or someone else? Because you said "you make illegitimate request to remove ..." but I certainly made no such requests.
Seems to me that you are willing to do anything (including making a false attribution about me) just to make sure this situation is seen as a "fiasco". huji—TALK 21:26, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
Please read generic you. You means a typical admin of fawiki whom you seem to be defending. Otherwise, you wouldn't make such a weird suggestion to analyse the subsequent behaviour of the blocked party and implying that I have made "politically motivated statements"!
I had already made it clear that the blocking admin was Samuel T.Owen. Mr. Wales wanted to know their side of the story, so I pinged them and I'm certain they can write in English. If you are indeed neutral here, maybe it's better to let them speak for themselves. Thanks 4nn1l2 (talk) 22:06, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
The blocking admin Samuel T.Owen. told me at fawiki that they wouldn't provide their side of the story and were content with what had been said in this thread.
Dear Mr. Wales, now that you know there was no context for this incident and that this admin came out of the blue ordering me and another user to remove the innocous picture depicted above and blocking us over it, is this really how Wikipedia treats its veteran editors with years of service and thousands of contributions? 4nn1l2 (talk) 19:53, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Your reasoning above is just as dishonest as the way you describe yourself. You are not just a "veteran editor with years of service and thosuands of contributions". You are also a known LTA sockmaster with many socks, multiple blocks, and only welcome back to the fawiki community as a clean start.
Note that I am not defending that block; and in the phrase "typical admin of fawiki whom you seem to be defending" I don't think "you" is generic you; it is directly at me, so you are making an incorrect claim about me yet again.
So, again, I am not defending that admin--or any fawiki admin, for that matter--and only want to make sure you don't present a lopsided set of arguments here. Something you repeatedly did. In other words: I am not here because of you; I am here because of Jimbo and the knowledge that he likes to hear all sides of a story. huji—TALK 22:54, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Calling me an LTA is just a serious personal attack; funny that you once supported the adminship of an "LTA". And my clean start had nothing to do with my presence at fawiki. I was in good standing when I did a clean start and that is the right of every Wikipedian. Clean start is not something with which you shame users. And yes, if the admins of a project block and unblock users over issues as frivolous as raising a Palestinian flag, no surprise that users lose their clean block log.
That generic you is just a misunderstanding by you. Why would I want to involve you in this story? You made a weird suggestion to consider the subsequent behaviour of the blocked party to determine if they are politically-driven or not, and I used generic you to demonstrate how bad that idea is.
And let's not forget that another user has also been blocked in this incident. Can you discredit them too? 4nn1l2 (talk) 02:04, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
Fair; assuming good faith, I will let the "generic you" discussion pass as a misunderstanding. I also redacted the term LTA above and replaced it with a more objective word. huji—TALK 20:41, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
As has been said, this is not a Palestinian flag, which looks like this. You need to tell us who created this flag and what the text means. No one disagrees that any editor may display a Palestinian flag or one of any other country. An administrator has decided that there is a problem with this flag and it is up to you to explain why it is acceptable. Don't assume that we are against Palestine. TFD (talk) 02:32, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
I created this flag myself. All details have been provided at File:Free Palestine.svg. The file only shows the word Palestine in both Latin and Arabic script. The burden of proof is on the fawiki admin to let me know what is wrong with this flag. I don't assume you are against Palestine. Indeed, I have come here from fawiki to ask your help. Thanks 4nn1l2 (talk) 02:53, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

YouTube

YouTube videos posted by broadcasters now provide a description sourced to Wikipedia. For example, BBC videos now have posted below, "BBC is a British public broadcast service. Wikipedia"[13]

Wikipedia articles however are not reliable sources and it does not guarantee the accuracy of every article.

Is it possible to ask YouTube to stop doing this?

TFD (talk) 16:47, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

It is clearly possible to ask them. Given however that YouTube is owned by Google, and that Google has taken no notice whatsoever of repeated requests to stop claiming that Google Knowledge Graph content that they have found elsewhere is sourced to Wikipedia, I doubt they'll take much notice. I suppose the WMF could always threaten to stop taking donations from them. ;) AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:55, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
I don't think it's possible to find any source that guarantees the accuracy of every article, and in general our more prominent articles are as accurate and complete as most other sources or more so. I think we should take it as a compliment. --GRuban (talk) 17:06, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
I think it's stated somewhere that companies can use WP however they want, as long as they state that they are doing so. But of course it's possible to ask them not to. This particular case could lead to more editors, constructive and not. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:37, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Is there any doubt whether "BBC is a British public broadcast service"? Johnuniq (talk) 23:16, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
To fill in the gaps: Google and Facebook trust Wikipedia to sort out disinformation, conspiracy theories and fake news. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:27, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
The Four Deuces, The Four Deuces, I don't think we should ask. Wikipedia has internal rules about sources, and our rules preclude the use of Wikipedia as a source, but we don't have the authority to impose our sourcing requirements on other organizations. We also have rules about the re-use of our material and YouTube is complying. I don't see any issue. S Philbrick(Talk) 11:58, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
Just because Wikipedia has no authority to impose sourcing requirements on third parties does not mean it cannot advise them. Wikipedia:General disclaimer for example advises readers that it "cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here." Of course that cannot stop some readers from doing so.
Why I think this is important is that articles are supposed to report conclusions found in reliable sources, not to provide its own conclusions.
TFD (talk) 12:34, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
The Four Deuces, I propose that the deprecate the term "reliable sources" and its shortcut "RS" in favor of "generally reliable sources", shorted to "GRS". Most experienced editors know that some of our gold standard RS contain many errors, and say "reliable sources" while meaning "generally reliable sources", but our insistence on excluding the qualifier may lead readers to assume we can actually deliver more than we can actually deliver. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:16, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
I wish that more, softer, antivandalism tools be developed, such as adding a delay to IP/newbie edits to make things more reliable. Especially for BLPs and others, such protections are very much necessary. Also, even Google already rely directly on Wikidata for their side bar on searches, so a delay for newbie edits is very much needed. - Vis M (talk) 00:22, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
Have we tested to see how fast a change in WP propagates to these other sources in terms of issues around vandalism? I do not believe these are anywhere close to true real time, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some type of near real time (eg within a day) propagation to occur. Any delay more than a hour would likely not be something to worry about (we catch vandalism that fast for the most part). --Masem (t) 00:42, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Any request to "don't use Wikipedia as a source of information" is as absurd and contrary to what we are. Our wp:ver requirements precluding using Wikepedia as a source are an effort to make our info as good as possible. They are not to preclude using the result as a source of information. North8000 (talk) 04:10, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

So if a vandal changed the BBC article to say that the BBC was the British equivalent of Der Stuermer and it got picked up on YouTube, you would be happy with that because it would be absurd and contrary for them not to say that?
AndyTheGrump, it would be interesting if the Foundation put that in a YouTube video and ended up being de-platformed.
TFD (talk) 05:00, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
No, of course I would not be fine with vandalism of the article. But I would be fine with someone having a practice of using Wikipedia as an information source, including the acknowledged risk that it might be wrong. North8000 (talk) 05:13, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
The Four Deuces, One trivial solution, that citers rarely use, even though it should be ubiquitous, is to cite the permanent link to the version the citer reviewed. I have seen this occasionally in legal documents, but rarely in other contexts. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:09, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that Wikipedia gets cited for all sorts of things, in all sorts of contexts. Not just notes on YouTube, and Google Knowledge Graph content, but in more deeply problematic contexts too. For example there have been many well-documented examples of Wikipedia articles being cited as evidence in courts of law. The mere existence of a disclaimer doesn't absolve Wikipedia of the responsibility to at least attempt get things right, since people are going to treat it that way anyway. You can't legitimately call something an 'encyclopedia' and then deny all responsibility for people taking you at your word.

In as much as Wikipedia can do anything about the issue at all (it is a reflection of a much broader problem, at least in part due to failures in educational systems, which tend to discourage critical analysis for all sorts of reasons, some more legitimate than others), probably the best that can be done is to try to make it clearer to article readers how Wikipedia works, how content is arrived at, and what the inherent flaws in the way it does it are. Perhaps the best solution would be to come up with a Why you shouldn't trust Wikipedia document of some sort, and then provide a prominent link to it at the top of every article. A small-text link to the Wikipedia:General disclaimer on the main page clearly isn't adequate to the task, and the disclaimer itself reads more like the lawyer-speak it clearly is than an actual attempt to encourage readers to be less trusting of Wikipedia articles, or of any other single source. A little less emphasis on imparting 'knowledge' through isolated 'articles', and a little more effort into encouraging readers to ask questions about what 'knowledge' really is, and how you learn how to acquire it and refine it, or even reject it, as you subject it to further scrutiny, might not go amiss. Though no doubt that would seem like too much effort to most contributors, who would rather keep up the pretence that imparting 'knowledge' merely involves regurgitation of 'facts' from 'reliable sources' - one of the numerous convenient falsehoods that keep this project functioning in the way it does, warts and all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:53, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump, Well-said. S Philbrick(Talk) 12:06, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
AndyTheGrump, Well-said. North8000 (talk) 13:51, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation statement on the passing of Boryana Straubel

Do you personally have a statement on the passing of Boryana Straubel? ("She became vice president of talent and culture at Wikimedia Foundation in 2015") Did you know her? Therapyisgood (talk) 21:48, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The article looks like a reprint from the New York Times, so here is the original link. Philbert2.71828 22:34, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
It's a sad thing. Unfortunately I didn't really know Boryana personally, although we may have met. (Because I'm a volunteer and don't work at the WMF and live in England, I unfortunately can't get to know as many staff members as I would like.)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:39, 8 July 2021 (UTC)

Omission and exclusion of African American subjects from Wikipedia

I'd like to follow up on this subject with you Jimbo. Where is the entry on Westfield, Alabama? Westfield High School (Alabama)? These are the type of communities and schools, the hometowns for people like Willie Mays, that Wikipedia excludes. Just today I got notice that a cemetery with several notable African American burial sites (Draft:Odd Fellows Cemetery (Farmville, Virginia)) isn't notable. We have room for every professional athlete who's ever played but not these subjects. It's not right. FloridaArmy (talk) 11:28, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Here's an interesting source. I should think that a community like this is definitely of interest particularly given the recent attention being paid (quite rightly) to Greenwood District, Tulsa as a result of the recent 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre.
Of course this is not a similar story in that it isn't about a tragic massacre. But it is related in that the destruction of the Westfield community in 1963 is another example of "a stable community where African-American parents pushed their kids to work hard, study hard and do all they could to make better lives for themselves" being wiped away.
With a bit of research (beyond a paywall at this newspaper archive, I found a story about A. G. Gaston being named Entrepreneur of the Century by Black Enterprise Magazine in 1992, a fact not mentioned in his Wikipedia biography by the way. It says "His second civilian employment upon his return, was as a labourer with the Tennessee Coal & Iron Co. in Westfield, Alabama where his interest in entrepreneurship began to surface." (The Weekly Gleaner, Feburary 6-12, 2003.)
One issue on places (and schools) like this is a paucity of sources that will take some effort to overcome. But I also think we should not demand or expect that entries on places like this will be lengthy - if only a few things are known in reliable sources, then only a few things are known.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:33, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Addendum: It occurs to me in looking at the rejection of your draft on Odd Fellows Cemetary, that a serious look should be taken at the question: do rules against what we used to accept as 'stubs' (well sourced, uncontroversial, but short entries that have little prospect of being expanded) disproportionately and negatively impact minority-related subjects. It is quite clear that for reasons having nothing to do with contemporary encyclopedic validity, a black community being destroyed in segregated Alabama in 1963 would not receive the same kind of press coverage as even a rather pointless debutantes ball in the white-owned and white-dominated newspapers of the era. There are parts of the historical injustice that we can't fix - to a large extent the ordinary goings-on in Westfield are lost forever, while the ordinary goings-on of other communities will be preserved forever in history. But there are parts that we can fix - by at least covering in a factual, neutral, and reliable way whatever actually is known - which is often not zero.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:41, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
  • U. W. Clemon is also from Westfield but you wouldn't know it from his Wikipedia entry. As is often the case with African American subjects his hometown and high school are excluded.
  • Even Oberlin Academy took extraordinary effort to get included. It was deleted and redirected repeatedly. We face the same trying to include films made by and starring African Americans.
  • Shouldn't we call it what it is? Systemic racism.
  • Is a cemetery where notable African Americans are buried notable? Their high schools, many of which were integrated out of existence? Their communites, many of which were paved over or "redeveloped"?
  • The excuse that we are somehow beholden to standards we impose on ourselves to exclude these subjects is abhorrent. These are OUR standards. We've deemed every athlete who's ever played professionally notable and almost every high school that served African Americans, their destroyed communities, their films, their community leaders not notable. That isn't society, it's us. It's Wikipedia editors and it's our leadership. We can and must do better. FloridaArmy (talk) 13:53, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
I think you will have success with this approach: "It is appropriate for Wikipedians to be aware of, and work to correct for, systemic racism in society." I think you have received a lot of pushback in the past for statements that seemed to be accusing other editors here of systematic racism. Let's work together to build up a network of allies to work on these issues. Those who actually are racist (quite rare among Wikipedians I think) will decline to participate. But allies will help us make significant change.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:04, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Let's be honest, I've received a lot of pushback for creating entries on African American subjects. I was blocked by a sitting Wikipedia arbitrator for pointing out that a former arbitrator insisted on referring to a murdered African American legislator as a scalawag in his Wikipedia entry's opening paragraph. Confronting racism ruffles feathers.
I notice you didn't answer my questions Jimbo. Are African American communities, schools, films, and cemeteries notable? Should we continue to omit and exclude them? Does doing so present a white supremacist version of history? FloridaArmy (talk) 14:18, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
I did answer your question, in a great deal of detail, including going out to do some research on the particular question you asked me. As you are already well aware, my answer to "Are African American communities, schools, films, and cemeteries notable?" is that some of them are, of course, and some of them are not, of course. I have gone further to say that we should examine our policies on notability and sourcing to ask ourselves whether the policies are consistent with our goals and in particular whether they may have a disproportionate impact on minority-related subjects. I'm sorry if you don't find that answer satisfying.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:04, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Might I suggest that if there is a Wikipedia editor interested in writing about topics, than it is likely there are also historians and writers, who have demonstrated an interest. Perhaps, contact departments at HBCU's, AAS departments, archives, and historical societies/organizations (like AASHLH but also local) for help in identifying such sources. It is a constraint that Wikipedia is not an original publisher, so we need to find the work of others, and rely on it. (Your notability question suggests a view that it is an inherent quality, but it is rather a test for the existence of sources). Also, if the topic is proving difficult as stand alone article, consider a wider topic focus that can include the smaller, and perhaps over-time more information can come to light, and there can be a split (see also, WP:SAL). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:24, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Always a lot of excuses. Which historians or scholars wrote about Jimmy's high school? I don't see their work cited. Where have I included original research in the cemetery's entry? Or the school entries? Or films? The sources are never quite good enough Alanscottwalker. Or it's my approach, citation style, copy-editing, something else.. There's always a VERY good reason for us to exclude these subjects. Let's be clear, the Wikipedia standard is to exclude African American subjects and attack editors who seek to fix the situation and point out the problem. I'll answer my questions for you, the cemetery, community, and high school noted above are all notable. It's important and overdue that we include them and subjects like them. We need to move forward in doing so.Wshile it's worth considering how best to include them, making more excuses for their exclusion is not acceptable. FloridaArmy (talk) 15:23, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
@FloridaArmy: Bearing in mind your last two short-term blocks, the language of the last two replies are heading very much in that same direction. I strongly urge you to drop the stick along the line the lines that WP is trying to "a white supremacist version of history" as it has been explains multiple times over and over how external systematic bias related to poor sourcing in the area of African-American topics makes it difficult for us to cover them. Both Jimmy and ASW have given net positive advice that works around this; I suggest that you take it. --Masem (t) 15:31, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
As I've explained above, Wikipedia sets its own standards for inclusion and we are responsible for our systemic racism. Let's focus on fixing the problem instead of making excuses for it and continuing it. It's not difficult for us to include these subjects. In fact it takes lots of excuses and finger pointing to find ways to keep them out, as we see in the discussion above. The solution is to stop discriminating against notable subjects related to African Americans and to start working to include them. FloridaArmy (talk) 15:38, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Let me respond in this way: "Let's focus on fixing the problem instead of..." laying false accusations on other Wikipedia editors who would be eager to help you. Please, drop the stick, and let's launch a positive initiative to work on the problem.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:04, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Nobody had made excuses. You have been told why some of the topics you have created as drafts/AFC can't be accepted and that's due to lack of sourcing. That metric - lack of sourcing - is not being internally biased against your articles or articles related to African-Americans; its a metric applied to all topics equally. But because of the external systematic bias (not Wikipedia's) of documenting this area, it appears to disproportionate against African-Americans. That's unfortunate but that's why we absolutely know it exists and have suggested as many means to encourage ways to find more sources to fix it. Wikipedia just cannot magically correct the outright lack of sources. As a suggestion I would look at the history and work of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red, a group aiming to improve the coverage of women on Wikipedia, which have the same external systematic bias problem. They're not going out "we need to change how WP includes things" to make it work, but instead going out to do the research, work with historical organizations and the like to get the material that has helped bolstered coverage of historically important women. The project as a whole wants to do better to fight the external systematic bias, we're not trying to work against you, so that's the problem when you continually carry the chip that we're institutionally racist or the like, and why continuing on that line of thought will likely see another block in the future. --Masem (t) 16:42, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
(Noting that I'm here after reading about this conversation at ANI). If our policies and guidelines are resulting in inequitable outcomes, even if it's at least in part resulting from bias outside of Wikipedia, certainly we should at least consider the possibility of changing them rather than saying "not our problem". The notability guidelines are so fundamental that I think sometimes it's easy to forget that they weren't handed down from on high, and that they're mutable. I don't pretend I have any brilliant ideas of my own to amend the notability guidelines that would give a more equitable outcome without introducing opportunities for spam etc., but we should at least allow room for those ideas.
The argument that That metric - lack of sourcing - is not being internally biased against your articles or articles related to African-Americans; its a metric applied to all topics equally. reminds me a bit of voter ID laws. The law is applied to everyone equally regardless of race, but it results in inequity because for various reasons racial minorities are less likely to have IDs. That doesn't mean there isn't a problem with the laws, even though it stems from a different issue.
WP:WiR does excellent work creating articles within the bounds of existing policy, but they certainly also engage in discussion of the systemic, structural issues with Wikipedia that result in inequity: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red/Archive 37#Systemic bias in notability, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red/Archive 87#Sourcing guidelines hindering coverage of marginalized communities, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red/Archive 40#"Wikipedia's community is 85% male, and founder Jimmy Wales isn't sure how to fix it", to link a few. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 21:46, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
I agree with you, GorillaWarfare. To be clear - I think there is a strong case to be made that "lack of sourcing" is being applied in a way that likely is biased against articles related to African-Americans, particularly with respect to one of the specific topics we are looking at in this conversation: high schools. I am not calling for a relaxation of sourcing standards - we would not be doing any service to a more neutral agenda by allowing people to just come and write whatever random thing they want without sources. But I am calling for an examination of whether or not a reasonably well sourced stub - containing, with sources, all that is known about a place like Westfield, Alabama should be allowed to live. I can't think of any principled reason why not - and I am not in general a radical inclusionist. As I said in my original extended answer here, I think Westfield is interesting. Let me walk everyone through a potential reader's journey to show what I mean.
I'm from Alabama, and so is Willie Mays. Let's imagine I go to read Willie Mays. I see there this sentence: "Willie Howard Mays, Jr., was born on May 6, 1931, in Westfield, Alabama, a primarily black company town near Fairfield.". I think that's interesting - a primarily black company town. I don't know much about company towns really, and it's interesting that it was primarily black. I'd like to click on it and if the article existed, I'd learn that the town was destroyed a few years later and that there's a documentary film about it. That's amazing, that's the sort of thing I love to come to Wikipedia to learn. Why don't we have it? If the answer is "We apply our standards equally to all places in terms of having sufficient sources" then we might get this one wrong - it doesn't have all that many sources (that I've found so far!) for the exact reason that it's historically interesting: it was a primarily black company town! As such it was almost certainly neglected by local white newspapers for racist reasons but also, I'm just guessing here, when there's a "company town" the company probably isn't typically particularly all that keen on independent outside reporting on conditions.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:27, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
I did a quick google and this is the first source that came up: [14], it's in the larger topic of Fairfeild, but you'll find some context and background on Westfield. Westfield was a segregated company town around the steel mills. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:52, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
There is still the community-determined aspect that one of WP's functions is to serve as a gazetteer and thus there is likely no reason why we should not have an article on Westfield as long as it describes it as a former town and can be documented at a minimum level (not the same as notability) as such (which we know it can). We did have one at one point but the extent of its content before deletion in 2009 was "Westfield Alabama is the birthplace of Hall of Fame Outfielder Willie Mays who played for the New York Giants(Baseball) and the New York Mets in his Major League career." -- which yeah, wasn't going to fly for a stub article. I have seen that since this thread FA has started draft Draft:Westfield, Alabama and it has sources, but it does just need a bit of structuring like any other town article. In terms of high schools, I will point out that community opinion has changed that not all high schools are inherently notable around a 2017 RFC (Schools now are expected to meet NORG) but we haven't gone through to prune the less-notable ones out/redirect them to their appropriate city/town pages, so there is going to be some apparent inequitability in the interim. But as FloridaArmy has hinted here, they will want the Westfield school redirected to the Westfield article once it is completed and added to a disambig page, so that's all good). (I am surprised at the lack of general information absent the connect to Mays on the town, searching additional sources, but there's clearly a bare minimum to have the article).
Also, to add onto GorillaWarfare's point as a fact to keep in mind: Wikipedia is a volunteer project, and editors edit was interests them. I have no idea of what our numbers actually are, but I suspect we are dominated in the "white male" category (as most tech areas), and thus topics in African-American history are likely to be absent from this area - not because we're disallowing them but because volunteer editors don't want to cover them. And because it is a volunteer project, that makes it difficult to coerce editors to fill those gaps. Hence again why type of coordination like Women in Red to find the gaps and work together to fill them can help. --Masem (t) 14:04, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Adding, [15] this seems promising for at least finding sources on Westfeild, incuding, Marjorie White, “TCI-U.S. Steel and Ensley,” The Birmingham District, An Industrial History and Guide 97
(Birmingham Historical Society, 1981).
4 JAMES S. HIRSCH, WILLIE MAYS: THE LIFE, THE LEGEND, 13 (2010) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:09, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Masem, I understand the point you're making, but I want to push back a little bit on the blanket statement "volunteer editors don't want to cover them". That might be true of some volunteers, but in the last 24 hours I have made edits to Nicole_Enabosi, Micaela Kelly, Jaylyn Agnew, Jasmine Walker and more. Curiously, I didn't know the race of any of those people. I'm working on improving the article before I reach out to schools to see if I can get a photo, but I did a cursory image search and I think each of these qualifies as black. I don't disagree that the demographics of Wikipedia editors helps to shape its content but I'd like to make sure we characterize it accurately. S Philbrick(Talk) 00:30, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Oh, I get you. I'm big into video games and consider that my "volunteer" area. I could care about who the people are in that, white, black, male, female, etc. and so if I catch a name that looks like we should have an article on, I will do so. But the video game area is white, male dominated in general for the most part. I am not intentionally ignoring the under-represented groups in my editing, just that the systematic bias in this area happens to affect the ratios of articles I work on. I expect volunteers that work in topics not specifically related to biographies but involve documenting important bios in that field are similarly "gender/race/etc." blind as you describe but are affected by any systematic bias in the field. What I did mean is that if we are specifically talking biographical areas of underrepresented groups (eg "let's bolster our coverage of African-Americans", it is usually difficult to drive solitary volunteers to do that, while projects like Women in Red show that a solidarity type effort (with editors helping other editors editors) is a better means to gain more volunteer support. --Masem (t) 00:47, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
Masem, I was half tempted to suggest, given Women in Red" (which is very clever) to start a "men in black" initiative, but I don't think it quite works. S Philbrick(Talk) 18:25, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
No. I said historians and writers, I did not insist on scholarship but see no reason to be averse to doing the work to find that too. This is a do it yourself research project but go talk to people who know these subjects, and remember there are many ways, besides a stand alone article to put information in the pedia. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:16, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
@FloridaArmy: I don't think your polemics are helping you find able talent in your quest to improve African-American history-related content in the South. I think Jimbo is spot on in suggesting that "Are African American communities, schools, films, and cemeteries notable?" should not elicit a yes or no "gotcha" answer. I've written a lot about undercovered subjects—mostly African, but also some African American and Native American—and what I've found is that the more time spend denouncing fellow editors means less time curating good content. -Indy beetle (talk) 22:16, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Well said - and I will only add as well, less time spent curating a community of interested Wikipedians to help with the issue.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:30, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Added comments

@FloridaArmy. Here is an example of issues with your current outlook and wording. I am a middle-aged (alright a little more but hope to live a long time) white male from the deep south. I also visit AFC in spurts as a reviewer. I seem to recall you and I have had some interaction and I don't think negative. By association, some of your comments would put me in the same category you mention. I am from a poor family (resulting from the Great Crash), have an interracial family, and had never considered if my epistemological expectations are biased.
I have not only edited minority articles (just added content to Toledo Bend Reservoir that involves being "integrated out of existence"), but having created around a hundred articles, these include Alejandro Posadas (minority), and Abe Hawkins, a slave jockey and arguably the best of his time (considered second behind a white jockey he beat "before a crowd of 25,000 in New York"), and one of my first three was Beauregard Parish Training School, I think a good start article about a school for the education of black students and for the training of black teachers, and even Central Children's Home of North Carolina also known as Grant Colored Asylum. From a percentage point of view, only, my editing could be considered biased. I have never considered that I "must" equal out my articles to not be considered biased or a white supremacist or not create articles on lighthouses and wildlife management areas because it would skewer any balancing of bias. Your comments on systemic racism or white supremacy ("Shouldn't we call it what it is? Systemic racism.") are alarming. You are correct that "We can and must do better". A reply you deemed inappropriately answered, so callously replied back negatively, I considered very good.
I cannot correct any systemic racism in society. I (and many, many others) edit Wikipedia in areas of interest. My contributions towards eradicating any bias may seem minuscule to you but are "my contributions" to Wikipedia not an attempt to right great wrongs.
I hope you can see how some of your comments are not only insensitive but hurtful. I should not have to justify my life standing because of my race, place of birth, and choice of living (absent proof otherwise), because I am lumped into a group that you may deem as wholly contributing to systemic bias or your other choice of "systemic racism". As a contributing editor to WP:AFC (didn't look to see if I have declined one of your articles) I stand by we can only report that which is verifiable from reliable and secondary sources. Within those guidelines, per policies and guidelines (certainly including WP:BLP's) I gauge if an article will likely survive at AFD. To suggest or ask me to lower the standards for a certain subject area, because the area lacks recordable coverage, would be an insult. I consider myself to be a trusted editor (autoreviewer, extendedconfirmed, patroller, autoconfirmed) and can create articles without review. That is a minuscule achievement since I have been inadvertently IP range blocked twice. The second time (globally) was very hurtful as my talk page was blocked. I suppose I could question why I am still not trustworthy enough ("yet") for a block exemption since I have tried. It is a future goal and not a reason to question the powers to be (a crusade) or to stop editing.
The agenda you are on is commendable but I fear if you cannot figure out a better way than your current approach, you may be considered what I have read as a "net negative" and maybe even here to harm Wikipedia. You cannot include "us all" as being involved in a conspiracy when it is simply not true. Thank you, -- Otr500 (talk) 23:39, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
Heck, this ol' Tennessee cracker boy is damned proud to have crafted a Wikipedia article on the segregation high school in my home town, as well as several articles on black state legislators, the first three non-white state legislators in Wisconsin, and lots of similar topics. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:24, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
And I am sure this page would be filled with like examples. Editors should not have to join a list or be scrutinized because of a lack of purposefully editing to correct the wrong we didn't start or have anything to do with. As much as I support that "Black Lives Matter", being raised on "the wrong side of the track", I am still an American and cringed when a person stood on a podium and turned around, supposedly in support of a cause, when I feel that place, at that time, was not appropriate. I understand the reasoning but think there are a whole lot better ways to advance a cause than the blanket alienation of others. I see lots of issues in the world and even on Wikipedia but I have to figure a way to raise the issue with support and not as a lone crusader being me against "the others". By-the-way, under no circumstances am I advocating that F/A be anything less than committed to the cause. I would otherwise (I am part of the problem scenario) fully support and maybe even join a worthy cause. -- Otr500 (talk) 02:46, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
I think your idea that a discussion of systematic problems should be all about you and your preferences / biases / background / whatever is wrong and unhelpful. (This would also be true if we substituted any other individual in place of you.) --JBL (talk) 16:02, 30 June 2021 (UTC)
Who are you (JBL) replying to? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:15, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

Not only are African American subjects like all three Langston High Schools omitted from Wikipedia but even trying to include them on a disambig page is obstructed

  • See Draft:Langston High School. This is what editors trying to inprove our coverage face. We are discouraged from working on the high school entries. And discouraged even from noting their existence. FloridaArmy (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
    • Quite frankly I don't see where Devonian Wombat is trying to erase mention of these high schools because they are named for African Americans, as you seem to suggest. Disambig pages are supposed to be useful (hence the standard for actual articles on the disambiged subject to exist and be linked), and you seem to be trying to create this as a substitute for a WP:List. -Indy beetle (talk) 23:04, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
      • It should be noted that regardless of the topic, just because (notable/famous person) was born in a place or attended a place or worked at a place, does not make that place notable. We do not have inherited notability. This is irrespective of the person's gender, race, nationality, etc. And to that point, we definitely would not include them in disambig pages if the only element to associate with the place is the tie to the notable person. --Masem (t) 23:13, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
  • (ec) I am also having difficulty finding coverage or an entry on Fred Alexander who was burned at the stake by a mob. Seems to have been a significant event that received fairly widespread coverage. FloridaArmy (talk) 23:06, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
I think the above demonstrates a much more positive way of addressing our weak spots. -Indy beetle (talk) 02:46, 4 July 2021 (UTC)
The (well, an) African-American flag. A lot of people fly flags here. Irish flags and whatnot. We can fly this one too if we want to.
As far as schools specifically go, since 2003 and at least into 2017, it's been practice to always keep high school articles, with only independent proof of existence required. In 2017 the guideline noting this was changed on the initiative of some editors altho no one was calling for this, and they managed to make it stick (it's complicated), so I don't know what practice after 2017 is; hopefully it hasn't changed.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that this change was stuck at least partly to prevent a feared horde of articles about high schools in "third world" countries, particularly but not only India. I leave it as an exercise to the reader whether it is just coincidence that third world schools are populated by... well... third worldy people, and there's no way to prove it either way, but I know what I think.
Anyway, I certainly wouldn't be shocked to find this rubric expanded to include traditionally-Black American schools also. I think that ought to be fought on more than one principle, and proper Wikipedians should lean over backwards to find a way to include such articles. Herostratus (talk) 00:04, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
The reasons schools were kept prior to 2017 was due to bad circular logic: schools were listed on OUTCOMES so they had to be kept at AFD, and OUTCOMES couldn't be changed to remove schools because schools were kept at AFD. The 2017 discussion was a coming-to-Jesus type discussion given that many attempts to codify an SNG for school notability (beyond the GNG) kept failing. We just can't have circular logic applying to topics like that when it coms to AFD. It also didn't help that we were getting for-profit schools finding their way into WP using the "have to keep it" logic. There's no reason we can't cover schools that aren't independently notable on the pages of communities where the schools are located, including all necessary redirects. That would have the same external systematic bias (first world schools are more likely to be independently notable over 3rd world) but would still deal with the means to include every school regardless of location. --Masem (t) 00:47, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
OK, I hear you. The problem is, literally everything you say is wrong. It's fine, because you're not expert on the matter. I am, having spend a whole honken lot of hours analyzing the case, here: User:Herostratus/Understanding SCHOOLOUTCOMES. I'd be willing to educate people about this, but nobody is prepared to digest that level of detail, and anyway, almost all people are of the mind "Whether the process was corrupt I care not, as long the outcome was pleasing" (not just here; people are like that generally). It's not worth arguing about, because it's a side issue, and nobody's going to change their mind. Herostratus (talk) 04:11, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
The problem with your writeup is that is takes a very much one-sided view of the issue and ignores the weight of discussion prior to 2017 related to the circular logic of OUTCOMES, the failure to form any school sub-notability guidelines, etc. And I've very much aware of this situation due to my involvement in notability discussions (as your statement below about trivial topics is way off base and glosses over many details about presumed assumptions of notability), as well as the fact that we have determined one of WP's functions is to serve as a gazetteer and thus have articles on every recognized town and village. For the rest you list - the GNG does apply - but we also have the sub-notability guidelines that create the presumption of notability based on criteria to give authors time to find sources and improve. Passing a sub-notability guideline does not assure we will keep that article forever if there's no way to expand the article further. This means that we may appear to have articles on trivial topics, but they eventually have to prove themselves out, and that is true for schools now based on all the discussions leading up to and past the 2017 RFC. But I stress again: because we have articles on every town or village due to being a gazetteer there is almost no reason that every secondary school cannot be at minimally mentioned within that article and redirects given, so that every school is at least searchable. --Masem (t) 05:00, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
OK. We're somewhat off topic. But whether it was all done on the up-and-up, I think that the intent do a degree and in part was to prevent hordes of third-world-highschool articles. That was anyway the effect I think. There was no intent to do anything to mostly-Black American schools I think, but there has probably been that effect to some degree -- after all, we're seeing complaints about it right here. Even saying for the sake of argument that it wasn't a fiat coup, it's still had a bad effect at least in that sense. That's all I'm saying. Herostratus (talk) 22:56, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
If GNG were stringently applied to secondary schools, I actually think (aside from those on historic listings for their architecture) we'd see a disproportionate amount of historically black schools or formerly segregated white American schools, because such things have given rise to secondary literature (desegregation battles made their way into the news back in the day and presently are in the issues of historical journals). -Indy beetle (talk) 02:47, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
That's... wrong. There are hundreds upon hundreds of mostly-Black high schools in America, and thousand and thousands of mostly-white ones. The white ones tend to have more coverage. Secondary literature about desegregation as a general thing doesn't have a lot to do with coverage of most schools, which consists mostly of football teams and town meetings and local controversies and whatnot.
GNG is not applied to most of our articles -- well under 50%. This is how we are able to have articles on extremely obscure geographic features, extremely obscure baseball players, extremely obscure tiny villages, extremely obscure railroad stations, extremely obscure funguses -- and extremely obscure high schools, at least for most of our history and still now I hope; while meeting the GNG is sometimes not enough, if the subject is considered ephemeral, trivial, or low-class enough. So "I'd like to keep info on these Black schools or these other Black subjects, but muh GNG" rings pretty hollow. Per WP:1Q, you could keep them if you wanted to. Herostratus (talk) 04:11, 6 July 2021 (UTC)
  • High School of Charleston is certainly more notable and historic than most. But draft declined.
  • Bancroft, Louisiana which had a "colored" school doesn't exist on Wikipedia.
  • The first African American architect licensed in Georgia who was also an influential professor at Tuskegge Institute and helped design buildings there and a historic church on the NRHP in Athens, Georgia (Draft:Lewis Persely), I'm told he doesn't meet GNG, and of course the church doesn't have an article either.
  • Pleasant Hill neighborhood in Macon, Georgia? Its historic Linwood Cemetery? Nope.

The list goes on and on. Instead we get examples of articles on a Spanish guy in Argentina, a single sourced segregation academy, and WNBA players as examples that we're inclusive. It's pretty shocking frankly. FloridaArmy (talk) 14:55, 9 July 2021 (UTC)


Draft:Arad Simon Lakin is an interesting one. Minister from Ohio who was denied the presidency of the University of Alabama because of his advocacy for African Americans. We're told he's not notable because he wasn't UA's president.

I get this often with African American politicians. Because they were ousted or denied seats I'm told they aren't notable. Doesn't that make them more notable? Let's be honest, state reps are a dime a dozen but it took real effort to oust the African Americans elected to those offices and to keep the out for decades and decades. Shouldn't we include coverage of that history on Wikipedia and the people involved? Aren't they more notable than every Welsh gymnast who competed at the Olympics? Why is it our standard to omit these subjects??? FloridaArmy (talk) 15:07, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

They/Them

Sir, when I let my mouse hover over usernames on my watchlist, a little box pops up with information about the user. I noticed that some of them identified the user as "he/him" (Cullen328) or "she/her" (Valereee). I didn't get that for my own username. So I looked at my preferences and found where this could be changed. The default is "they/them". As a test, I changed it to "he/him" and I got "he/him" when I hovered my mouse over my username. I changed it to "they/them" and I got nothing. How are users meant to know if someone has deliberately chosen the pronouns "they/them"? I know that Guy Macon was recently blocked for not referring to another user by pronouns of their choice. Sir, I feel that the default choice should not be "they/them" but it should be "unspecified". "They/them" should be a separate choice for people who do not identify as male or female. Thank you. Pack My Box (talk) 23:08, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

In my opinion, using singular they is just fine when referring to editors who do not express another preference. "They/them" should not be reserved just for people who do not identify as male or female. Many editors prefer complete anonymity here on Wikipedia but may well use traditional pronouns off Wikipedia. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 00:24, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
Seconded, I usually use the singular they when referring to other editors simply because its vagueness denotes politeness (it doesn't disrespect someone's preferred pronouns by necessarily contradicting them) and frankly, it keeps it impersonal. -Indy beetle (talk) 00:32, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
I understand, but there is no option that shows "they/them" as a deliberate choice for people who do not identify as male or female. If people do not want to choose that is fine, but that is not the same as making a deliberate choice that other editors can see. You want people to know that you are "he/him". Some people want others to know that they are "they/them". Pack My Box (talk) 02:32, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
Then they can state so on their user page. Personal pronouns, as far as Wikipedians are concerned, are simply a part of editor communication. The choice to use certain pronouns shouldn't necessarily be seen as a large statement tantamount to waving a banner loudly proclaiming ones gender identity, whether someone wants to be known as he, she, or them. -Indy beetle (talk) 04:52, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
Sir, are Cullen328 and Valereee waving a banner loudly proclaiming their gender identity? Why should they have choice that shows their gender to other users but some people do not deserve that same choice? Pack My Box (talk) 14:01, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
For the record, there are some people who identify outside the gender binary but still use masculine or feminine pronouns. That's not very common, but I'm trying to stress that editors should not be focusing on others' identity, they should be focused on communicating politely so they can better create content. You pose an interesting question but I don't think it's of too much concern that the options say (they/them, genderqueer/nonbinary) verses (they/them, vague). -Indy beetle (talk) 20:50, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
I am not telling anyone to use any pronoun. All people should have the same ability to choose "he/him", "she/her", or "they/them". Not "he/him", "she/her", and blank. People can not choose to show "they/them". That is what I am saying. Pack My Box (talk) 15:38, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
I concur with Cullen and Indy beetle that "they/them" is appropriate for users who have not specified another option. We need some gender-neutral pronoun terms in English, and they/them are the best we have. They're infinitely better than "he/she", for which we unfortunately still have a template that aids users who use trans-exclusionary language.
I wasn't able to replicate the hovering effect in my watchlist. Are the pop-up boxes tooltips or something else? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 05:20, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
If someone's gender is unknown then it is appropriate to refer to them as they, but that is different from a user who has chosen to be called "they/them". The preference is called "gender neutral" which is very different from not identifying as male or female. Their gender is "they/them" it is not "gender neutral". I have turned n popups. Pack My Box (talk) 14:09, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
Note that we do not have an option for users to choose a gender or even pronouns on Wikipedia. We allow users to select how they want to be addressed by the software. It's a 'use language in this way' setting, not a gender choice. In terms of it being displayed in the way you describe, you are probably referring to what the community maintained tool Navigation popups (not part of the official software) is doing with this information. They have a talkpage to discuss the functionality of the tool. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 15:15, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
Ok, I strongly support that people should be called by whatever pronouns they prefer. Singular they/them as a stand-in for "don't know" is becoming more and more standard in English, although the singular/plural thing is grammatically harder in some cases and I personally do find it difficult in speech (not particularly difficult in writing, since there's time to pause on it to get it right). As to the question of whether it's important to know that someone *choses* they/them as their pronouns, as opposed to it meaning "I'm not sure" - I don't have a strong opinion right now as it isn't something I've ever thought about.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:51, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
This sounds like it might be the Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups gadget, but that is non-default so that a "brand new" editor has enabled the gadget, discovered this tiny setting, and came to complain about it on this page with references to other editors they have never dealt with is making this a bit hard to follow over all the quacking..... However, AGF see MediaWiki talk:Yourgender for more on this topic, especially how language settings are not meant to be the same as a gender or sex parameter. — xaosflux Talk 14:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
Yes, I use navigation popups. It was suggested on one the editing help pages. If the preference is not meant to indicate gender identity, why does popups show it? Pack My Box (talk) 22:07, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
  • I suppose I could just let this go, but this page is watched by a lot of people. The OP's description of my block of Guy Macon - which they use as one reason to need to know what everyone's preferred pronouns are - is an extreme oversimplification; there was a lot more going on there. Admins do not go around blocking people for accidentally getting pronouns wrong. No admin does that, and that is not what happened here. It's somewhat annoying I've had to clarify that a half dozen times now in various places. Also annoying that an editor gets to use a throwaway account to repeat that claim with no consequence, when I'm willing to bet they know better, but Jimbo seems to tolerate obvious socks all the time, so I guess I'll have to suck it up. At least the rest of their post is an interesting, legit question. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:17, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
    • To be clear, I am sorry I didn't say anything about the claim about the block of Guy Macon. I didn't look into it, but it is absolutely quite common that people pop around here and tell stories incorrectly or only give me half the story, so I didn't actually walk away thinking "Oh no, admins are blocking people for accidentally getting pronouns wrong" as that's obviously absurd. I'm just guessing, as I haven't seen any particular cases, but I imagine even deliberately misgendering someone once or twice is just going to get someone initially told to knock it off and it would take a little bit more (not a lot more, though) to actually say: ok, look, that's just being harassing, so you're blocked.
    • And yes, the rest of the post is an interesting and legit question. :) I try to just answer those, although of course I misunderstand and get something wrong and answer something that's actually not all that legit or interesting.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:47, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
I don not think anyone "needs" to know someone's gender, but if we are giving men and women a way to show their gender we should also give that to people who do not identify as men or women. Sir, I am sorry if I misunderstood why Guy Macon was blocked. Pack My Box (talk) 15:45, 7 July 2021 (UTC)
  • Frankly, I find the imposition of the singular they on myself by Wikipedia an outrage. I was forced to remove the talk header template from my talk page because it was changed to refer to those without a specified gender as such. Merely because I am of unspecified gender does not mean that I accept being referred to with the singular they, and if anyone does so in future, I will be sure to give that person the what for. RGloucester — ☎ 16:22, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
    @RGloucester, you don't want to specify what pronouns you prefer, and you don't want to be called "they". Does that mean it's okay if I default to "she"? —valereee (talk) 13:49, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
I am prohibited from discussing what pronouns I would prefer be used by a topic ban, so, sadly, I cannot specify such here. However, as long one doesn't refer to me with 'they', I am unlikely to get cross. RGloucester — ☎ 15:00, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Why doesn't "they/them" show up by default, though? What would it hurt? Those who actively want to use "they/them" as their pronouns would be happy. Those who simply want to avoid using "he/him" or "she/her" for privacy would be happy. Those who didn't think to specify "he/him" or "she/her" would be reminded "Oh, yeah, I need to specify so that others will use the right words". And it would tend to discourage people from making assumptions based on how they interpret the name. If we're going to have something that displays pronouns for users, it should display them for all users. --Khajidha (talk) 15:06, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Clearly you did not read my comment just above. RGloucester — ☎ 15:13, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
There is a difference between not specifying a gender and choosing to be referred to as "they/them". Users are not required to identify their gender and should not be required to do so. RGloucester has not specified their gender and has stated that they would not wish to be referred to as "they/them". Some users may not wish to specify their gender for personal reasons. Having four choices ("unspecified", "they/them", "she/her", "he/him") should accommodate most people. There may be other options like "xe/xem" that could be discussed. Pack My Box (talk) 16:52, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Seems like some of the explanations linked above are being overlooked. The gendered-language user variable literally only accepts 3 values, "unknown", "male", "female". The interface lets you know some examples of how you may expect to see messages that make use of pronouns. The interface is very much not asking you "what is your sex", "what is your gender", or "what are you preferred personal pronouns for use in discussions"; the interface example is just illustrative. Depending on the the specific interface message, this value can be used to output a different text (notable, most system messages don't make use of this value at all). On some other language projects where gendered nouns are the normal language convention, value may be used to specify things like your userpage name (Userio:Jimbo Wales vs Useria:Jimbo Wales). — xaosflux Talk 17:37, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
The interface itself seems to have changed at some point. At the time I pressed the 'unspecified' button, which was almost ten years ago now, it did not indicate anything about that choice having an impact on the pronouns displayed. RGloucester — ☎ 17:44, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
The interface, like most of our software and content evolves over time, hopefully for the better! Our current selection is:

The software uses this value to address you and to mention you to others using the selected grammatical gender option. Your selection will be publicly visible to others. Gender used in messages:

  • Use gender-neutral terms when possible (e.g. "their contributions") (default)
  • Use feminine terms when possible (e.g. "her contributions")
  • Use masculine terms when possible (e.g. "his contributions")
This value is rarely used here on the English Wikipedia. Here is an example of one such rare use: when an admin wants to reset a user confirmation status from the edit filter - but a reset isn't needed the admin will get the error response from MediaWiki:Abusefilter-reautoconfirm-none - which will respond: That user has not had {{GENDER:$1|his|her|their}} autoconfirmed status suspended.. If the uservalue is the unknown option, the word "their" will be output. — xaosflux Talk 18:38, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
This is also a value that people are likely to set globally, and it does help (especially for females) on gendered language projects (so that females don't see themselves getting called "userio" instead of "useria" constantly if they don't want to). — xaosflux Talk 18:40, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
That's all fine and good, but a proper 'unspecified' (rather than 'gender-neutral') option would be appreciated. This previously existed, and it's a shame it's been taken away. RGloucester — ☎ 18:47, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
@RGloucester: please feel free to help workshop this a bit more over at MediaWiki talk:Yourgender; if we can get something that most people will agree with for this language value - we can probablly backport it to the core message file (so long as it is still clear that the purpose of this specific setting is to style messages of the interface). If you want to actually have a value to store a user's sex/gender/etc - that would be best as a new field and should be requested over at phab. — xaosflux Talk 19:00, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
I have a very poor knowledge when it comes to technical matters, so I do not feel comfortable interfering in such a domain. I do not see the need for a new value specifying sex or gender. In fact, I would be opposed to this. I simply desire an option of 'unspecified', which might use 'this user's contributions' or 'RGloucester's contributions', rather than a specific pronoun. RGloucester — ☎ 19:04, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Xaosflux If the choice of gender is only for the Wikipedia software, why do I see that you are "he/him" when I hover over your user name? How do you think people interpret that? Pack My Box (talk) 19:10, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
Because you enabled an optional, local, volunteer programmed gadget. You can discuss improvements to that gadget here: Wikipedia talk:Tools/Navigation popups. ~54,000 of our ~41,000,000 registered users use that. — xaosflux Talk 20:48, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Gender gap: what should our percentage of articles about women be?

Towards the end of last year, discussing a Wikipedia Signpost essay on articles about women, User:Jason Quinn asked an important question:

When the topic of gender bias comes up and people mention the "gender gap" and how "only 18%" of our articles are about women, it begs the question be asked, "What percentage should it be?" A kneejerk reaction might suggest 50%... but that can't be right since society HAS been severely biased against women, especially pre-1900 as this article states. Historically (and still currently in many places) women simply were expected to be more domestic which kept them from being in positions where they could do something encyclopedic. Given that that is true, it makes no sense to expect 50% of our articles to be about women. So what percentage should it be?

He was, broadly speaking, shot down for being a troll (especially after he doubled down with some more extreme comments) but there is something to his original question, and I have been thinking about it since. I recently realized that I did a little study back in 2014 that gives a fair first approximation: a bit over 40%.

That study was attempting to answer a question on WT:GGTF - is there really any difference between what subjects male and female editors write about? I picked a biographical subsection of our best work, Wikipedia:Featured articles#Literature and theatre biographies, and counted which biographies about what gender were nominated by what gender editors. (FA nomination isn't always by the primary author, but usually is.) I found that male editors had 82% of their article nominations about male subjects, and female editors had 68% about female subjects. So yes, there was a noticeable difference. But that can also be used for Jason's question. The total was 71% male subjects, and 29% female subjects (already better than the 18% Jason writes about). We can extrapolate that if we had an equal number of male and female featured article nominators, we would have had 57% articles about men, 43% articles about women. That is the difference that is the result of the editor gender gap. That can be our goal. There are caveats, of course, this only looked at featured article nominations, only 89 of those, way back in 2014, maybe the reason female editors nominated so many female subjects was specifically part of an effort to correct the gender gap, etc. An interested party can do a more recent and larger study. But until then, I humbly submit, it's a reasonable first order approximation. --GRuban (talk) 18:33, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

A while back (2019 I see), a long discussion at the talk of the WiR Project had figures showing that the female % of non-sport BLPs was 30%. WP can't do much about historical patriarchy, nor apparently the insanely high % of our bios that are about sports people, where we are often near completeness for the notability criteria, but there are constraints that limit the number of notable females in many sports. I think 30% is probably defensible as a neutral figure for people living today on that basis. I don't see analysing FAs as very useful for this question, I'm afraid - this is a mass question about the little people (we have 346,000 female biographies, now 18.98%), not a small number of mostly fairly famous figures. The "editor gap" is a different question (where 50% is desirable and achievable), and it is best not to mix the two up, imo. Johnbod (talk) 18:45, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
FAs aren't "[about] mostly fairly famous figures", they're "articles editors are interested enough in to write them very well". Not at all the same things. For instance, relatively few Wikipedia:Vital articles (clearly the most famous figures) are FAs, while the current first FA Biographies (literature and theatre) is Lazarus Aaronson, "His poetry was not widely publicised", in every way one of the little people. My study asked "what articles were men and women interested in writing really well"? And that can be extrapolated to "if we had equal men and women editing, what articles would they be interested in writing really well"? And the answer seems to be a bit over 40% articles about women. That seems like a good goal.--GRuban (talk) 19:23, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
Yep, almost all FAs are a good way above the notability borderline, but low-importance to every WikiProject. This is because it makes a small, self-contained topic that's much easier to be comprehensive about, and easier to have near-unilateral control over (collaboration is great, but most FA writers find it faster to work alone and collaborate via review processes, like WP:PR). FAs are a different topic to raw articles, but it should be self-evident that the bias we see in male:female bios is also found (though harder to quantify) at every level of Wikipedia, such as at FA. — Bilorv (talk) 11:11, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Phooey! It's a pointless argument, but take a look at Wikipedia:Featured articles, where the biography lists are full of English kings (George I-VI inclusive, but only 4 Edwards & 3 Henrys), US Presidents, various prime ministers, and other major figures. Admittedly, many of these have been FA for years, and the trend you describe has increased in recent years. Johnbod (talk) 13:48, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
I agree very much that a sophisticated look at this question is very much warranted. If we look at categories like "United States Presidents" the gender imbalance is overwhelming - but that's not on us. I actually think that looking at the total percentage is one of the least interesting questions because we don't even know what the answer would be even if we imagine some future state where Wikipedia is "complete" (impossible, since new things always happen but I think you see what I mean).
Two more points to make quickly: For me, the best places to look are likely going to be categories where we can actually come to some reasonable estimates of what the percentage probably should be.
First, here's an example (biology professors) of a starting point... but as you read, you will likely come to realize as I do that there are some deep complexities here as well. "Nationwide, only 36 percent of assistant professors and 18 percent of full professors are women." Further: "In the labs of male Nobel laureates, male grad students outnumbered female grad students by two to one, and male postdocs outnumbered female postdocs by more than three to one." The point here is that if notability requirements are set too high (requiring a full professorship for no good reason, let's suppose) then we'll as a result have fewer female professors listed - as a result of contemporary gender inequalities but that do impact our work.
Second, our choice of categories to cover extremely well (which to some extent will reflect and reinforce the lack of diversity in our community) will have a big impact. If fields in which women are dominant aren't interesting to our community (women's sports vs men's sports?) then the natural (but regrettable and avoidable) tendency will be to have more entries on men than women.
All of these things can be improved dramatically by conscious effort on our part, without throwing out legitimate standards. I really wish that I could say "Yes, it is true that there are fewer female biographies in Wikipedia but that's not our fault - it's down to broader societal differences" - but I don't think we can say that today. I think we have to say "Even though it is true that even in a perfect Wikipedia, historical and contemporary factors mean that many women are excluded from positions that end up in the history books, we can do better than we have to work hard to make sure that we've got all the women who should be in Wikipedia in Wikipedia."
As to what any one of us can do? Go check out Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red. Or if you're like me, and you don't have enough time, just pick up a small task whenever you can. This week, I started Agnes Richards as a stub, and I bought a book (which I've read about 1/3 of so far) about her so that I can add even more to the entry. (Other people have already added more than I have - the joy of Wikipedia!)
Another thing to do is to keep an eye on deletion debates. There's a strong argument put forward that notable women's biographies are challenged for deletion more often than men. I think that's something we can look at and do something about.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:07, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

About half of the articles that I've created about individuals have been about women. I don't make any special effort based on sex, I just look for interesting people that would make interesting articles that have enough sourcing to get by. One thing that occurred to me when reading the article about that study is that initiatives to "right this wrong" could (past or future) make that "% nominated for deletion" worse. Unless they get an easy by-pass of GNG by an SNG (like the sport figures "did it for a living for one day" criteria), GNG can be tough to meet. If "we gotta right this wrong" weighs heavily into a decision to create an article, that could subconsciously de-emphasize other factors such as meeting GNG, making them more likely for AFD. Finally gigantic amounts of permstubs created by the sports SNG bypass of GNG in that field which is numerically male dominated (and even more so collectively over history) can heavily influence overall numbers in such studies.North8000 (talk) 22:04, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

I hit "random article" a few hundred times and 43% of ALL of the articles about men were about sports figures. This mathematically dwarfs any other category, with politicians being a distant second at 11%. So sports figures would have mathematically dominated that study. North8000 (talk) 22:31, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the one who wrote that. This is not the first time I've argued that naked percentages about the gender gap are misleading. The entire lead for Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red is based on that only 19% of articles are about women... and something needs to be done about that!!! Yet, that lead ignores that this argument is incomplete. It begs the question if the 19% actually shows a bias in our coverage or not. Projects with stated goals need criteria for success. Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red lacks that. When I raised this issue with members, it's been side-skirted or worse things are twisted to make it as if I'm horrible for even raising the question. Yes, it is a difficult question but I also don't expect an answer like a precise percentage can be given. But there are ways to handle this. As suggested above, one reasonable solution might be to make a qualitative assessment whether editors think bias still needs to be addressed within that topic and elucidate how they know that. In general, I'm kind of against projects with content-pushing agendas because they are biased by definition. I think our goals should be to focus on being welcome to everybody and enforcing our policies on neutrality and notability. When that's done properly, bias diminishes naturally. Jason Quinn (talk) 03:33, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that's not completely true. The issue is WP:CSB: basically, we editors tend to be well educated technologically savvy males from the global north. So we tend to write about topics that interest us, educated tech-savvy males from the global north. Which isn't the same as our readership - right? At least, I don't know about you, but I hope the encyclopedia is equally useful to everyone, not just my personal demographic. And just being nice to all new editors equally doesn't change their demographic. There is a lot to be said for projects with content-pushing agendas. --GRuban (talk) 21:23, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
As much as I don't like the layout of the page Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red, I don't think it would be the right page to make a very complex statistical argument like GRuban makes above. I'm glad you concede that a precise percentage is not possible/desirable to calculate. All I need to know in order to support the project is, "is 19% too low?" And any of my envelope calculations, and the ones I've seen by others like GRuban's above, tell me that 19% is too low, yes. I find it most useful to consider the impetus for the project as being that our community is mostly male and that produces a bias in the topics we write about (GRuban gives evidence for this) and the percentage change from 16% to 19% is a way to demonstrate success of the WikiProject and motivate the community to new targets (20%, anyone?).
All WikiProjects have content-pushing agendas, almost by definition, but that doesn't mean that the individual editors do: we're just part of WikiProjects on topics that interest us. I agree that our community needs to be much more welcoming to everybody—and I'd say behavioural policies are the more important ones to enforce with respect to this—but that doesn't relate to content work. At the end of the day, I just don't think it's that deep. We all need to feel like what we are doing is valuable and even morally righteous ("the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"), because what we do is hard work and no-one thanks you for it, so motivation has to come from within. This is just one way to stoke motivation. — Bilorv (talk) 11:11, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
In a further analysis, it might be useful to break down women-men/total percentages categorically, eg. sportsmen (literally), politicians, etc. as well as, before modern era, renascence, enlightenment era, 19th century by half century, 20th/21st by decade. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:52, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
That would be a good exercise. As I mentioned, any raw numbers are going to be dominated by (mostly male) sports figures who got in by the "did it for a living for one day" criteria. And factoring in time will dial out for the fact that for like 99% of civilized history women were discriminated against with respect to prominence and resultant GNG coverage. My guess is that the end result is that the "did it for a living for 1 day" criteria for sports figures has an immense impact on the male/female % of articles but that otherwise the article selection process isn't sexist unless you consider GNG itself to be sexist. BTW, I do feel that the things that determine our editor pool are extremely biased against women, but that's a different topic. North8000 (talk) 14:19, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Let's be fair, the actual number of "did it for a living for one day" bios is pretty small, and usually it is "contracted for a year, not renewed, but only spent minutes actually playing on the pitch etc in a match". Far more common are players who were contracted for a few years by minor teams, often decades ago, and had very unremarkable careers, mostly on the bench. Johnbod (talk) 13:19, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Also, semi related, what amount of time of pedians is spent on bios, is it like (just to be a bit provocative) 80%? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:04, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
I didn't tally it in my few-hundred articles survey but I'd guess it was like 30%. Lots of geostubs which I most agree is fine. Individual sports contests with just statistics/results from them was another big one, maybe 5% which would mean ~300,000 of those articles. I think I should try a slightly bigger & better survey.North8000 (talk) 16:28, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

This is premature but I wanted to post something. I did a more careful sample (so far 200 articles) Of the articles about individual people (59) , I divided them into recent (active in the last 15 years) and not recent. Here was the breakdown of articles on individual people:

  • Sports on individual people: 29% All other articles on individual people 71%
  • Non-recent sports: Male 100% Female 0%
  • Recent sports: Male 90% Female 10%
  • Non sports, non recent: Male: 81% Female 19%
  • Non sports, recent: Male 45% Female 55%

North8000 (talk) 21:03, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Of course the sample size is super small but this is enough to illustrate the problems with naive assumptions. Sports articles dominate our biographies and sports covered by the media are dominated by men. The percentage of our biographies about female sports players are to be expected to be MUCH MUCH lower than 50%. That's not bias in our encyclopedia, that's bias in the demand for sports itself now and over history. We shouldn't be bending over backwards to artificially raise this percentage. Doing so is introducing bias, not eliminating it. Clearly sports needs to be considered separately and divorced from our general statistical considerations. Your examples also illustrate that taking things for granted like the "19%" are articles are on women is too low (as done above) should not be done. The historical bias against women doing encyclopedic things is long and large. It's unclear what's it's impact is but I'm glad that people are thinking about it like above. I'm also glad people are realizing this needs to be done on a topic-by-topic, field-by-field basis..... And, since more than 50% of our recent are about women, we currently have a anti-male bias!!!! (Just joking with that last sentence, the numbers there are probably super small. :-P) But it does suggest they we might be doing just fine with our recent coverage despite our male-, northern hemi-sphere-, etc.- dominated editing group some people worry about too much. Jason Quinn (talk) 05:58, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
Perhaps we are making a move in the right direction and with more emphasis on the issue subjects we may make more serious progress despite the historical and present bias placed on women and women related subjects both on and off the encyclopedia, however, I would be careful about implying we are doing fine. For a long time Wikipedia hid behind the phrase "we are not here to right great wrongs" as a reason for inaction on women related articles. I've seen it used as a reason even as late as the end of 2020. There is no chance anyone here can right any wrong done in the past so lets dispel that thought. What we can do is write quality articles about historical and present day women that our daughters can build upon in the future. Any reader or researcher wants to find an article on the topic they are searching for and I think we can meet that within reason. I am going to stay away from sports topics because we are on two different planets in regards to those articles from the very start. I will say that one major reason why the percentage of recent articles on women has risen is the focus of amazing editors at Women in Red of which I am a proud member. It isn't just the creation of articles that has been a focus of the project but, lately, it has also been about assisting articles through the AfC process and adding input at AfD's on women related articles in order to save articles that would otherwise be deleted. Article retention has become more of an important focus for the project even as we continue the focus on turning red links blue with article creation. Regardless of whether anyone thinks female editors are, to borrow the words without implying anything further, being naive or making assumptions, the fact is that we see the turnouts at edit-a-thons and we also see the results after the fact. Anyone can scoff about the impact of a male-centered and dominated encyclopedia but the reality is that a lot of women do not feel welcome at Wikipedia, as case studies have shown, and retention of women editors is a serious issue that plagues the encyclopedia because there are fewer women editing Wikipedia to begin with so losing even one is potentially more impactful. We are focusing on the welcoming aspect of Wikipedia as well and I have seen many editors in the project begin to leave welcome messages on new editor talk pages in the hopes of retaining them and offering to help them learn how to be an effective editor here. I acknowledge that male editors can create quality articles on women just as easily as female editors can and it is going to take us working together, as a community of editors, to reach the fullest potential. The original question is what the percentage should be of articles on women and I say their is no magic number. We just keep pressing upward and forward. --ARoseWolf 20:14, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
This probably means that I have sexist reasons for saying that Wikipedia is sexist but :-) .....the (secondary-here) idea of females being under represented in our editor numbers IS a problem, and a significantly solvable one. For editors (especially newer ones), at best Wikipedia is a rough-and-tumble and mean place, and it is often worse...a vicious place. IMO that discriminates. North8000 (talk) 13:04, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the truth is that throughout the history of humanity there have far more notable men than women and far more men have had extensive coverage given the different gender roles in society. Even today in some professions women are underrepresented. 50% women bios is possible, but would mean an extreme bias towards BLPs to try to catch up. I would say 30% women bios would be a major achievement, I agree 19% seems pathetic. I would also place more emphasis on quality of biography, many really notable women bios are not GA quality or higher. Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Green which I started is geared towards increasing the number of Good Articles on women. Now if we could get 50% of all quality bio articles on women that would be something! † Encyclopædius 07:36, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

I have a different take on it. I think there are far more notable women than are being represented and there is a bias against women in that there are notable women being written about that are being tagged as non-notable, repeatedly, either because of the quality of the article or because the sources are viewed as less reliable, not unreliable. The common misconception is that an article must be GA quality or higher to be relevant for inclusion. I think we need to be careful because that philosophy can be used as an excuse to marginalize women on Wikipedia. The only requirement for inclusion is that reliable sources exist to confirm and verify notability. They only have to exist to allow for inclusion. It should be a goal to create and/or improve any article to a high degree of quality but denying the acceptance of an article about a woman because it is not GA quality is a bias in itself. Would we ever really be discussing this when it comes to articles on men? I would say not but it is often brought up when it comes to women. I commend the WiG project. I think its wonderful and we should be looking to improve article quality but that should never be a deterrent from article inclusion and it should never be a reason for an AfD on the bio of a woman. --ARoseWolf 13:25, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
While we can ask what the hypothetic ratio should be, accounting for all the systematic biases against gender up until the late 20th century would make us continually fumbling for numbers. Hypothetically, focusing on articles about people living today, that ratio should be far closer to 50% - but will not be exactly that, due to systematic biases in sports and politics still. An interesting idea would be to do monthly stats on article creation of living persons - and more specific, living persons currently in an active career so generally anyone that is aged 16-65, and generate demographics based on those. Ideally, the gender ratio on that should be trending high and towards 50% female, though as I said, would never meet it. If we're still having, say, sub-30% articles on women today on a consistent basis, there's something wrong internally with WP's creation process. --Masem (t) 13:36, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
FWIW I do plan to expand the sample size of my (above) study in the near future. My criteria for "recent" vs. "non-recent" was if whether or not they were active on their "notable-thing" in the last 15 years. Inevitably any criteria will be imperfect, but perfection is the enemy of progress. North8000 (talk) 14:24, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
(ec) There is: it's sports. From |BrownHairedGirl's figures, linked above, on bios per DOB:
  • 1980s births: Total 167,725. Sportspeople 115,590 (68.9%)
  • 1990s births: Total 136,042. Sportspeople 113,366 (83.3%)
Sports is the elephant in the room on gender bias, and nothing sensible will be said on the subject if it's not taken into account. Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
This could be something that my hypothetic monthly appraisal of new bios could evaluate. Not only breakdown by gender, but by nationality, primary profession/field, and some other factors usually found even on the basic BLP stubs. We can then subtract out what sports-based bios bring (knowing that has the implicit bias against women), which should be leaving us (under the conditions I mention), something far closer to 50% on women/men articles. If that shows consistently something far under 50%, then we have an internal systematic bias that we really need to address. --Masem (t) 14:39, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
And/or we still live in a world where women are considerably under-represented in most easily-counted groups of notables - national legislators, CEOs of major companies, fellows of national academies, film directors & producers. Johnbod (talk) 14:47, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
Unfortunately yes, but 1) we can expect in these fields (where there is no requirement related to the physical difference between men and women) that over time these will approach 50%, and 2) we should still be watching how WP's internal creation process works to try to match or overcome this issue. I'd be concerned that if after ignoring the sports-related bios if our ratio related to living, active persons was under 30-35% for women for several months in a row, that would indicate we need to fix something. If it was closer to 40-45%, that I'd attribute to the external systematic bias. --Masem (t) 15:20, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Update on my random survey above. Sample size up to 350 articles of all types.

  • Sports on individual people: 32% All other articles on individual people 68%
  • Non-recent sports: Male 100% Female 0%
  • Recent sports: Male 83% Female 17%
  • Non sports, non recent: Male: 85% Female 15%
  • Non sports, recent: Male 47% Female 53%

North8000 (talk) 21:32, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

My sandbox

Help Jimmy!!!!!!!!! My sandbox is not working!!!!!!!!! Saved by God's grace (talk) 02:21, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

User:Saved by God's grace/sandbox. Stephen 03:56, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Lab Leak article

Hello Jimmy, thanks to Jtbobwaysf, CNET wrote an article i heard with your comment supporting inclusion of COVID-19 lab leak hypothesis, but the article also says that Wikipedia has "just a core group of contributors numbering around in the tens of thousands, at most." See: https://www.cnet.com/features/wikipedia-is-at-war-over-the-coronavirus-lab-leak-theory/ I heard that Wikipedia has raised many hundred million dollars. Are you using any of this money to attract more editors to make our coverage of controversial topics more balanced? As you can read in the article, that is even the possibility that some of these users are Chinese actors. We need more free people to make a better work in this hard topic. --Francesco espo (talk) 02:12, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Quote: "On the other side of the divide, editors have expressed concerns about Chinese state actors preventing discussion of the lab leak theory on COVID-19 pages, though they have not provided definitive evidence for this." If you keep making such repetitive, baseless accusations towards other editors, it shows only that you're not here to contribute collaboratively; and that you're more interested in gaining points on your "opponents". This has to stop if you want your position to be taken seriously: Wikipedia isn't a soapbox nor a debating society, and we, unlike social media networks, actually act to prevent persistent uncivility. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 02:20, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
It would be convenient to be paid to do the usually thankless work volunteers who care about the encyclopedia do. But as I once said, I'm only a man in black and paid by the cigarette smoking man, of course. Oh, and a fool for Satan, apparently. But leaving humor aside, how can you increase your credibility by pushing even more conspiracy theories, that editors are Chinese actors against you? BTW, somewhat recently I ensured that all references to an unreliable source be either removed or tagged as unreliable, that is also part of routine maintenance and unrelated to COVID. Why? It was a notorious grassrooting website for Russian and Chinese propaganda... Note to readers: for more context, please also see this thread (permalink, do not edit without refreshing the latest version) —PaleoNeonate – 09:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Nobody should trust Wikipedia, says man who invented Wikipedia

Larry Sanger in the news today.[16]--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 08:05, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Iignore as always. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:50, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Errm, you mean one of the men, who started, the very early version of Wikipedia? But beware, he does talk about "the t-word". Martinevans123 (talk) 09:24, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Very shoddy reporting by The Independent, who fail to give any contextual information about how Wikipedia is written and maintained or what it is, likely because the journalist assigned this doesn't know any information about Wikipedia. I didn't expect the publication to essentially write a press release for a far-right (at least by British standards) person with no contextual information about Sanger's biases or history with the project. It also doesn't indicate that this isn't a new development and give any other instances of Sanger saying the same thing (which you can find stretching back for 90% of Wikipedia's history). — Bilorv (talk) 10:01, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Sanger's descent into right-wing tinfoil-hattery has been most dispiriting. The last thing he did right was call out Commons for its hosting policies, and that must have been ten years ago. Black Kite (talk) 10:08, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Seems he's been busy with Everipedia, encyclosphere.org and mobile phones lately. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:23, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
I do hope Sanger wasn't responsible for the blatant use of Wikipedia for advertising purposes you've just linked... AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:30, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Hello, I have taken a stab at trimming the more blatant advertising aspects of that Phunware article, but more eyes would be nice. We may need to discuss possible paid editing, and whether it even satisfies the notability guide. ValarianB (talk) 12:12, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
The recent promotional edits also removed sourced content that didn't cast the company in such a glowing light. This should probably be looked at, to see if any of it needs restoring. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:59, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
"He'll have Phun, Phun, Phun till "his Daddy" takes the artcle away!" Martinevans123 (talk) 12:18, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
I honestly don't think I've ever heard of Everipedia before. It seems like Wikipedia but worse. As in, their literal first step was copying the contents of Wikipedia and their subsequent steps were to add features that make the site worse. If you want a functioning spin-off of Wikipedia without notability guidelines then that's Fandom. — Bilorv (talk) 13:30, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
There you go: Everipedia. Awaiting your (wholly unbiased) input. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:34, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Also on Fox, Daily Mail and OpIndia. Enjoy. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:12, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

I think that what he ACTUALLY said was carefully calibrated and correct. IMO the heading of this section is an incorrect overstatement of what he actually said. North8000 (talk) 13:24, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

The heading is just the literal headline of the article (which is misleading, I agree with that). — Bilorv (talk) 13:30, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
Hence WP:HEADLINES. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:09, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

"Mr Sanger cited the example of an article about US President Joe Biden and says it doesn’t include information from the Republicans’ perspective.

“The Biden article, if you look at it, has very little by way of the concerns that Republicans have had about him. So if you want to have anything remotely resembling the Republican point of view about Biden, you’re not going to get it from the article,” he said.

He argued that there should be at least a paragraph about the Ukraine scandal but there is very little of that.

“Very little of that can be found in Wikipedia. What little can be found is extremely biased and reads like a defence counsel’s brief, really,” he said."

But the Republican's' perspective on almost any subject is based on their disinformation campaign. We don't include the views of Putin on US topics either. Count Iblis (talk) 21:41, 16 July 2021 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the word Neutral in WP:NPOV is misleading to many people. NPOV should be called instead Good Bias Policy or Wikipedia favors mainstream science, mainstream scholarship, and mainstream press. Reason: I'm not unbiased and I don't know anyone who is unbiased, so the best thing to do is admit that everyone is biased and state Wikipedia's bias upfront. As Bart Ehrman stated, I am not saying I have no agendas and no biases. Let me be emphatic. I DO have an agenda and I DO have biases. My agenda is to propagate a scholarly understanding and appreciation of the Bible. And my bias is that a scholarly understanding can NOT be determined by theological dogmas. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:30, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
There's actually two parts of neutrality at play. Once is the source neutrality which this comment gets at - we're going to be using the best possible sources, which may not always treat a topic that has two sides in a purely 50-50 manner and may reflect ideological systematic bias (eg the nature of the the last four years with US media). That's reasonable, and that's what Sagner doesn't seem to get. The other aspect, however, is the writing neutrality, which the Ehrman quote is alluding to, and a major problem with how WP has been treating many people and groups on the farther-right given that there is the systematic source bias from the first point. We're supposed to write clinically neutral, impartially and dispassionately, as to not have Wikivoice seem judgemental as what Ehrman implies. But instead, our articles on these farther-right people and groups tend to be overzealous to be accusations and far from the clinical treatment of topics. We can do this for people and groups at the extreme of ideologies - not to bring up Godwin's so soon, but Adolf Hitler is written in the appropriate neutral way that still documents his crimes against humanity and expresses the numerous judgements about him but in a manner that leaves it to the reader to come to an alternate conclusion. But with many contemporary figures, editors seems to feel that Wikivoice must identify strongly and harshly that these people and groups have bad ideologies (stemming from our high-quality sources) and thus lose any context of clinically-neutral writing. And that feeds into exacerbate the percieved problems that Sagner talks about, as if Wikivoice is being that critical in tone, then of course one that has ideological opinions on that side is going to feel the situation is unbalanced. Sagner wrote a prior piece to this where this facet of writing neutrality wasn't expressly touched on but his points danced around it - though the bulk of his "demands" were unworkable related to source neutrality (eg purposely introducing false balance, etc.) And it is very very difficult to try to get editors who are deeply invested on these farther-right people/groups to see that their writing is not neutral, since the facts incorporate seem to all stem from proper source neutrality. This is something that we can fix. --Masem (t) 13:30, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
A major difference is of course that historians have written a lot about Hitler's life. We don't have to work from recent news reports. As for 50/50, there of course are uncertain topics, then more informed ones where presenting all sides as equally valid is inappropriate (sources will help to determine this too). I'm aware that you know this, but found it worthy of mention, considering that it too is a constant challenge to get right on WP and is also very relevant in the case of Sanger, since we often hear complaints that the WP coverage of pseudoscience is biased... —PaleoNeonate – 11:01, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Bias on US political and US culture war topics is a problem. To address this, it first must be recognized that there is so much subjectivity and complexity in defining any high "unbiased" standard that such does not exist. Nevertheless, meeting a much lower bar is achievable and needed. The lower "bar" is of not having one "side" of that battle influence Wikipedia's content so much that it degrades informative coverage or that it garners such widespread disdain in the outside world that it significantly damages Wikipedia's reputation as a source for enclyclopedic information, and/or as a source of enclyclopedic information in those areas. Currently Wikipedia often fails at achieving that lower bar in those areas. North8000 (talk) 11:28, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Sanger is exaggerating overall, as Wikipedia is a massive encyclopedia covering a massive range of topics, and most articles don't require American conservative sources. When it comes to US politics I would agree that there is a strong bias against Trump and Republicans on here, articles I've seen tend to be written from a liberal perspective, a refleciton of the sources used to write them. The 2020 election coverage for instance is a shambles and anybody who said there was fraud is branded a Qanon conspiracy theorist and their articles trashed. They can be frustrating to read for somebody who is British and a solid centrist like me and wants a fair overview of both sides. The problem is that the media is so biased and often not even accurate, and there's very few conservative sources for US politics which seem credible, OAN and Newsmax for example are certainly not. We also seem to be censoring when it comes to COVID, most of the people who've spoken out against the vaccines have had their biographies somewhat unfairly trashed and editors seem to be protecting them in that state.. † Encyclopædius 12:51, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Had you thought of starting Encyclopædius.com? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:01, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Where we edit one we edit all? Randy Kryn (talk) 13:09, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Phew!! Sounds a bit too darn complex fur me! Martinevans123 (talk) 13:16, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Let me say this: I loved Reagan and Thatcher. They were conservatives. Trump is not a conservative, he is a radical. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:32, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Yep, and they sure loved each other. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:36, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Wikipedia is biased against the views of anti-vaxxers and stop the steal people because their views simply don’t reflect reality or the truth in any way. X-Editor (talk) 23:10, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
This too sounds reasonable perhaps at first glance, but this basically assumes that English Wikipedia should represent a balanced USA point of view.. whereas English Wikipedia is pretty much a global project and much of the USA is perceived as certifiably batshit crazy by the rest of the world. And their opinions also weigh in on political topics of this country that so heavily influences the rest of the world. So no, there is no reason it should be balanced between those two particular viewpoints, because those 2 viewpoints are already biased even when taken together. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:16, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
"Belgium is a city"?. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:19, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
For the interested, Wikipedia coverage of American politics is an article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:35, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Since this is an encyclopedia it should provide information, not a point of view, and that goal would help navigate the current mess at such articles. The behavior of wikilawyering an article to give the article subject good or bad optics (instead of providing information) for the subject should be identified and ostracized. Major topics should not get hidden and minor ones not get overplayed by pov warriors. Major political points of view should be presented, with attribution. Not wikilawyered-out, and not wikilawyered into presenting them as fact in the voice of Wikipedia.

With the changes in the media, wp:NPOV has become obsolete in this area and instead become a tool of POV warriors, so that need fixing. Finally, the idea that objectivity and expertise with respect to the item which cited it is a key measure of a source should get infused throughout. Generalizing sources only by their trappings is not enough, that the idea of officially deprecating overall sources should be ended and undone.....it's yet another tool of POV warriors. North8000 (talk) 17:54, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

The idea that one can be 100% unbiased or 100% objective is puerile epistemology. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:23, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Agreed, on the "100% unbiased", because, because there is no such thing as a standard for "unbiased". "100% objective" is possible as applicable to certain more specific frameworks such as that for building an encyclopedia.North8000 (talk) 19:51, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
Everybody has made some kind of contribution and also damage to humanity writ large or small and he has come out way more of a contributor than 99.99% of us, I'd say. I mean just look at this. His 2001 start has held up pretty well over 20 years even with a lot of eyes and thoughts on the content. I think everybody needs to feel and show more respect for the cool things individuals do and just show deference or at least ignore the silly stuff the top .01% do or say. CONTEXTKID (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 23:21, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
"the changes in the media" seems to be mainly or entirely a US thing. CNN, Fox etc are ridiculously partisan, to the point of almost being a parody. But read European media and, while the bias is often obvious, the media outlet can still attempt some kind of even handed approach. The overall principle of NPOV is still a good one. Valenciano (talk) 23:59, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
If "neutral" means "unbiased", then Wikipedia is not neutral by design. Wikipedia is biased for WP:DUE. More eloquently explained at WP:NOTNEUTRAL. Wikipedia does take the side of mainstream science, mainstream scholarship, and mainstream press. So, of course, it has a mainstream academic bias. Tried to make that clear at WP:ABIAS.
People construe neutrality to mean nothing is true, everything is permitted. And they construe objectivity to mean it was true since forever, and it will be true forever. While if you look at epistemology, objectivity is defined as what is intersubjective. I mean: it might not be true, but it commands the consent of informed people from the beginning of the 21st century. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:29, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Really? Then you might need to make a few adjustments over at Objectivity (philosophy). Martinevans123 (talk) 13:32, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
@Martinevans123: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-objectivity/ tgeorgescu (talk) 13:51, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Ah yes, thanks, I forgot. WP is objectively unreliable. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:53, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
@Martinevans123: Objectivity (philosophy)#Objectivity of knowledge has four short paragraphs which basically say that many views exist thereupon. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:00, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
Phew, I forgot. WP is objectively reliable. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:03, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
So you’re saying that fake news websites like infowars don’t deserve deprecation? Because they definitely do. X-Editor (talk) 23:17, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
National Review (which is right-leaning, so keep that in mind) has a article that sorta follows on to Sanger's rants [17]. Now, I'm not saying they are 100% right, but they point out that WP by design (at least through our RS/NPOV policies) tends to favor the academic coverage, and it is known that even in academia, they tend to favor the "right side of history". They use the example that academia in reviewing the 1950 McCarthyism era, that rarely can one find information about those that supported those McCarthy panels or other similar actions taken. And since academia doesn't cover this, neither will Wikipedia.
Now, I argue that in that example of McCarthyism, as we are covering it now, that we're doing what our function should be, documenting what is reported by high quality RSes, which as time progresses from an event like McCarthyism, will be academic resources. If academia 50 years after an event has opted to take one side, we really really cannot change that. This is a consistent approach to how we treat proven scientific theories proven out by the scientific method over hypothetical nonsense (eg global warming). But all that has the key factor of time involved - these are works and sources well separated from initial formation or occurences, and if the best sources that far down the road have selected a side, WP is pretty much bound to do that.
Where we fail and this is a point I've made many times in relation to NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM is that on these current controversies (eg such as the points Sanger made) we're relying on mainstream media for the information to include, and in such a case, both these sources and the lack of passage of time make them far too close to have a reasonable historic view of the situation. Moreso with the changes of the media over the last decade which has made them less objective even though they retain their reliability. We have far too many articles on present, controversial situations that try to weight the "non-factual" part of a story - the reactions, analysis, and criticism - based on these current sources. It may be in 10 years that that's the view that will prevail in academic sources, but we should not be making that presumption in the short term. Things like the Gulf War which at the time they happened were generally treated positively by the US press have since become one of America's follies in most academic sources. We simply cannot infer that from when an event is current. As such, we should be much much more careful with how we handle treatment of characterization and opinion on these articles related to current events, and not preliminary pick a side that the media seems to enjoy. Solving that, as I've mentioned before, is not a matter of trying to follow what Sanger wants - creating false balances and equivalence - but mostly a matter of article content organization and tone of Wikivoice writing as to keep to an objective approach about these topics, until sufficient time (5-10-20 years) has passed and we can use more academic sources looking from a distance to evaluate how to present the characterization of that past event. --Masem (t) 21:45, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

There is no "trust", with anything, and "success" in anything important, is a journey, not a destination

I was hoping Sanger did not use the word "trust" in relation to an encyclopedia, especially a living, constantly updated encyclopedia. I was hoping that was an editorial usage. But Sanger did use it: “Can you trust it to always give you the truth? Well, it depends on what you think the truth is,” We mostly all believe that "truth" is not an exact, existing thing, but, amazingly, most of us still think of "trust" as an exact, existing thing/condition. Yet a thought experiment quickly reveals that there is no such thing as "trust"; it is only an illusion people made up for convenience of things like monogamy. Many of us have used reviews to make a consumer choice only to discover the reviews are manipulated. Many of us go to an "established" name brand company out of a "trust" hope only to find the company's name and operations are now run by a crooked or incompetent outfit. So, 25 years ago Scott of Sun Microsystems shockingly said "there is no privacy. get over it". We all know in our logic that there is no trust, so don't make any important decisions, like what to read, out of "trust". More so, The wonderful and most important aspect of Wikipedia is its "Thought Provoking" feature. Where the Reader can take anything from an article or Blp and persue it elsewhere or in their own individual minds. Providing some sort of temporary illusion of "fact" or "truth" to some lazy mind that is looking for something they can "trust", so they don't have to think for themselves is exactly what CNN and Fox are selling these days and its actually a destructive product to the mind, just like heroin to a body. When it comes to a conflict between "Due" and unbiased, that's actually a cool, constructive conflict, much as Hegel's ideas uses conflict to move forward. Wikipedia is simply an ongoing adventure into an unknown future of concepts, history, personalities. And that is a helluva product which, when promoted as the thought provoking adventure that it is, will see its full blossoming, yes, a blossom, an explosion of interest in editing and reading, that should be what lies ahead.. At least that's my opinion. CONTEXTKID (talk) 14:25, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Simply on the matter of trust - even as we defend and stand by what sources we use and don't use and what narratives that may be out there that we don't include - we can improve the trust in WP by staying more objective (impartial, dispassionate) in our writings about these articles, being careful that Wikivoice does not take up the appearance of favoring one side of the other. I think we see these continual criticisms and the like about certain topics on WP (eg those mostly in the right-leaning ideology) as our writing style on these articles leaves little guess to which "side" Wikivoice is on, and thus creates distrust in our content. We can keep to the same facts and sources but written in a far more objective style which won't change how these people and groups are perceived by the media, but done right would not show that bias in Wikivoice. Keeping our view to a 60,000 ft level of a controversial topic will significantly increase our trust. We'll still have some demanding a forced false balance or the like, but I think we can help cut back the constant criticism with better writing. --Masem (t) 14:35, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
Let me tell you how conservatives view the pretense that Wikipedia is unbiased and neutral: they see is as liberal hypocrisy (doublespeak). While if we say Wikipedia is biased for WP:CHOPSY then it is clear for everybody what we stand for, even if they disagree with us. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:31, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I'd like to just start with striving for the lower bar where the bias does not impact being informative. And in many cases, we fail at even that. In those cases, material gets left out, hidden or deprecated depending on what the mob at the article wants (of course, clothed in wikilawyering) ....material chosen for being good or bad optics for the topic rather than for informativeness.North8000 (talk) 21:46, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
I generally agree that we have an issue with not being objective (different from neutral) on many controversial topics (primarily in politics). While this is too broad a statement on its own, for most topics that have a form of controversy, we should be laying out the arguments from all side briefly, like in the opening debate round, before then applying WP:DUE factors to which side will have more debate. The problem that tends to happen is that on controversial topics on which the media has come down strongly on one side, the common WP logic is often "Oh that other side is fringe" or "we can't make a false balance", neither of which we'd do if we briefly open with what the situation is from all sides. That's documenting the controversy before delving into which side appears to have won already. Again, this is too simple a statement for a broad approach, but that concept needs to be kept in mind, because we are often omitting one side of a debate on the pretense that that side may be UNDUE to include or fall into FRINGE. --Masem (t) 00:13, 21 July 2021 (UTC)
@Masem: I agree 100%. The bar I was seeking is a lower one, which is not bias so bad that it damages coverage. For example, during Mitt Romney's presidential run that we'd be more likely to have a separate substantial article on his beliefs, ideologies, programs than one on a ride he gave his dog 25 years earlier Mitt Romney dog incident highlighted during the campaign because it was bad optics for him. Of course, it was easily wiki-lawyered in because in the post-journalism-for-big-media era, the big media was doing the same thing. BTW that last sentence points to two of the ways to fix the problem. North8000 (talk) 12:44, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
We tend to have a problem (as a mass of editors, no single individual or specific group to point to) that we generally look to cherry pick characterization information, particularly if it is well-backed by sources, and give that preference over elements that may be more objective, such as that point regarding Romney's run. This is particularly true when that "characterization" information tends to align with the broad liberal nature of WP editors - eg the media's overall scorn for anything alt/far right. We're including top tier RSes, and some of this characterization is readily sourcable but its a "seeing the forest through the trees", we're focusing on specific trees and not the forest. A good example of this in action right now is over at Talk:Andy Ngo, where there is discussion that we should not be calling him a "journalist" in the lede (despite having worked as a reporter for a newspaper) becuase reliable sourcing do not want to call him that. Objectively, he's a journalist, and we should absolutely include the criticism about his "journalism" if that exists, but the focus is so much on the media's refusal to consider him one that the who discussion shows a loss of the objectivity we need. And that's a tip of the iceberg situation. --Masem (t) 13:33, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
In EU being a journalist is a legal matter. Journalists are allowed to protect their sources. But not every blogger is a journalist. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:18, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

My two cents. When talking about bias, that all first begins with understanding your own. Most people really don't, I think. It's something they spend a great deal of time teaching you about in journalism class (or at least they did, back when reporters cared about expository writing). It is impossible to even shoot for neutrality if a person doesn't know where they stand in relation. That doesn't mean boasting it to the world, but quite the contrary, it means being able to write without letting the world know one iota of your personal stance. The real problem, of course, is one of confirmation bias. For example (and they do this on TV all the time), if a cop is out to get a suspect, they can most assuredly make a case and get a conviction, but when a cop works to eliminate suspects until there is only one possibility remaining, then they're far more likely to get the right suspect. Likewise, anyone on the left thinks Fox News is biased, and anyone on the right thinks CNN and MSNBC are totally biased. As an outsider who has had a lot of training in the field, I can agree that they are both correct. In all of these discussion right here on this page, you can see a huge amount of confirmation biases coming from all sides. "People see what they expect to see. It's the principle of association." Zaereth (talk) 23:57, 20 July 2021 (UTC)

Stop abuse and violence in Fawiki by checkusers

Hi Dear.

I sent a complaint to OC and reported that my account " shahramrashidi" has been blocked and banned in Fawiki as nominating Sockpuppetry, without any evidence. Even the user checking has not been requested by any in check user page. But the checkusers have blocked my account according to doubt only as their declaration. Which policy of WP tell you can block unlimited any user without evidence and with doubt only.

This is the response of OC: "The Commission is responsible for investigating complaints about infringements of the Privacy Policy, the Access to nonpublic personal data policy, the CheckUser policy, and the Oversight policy, on any Wikimedia project. The OC pays close attention to policies and their violations. Regarding the complaint relating to the block of User:Shahramrashidi for sockpuppet, the commission has found no violation of any of the aforementioned policies.

Shahramrashidi was blocked according to the Persian Wikipedia's (fawiki) sockpuppetry policy, which provides that a sockpuppet can be blocked without needing to identify the "sockmaster". The Commission is not an appeals body for blocks. The local community's appeal processes should be used in this case."

How do i tell and prove my account is not sockpuppet and the response of OC is about sockpuppet user only, then when my account is not sockpuppet, this policy is not applicable for my account. I asked OC to check my account is not sockpuppet and check users have abused from their facility and access, but instead of checking my account and their action has replied as a/m.

My question is can any check users block and ban any account as sockpuppet even it not to be sockpuppet? Who check this and stop their abuse? My account is not sockpuppet and check users abuse from their access. Please check my account in Fawiki and if my account to be sockpuppet, block me in all wiki projects else stop their abuse. please stop abuse from fawiki. i am ready to provide any document to prove my account is not sockpuppet and there is no any supervision on fawiki check users. Please return credit to fawiki.Shahram 06:00, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

This is enwiki- appeal your block there, not here. Thank you. Firestar464 (talk) 05:28, 14 July 2021 (UTC)
I believe the user knows this is en wiki. But here is Jimbo's talk page. Many users come here to talk to him. The user is blocked in fawiki how could they appeal their block there? Gharouni Talk 14:53, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
@Firestar464:, @Gharouni: I know here is en.wiki. But he also is the member of foundation trustee and as his statement. He must know what is occurred in WP. If me or another don't tell to him how they will stop abuse and apply supervision on WP.
All Fa.wp managers has declared cant check the action of checkcusers, OC don't check it. Stewards don't check it. Then let me who check it? If there is no supervision on them, Why there is no supervision and if there is, then why don't want check it. They have mocked Wikipedia:Five pillars in fa.wiki and laugh to all. Shahram 07:26, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
@Shahramrashidi: The basic question that you are asking is how do you prove that you are not a sockpuppet. As you have found from the OC, s the policy doesn't require firm evidence that you are a sock before applying a block so it seems that your options are limited. It is possible to prove a negative, but more difficult. Because the CU will not provide you with their evidence, you might have to provide them with yours - for example, something that ties you to a real world location such as your place of education or workplace. This might enable the CU to determine that you aren't a sock, or at least increase the likelihood that they believe you. However, should you be thinking about doing this I strongly advise that you are very cautious about what you share, and who you share it with, to avoid the risk of your personal data being disclosed. You might want to ask a Steward if they would talk to the FA CUs for you by posting a request at SN - at least one Steward is fluent in the language of the project. Good luck. QuiteUnusual (talk) 17:48, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
@QuiteUnusual Dear Friend,
Thank you very much for your kind reply.
I am ready to prepare any document in real life even to meet any OC or foundation Trustee or stewards if WP want to prove this. I haven't any problem about personals data because i don't do any special edition in WP. Also i wrote to stewards but their response is as " The stewards are not superior to fa.wikipedia functionaries. You need to appeal their decision to them. The stewards cannot help you in that case."
How is this anyone in WP don't want to stop their abuse even don't want to check their action or ask their reason. WP don't accept any without citation, then how accept their abuse without checking?
I declare am ready to talk and meet with any responsible in WP in anywhere to clear my data, personal data and any they need to prove i am not sockpoppet and FAWIki check user abuse and block all easy. Because of most users don't know English even they can't send complaint to OC or any related.
My request is easy, Check the action of FAWIKI checkusers and ask them the reason of my account blocking. Even they have declared haven't reason and have doubt only as a.m link.Shahram 07:12, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Well, friend, checkusers are not allowed to disclose the evidence (i.e. data) for their decision. Usually, at first offense, en.wiki checkusers unblock on the condition to never do it again. But there is no mercy for those serially engaging in sockpuppetry. So: who checks the decision of one checkuser? Another checkuser of the fa.wiki. No wiki is allowed to have only one checkuser, so that what one checkuser does can be checked by another checkuser.
Also, if you got blocked in March 2021, the evidence has evaporated by now and no check can be performed. tgeorgescu (talk) 08:13, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
@Tgeorgescu I asked them to disclose evidence clearly and there is no problem from my side. Because i am sure i haven't another account. But he never gave any evidence and even closed my talk page. But second check user stated clearly: there is no any evidence but he has doubt about me then my account must blocked unlimited and i cant return to WP else i to confim and accept my account is suckpoppet. Anyone can read it by translator easily. is not this evidence for their abuse? Which policy let checkuser tell to me i can never back to WP? Am I a guilty which they wants to confess to me? According to which policy? Also for information, Fawiki has two checkusers which one has introduced another and they are friends.
I got blocked in March 2021 but sent my complaint to OC at that time with all related links. Then there was no problem about it. Their clear statement is not enough evidence? They accused me to Sockpuppetry, but can't even say for which account .Shahram 10:37, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
Let me repeat: that evidence is for the eyes of the checkusers only. If they even mention it to anyone else, they will be banned form Wikipedia. Besides, after certain time (90 days I guess), that evidence gets permanently deleted, so there is no way to check it now. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:41, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
@Tgeorgescu Ok. if it to be right, how about their statement? While they blocked my account i asked them about the reason but The checkuser declared clearly: their is no evidence in their hand and it is doubt only. IS not this statement enough for their abuse.? This is best evidence and it never can be deleted from WP by date. Shahram 11:07, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
@Shahramrashidi: See WP:DUCK: once is a coincidence, twice is a bad move, and thrice you are a WP:SOCK. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:12, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
@Tgeorgescu once with which account? there is nothing. twice which bad move? there is no thing. thrice WP:SOCK sayes clearly :"The duck test does not apply to non-obvious cases"
If this policy to be applicable, then they must show duck in first and next show me am like that duck. Even I asked this from them, but they haven't it too. They cant give any reason. Also there is no any bad edition by me. Shahram 11:23, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
@Shahramrashidi: WP:BEANS. OK, to spill a bit the beans: there is a banned Romanian user BAICAN XXX. Every time he comes back to Wikipedia we know it's him by the way he writes Romanian sentences. He used words that simply don't exist in Romanian language, most often he literally translates German terms into what he deems those would be Romanian words. But those words don't exist in dictionaries and don't even appear on Google. Usually, I could parse and understand what he wrote, but strictly speaking it is not written in Romanian language. He writes in a Romanian language that would have eventually emerged if Hitler won the war. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:52, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
@Tgeorgescu I understand. You know the main account. When one like to your example comes back to fawiki, they tell about his main account but about me, there is no any account, there is no any similar editon, I am sure my account isnt sock and sure thre is no any account same as me and my interest. But they haven't any main account if i am sock or there is no any edition to me. I asked to give once one reason but there is no anything.
The main reason is about checkuser bias which he has declared it clearly in fawiki and some manager has told him to prevent from action on some subject. In my case i wrote a comment on an article talk page for a user and asked to talk about it -which i found later it is interest of checkuser and has bias about it- . Then he blocked me with fetch of sock.
If they to give me bean once, i will stop my complaitn all but there is never any.Shahram 12:00, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
@QuiteUnusual I found Mardetanha is Persian language steward. Also he is one of Fawiki manager. I sent an email in last to him. Also pinged him while CU blocked my account but he never replied me. Then what i should to do?. Also i left a comment at here. But i don't think to get result from there. Shahram 10:44, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 July 2021

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