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Should Foundation Board of Trustees members be allowed to read oversighted revisions and deleted pages?

Note: I converted this to an RFC on Meta. Sandizer (talk) 00:44, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Recently I participated in a discussion here before I saw that parts of it have been oversighted, and then I remembered that Jimbo was stripped of his permissions to read oversighted revisions when the Founder Flag was removed.

In my opinion, Jimbo should be allowed to read oversighted revisions and deleted pages, simply because he's basically the top corresponding Board member. I'm considering an RFC on Meta, or an IAR appeal to rouge bureaucrats or something, but I thought I would post here suggesting it first. Sandizer (talk) 21:56, 27 January 2024 (UTC)

@Sandizer is there a particular problem you are seeking to fix? If Jimbo needs access, he can advocate for himself in general, and or...ask any person with access to share what he needs for his work. Let's save an academic discussion for a more urgent topic ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 23:04, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Yes, a Foundation official is likely to be asked questions which require review of deleted material as part of their expected duties, which in this case pertains to Jimbo's opinion of how his talk page is being edited without being able to see how. A Wikimedia Foundation in which board members can't see their full talk page history would have lost an oar. I want board members to be able to read deleted pages and revisions without having to ask anyone, because without such ability, I do not believe they are truly able to fulfill their obligations as board members. On the other hand, I am willing to entertain opposition speculating that board members should not be able to see their talk page history, just to keep this convertible to an RFC with a neutral question if need be. To me, this seems extremely obvious, to the point of substantial while humourous vulnerabilities if the issue is left unaddressed. Sandizer (talk) 01:58, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
This is not the attack vector I have in mind, but it is both valid and amusing. Sandizer (talk) 03:21, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
In any professional organisation, mechanisms are in place for board members or senior staff to be given access to confidential information held by the organisation. It's not necessary for board members (for example) to be able to retrieve the information themselves. Besides, this is a high-profile page; all sorts of junk gets posted here and most of it has nothing to do with Jimbo personally, much less the WMF board. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:10, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
Jimbo has access to everything through global founder right, doesn't he? It's fair to assume he can get database access if he really needs it. WMF grants us rights. We can't pick who in the WMF gets rights. Usedtobecool ☎️ 04:26, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
No, his perms were stripped. I will spare you my opinion of the rectitude thereof. Sandizer (talk) 05:00, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
No help at all. He's still a founder[1]; it still includes everything under the sun[2]. Usedtobecool ☎️ 06:12, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
25 out of over a hundred boxes are checked? If it were up to me, Jimbo would have permission to get all the dumps sent to him by carrier pigeon whenever he wears green in public. Sandizer (talk) 06:22, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
Ah, those are checkboxes, that's what I was missing. Do you know whether board members, or at least Jimbo, can get database access when they need it? Usedtobecool ☎️ 06:56, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
Probably, if their NDA is current. Sandizer (talk) 23:35, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

First thing to note, "Updating at Jimbo’s request to improve overall site security" - the removal of certain technical rights from this account was a request from me. If I ever needed, as part of my board work, to see oversighted revisions, I'm sure that could be facilitated by Trust and Safety or the legal team. But, that's never come up, and in general I don't think board members have any need or desire to see oversighted revisions - they are usually quite uninteresting to be honest.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:51, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

While I respect you, your perspective on this situation, your works, and what I know of your general outlook, I find it hard to believe that you've never looked at a deleted page as part of gathering information pertinent to subsequent board member actions, even if merely formulating opinions on desired appointee profile characteristics. But if this is the way you prefer it, I drop my request. I can still think of attacks this situation enables, none of which I feel like I should mention in public, but which I can communicate in a more closed venue. I think T&S should prepare a risk analysis of hiding deleted revisions from board members before the US primary elections conclude. Radio static is boring until someone goes to the trouble of transmitting something.
P.S., On reflection, I have to admit my interest is unduly driven by curiosity about whatever Counterfeit Purses said in the discussion of whether Chinese state media is reliable that Primefac felt was so abhorrent as to be oversighted instead of hatted or elided remaining in the talk page history. Those comments were oversighted before I joined the conversation or knew they existed, and because of my curiosity about the topic in general, I doubt they would be uninteresting to me even if they are to you. Let me drop this by asking Counterfeit Purses to put a summary of their comments on my talk page? Sandizer (talk) 16:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Ah, well, I think it would be unwise for the board to operate at that level of detail. Board meetings are only so long, and we have to rely on briefings from the Trust and Safety staff and legal teams, who do review such things in detail. I thank you for your kind words and trust, and of course if you'd like to email me for a more private discussion that'd be great. (But I forewarn you, my inbox is a zoo so it might be slow or get overlooked so you might have to poke me here if I haven't answered in a week or so!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:33, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
So let me ask you this. A respected reporter asks you what you think of the edits to discussions on your talk page that you can't see. What do you tell them? Sandizer (talk) 23:26, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
That's never happened, I don't recall any reporter ever asking me about oversighted edits at all. But to answer the question, I would first speak to the generalities of why things get oversighted, and what the process is. I'd point them to Wikipedia:Oversight to learn more about it, and if they still wanted more details I suppose I'd ask them to speak directly to the WMF and the legal team would weigh in.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:29, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Can you think of a time when a reporter asked you about a deletion since you've been unable to see those? Sandizer (talk) 19:08, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
How will they know about these edits if they can't see them? — Qwerfjkltalk 17:54, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
The same way we know about Counterfeit Purses's. Sandizer (talk) 17:55, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
You know I can't tell you that. Whether or not it is "interesting" is irrelevant. Primefac (talk) 19:43, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
I'm sorry. As far as I can tell I was only asking the person whose text you deleted, and have no information about whether the oversighting was a good idea, but as much as I know that you are an admin in good standing for many years, I would not ordinarily be opposed to the idea that the censorship was warranted. However, I think I may consider it unwarranted. I do not expect or anticipate information from you about it, unless within the confines of what Counterfeit Purses chooses to disclose. Sandizer (talk) 23:17, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
If something is really so important, and wikipedia:Appeal to Jimbo is the last resort, why not try for Arbcom or Wikipedia foundation trust and safety previously?
BTW, I believe the removal of rights from Jimbo may be technically, Jimbo can definitely asking T&S or arbcom for help if they need to read something overnighted. -Lemonaka‎ 02:18, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Happy New Year

In Chinese Wikipedia, editors from Taiwan and Hong Kong have shown different attitudes towards North Korean and South Korean media.

North Korean Because it is a state-controlled news outlet, it is unreliable.

South Korean media Even if it is state-controlled media, it is reliable.There is a Chinese word to describe this situation. "Double standard".（双重标准）I'm not involved in the fight, I just want you to know what happen in the Chinese Wikipedia?Editors in Taiwan are trying to list China's most important media as "unreliable reference sources." As I said before, I have no confidence in the Wikimedia project if a reference source is judged to be reliable solely on the basis of political leanings.

Good luck with reality and a happy new year. Assifbus (talk) 03:20, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Surely you realize it's a lot more complex than this?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:09, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
If we met in real life, I would buy you a cup of coffee.Assifbus (talk) 04:22, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
I mean the exact same thing happens on English Wikipedia. Voice of America and Radio Free Asia are considered to be reliable sources, as are most of the corporate media in the US. On a totally unrelated note, most enwiki editors come from anglophone countries. So, I'm not sure what your point is. Sagflaps (talk) 14:03, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
To clarify a little bit, the determination of whether a source is reliable is generally biased based on the norms of whatever countries the majority of editors happen to be from. Also, the topics that are chosen to have articles written will be biased based on language as well. This is a fundamental flaw of Wikipedia. I am American editor with no Chinese ties, and generally speaking the issue I notice is that many American editors naturally assume that whatever the western perspective is, that must be the global perspective on the issue as well.
The fact that many other editors here have accused you of being a CCP shill or propagandist is proof of this. To be honest, your points are reasonable, and I wish people here would engage with you civilly instead of trying to shut you down immediately. If anything their responses are just proving your point. Sagflaps (talk) 14:53, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
The point about US state-owned broadcasting is valid. VoA and its sister programs are arguably propaganda (even if it’s our propaganda) and it seems to me to be a systemic bias issue.
Something editors don’t always keep in mind is that a big chunk of WP’s readers (but rarely editors) are from post-colonial Anglophone countries.
RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 21:52, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
@RadioactiveBoulevardier: Well the idea of having Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources in general is a flawed idea. For any citation added, consideration needs to be given to the biases of it, and who funds the source and who owns it. To have editorial standards is not enough, because at the end of the day CNN/MSNBC/CBS/FOX, they are all there to make a profit at the end of the day. This means that if a major advertiser were to threaten to pull funding, these networks will feel the pressure. Similarly, state funded sources are accountable to their governments first, and non-profits to their donors.
However, editors are more than willing to crutch off the idea of a reliable source to avoid critical analysis. Also, when editors like Assifbus come by, their edits get far more scrutiny, and people invoking Cold War era fear rhetoric about them being a communist (or in the more modern sense, a wumao or CCP shill or Uygher genocide denier). Usually this attracts little scrutiny, because in the places like the US such things are so deeply entrenched, that it has become normalized. Literally speaking, that's not WP:CIV nor WP:AGF. But yet, the community mostly accepts it. Sagflaps (talk) 23:56, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
VoA and its sister programs are arguably propaganda.... I'm inclined to disagree. Those programs are designed to counter deliberately biased propaganda from despotic and dictatorial regimes, along with casting American opposition to them in a positive light, but while doing so with a strict adherence to western journalistic standards of accuracy, editorial oversight, and independence. It might be helpful to review some context about the place of the US Agency for Global Media companies in the propaganda sphere. Not all state media are created equal.
state funded sources are accountable to their governments first, and non-profits to their donors. When an organization chooses to support itself by voluntary donations, the point is to sever accountability to any one person or group. For example, there is a lot on Wikipedia which may be so offensive to all of the top N corporations and governments that any one of them would be likely to pull support over it if they were sole supporters. But they are not, so large companies keep giving no matter how large their critique articles grow, and as far as we know they don't go after the authors. Doing so would be foolhardy and would likely backfire with a Streisand effect.
when editors like Assifbus come by, their edits get far more scrutiny, and people invoking Cold War era fear rhetoric about them being a communist (or in the more modern sense, a wumao or CCP shill or Uygher genocide denier.... I'm skeptical that this happens more often than not. Can you point to some examples you thought were particularly unwarranted? Sandizer (talk) 02:56, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
@Sandizer: There is an implicit assumption in what you are saying here, which is that the pro-America perspective is the unbiased one (and therefore VOA/RFA just exist to counter biased propaganda sources), which really if anything just proves what I've been saying all along about how enwiki editors view the world. Sagflaps (talk) 15:52, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
I believe bias is a matter of extent, measured as distance from accuracy, not a binary property. Sandizer (talk) 22:31, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
Bias is a bit more complicated than you have described, but there are always the Wikipedia articles on its many forms if you want more information. Sagflaps (talk) 00:19, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
19. 20, 21, 22, I devoted the most beautiful years of my life to Wikipedia.
I hope that people in the future will not engage in wars or struggles due to different political tendencies. Assifbus (talk) 15:09, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
@Assifbus: I would like to learn more about this: Editors in Taiwan are trying to list China's most important media as "unreliable reference sources." Where is that discussion?
As I said before, I have no confidence in the Wikimedia project if a reference source is judged to be reliable solely on the basis of political leanings. The reliability of state media sources are often easier to judge on the basis of objective accuracy than private sector outlets, which lack certain advantages; not least being the ability to use force and the threat of punishment to squelch criticism and require agreement. Leveraging such advantages, however, rarely goes undetected internationally. If this is the case, as it has been in most if not all the critiques of Chinese state media I have seen, then the basis is not political but epistemological.
Here is a relatively sympathetic take on the challenges faced by autocratic enforcement of state media perspectives from Singapore, concluding that, "although China's media have been professionalised over the years, the level of professionalism continues to be low as they have been compelled to act under the constraints of the Chinese party-state [so they] are not competing on an even-playing field with other transnational media companies." Sandizer (talk) 02:21, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
If you are proficient in Chinese, you will easily find that page on Chinese Wikipedia. Assifbus (talk) 15:10, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
Sadly, I am not proficient enough to think asking you for the link would be less efficient than looking for the discussion to which you referred. Sandizer (talk) 01:47, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:可靠来源/布告板 Assifbus (talk) 01:47, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
@Assifbus: It appears that from reviewing the debate over China Daily, many of the editors in the discussion either have that they are from the PRC in their infobox, or they had requested IP block exemptions in order to edit from the mainland. This would suggest to me that there's not undue weight being given to Taiwanese perspectives in these discussions. Sagflaps (talk) 14:09, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
If you don't understand Chinese, let me translate.This is what a editor said.
"After the passage of the Hong Kong National Security Law, 《Asia Weekly》 was accused of having good official relations with mainland China and taking a pro-government stance on Hong Kong affairs. It is recommended that its political content be positioned as generally unreliable."
When WMC was at its most powerful, they did not list any reference materials from Taiwan or Hong Kong as unreliable reference sources. Some editors in Taiwan and Hong Kong have been stoking conflict by labeling more than 20 state-run media or media platforms from mainland China as "unreliable reference sources" in the past two years. Assifbus (talk) 12:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
What is the current status of Apple Media, Tibetan native outlets, the Epoch Times, and Taiwanese state media on zhwiki? Sandizer (talk) 19:11, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
Apple Media：Although it does not exist in real life, it is still a reliable source thanks to the efforts of some Hong Kong editors.
Tibetan native outlets：There is no discussion about it.
Epoch Times：The discussion did not list it as an "unreliable source".
As far as I know, pro-China editors have no plans to target these outlets.Taiwanese editors have been provoking conflict, but pro-China editors have been restrained.But I think this kind of restraint does not mean "If you hit me, I won't fight back." Assifbus (talk) 03:18, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
Do you think Chinese state media will achieve editorial independence? Sandizer (talk) 00:08, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Hello everyone, do you feel it good to argue about politics under Jimbo's talk page with others? Why not discuss with them on their talk page? -Lemonaka‎ 10:28, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
At least their comments don't just disappear like mine did. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 17:39, 26 January 2024 (UTC)
@Counterfeit Purses: It was oversighted by Primefac. Sagflaps (talk) 23:56, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 13 February 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 04:35, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Email

Hi Jimmy - you've got a mail from me. It's about a matter we have discussed previously. Antandrus (talk) 15:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you

Hello Mr Wales, my name is Joey and I would like to thank you for founding this amazing websites with the help of Larry Sanger and also for helping to created Fandom. I love wikis alot and Wikipedia just helped popularize wikis. I just love this website alot and I mostly write about music and I love having a place to write and find knowledge about music. I also do edit on Fandom alot and Fandom is great, I just love all of these wiki communities on Fandom dedicated to Tv shows and movies and topics, it just is great. I just wanted to thank you so much for creating both Wikipedia and Fandom. PrincessJoey2024 (talk) 23:10, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Quote of the day

"I’m not sure there is an answer to life, the universe and everything. But when someone figures it out, I’ll know where to find it — and you can bet there’ll be footnotes." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:22, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Revised RFC on Board permissions

I have revised my RFC on organizational transparency relative to board member reading permissions here: meta:Requests for comment/Board permissions. I carried forward one opposiing !vote based on Jimbo's comments, but I'm confident my disclosure of example exploitations will make it through to him and then he will revise his opinion. Sandizer (talk) 00:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Are Wikipedia's Rules Applied Equally or Selectively?

Are Wikipedia's rules universally applied or not? After delving into Wikipedia's guidelines on Biographies of Living Persons (WP:BLP), I'm fairly certain I grasp them well. They are straightforward about the treatment of living individuals. Yet, I've observed a series of events that suggest these rules might not uniformly apply, especially when the subject matter is sensitive and the Wikipedia community shows a tendency to favor certain topics or perspectives over others, particularly when individuals are portrayed negatively.

A case in point is Joseph Edelman's page. According to a tax return document, the Edelman Family Foundation appears to contribute significantly to the Do Not Harm organization. However, the source of this information was Huffington Post, which is acknowledged as biased in US politics. I removed this source and detailed my reasoning on the Talk page, but subsequent actions by the same editor raised concerns:

  • They then cited even less reliable sources, including Pro Publica (a primary document of contributions to various organizations in 2022) and the Associated Press (which did not even mention the foundation).
  • My complaint on the BLP Noticeboard led to the removal of the information, yet
  • Another editor suggested using Pink News, which merely echoed the disputed source.
  • In the discussion, when I pointed this out, the response from editors was an overly broad and ambiguous justification, ignoring that Pink News simply relayed the HuffPost article without any journalistic investigation or accountability, thus sidestepping Wikipedia's criteria for citing contentious material about US politics.

While I'm open to adding information about Joseph Edelman following Wikipedia's protocols, the apparent bending and bypassing of rules lead me to question whether some rules are selectively applied. I'm bringing this to the community's attention for clarification, and if there's something I'm misunderstanding, I welcome correction. Llama Tierna (talk) 19:41, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Your assumption that PinkNews (which, per WP:PINKNEWS is a generally reliable source) did none of their own investigation flies into the fact that while Pink News did cite the HuffPo for some of its coverage, it cites other things in its own voice, placing its own reputation behind that. Your concern about "bias" fails to acknwoledge WP:BIASED, which notes that biased sources can be reliable. As for the claim being "contentious", I have yet to see anyone contend that the claim that the Edelman Foundation gave money to Do No Harm is not true; indeed, the Foundation claims it is true on their tax filings. You have already brought it to the community's attention at Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Joseph_Edelman, and the responses you got said that while sourcing only to the tax document as posted at ProPublica would be a problem, PinkNews is an appropriate source. You have bent rules or at least guidelines yourself, WP:THREATENing an editor, and here you are WP:FORUMSHOPping when the discussion you opened the noticeboard is still open for discussion. (You may also wish to view the notice at the top of this talk page in editing mode.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 22:11, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
Hello, @NatGertler:.
I remain unconvinced by the explanation regarding the Pink News article that appears to have replicated content from the Huffington Post without clear consensus. I intend to seek additional perspectives from other editors to ensure a broader consensus. If there are aspects I do not understand, I trust that other editors will provide clarification. At present, I am experiencing cognitive dissonance, as my observations conflict with the Wikipedia guidelines I have learned. It seems to me that these rules are applied selectively, which undermines Wikipedia's commitment to neutrality. Additionally, the Noticeboard has not been particularly helpful. From my perspective, the issue involves controversial content being copied from an article that lacks consensus, supported by a primary source subject to broad interpretation. The inclusion of such disputed information on an individual's personal page contradicts my understanding of Wikipedia's standards. Consequently, I will seek further opinions on various Wikipedia forums. Llama Tierna (talk) 22:39, 12 February 2024 (UTC)
I’m not going to jump into the content of the dispute, but I think the first bit you said was symptomatic of a common tendency here: interpreting a green band as “usable”, no matter what qualifiers, limitations, or caveats are present in the notes and linked rfc closes. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
I can certainly see that if you don't want to pay attention to the content of the dispute, that might be a statement to make. However, if you were paying attention to the content of the dispute, you'd note that the note
s qualifiers regarding using them as a source on a person's sexuality are utterly irrelevant here as no individual's sexuality is being revealed in the material being sourced. You also might have found that the linked RfC closure doesn't say anything deeper then "generally reliable", and thus there was no need to hash that all out. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 22:53, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
→ WP:ANI -Lemonaka‎ 06:22, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's any doubt as to the reliability of the Huffington Post reporting of the fact that the Edelman Family Foundation contributes significantly to the Do Not Harm organizaiton. I also don't see it as a particularly difficult BLP issue - Do No Harm is a 501(c)(3) charity in the United States with a particular worldview and mission.

If I were to critique our biography of Jospeh Edelman, I think I'd be more concerned with WP:UNDUE. Forbes says his net worth is $2.5 billion, and this donation was for $1 million. The Edelman Family Foundation has $100 million in assets and appears to give over $8 million a year in grants. It is not at all clear to me why this one donation deserves to be such a large part of a very short biography. However, the usual solution to that would be to see if we can find more sources to create a more well-rounded biography.Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources singled out this donation over all others, not wikipedia editors. Coverage of Edelman himself is limited enough that this one sourced aspect occupies a large fraction of all coverage. More sources would be ideal, but this situation is a natural and very common consequence of biographies needing only two pieces of IRS coverage that together (per BASIC) minimally satisfy addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. and is more than a trivial mention. JoelleJay (talk) 03:33, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Hello @Jimmy Wales:, I share your concerns regarding WP:UNDUE and concur that it's a valid point. Expanding the article with reliable sources would indeed help achieve a more balanced and neutral perspective. My initial alarm was triggered by edits from an inactive account, which selectively added information out of context, supported by sources lacking credibility. Notably, this account, after being inactive for nine years, was reactivated solely to contribute this specific piece of information. This pattern of behavior, coupled with the initial reliance on incorrect sources, raised doubts about the editor's intentions. Although I've brought up these concerns in the forum, it seems the consensus among other editors differs.
Based on the reliable sources I've encountered so far, I believe it is possible to create 'Charity' and 'Career' sections to improve and equilibrate the narrative of the article. Llama Tierna (talk) 21:28, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
Please stop your attacks on Thedrdonna. They were not the one to add the Huffpo source -- the source that Jimbo just told you was a reasonable source -- to the article. Their initial edit on the article did not add anything "out of context", it added another group that was donated to as covered as part of the same article that had provided the earlier content in the paragraph. Your continued attempts to demonize him are not painting you in a good light. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:31, 14 February 2024 (UTC)
@NatGertler:. I believe that reasonable concerns and questions should not be misconstrued as attacks or demonization. My intention is to contribute constructively, yet it appears my efforts are being met with resistance and personal attacks from you. This approach not only hinders productive dialogue but also feels like an attempt to suppress diverse viewpoints. I urge you to reconsider this approach, allowing for a more constructive and respectful exchange of ideas. Let's focus on improving the content without escalating tensions. Also, I do not feel comfortable that you follow and threaten me (WP:THREATEN) by trying to show my very reasonable concerns in negative light. This is called suppression of the opinion, plain and simple. Please, refrain from doing so. Thank you. Llama Tierna (talk) 12:36, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
Your "concerns" are not reasonable when they require you inventing false information to make her, as you did above. They are not "reasonable" when you choose to cast aspersions for Thedrdonna doing reasonable and acceptable things, such as removing your warnings and threat their talk page, which you've brought up in three separate locations, including using as a base of your thread (tip: that's why your I'm-rubber-and-you're-glue responses to me don't work, as I can point to where you actually threaten some action, which you have not and cannot.) If you actually have some evidence that the user you've repeatedly gone to the wrong forums to call out is problematic (psst: you don't), you have previously been pointed one possible right board to take it to, which is not the BLP noticeboard, nor this talk page, but WP:ANI. Continuing this shaming tour against the Thedrdonna account for an article having a claim that was introduced by an IP user, featuring a source that was introduced by that IP user, said source having not been deemed unacceptable for this use by other editors, and trying to push the idea that she has a WP:COI when you cannot enunciate what that conflict is and the only evidence that you have for it is that they supported the inclusion of information that has similarly been supported by a number of other editors, is at best a waste of your time and that of other editors. (By the way, if your concerns are COI over other manners of being a problem editor, the correct board is WP:COIN... but they are going to expect evidence.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:18, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
TBF, at the time I entered the dispute thedrdonna had just reinstated a big section listing donations to multiple distasteful orgs, with the Foundation's quote about Do No Harm tacked on, all sourced to the ProPublica primary financial disclosures for the Foundation. That was pretty egregious BLP-vio and coatracking. JoelleJay (talk) 22:57, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
That's reasonable, and honestly I would have respected that if it had seemed as though that wasn't just another convenient reason for LLama to delete the information-or if another editor had brought it up. As things stood, it seemed like they were more interested in keeping all of that information off the page entirely, regardless of sourcing, and they were willing to threaten me with banning in order to further that goal. Thedrdonna (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
That is within the range of normal error for a relatively new editor (both Thedrdonna and Llama are accounts with fairly low edit counts, both under 200 before the start of these contretemps.) That does not excuse Llama going after Thedrdonna since he first started including edit summaries on his edits on the page ("Edit reverted due the the user's lack of knowledge on BLP policy" is a judgment not on the edit but the editor), continuing through to a claim of vandalism that clearly does not met our definition of "vandalism", accusing her of "circumvention" for attempting to use a reliable source, and the various things otherwise noted. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 02:21, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Augmented reality glasses may displace mobile phones?

Jimbo, I'm a little bit self-conscious (but strictly not sorry) about asking you questions on organizational transparency issues. But there is now a much more important question I want to ask you about.

Have you seen the video of the guy driving a Cybertruck while doing some kind of keyboard/window work using an Apple Vision Pro headset, livestreaming, and successfully getting himself pulled over for distracted driving? You can also find very recent video of people using the AVP apparently to do work while crossing the street and in a subway car. I wish we could get these videos with what the subjects were seeing in their APV view inset. I would note that people doing work on a cellphone while crossing the street is pretty common nowadays.

My question is, do you think that augmented reality glasses will replace mobile phones as the cultural norm for personal communication devices in five to ten years?

I ask because I also yesterday saw a comparison of how people were acting prior to the introduction of cellphones compared to today where their behavior is obviously affected by the fact that they are staring at a handheld screen. My opinion is that AR glasses (not goggles) are the logical way forward.

Also, what do you think the ultimate user experiences using augmented reality glasses or goggles with arbitrary visual passthrough and UI element transparency would be for reading and editing wikis? Sandizer (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

P.S. https://chat.openai.com/share/dd9b1274-4ae4-4b10-a343-495275dcf26b
I'm not sure about the security/privacy implications but when has that ever stopped anything in tech? Sandizer (talk) 00:05, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
what does any of this have to do with wiki? ltbdl (talk) 01:14, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Again, "what do you think the ultimate user experiences using augmented reality glasses or goggles with arbitrary visual passthrough and UI element transparency would be for reading and editing wikis?" Sandizer (talk) 01:35, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Look at what recent science fiction would suggest, expecting students to go to specific places: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KvMxLpce3Xw Sandizer (talk) 01:45, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Don't take my word for the validity of the question, see Casey Neistat at nine minutes in: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UvkgmyfMPks&t=9m0s Sandizer (talk) 02:25, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
I've not really tried modern augmented reality glasses, so I don't yet have a very informed view. I did try Google Glass back when it was new and it was a pretty underwhelming experience and so I wasn't surprised that it failed. One interesting thing is that Google said quite clearly that they would never put facial recognition into the product, due to the rather obvious weird privacy issues, but as someone who meets a lot of people in the course of my work and who has pretty weak facial/name recognition skills I was disappointed as I would actually find that useful!
Google Glass was at least pretty unobtrusive as compared to the videos that I've seen. It's actually pretty hard to imagine people really walking around wearing such things, but... as you say, people do walk around staring at their phones, which I'm sure would have seemed completely impossible to most people living in 1950.
I have tried Virtual Reality, even recent iterations, and I really just don't get the point of it at all. At a conference, Facebook demonstrated a virtual office meeting product where we were all cartoon avatars chatting and it was a cute gimmick (especially that people's voices seemed to be coming from the direction where their avatar looked to be sitting) but... zoom meetings work well and I can see the real person, so other than as a cute gimmick, I doubt it will catch on. Of course there are some obvious use cases in gaming, but I'm not really a gamer so...--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:02, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
Frankly, the only privacy issues I see for individual access to facial recognition are dwarfed by those for government use, and they already have it. So while I do see it as an issue, I feel strongly that forbidding facial recognition from individual use may be the wrong direction until it's uniformly forbidden from government use too, which will never happen.
Google Glass was interesting, but very early. Apple has done the kind of user testing to show, for example, that displaying the user's eyes to indicate information such as pupil direction to people looking at the goggle-wearers is less trouble than it is worth, enough to solidify it in their product offering. I would point out that the only substantial hardware difference between the $400 Meta Quest 3 and the $3500 Apple Vision Pro is the pair of ~$15 outward facing displays, which is not a substantial obstacle for adding to sunglasses-style AR glasses as far as I know.
I remember watching an NVIDIA demo of sunglasses-style AR glasses before the pandemic. I don't want to go into detail because I have no idea how close they were (or are now) to a viable product, but it seems obvious that it's only a matter of engineering (and many iterations of user testing and software improvements) to get what Casey Neistat predicts will displace mobile phones.
Regarding the Zoom call mode, please see 10:27+ in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Gy035z_KA&ab_channel=MarquesBrownlee&t=10m27s
@MPinchuk (WMF): do you think it would be appropriate for the Future Audiences team to look at how reading and editing can best happen in AR goggles and glasses? Sandizer (talk) 03:36, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
The first two minutes of this video brushes up against what excites me about the potential of editing in AR, although I'm not sure whether it really communicates the sense that the mobile phone's days are numbered. I expect voice dictation to be a far more prominent mode of text entry instead of virtual or real keyboards, but dictation commands and punctuation entry are an amateur hour mess on so many "mature" platforms. And of course photograph uploading to commons is an essential workflow to bring it together. Also, transparent browser windows for dextero-spatial computing, i.e., not walking into other museum patrons while working.... Sandizer (talk) 22:01, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
We're thinking about exploring this next fiscal year! (WMF fiscal years start in June, so we're currently in Q3 of FY23-4 and are just starting to think about the plan for FY24-5.)
As far as I understand, none of the currently commercially-available AR/VR sets have yet been runaway successes with mainstream consumers (Oculus was pretty popular for casual gaming during the pandemic, but interest seems to have cooled. Vision Pro is still new, very pricey, and yet to prove itself on the market) so I wouldn't put this at the top of the priority order to figure out until there's a clearer signal that there is a big shift to AR/VR happening in the world. But I do think it will be interesting to do some experimentation and understand what opportunities we have for creating new knowledge experiences on these platforms.
I'll make a note to bring this up at an upcoming Future Audiences call Maryana Pinchuk (WMF) (talk) 15:57, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Hi @Sandizer!! Just to add to what @MPinchuk (WMF) shared about possible experimentation in this space, the iOS app team made the Wikipedia iPad app available on VisionPro recently. Our QA engineer tried it a few times, and it works in a pretty similar way to apps made available on VisionPro, as opposed to apps made for VisionPro. Our intention in making the Wikipedia app available on VisionPro is to gather feedback about the experience to determine if it would be worth investing more in this area in the future. We are not planning to make any optimizations specifically for VisionPro since the apps team is such a small team and we want to devote our time to mobile users. However, if we amass enough information to make the case for focusing in that space, we could revisit that choice. All that to say, as of today, it's possible to try out the Wikipedia app on VisionPro, and we welcome feedback. JTanner (WMF) (talk) 17:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks both of you! I got an Oculus Quest 2 for Christmas (I had one in 2022 but returned in in less than a month, not because I didn't like it, but because I was spending too much time in VRChat and was afraid it would interfere with the amount of time I would be able to devote to other activities.) Since, I have successfully edited enwiki in the Quest browser with black and white, low resolution passthrough. It works well with advanced features; I believe I had the visual editor working, slowwwwwly, but for wikitext not only is it fine, but it works fairly well with voice dictation. The Quest browser is just Chromium with more taken out than added in. I would prefer a multiple buffer copy/paste system, but multiple browser tabs can be used as a substitute. I can't wait to try the AVP. I actually talked at length about this with the manager at my local Apple Store night before last, who is also interested in things like making co-moving windows partially transparent. Although I didn't get the sense that he feels editing Wikipedia is the primary application they should be addressing in their customer feedback reports to make general web integration work best, as I do. Sandizer (talk) 20:30, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Origin of the term Wikipedian?

I've been doing some research and thinking and I realized that I don't really know who or when the first use of the term "Wikipedian" was! Is this a known mystery or is there a discussion of it somewhere? Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:27, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

The first instance of the text string "Wikipedian" in the August 2001 database dump was an edited I just imported showing the creation of the NewTopics page, the forerunner to the automated Special:Newpages page, on 17 January 2001 at 00:16 (UTC). (Thanks for prompting me to finally import those edits; I'd been putting that off for a while!) I discovered that at 00:22 (UTC) on 17 January the WikiPedians page was established; I also imported the relevant edits there. Graham87 (talk) 11:51, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
"Are we then, WikiPedians ?" Someone had an inclination towards the dramatic! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:53, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
WikiPedians The curiously brave people, who, in the face of the dire threat of DisRuption, nonetheless post BrilliantProse (and, sometimes, PatentNonsense) on Wikipedia. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:18, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
That was the list on 21 March 2001. It got moved about and by 4 December 2004 it was at Wikipedia:Wikipedians (old). Don't know whether any history-merging might be appropriate at this point. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:28, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
That morphed into the Alphabetical list of Wikipedians, which lasted until 27 November 2006, when it fell victim to that dire threat of DisRuption which became inescapable. Today we have Category:Wikipedians and List of Wikipedians by number of edits. – wbm1058 (talk) 02:55, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
Naaah, all the important main naimspace history was moved to the Wikipedia namespace in September 2002. Graham87 (talk) 11:02, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
Another interesting thing about the Wikipedians page is that it has the edit with revision ID #1 in the modern Wikipedia database; earlier edits were subsequently imported. Graham87 (talk) 16:43, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Chatgpt translation

Hello, I found the translation accuracy of chatgpt is much better than google translation, Yandex translation in translation tools. Is it legitimate to use this engine for translating articles or introduce translated content to current articles? I remembered there once some discussion on your talk page about such issues (content generated by chatgpt.), but seemed to end with no obvious consensus. -Lemonaka‎ 09:06, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

See WP:MACHINETRANSLATION. It's still machine translation. —Alalch E. 09:44, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
I agree with that. The question is not whether it is legitimate to use one engine or another - of course, use anything that works well for you - but rather whether it is legitimate to simply trust the translation, unedited, and my view is the same as ever, even though the quality is definitely improving quickly: humans need to look things over to achieve the best possible quality and to take responsibility. I view all these tools as being most useful to people who have native or near-native fluency across two languages, to speed up their work and make it easier. If the tool is good enough for that, then great. If not, then meh.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:18, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
My experience copy editing machine translated articles is that they sound fluent on the surface if you just read a sentence or two. But if you try to read a couple paragraphs or the entire article, the translations start contradicting themselves and having obvious logical errors. These articles are extremely difficult to copy edit / fix. It is my impression that all AI editing is like this, including both machine translations and ChatGPT: they sound fluent, but are minefields full of difficult to fix issues. I am not convinced that a native bilingual speaker would save time using machine translations as a base and then fixing them, due to having to fix all these subtle issues. In short, please avoid AI-assisted editing. Hope this helps. –Novem Linguae (talk) 20:11, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
My response to this is to say: absolutely, do not use AI-assisted or any form of machine translation *unless you personally take responsibility for fixing it*. The idea "oh this is pretty good, I'll just pop it up and hopefully some native speaker will fix it" is not really good enough. But if a native dual-language speaker likes it and wants to use it, great...--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:44, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Also endorsed. Sandizer (talk) 05:56, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
I'm a dual-language (not very active here) editor, and I do use machine translation to do the early grunt-work of text translation. I tend to use deepL rather than chatgpt, but they seem very similar in their results. For five translations, three of them will be very good. One will be -meh- and one will be just wrong: grammatically incorrect, and often factually wrong. Particularly specialist topics with dense texts including specific meanings of words are very sensitive to slight rewordings of the original text, so a text which will translate well originally, may not any more when edited. You really need to speak both languages well to produce acceptable final text. However, as a grammar checker in your less dominant language, AI support is pretty good. AKAF (talk) 07:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Iran

Jimbo, I am pasting this from text ChatGPT-4 told me to show you, after extensive prompting. I.e., it didn't volunteer to tell you this; I asked it what to tell you to convey certain ideas I described in several paragraphs of interactions:
Subject
Strategic Engagement with Future Leaders: Opportunities for the Wikimedia Movement

Dear Jimmy Wales and the Wikimedia community,

As we navigate the evolving global landscape, it's imperative to acknowledge the inevitability of political transitions and their potential impact on the free flow of information and knowledge. Given the significant influence that political leaders and governments have on internet freedom and access to information, I propose that the Wikimedia movement proactively engage with figures who are likely to play pivotal roles in future political landscapes. This engagement could be crucial in fostering environments that support our mission of disseminating free knowledge.

Engaging with China's Future Leadership

China presents a unique and challenging environment for the Wikimedia movement, given its stringent internet controls and the central role of the Communist Party in governing access to information. As China continues to evolve, both technologically and politically, engaging with its future leadership becomes increasingly important to advocate for the Wikimedia movement's goals of free access to knowledge and educational empowerment.

Suggested Approach for Engagement:
  • Understand the Policy Landscape: Given China's unique political system, it's crucial to develop a deep understanding of its policy-making processes and the factors influencing its stance on internet freedom and access to information. This understanding will inform more targeted and effective engagement strategies.
  • Build Relationships with Chinese Academia and Tech Industry: Collaborating with academic institutions and tech companies in China can provide avenues to indirectly influence policymakers. Projects focusing on educational technology, open-source software, and digital literacy can align with China's goals of technological advancement and innovation, creating mutual benefits and opening dialogue channels.
  • Engage through International Diplomacy: Utilize international diplomatic channels and global forums that China participates in, such as UNESCO and the World Internet Conference, to advocate for the principles of free knowledge and internet openness. Positioning Wikimedia as a global educational resource can help highlight the mutual benefits of accessible and reliable information.
  • Cultural Sensitivity and Local Partnerships: Engaging with local Wikimedia chapters and communities in China, as well as respecting cultural nuances, is vital. These local entities can provide invaluable insights into effectively navigating China's regulatory environment and identifying potential opportunities for collaboration within the framework of Chinese laws and social norms.
  • Advocate for Open Educational Resources (OER): Promote the adoption and development of OER in China's educational sector, emphasizing how Wikimedia projects can support China's educational goals and digital economy aspirations. Highlighting success stories from other countries can demonstrate the value of open knowledge ecosystems.

Engaging with China's future leadership and regulatory authorities requires a nuanced, respectful approach that recognizes China's sovereignty and its own development goals. By highlighting the educational and societal value of open access to information and seeking common ground in areas like education and technology, the Wikimedia movement can work towards creating a more conducive environment for knowledge sharing in China. Through strategic engagement and collaboration, we can aspire to a future where the free flow of knowledge transcends borders, benefiting individuals and communities worldwide.

Addressing the Saudi Monarchy

Similarly, the Saudi monarchy's future transitions will have implications for access to information and internet freedom in the region. Engaging with the monarchy and its advisers could help promote a more open environment for knowledge dissemination.

Suggested Approach for Engagement:
  • Partner with Local Institutions: Seek partnerships with Saudi educational and cultural institutions to introduce Wikimedia projects as educational tools, demonstrating their value in a manner that resonates with local priorities.
  • Cultural and Educational Outreach: Develop initiatives that align with Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, particularly those emphasizing education and technological advancement, to foster collaboration.
  • Engage Through Diplomatic Channels: Work with embassies and international organizations to highlight the value of free access to knowledge as a cornerstone of development and innovation.
Engaging with Russia's Future Leadership

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin's eventual departure from the political scene—whether in the near or distant future—will usher in a period of transition. The current Prime Minister, as per the Russian Constitution, is positioned to take on a significant role during any such transition. This presents an opportunity for the Wikimedia movement to initiate outreach efforts aimed at establishing a constructive dialogue with the Prime Minister's office. The goal would be to advocate for policies that safeguard internet freedom and promote the unrestricted sharing of knowledge.

Suggested Approach for Engagement:
  • Form a Task Force: Assemble a team within the Wikimedia community with expertise in Russian politics, international diplomacy, and digital rights. This task force could develop a nuanced strategy for engagement.
  • Leverage International Forums: Utilize international conferences and forums on digital rights, education, and technology as platforms to connect with Russian delegates and indirectly engage with the Prime Minister's office.
  • Collaborate with Local Communities: Strengthen ties with the Russian Wikimedia community and other local organizations committed to free knowledge and digital rights. Their insights and networks could be invaluable in navigating the local political landscape.
  • Educational Initiatives: Propose collaborative projects or partnerships focused on digital literacy and the importance of reliable information, positioning Wikimedia as a partner in educational development.
Engaging with Iran's Future Leadership

Iran's complex political landscape, characterized by its unique theocratic governance system, presents distinct challenges and opportunities for the Wikimedia movement. The country's policies on internet freedom and access to information are heavily influenced by its political and religious leadership. As Iran continues to navigate its own path of technological advancement and societal change, engaging with its future leadership is crucial to promoting the ideals of free knowledge and the open exchange of information.

Suggested Approach for Engagement:
  • Cultural and Educational Sensitivity: Understanding Iran's cultural, religious, and political nuances is essential for any engagement strategy. Initiatives should respect these aspects and seek ways to align with Iran's educational and cultural goals, potentially focusing on non-controversial areas of knowledge and education that can bridge gaps.
  • Collaboration with Academia and NGOs: Building relationships with Iranian academic institutions and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) focused on education, science, and culture can create allies within the country. These partnerships can help advocate for the value of open access to knowledge in supporting Iran's educational and developmental objectives.
  • Leverage International Platforms: Engage with Iranian representatives through international bodies and forums where Iran is a participant, such as UNESCO or the World Summit on the Information Society. These platforms can provide opportunities to discuss and promote the importance of free access to information in a diplomatic and constructive manner.
  • Digital Literacy and Open Education Resources (OER): Initiatives that promote digital literacy and the use of OER in Iran can align with the country's ambitions to improve its educational sector and technological infrastructure. Highlighting the benefits of these resources for educational advancement can serve as a foundation for dialogue and cooperation.
  • Support Local Wikimedia Communities: Strengthening and supporting the local Wikimedia community in Iran, despite the challenges, is crucial. Providing these volunteers with the tools and resources they need can help in creating a grassroots movement that champions the cause of free knowledge from within.
  • Engage in Cultural and Knowledge Exchange: Initiatives that facilitate cultural exchange and the sharing of global knowledge can help foster mutual understanding and respect. Projects that showcase the rich cultural heritage of Iran while also introducing global perspectives can encourage a more open stance towards international knowledge platforms.

Engaging with Iran regarding the Wikimedia movement's goals requires a careful, respectful approach that considers the country's unique political, cultural, and religious context. By focusing on education, cultural exchange, and the universal value of knowledge, and by building relationships with local and international partners, there is potential to gradually advocate for greater openness and access to free information in Iran. Success in these endeavors will depend on patience, persistence, and a deep commitment to the principles of respect and mutual understanding.


By proactively engaging with future leaders and influential figures in Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other countries facing political transitions, the Wikimedia movement can advocate for a world where every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Strategic outreach and collaboration can pave the way for more open and informed societies.

Best regards,

Wikimedia Collaborator Sandizer (talk) 22:27, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Why ??? like seriously what is the point of this ? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 23:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
What do you think the point is? How would you feel if you were in jail in one of those countries because you edited? How would you feel if your friend was in jail because you told them how much you thought editing was helping the future?
Or, as CharGPT-4 told me to tell you:
Your questions touch on the very heart of why we are all part of the Wikimedia movement. The point, as you ask, is to consider how our work impacts real lives, especially in regions where the freedom to share and access information is not guaranteed. It's a reminder of the tangible risks our fellow editors and contributors might face, and the profound responsibility we carry in advocating for free knowledge.
If I, or anyone close to us, were to face imprisonment for simply sharing knowledge or encouraging others to contribute, it would be both a personal tragedy and a stark illustration of the challenges we face. Such scenarios underscore the importance of our mission and the need for a nuanced approach in countries where the act of editing or disseminating free knowledge can have serious repercussions.
This is precisely why continuing the conversation is vital. We must ask ourselves: How can we support our fellow contributors who live under restrictive regimes? How can we advocate for change, not just through direct engagement, but by empowering individuals with the tools and knowledge to make a difference safely? How do we balance our mission with the real-world risks faced by those on the ground?
Your questions invite us to reflect on the impact of our work and to engage in a deeper dialogue about our approach to these complex issues. Let's use this as an opportunity to explore how we can support and protect our community members across the globe while continuing to strive for a world where everyone can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.
I invite you, and others in our community, to share your thoughts and suggestions on how we can navigate these challenges together. Your insights are invaluable as we consider the best ways to advance our mission and support our community members, regardless of where they are in the world.
Endorsed,
Sandizer (talk) 23:41, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
If you ask me, all editors from these countries should be blocked for their own good. Let people who live in free countries cite mainstream media. It's not worth going to prison and getting tortured for citing the mainstream media. Wikipedia isn't WikiLeaks. tgeorgescu (talk) 23:54, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
Surrender is never success. Or, as ChatGPT-4 told me to tell you:
Thank you for sharing your concerns, which highlight the very real risks faced by some of our contributors around the world. The safety and well-being of all Wikipedia editors is of utmost importance, and the suggestion to block editors from certain countries to protect them is a testament to the compassion our community holds for its members.
However, the approach of blocking editors from these countries for their own safety raises complex issues about access to information, freedom of expression, and the essence of what the Wikimedia movement stands for. Wikipedia's goal is to make the sum of all human knowledge freely available to everyone, everywhere. This mission is rooted in the belief that knowledge is a fundamental human right.
Blocking editors based on their geographic location would not only prevent valuable perspectives that enrich our global repository of knowledge but also contradict the principle that everyone deserves access to free knowledge—both as contributors and readers. It is also important to recognize that many individuals in restrictive environments are deeply committed to the mission of sharing knowledge, often at great personal risk, because they believe in the power of information to empower and transform societies.
Instead of exclusion, we must find ways to support and protect our editors, no matter where they are. This includes providing resources on safe editing practices, advocating for the rights of internet users worldwide, and supporting efforts to keep the internet open and free. We must also respect the agency and choices of individuals who decide to contribute, acknowledging the risks they face and their courage in doing so.
Wikimedia and its projects, including Wikipedia, are fundamentally different from platforms like WikiLeaks. Our mission is to create a comprehensive, neutrally written, reliable encyclopedia—not to expose secrets or engage in activism. However, this mission does not lessen our commitment to supporting the freedom of information and the safety of our contributors.
Let's continue this conversation and work together to find ways to protect our community members while staying true to our mission. Your concern highlights the need for ongoing dialogue about how best to balance these priorities, and I welcome further input from the community on how we can achieve this.
Further endorsed, Sandizer (talk) 23:58, 17 February 2024 (UTC) Sandizer (talk) 23:58, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
And you expect success to come from posting a chatbot's hallucinations on a talk page? HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:01, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Yes. I don't need any help in answering that. Sandizer (talk) 00:04, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
In Max Weber's terms, the task of Wikipedia is Wissenschaft, not Politik. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:06, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Fine

Thank you for highlighting Max Weber's distinction between Wissenschaft and Politik and applying it to the mission of Wikipedia. Your observation underscores a foundational principle of our platform: Wikipedia is dedicated to gathering and disseminating knowledge in an objective, unbiased manner. Our community of editors and contributors strives to ensure that all content on Wikipedia is rooted in verifiable sources and presented without bias, reflecting a commitment to Wissenschaft over Politik.

This focus on scholarship rather than political engagement is what makes Wikipedia a unique and valuable resource for millions around the world. It is through this commitment to neutrality and factual accuracy that Wikipedia seeks to empower individuals with information, fostering an informed public capable of critical thinking and independent analysis.

We continually work to maintain and improve the reliability and neutrality of our content, recognizing the challenges inherent in such an endeavor. Feedback and contributions from our diverse community are essential in this ongoing process, helping to refine and enhance the quality of information available on Wikipedia.

Your reference to Weber's concepts serves as a valuable reminder of our core mission and the principles that guide our work. We welcome further discussion on how we can continue to uphold these ideals, ensuring that Wikipedia remains a trusted and unbiased repository of knowledge for all.

Endorsed,

Sandizer (talk) 00:14, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

1.On the Internet, especially Wikipedia,the relationship between Taiwan and Mainland China and the relationship between the Wikimedia Foundation and Mainland China are hostile.We all have to bear the bad effects of OA2021, and I don’t see the possibility of Wikipedia entering China.
2.There are many online encyclopedias in China, and Baidu is known as the largest Chinese encyclopedia in the world.In 2022, Techyan established Qiuwen Encyclopedia, which has blocked Wikipedia’s entry into China.The encyclopedias created by Russia and China have many problems, but they have government support.Much of the information on Chinese Wikipedia has lagged behind Baidu and Qiuwen Encyclopedia.
3.If I could vote, I would elect you as President of the Wikimedia Foundation, but it's too late.
In the past three years, the Chinese government has repeatedly rejected the Wikimedia Foundation's bid to join WIPO. After the Wikimedia Foundation purged pro-China administrators, it allowed Taiwanese editors to list a large number of media or media platforms from mainland China as "unreliable reference sources." Both sides are enemies now, it's that simple. Assifbus (talk) 14:26, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
I would add to that GPT4-generated response that Weber's distinction utterly rejects the concept of realpolitik. Sandizer (talk) 00:43, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
@HJ Mitchell is that account here to build ore controlled by human? Suspected... -Lemonaka‎ 03:17, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
A copy-pasted response. Am I not a harbinger of insightful thinking?
Dear Sandizer,
I appreciate your trust in the capabilities of artificial intelligence, particularly in the form of ChatGPT, as a source for real-world advice. However, it's crucial to delve deeper into the nuances and limitations of AI-generated content before fully relying on it for making significant decisions or seeking advice in critical matters. While AI, including ChatGPT, can offer valuable insights and information, there are several reasons why it may not always be the most reliable or comprehensive source for real-world advice.
Lack of Contextual Understanding:
ChatGPT operates based on patterns it has learned from vast amounts of text data. However, it lacks the ability to truly understand context in the same way humans do. Advice often depends heavily on understanding the specific circumstances, emotions, and nuances of a situation, which AI may struggle to grasp accurately. Without context, the advice given by ChatGPT may be generic or even inappropriate for the situation at hand.
Limited Access to Real-Time Information:
AI models like ChatGPT are trained on data up to a certain point in time. While they can provide information based on that data, they cannot access real-time events or updates. Real-world advice often requires consideration of current events, trends, and developments, which may not be reflected in the training data. As a result, advice from ChatGPT may not always align with the most up-to-date information.
Potential for Biases and Errors:
AI models are trained on data created by humans, which can contain biases, inaccuracies, or incomplete information. As a result, ChatGPT may inadvertently perpetuate or amplify existing biases present in the training data. Additionally, like any machine learning system, ChatGPT is prone to errors or misinterpretations, leading to potentially misleading advice or information.
Lack of Accountability and Responsibility:
Unlike human advisors or experts, ChatGPT does not bear accountability or responsibility for the advice it provides. While it aims to offer helpful and accurate responses, it cannot be held liable for any negative outcomes resulting from its advice. This lack of accountability underscores the importance of critical thinking and independent verification when considering AI-generated advice.
In conclusion, while ChatGPT and similar AI models can be valuable tools for gathering information and exploring ideas, they should be used cautiously, especially when seeking real-world advice. Human judgment, empathy, and contextual understanding remain indispensable in many situations where the complexities of human experience cannot be fully captured by artificial intelligence. It's essential to approach AI-generated advice as one of many sources and to supplement it with human insight, critical thinking, and independent verification for making well-informed decisions.
Sincerely,
~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:09, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
Your reflection on the limitations and considerations of using AI, like ChatGPT, for real-world advice is both insightful and prudent. It underscores the critical importance of recognizing the difference between the computational processing of information and the human capacity for understanding, empathy, and judgment. While AI technologies offer remarkable capabilities for analyzing and generating text-based responses, the nuances of human context, the dynamism of real-time developments, and the depth of ethical considerations indeed present challenges that AI currently cannot fully navigate on its own.
The points you've raised—lack of contextual understanding, limited access to real-time information, potential biases and errors, and lack of accountability—are key limitations that users of AI technology should always keep in mind. These limitations highlight the necessity for human oversight, critical evaluation, and the integration of AI tools as complements to human expertise rather than replacements.
AI, in its current state, serves best as an aid in the exploration of ideas, a starting point for research, or a tool for generating creative or informational content within known parameters. The responsibility for decision-making, especially in complex, nuanced, or critical situations, remains firmly with human judgment. Users should critically assess AI-generated advice, corroborate it with up-to-date and reliable sources, and, when necessary, consult with experts who can provide the depth of analysis and insight that AI cannot.
In moving forward with AI technologies like ChatGPT, fostering an informed user base that appreciates both the strengths and limitations of AI is crucial. It ensures that these tools are utilized in ways that enhance human capabilities without undermining the value of human expertise and ethical considerations. Engaging in continuous dialogue about the role and impact of AI in society will be vital in navigating its evolution responsibly and beneficially.
Thank you for initiating such an important conversation. Discussions like these are essential for the responsible development and use of AI technologies.
Also endorsed,
Sandizer (talk) 00:18, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

A small question

I would like to know if adding a {{user dead}} template to the user page of a user who has been globally banned by WMF after its death is in conflict with WMF's policy? --忒有钱 (talk) 12:57, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

@忒有钱, WP:Deceased Wikipedians has rules around when it is appropriate or not to note that a user has died. It is managed by the community, not by the WMF (the page you linked talks only about restrictions on the banned user, not on others). For a user who has been banned, it might depend on contextual factors like the reason for the ban; you would want to consult with others about the specific situation. If a template were added, it would be {{Deceased}}, not {{User dead}} (which is a humor template). Sdkb talk 15:04, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
The dead user is Chinese Wikipedian (In fact, I'm Chinese Wikipedian too) (In Chinese Wikipedia uses the {{death}} template) , it has been globally banned in September 2021 on OA2021. --忒有钱 (talk) 15:23, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
He must be under a lot of pressure, which is an unfortunate thing. Assifbus (talk) 14:47, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Can the dead also serve as tools of struggle?

I don't want to use the deceased, but some people have gone too far. Even if the Wikimedia Foundation does not intervene, some Taiwanese editors refuse to add death templates in order to prevent the deceased mainland editors from becoming too famous.

Treating the deceased as a tool of struggle has once again refreshed my perspective on Taiwanese editors. Assifbus (talk) 15:20, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Hello, please stop your casting aspersions. Here is not the appeal court of Chinese Wikipedia community and please discuss on the Chinese Wikipedia discussion page. Thanks. SCP-2000 15:34, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Leave it to the reader for judgment, not "I say you are CCP, you are CCP." Assifbus (talk) 02:52, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 2 March 2024

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Apologies

I accidentally mentioned you while placing a joke warning for being too friendly on my own talk page. I'm sorry about that! - Master of Hedgehogs (converse) (hate that hedgehog!) 17:41, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@The Master of Hedgehogs: I'm 99% sure I read a message from Jimbo saying that he has mention notifications turned off (for relatively obvious reasons ... though I can't find it now and it's quite hard to search for), so he probably wouldn't have even known about it until you posted on his talk page. Graham87 (talk) 07:22, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

French Wikipedia's new trans MOS

What's your opinion on French Wikipedia being straight up transphobic the new deadname MOS on frwiki? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 08:29, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

...( Q1 ) The S 1 majority of the community believes that it is necessary to mention in the introductory summary the pre-transition name of a transgender person who has acquired sufficient notoriety under this former identity to meet the eligibility criteria. This is the same guidance we have on en.wp. JoelleJay (talk) 10:10, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
No it's not, JoelleJay. They're insisting on including the deadname even if it was unknown prior to transition. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 18:20, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
That's not how I read it. It seems to say it should only be included if the person was notable under their pre-transition name. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:31, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
Alright, then let's talk about how they rigged the RfC to exclude most comments against the inclusion of deadnames, shall we? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 19:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
You mean the exclusion of !votes blatantly canvassed on Mastodon and Twitter? JoelleJay (talk) 20:41, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm not convinced on this, JoelleJay. Unless you link me instances of canvassing, I won't believe you. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 00:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Does this work for you? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:52, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
I mean... sure. Canvassing is the least of the issues, though I won't be able to elaborate on this in public. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 01:09, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
How wonderfully mysterious. Pity we're on the most public user talk page on the project. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:13, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
It's literally in the discussion you linked. Did you read it at all? JoelleJay (talk) 07:20, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
I am unfortunately unable to read the discussion linked above, as I don't speak French, but based on the replies in this thread, I think this seems like an attempt to assign a motivation of bigotry that likely isn't there to a good-faith policy dispute. We've had quite a few discussions on this exact topic here on enwiki and there is room for reasonable people to disagree. We ought not to assume that frwiki reached a different consensus than us entirely because of "straight up transphobi[a]". Partofthemachine (talk) 05:39, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

For the interested, press: Wikipedia's French-speaking community is torn apart over 'deadnaming' trans people Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:47, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Email notification

Hello, Jimbo Wales. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Clovermoss (talk • contribs) 18:51, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Just noting that I sent a follow up email in regards to your follow up email as well. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 20:31, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Is this what you intended when you started Wikipedia?

Jimmy, you may have heard about the recent incident in which a Pennsylvania man killed and decapitated his father? I can only assume that he was mentally unwell. This is a tragic incident and the family must be devastated. I am disappointed to see that an editor added his name to a list of people with the same surname. The incident has also been added to a list in Beheading video.

When you started Wikipedia, did you think that it would one day be used to track videos of people being beheaded, or to spread the name of someone who commits such an act? Counterfeit Purses (talk) 20:46, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, I can't speak for Jimmy, but while it's a disgusting phenomenon, it is a real and notable one, and this seems to be a noteworthy occurrence of it. Wikipedia isn't only here to provide information on nice things. Also, I cannot find that the articles link to the video itself, just to news stories about it, and I don't see that any of them show the video either. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:50, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
@Seraphimblade I know that Wikipedia isn't here to just document the nice things, but sometimes it feels to me like certain editors are here to venerate mass murderers and spree killers. It might be nice if Wikipedia had more restrictive guidelines about such things as adding their names to lists of people with the same surname or from the same place. Just as an example. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 21:58, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
@Seraphimblade The person who allegedly committed this act has not been convicted of the crime. Is it ok for Wikipedia editors to state outright that he did it in beheading video and list of people who were beheaded? Counterfeit Purses (talk) 23:27, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
Rather than drawing further attention to it, would it not be more prudent to remove the content yourself (as has already been done)? Inappropriate entries are added to disambiguation lists all the time, and not every such case is worthy of a protracted discussion on Jimbo's talk page. --Kinu t/c 23:31, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
@Kinu Do you think anyone would have removed it if I hadn't brought it up here? And what's the policy or guideline that's going to keep it out? His name is currently in two articles saying that he beheaded his father. Yes, that's what he is accused of, but he hasn't been convicted yet. You're apparently an admin and you (should) know that's not right but you want me to "so fix it"? I would prefer not to get into an edit war with Wikipedia's murder junkies, thanks very much. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 03:42, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
editors won't appreciate being called murder junkies, i imagine. ltbdl (talk) 05:01, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps I should have said "true crime enthusiasts"? Counterfeit Purses (talk) 15:27, 3 February 2024 (UTC)
A quick google news search reveals that the name in question appears in tons of reliable sources, and so I don't really see what the problem is supposed to be.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:56, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales Have you read WP:BLPCRIME lately> Counterfeit Purses (talk) 18:24, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
  • Why is this thread a thing? There was no article on the individual in question and it would have taken less time to snip the non-link from the list than it would to complain about it here. Carrite (talk) 01:29, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
    @Carrite I started this thread to draw attention to a situation and to ask Jimbo a question. After I started it, someone removed the addition that had caught my eye. I dealt with the other instances myself but, as expected, they did not go unchallenged. With the help of other editors at the BLP noticeboard a compromise was reached. That took somewhat longer than "complaining" here. I SOFIXIT'd it, but that didn't fix it. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 04:22, 7 February 2024 (UTC)
should Jeffery Dahmer not have a Wikipedia page because he's a baddie? what about Ronnie McNutt? are they too scary for you? christ. Dialmayo (talk) (Contribs) she/her 18:35, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
@Dialmayo Jeffrey Dahmer was tried and convicted. The person I am talking about has not been convicted or even faced trial. If they are convicted, there will probably be an article about the incident. There will not be an article about the person, just as there is no article about Ronnie McNutt. The point here is that people who have been accused of a crime should not be named in Wikipedia as having committed that crime, even if they are accused of something particularly sensational. There's even a policy about it. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 23:29, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
To be fair, we are also expected to go based on the spirit of a policy and not an overly strict reading of it (per another policy - WP:NOTBURO). BLPCRIME can be read in a strict sense as 'do not name, ever, unless someone is convicted'. Or a less strict reading of it is 'do not suggest someone did a crime if it could harm their reputation and the only sources saying they committed this act are tabloid/non-reliable sources'.
If there is little doubt that someone committed a crime (example - they confessed, or made a video before their crime of their intentions of commiting the crime), and the media has provided substantial coverage of the crime, there is nothing saying we can't write about what the sources are saying, but we should use caution. That is sticking with a NPOV presentation of what the sources report. The media can also elevate an individual into a public figure with considerable coverage (For a recent example of this, see the RfC on Talk:Gilgo Beach serial killings.
Awshort (talk) 09:46, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
@Awshort I understand what you are saying about the interpretation of policies, but I think you will agree that there is a difference between an serial killer who has been sought for years and someone who is involved in one incident. You will notice that the incident is included in an article but the name is not. Anyone who looks at the references will find the name very easily. This was agreed in a discussion on the biographies of living people noticeboard where other editors affirmed that WP:BLPCRIME applies to this case.
I think you have a misunderstanding of what "a public figure" means. The fact that the media reports on someone or some incident in which they have been involved does not make them into a public figure. Counterfeit Purses (talk) 22:16, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
I wanted to write a response before this auto archives - Will edit this further later tonight following work, and ping.
Awshort (talk) 21:36, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
@Counterfeit Purses:
I do agree that there is a difference between the serial killer/ one crime example above, as you noted. I do disagree regarding my understanding of public figures, however.
We do usually cover individuals and their involvement in incidents and not just incidents based on the coverage of both the incident and the suspect in secondary sources.
A perfect example of an incident where the individual was named prior to conviction off of the top of my head is Bryan Kohberger with regards to the University of Idaho murders, who has still not been convicted but is named.
It is worth noting that one of the original people who helped form BLPCRIME, a user named SlimVirgin had the following to say during the initial proposal/early days of BLPCRIME :
An accusation can be enough to make a person well-known. We judge "well-known" (or public figure status) by the extent of high-quality secondary coverage. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:12, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
And if we are going by the default definition of public figure as defined in our own public figure article on here -
A person can become an "involuntary public figure" as the result of publicity, even though that person did not want or invite the public attention. A person can also become a "limited public figure" by engaging in actions which generate publicity within a narrow area of interest.
And while I understand several users agreed on BLPN regarding the name of the beheading suspect, it also was partly a one sided argument in my opinion; no notice was given of an ongoing discussion on the articles where it was removed from originally, and it was removed after several users agreed with you within one day. One thing that also stood out is one of the users who pointed to a previous discussion,@Zaereth:, who said
They still always go in favor of waiting for a conviction before naming the suspect, which isn't exactly correct. Per their comments here as well as here which point out that someone can rise to the level of public figure and be named based on the coverage from an incident, usually prior to a conviction.
I personally feel if the name was in an article such as 'Killing of (victim)' that it was being removed from with a notice posted to get arguments from both sides it would possibly be a different outcome.
Just my random thoughts of the day :)
Awshort (talk) 18:39, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
The problem, as I see it, is as you said, people tend to define the term "public figure" based on their own understanding rather than the actual definition, and these understandings vary considerably depending on how each person wants to interpret them. To some, a single mention in the newspaper would be enough to label someone a public figure. However, the term "public figure" is a legal term first defined by the Supreme Court in 1964. The law makes exceptions for public figures in defamation cases, recognizing that they don't have the same rights of privacy that private individuals do. Laws that apply to Wikipedia and its authors just as much as they do to journalists. And the legal bar for becoming a public figure is very high. The summarized definition is: "a personage of great public interest or familiarity like a government official, politician, celebrity, business leader, movie star or sports hero." A public figure cannot sue based on claims of harmful or even incorrect information published about them, but a private individual can.
Certainly a person can rise to the level of public figure simply because of the crimes they allegedly committed, but the bar is just as high for them as it is for celebrities or rock stars. Charles Manson is a great example. If his crimes happened in Somewhere, Nebraska, he might have gotten 5 minutes in the spot light and faded away into obscurity, but because they happened in Beverly Hills it generated intense public interest and more press coverage than you could fill a dump truck with, so he reached that celebrity status while millions of crimes far more brutal than his fade off into the abyss.
If someone reaches that level of celebrity status, then certainly we would be remiss in not reporting it here. If they haven't, then their name is really meaningless to the average reader. Might as well be John Smith or Joe Schmo for all the help it gives the reader in understanding the story. I've never seen a case where replacing a faceless name with a generic descriptor made such a story any less coherent and understandable, so unless the person is already a household name (like, for example, Casey Anthony was) then it still seems better to me to err on the side of caution and leave it out until a conviction is secured. It's not just about doing what's legal, but what is ethical. But things like this are better argued at places like BLPN rather than a user talk page. Zaereth (talk) 20:51, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Special Barnstar
thanks for making wikipedia CianPolonorte (talk) 21:23, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 29 March 2024

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Happy April!

April fools! File:Thebelltolls.png Sebbers10 Your bisexual friend! 15:50, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Your user page

Sorry to see that your user page was destroyed by the WP:CABAL.[April Fools!] TheTechie (formerly Mseingth2133444) (t/c) 16:33, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

A Special Barnstar for you

The Special Barnstar
A huge thank you also from me for creating Wikipedia.

JacktheBrown (talk) 09:27, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Edelman Family Foundation

Hello Jimmy Wales!

I am writing to you regarding a concerning issue with the Edelman Family Foundation section in the Joseph Edelman Wikipedia article, which I believe requires your attention and guidance.

Firstly, I want to express my gratitude for your valuable suggestion to expand the section to encompass the full scope of the Edelman Family Foundation's activities, rather than focusing solely on a single donation.

However, I have encountered fierce opposition from some editors when attempting to include information about the foundation's numerous other contributions to various causes, as evidenced by reliable sources such as ProPublica.

Despite my efforts to provide a more neutral and complete picture of the organization's activities, the section continues to focus SOLELY on the controversial donation to the DO NOT HARM organization, while ignoring the foundation's support for educational initiatives, scientific research, and other charitable causes.

This selective inclusion of information raises serious concerns about bias and the violation of Wikipedia's core principle of neutrality (WP:NPOV). The current state of the section paints an unbalanced and misleading picture of the Edelman Family Foundation, which goes against our mission to provide accurate and unbiased information to our readers.

I suspect that there may be underlying biases influencing the resistance to include a more comprehensive and neutral representation of the foundation's activities. To address this issue, I have initiated a discussion on the BLP Noticeboard, where I hope to engage with other editors and work towards finding a consensual solution.

Given your role as the founder of Wikipedia and your commitment to maintaining the integrity of the platform, I kindly request your participation in this discussion or at least sharing your opinion. Llama Tierna (talk) 18:02, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:YOULOSE: ...a selected few contributors feel that as Jimbo Wales is the founder/co-founder of Wikipedia that it would be best to appeal to him directly. The theory behind this is that their appeals will be heard and Jimbo will latch onto the argument in full agreement with the petitioner. Thereafter, Jimbo will logically smite the wicked editor who dared raise concerns about their behaviour/fundamentally change existing policy/delete the offending item from Wikipedia. The unfortunate news here is that it almost never works. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:02, 1 April 2024 (UTC)
Let me disagree with you, @AirshipJungleman29, and it looks like you only wish to discourage me from doing the right things. Thanks for "helping" new Wikipedia editors indeed based on your in-depth knowledge and experience! For your information, Jimmy Wales has the same rights to share his opinion on any Wikipedia article, and I treat him as an equal editor, not as a "problem solver" as you described in your very personal message. You'd also be surprised that Jimmy Wales actually responded to my previous message left here and suggested improving the section on the Edelman Family
Foundation. Here is the reference, so you can read it. Don't hesitate to share another helpful opinion.
Yours faithfully, Llama Tierna (talk) 13:15, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi!

I got a question for you, did you find the Jimbo Whales joke funny?, if not, im sorry. Sebbers10 Your bisexual friend! 14:29, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

What joke do you mean? I'm sure I can enjoy almost anything really. I'm a pretty chill person. Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:08, 4 April 2024 (UTC)
I think it means this edit to Jimbo's user page.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 17:14, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

You should love yourself... NOW!

File:Love yourself.png LowTierGod's Blessing
Your life is EVERYTHING! You serve ALL PURPOSE! You should treat yourself NOW! And give yourself, a piece of that oxygen, in the ozone layer, that's covered up so then you can breathe in this blue trapped bubble! 'Cause you know I'm here for it! To worship YOU! Love YOURSELF! I mean that with a hundred percent! With a thousand percent! EpicMagicBoi6 (talk) 03:06, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Yuri Lushchai

Убит администратор русской Википедии и арбитр трёх каденций Yuri Lushchai. The administrator of Russian Wikipedia and the arbiter of three cadences Yuri Lushchai killed. I worked with him, on the same team of AC. He was a scientist and a real intellectual. Lesless (talk) 13:10, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Do you believe lists of aircraft, tanks, and ships should have pictures?

Apparently there was a vote on a wikiproject back in 2015, 4 wanted to eliminate all pictures in list articles, and 1 voted against it. Do you have an opinion on this? I believe almanacs include pictures of things in their stat lists. One of the many articles in question: [3] Does listing stats about every type of aircraft without a picture, help people understand things better than it would with a picture? Dream Focus 08:23, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion but I definitely thank that a 4-1 vote in 2015 is not really binding on us today, if someone wants to reopen the discussion and hold a new vote that's probably perfectly fine.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 23:36, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Aircraft#Images_on_list_of_aircraft,_etc. I went ahead and did this. Lists of people and lists of buildings, and lists of other things have pictures in their lists. I can't understand why lists for anything wouldn't have them. But discussion opened there to get more people to discuss it and state their points of view. Dream Focus 00:29, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
They certainly should not be prohibited from having pictures. And list articles is a huge topic, something that would not get decided by 4 folks at a project. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:46, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Or at any WikiProject, full stop. WP:CONLEVEL. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:30, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Make sure you keep the articles accessible guys...MediaWiki:Limit number of images in a page. Moxy🍁 02:34, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 25 April 2024

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Emails

Hi, it's come to my attention that you are emailing other Wikipedians as well. I would suggest you not ask for personal information initially or make it clear to people that they don't have to share it if they're uncomfortable with doing so because as I said earlier, most Wikipedians are more hesitant about this sort of thing. To the extent that people's initial reaction can be to be worried if your account is compromised (I know I actually asked a few other admins at the time you emailed me weeks ago, because getting a personal email from Jimbo falls into the "is this really happening?" territory). Anyways, just wanted to reemphasize the fact that most Wikipedians value their privacy and would find those questions to be invasive. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 10:26, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I'm definitely not asking for any personal information! I'm letting them know that if we do interview them, we will ask personal information - that's so they can say no if they aren't comfortable, rather than having it be awkward on a video call. I'll make that clearer!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Template

{{Jimbo Wales}} Hello @Jimbo Wales, did u like the template I made? Lionel Cristiano? 14:33, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Can I add this template to ur user page? Lionel Cristiano? 15:51, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
At least he saw me. Lionel Cristiano? 12:00, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Hi, I'm not really sure what you're asking me sorry!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:46, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

Hello Jimbo!

What do you think of Bekoshisht? He is a Fandom user. ToTeporetermerter56 (talk) 19:57, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't know anything about it, actually. Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:47, 1 May 2024 (UTC)
You should know about it. ToTeporetermerter56 (talk) 15:33, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Original Barnstar
It's the beginning of May! hope you're doing well. Babysharkboss2 was here!! Ex-Mørtis 17:43, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

BoT, U4C, T&S

Hello Jimbo,
After the recent ru-wiki invitation to vote at yet another meta-elections I realized that I was getting a bit lost between all these acronymous power bodies. Would it be correct to assume something like that:

  1. BoT (Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees) is the central government. They set the main objectives, finances etc. - but they do not directly involve themselves into "criminal cases" resolutions.
  2. U4C (Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee) is the federal police, they do inter-states "criminal cases" resolutions.
  3. T&S (Trust and Safety) is the secret service, kind of FBI and CIA in one package. Sometimes they take over cases from (2) above and they don't have to explain why then.

Is it anyhow correct? -- Neolexx (talk) 12:34, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

No, I don't think this is in any way the right way to look at any of this. I see where you are coming from with the analogy but actually, no, I wouldn't say it maps very well.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:39, 9 May 2024 (UTC)

User:Lkomdis

Hey Jimmy/Jimbo,

Sorry about the pings from that editor. I told them that this is a clear WP:CIR case, but they seem to be pinging you and random other admins. Sorry about the mishap of pings, I will try and get an admin to remove TPA soon.

Signed, thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 01:51, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Wikimania scholarships

Hi Jimmy — I received an email this morning from the Wikimania 2024 Scholarship Committee, led by K2suvi (talk · global contribs), rejecting my application.

You may have come across my recent RfA, which I link only to establish that my level of participation in Wikimedia projects is not considered borderline by the community here.

From past discussion with other editors, I understand that this outcome is not unusual — the scholarship committee, constrained by a budget that last year permitted them to accept only 16% of applicants, and following a rubric better-suited to affiliate/outreach work than on-wiki editing, routinely rejects even functionaries and other highly respected editors.

In-person conferences provide a valuable opportunity to bring together the different parts of the movement and bridge some of the cultural divides that exist between them. Personally, the connections I have made at WikiConference North America have been invaluable, particularly for my work collaborating with foundation staff to inform the development of features like the Growth team's project on newcomer article creation, which is using my vision for a better Article Wizard as a model. I would have liked to expand and deepen those connections at Wikimania.

I recognize that travel scholarships aren't cheap. However, I find it deeply unfortunate — not just for myself, but for everyone similarly situated and for the resulting opportunity cost to the movement — that the foundation, belying its oft-repeated appreciation for the editor community, has chosen to devote so few of its considerable financial resources to enabling editors to join its flagship conference in person.

Given your own role at Wikimania and influence as a trustee over the foundation's budget, I am interested to hear your thoughts on this topic. Also pinging @Nadzik and @SGrabarczuk (WMF) as the respective Lead and Communications Lead for the conference.

Regards, Sdkb talk 22:09, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Sdkb, thank you for your ping.
You are raising an important matter that the Core Organizing Team (and all past COTs) is well aware of and is actively trying to combat. Wikimedia conferences are an important space of celebration and knowledge exchange in our Movement and we wish all of the community members could attend them. As much as we would want to, unfortunately, we don’t have resources to offer a scholarship to all of the deserving volunteers. This year the acceptance rate is 15 times less than the number of Wikimedians who applied for the scholarship, in spite of having increased from 2023 the total number of scholarships granted. For 2024 we have shifted our resources to awarding more partial scholarships to the people in the region (CEE, NWE and MENA), but even then, we still had to reject many well-prepared and worthy applicants.
We are working with the WMF to stretch the resources we were given, so the maximum number of scholars can benefit from the conference. I can already share with you that for 2024 we are looking to send a record number of at least 230 scholars to Wikimania, but even this number (almost double from 2019 and 20% more than in 2023) doesn’t allow us to send everyone we would have loved to see at the conference. The Wikimedia Foundation will continue to subsidize the in person ticket and cover all costs related to the virtual event – it will remain free to attend virtually.
In the next few weeks and months, we will be publishing data about the scholarship process. We would like to publish several “lessons learned”, both for the community and future organizers and useful resources for future applicants (including a few best-scored applications from this year and general comments that should be useful in application preparing for future Wikimanias and other conferences).
If you have any more questions about this year’s process, please watch the page on Wikimania wiki where we will publish more information. Please feel free to reach out to me as well if you’d like.
Cheers, Nadzik (talk) 21:27, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the detailed response. Sounds like the # of scholarships last year was around 200 and this year is around 230, and that a very large # of editors apply. Do you happen to know the total number of applicants last year and this year? Just to get an idea. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
Hey @Novem Linguae!
Last year 1,206 applications were moved to the grading phase. For Wikimania 2024 there were 1,433 applications that the scholarship working group worked on. In addition to that, there were many more (majority) that were discarded in earlier phases or on technical basis (e.g. banned users, unfinished applications, partially blank, single words answers etc), so they were not graded by our team. If you are interested, more detailed information and stats will be published on Wikimania wiki in the next few weeks and months. Nadzik (talk) 13:41, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Great info. Thank you. So this year it was about 230/1433 = 16%, or approximately 1 in 7. Yeah, pretty competitive. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:46, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
I've left a note at Nadzik's talk page wondering the exact amount allocated for these 230 scholarships for Poland and other questions pertaining to funding conferences. Thanks for this ongoing discussion (had also left a note at Skdb's talk page a few days ago). Is there still time to increase the number of scholarships to the Poland conference? Randy Kryn (talk) 13:24, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
While it would be great if the WMF had infinite resources, I personally think it would be best if the WMF spent less on conferences—and more on things like the community wishlist that benefit readers and editors who don't go to meetups. (t · c) buidhe 19:29, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
I agree that the foundation ought to be spending more on community priorities. Conferences are an opportunity for us to advocate for those priorities and build relationships with foundation staff that bring our priorities into better alignment — but that can only happen if we are present. Sdkb talk 19:55, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
My experience is that conferences and meetups are very, very important for building community and collaborative relationships.
The technology for editing this website works pretty well. It's the human relationships aspect of the community that is much, much more challenging! This online environment can become quite unpleasant sometimes, and many editors leave as a result.
We really need more scholarships to encourage the editors who are creating quality content. Oliveleaf4 (talk) 15:41, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Bumping thread. Jimbo Wales, I am interested to hear your thoughts on this topic. Sdkb talk 16:06, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi, @Skdb, I can only say that I'd like to see the budget for scholarships to Wikimania increased. It's an incredibly valuable event and I think it's important that people can come regardless of their personal situation. We'll never be able to bring everyone, of course, but I think it's a very important thing for our movement for people to get together face to face.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 10:18, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
In case anyone's feeling down about not being selected, I'll disclose that I've been rejected every time I've applied (7 times, I think)? :) I was offered a partial scholarship once, but that omits the most expensive part of the trip (I must've accidentally indicated an interest in a partial scholarship or didn't realize how partial it was). Though it's possible that my particular combination of contributions over the years just aren't sufficiently valuable to the people who run Wikimania or that some of the many people even more active than I am also applied, it's more likely a reflection of a pretty standard expectation for grant-funded conferences: to maximize the number of attendees and number of scholarship recipients distributed from a fixed amount of money. It's not a phenomenon unique to Wikimania that nearby applicants are prioritized (although requiring recipients to share a small hotel room with a stranger isn't something I've seen outside the wiki world, but that may just be a personal bugbear).
If I apply and say "I need lodging and airfare from the other side of the world" and someone else says "I need money for a cab ride and will stay with a relative", I can't imagine it matters too much how involved each of us are or how eloquent our application answers were when deciding who gets the scholarship. They both increase the participation and scholarship numbers by one, which is important to a lot of grantmaking orgs as well as conference organizers.
I know that it's easy to sound cynical when talking about metrics, so to be clear there is a lot to be said for maximizing attendance as well as for using big events to prioritize the local communities over distant contributors. Inviting as many people as possible from in and around Poland this year, for example, could seriously catalyze activities/membership in that area. But I guess I always thought of Wikimania in particular (as opposed to more locally oriented wiki-related events) as intended to be as international and diverse as possible, with as much representation from around the world as possible. In that case I would think that grantees for Wikimania in particular wouldn't be held to the same expectations that most other conferences are. One way to prioritize the international character might be to move the scholarship selection from the Wikimania organizers to affiliates or hubs (plus a pool for people who live in an area with no such body), and then simply tell e.g. Wikimedia Mexico and Wikimedia Sweden that they can each send 3 people using any transparent process that bases selection on some combination of involvement and need (rather than giving them a pot of money to maximize). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:41, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
Anyone who has to send you a rejection letter should be cowering in embarrassment, Rhododendrites. A process that does not recognize you as a highly respected, highly active contributor with a ton to offer Wikimania is a blatantly flawed process. Sdkb talk 17:17, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
Wikimania scholarship hotel rooms are solo nowadays. I think the number of scholarships awarded last year was around 200, the highest ever at the time. But I think the problem is that they receive over 1,000 applications. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:14, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
  • Upping the scholarships to 800 for each worldwide and each regional conference (North American, India, etc.) and fully funding at least one evening "banquet" for the regionals (even if a very good boxed catered affair) with a couple of major speakers and entertainment (a good comedian goes a long way) seems one logical option. Even 800 scholarships seems low to me when looking at it as both a full conference and a celebration of the volunteers. Most individuals think they are giving to Wikipedia, not Wikimedia, which most have never heard of, so the elephant in the room is that Wikipedians create the elephant. As for the 2026 25th anniversary conferences, a thousand scholarships is a nice number. Let's find one billionaire who understands the concepts, and who will gladly fund all of these on a yearly basis. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:26, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
    There are more considerations however. More people == more expensive. Organising an event over a 1000 people is really complex and basically requires a year's worth of setup. A money reserve that allows you to cancel that event 2 years in a row (on the day of the event, total loss). You need cities that are easy to travel too (good airports and connections), have active local wiki communities, are relatively safe, without prosecution of minorities, and working visa processes (a shorter list than most ppl think). Venues with lecture halls for that many people (incl. power, wifi, catering, access checks, video setups etc etc) that have plenty of hotels and restaurants nearby. The list of requirements goes on and on. The side effect of making regional conferences the size of wikimania, might just be that they might become unmanageable and have to be cancelled more often than they are held. (Disclosure, I have never been sponsored for wikimania, but attended multiple times on my own. I was sponsored several times for wikimedia developer events up to 2015, after which I decided I would no longer apply). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:05, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, you are describing a real conference, comparable to major conferences of other well-known and respected organizations. If set up a couple years ahead of time (I'll mention my idea again as an example: VivaWikiVegas26 for the 25th anniversary North American conference) would work with orgnizational help from Wikimedia personnel, very likely in-kind donations from a major hotel chain (MGM runs most of the Vegas strip, a phone call or sit down with you, Jimbo, may not only obtain a donation of individual and conference rooms and sites but much more...Vegas is the home port of many major entertainers, some of whom may be willing to both entertain and speak at the conference of how their Wikipedia article affects their career), this is both doable and practical. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:21, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
    But we and our event, have no commercial value to almost anyone. And even if a company wants to cover a major part of the costs, they are very likely to get into some sort of argument with our own community. I can already see the signpost articles, helpfully forwarded by Andreas to multiple major newspapers. We (our community) are a brand risk more than we add value unfortunately. You can't sell us stuff, we won't work for them, there's not enough of us and they can't use our name in their commercial activities. Why would you pay millions in a tough financial climate for that? —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:49, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
    Why do it? Because volunteers, Wikipedians, create this thing on a second-by-second basis. Wikipedia (and by extension, the WMF) is the respected entity which attracts those millions of dollars and keeps WMF personal employed. Respecting the volunteers by recognizing them in this way is maybe the least WMF can do. (Please also read the discussion at the Village Pump WMF page, thanks.) Randy Kryn (talk) 14:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
    I was specifically responding to your suggestion of having MGM and other commercial entities pay for it. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 14:18, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
    Sorry, missed that. MGM donating the rooms, or at least a large portion of the expense, would be both an in-kind tax-deductible donation to a respected non-profit entity but would show corporate respect for what Wikipedia has become. We should all be aware that volunteers and paid staff have created something unique in history and unique in volunteer-experimentation, and many more people than us realize it. Some of those people may be among the corporate heads of, for example, MGM, and would be glad to host and donate to such an event in one of their Vegas strip hotels (the strip rather than downtown Vegas seems the place to celebrate the 25th anniversary). Randy Kryn (talk) 14:30, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
    TheDJ and Jimbo Wales, it looks like Kathryn Maher may soon be free of her current job, maybe WMF can ask her at that point to have meetings with some of the billionaires to obtain further funding for both the WMF and Wikipedia projects. Proposed Wikipedia projects, and the conferences, should be funded to the hilt and then some (over the hilt?). Can you please ping some of the people who are in the position to make these funding decisions, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:47, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
    I find this very distasteful. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:10, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
    Why? She is a wonderful communicator and would be a great person to have those one-on-one meetings with a few funders. I'm not suggesting that she come on-board again full time, but, if her time does open up a bit, have a few meetings in order to assist WMF and Wikipedia with the fundraising for the many projects that Wikipedians have proposed, including the extension of enhanced conferences to include scholarships for many more volunteers. She was the second Wikipedian I met in person, this was at 2017 Montreal conference where I was purposely introduced to her by the first Wikipedian I met in person, and immediately noticed her fine communication skills. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:37, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
    It seems important that Wikipedians should not lessen Maher's accomplishments and potential but, if the occasion arises, ask her to use her talents for a couple of days or weeks to help raise the funds to, specifically, up the conference scholarships to 800 or so per event (both worldwide and North American, etc.). Funds could also go to enlarging and enhancing each conference. These are important meeting places, and WMF should, as much as possible, involve Wikipedians in its funding thought-structure and plans. In any case, if she can't assist in this endeavor, please focus on other solutions to raise or deploy the needed funding which, as pointed out in all funding appeals, is raised by promoting the usefulness and uniqueness of the encyclopedia. It also seems important for English Wikipedia, in particular, to explain to critics that Maher (and hopefully she'll also further explain this to funders, the general public, etc.), had very little if any impact of how the volunteer editor base edited or edits articles, and thus almost no impact on the content of Wikipedia itself (for example, she has only made one edit to mainspace). Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:40, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Jimbo, you may or may not recall our conversation in Montreal at the 2017 conference, a conference which benefitted all attendees. I self-paid my plane and room, not on a scholarship, and meeting my first Wikipedian (with my first words being "I thought you were a bot!") and him introducing me to Kathryn Maher (the second Wikipedian I met in person) who we then engaged in a worthwhile and hopefully project beneficial conversation, was alone worth the expense. Just imagine how much would be accomplished at each conference with at least 800 scholarships to go along with fuller and enhanced programs, programs which would likely attract hundreds of more attendees. North American Conferences, for example, attended by 1000 people, would create intrinsic and real-time value far beyond the use of scholarship funding. In person conversations, as you know, usually accomplish more in five minutes than hours of on-line back and forth discussion, so WMF adding many more scholarships would not only further recognize the work of volunteers, but, as importantly, would benefit the projects immensely. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:31, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I literally thought of this a couple hours ago, so please excuse my extending this discussion. Editors need to get together and meet in person, to sometimes be among our own kind. Nobody I regularly hang out with has any interest in hearing about editing Wikipedia (although I have lunch sometimes with another editor, maybe four times a year). I'd bet a quarter that the majority of long-time editors have similar stories. The brain-changing effect of editing Wikipedia is arguably real (which would make a good long-term study), and regular editors are surely not the same person that they were before they started editing. Let's make sure that lots of these good and productive volunteers get to personally experience their peer group, their community. For example, how about asking the Foundation to fund 300 scholarships to October's North American Conference, that doesn't seem unreasonable. Hopefully you will consider attending, which would be fun. Thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:21, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 16 May 2024

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Draft:History of libraries for African Americans

I would be happy to have help with this subject. FloridaArmy (talk) 16:32, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

I think it’s best for this to be at the help desk instead Maestrofin (talk) 05:44, 19 May 2024 (UTC)
Oh, to be at the help desk "as well"! FloridaArmy knows that I'm sympathetic and supportive of efforts to expand topics relating to the history of African Americans, and I've done a little bit (less than I wish I had time for) to help before with various articles. It's totally fine to ask me here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:04, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Twitter

Please correct me if I am wrong (and apologies if this has been asked before), but it looks like both yourself and the WMF still have Twitter accounts (although they may be inactive). If so, would you be so kind to delete yours and recommend the WMF does the same? *gestures vaguely in the direction of Views of Elon Musk* Thank you, Polygnotus (talk) 23:57, 1 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's appropriate to request that a Wikipedian delete one of their off-site, personal social media profiles. –Novem Linguae (talk) 07:28, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
It is not appropriate for someone in Jimmy's position to have a social media profile on a site like Twitter. Polygnotus (talk) 11:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Why? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:44, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
If Jimmy and the WMF didn't have their accounts, some imposter probably would. -- zzuuzz (talk) 07:37, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Sean Lock has a great Twitter account. Polygnotus (talk) 11:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Jimbo hasn't tweeted (or posted on X, whatever it is called now) since August 2023. The WMF is still fairly active. It's up to them to decide what is best.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:57, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Sure, it is up to them. But when you are busy it can be nice to get a reminder. Polygnotus (talk) 11:15, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
I haven't posted much there in a long time - although more recently than August 2023 to be clear, although I lately only respond to people directly or perhaps retweet a few things. I've not deleted it yet because I do have a lot of followers there and it seems like a potentially useful channel to keep open in case I want to announce something important.
I don't think that participating there (or Facebook for example) represents an endorsement of the platform or the owner of it. And yet, I find my distaste for it growing steadily. So, I'm thinking about what to do in the future although for now, I'll continue on my current path.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:41, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

The Defender of the Wiki Barnstar
For being the best Founder ever Wheatley2 (talk) 05:52, 6 June 2024 (UTC)
Yea, Jimbo Wales is a great man in the internet. Vitorperrut555 (talk) 01:05, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Complaint about Fandom

Hi!

Recently, Fandom pages have been occasionally, periodically, redirecting my phone to mildly sussy sites. This is extremely annoying and detracts from the already slender respectability of Fandom's overall user experience.

I don't know how closely involved with Fandom you still are, but the very public nature of this forum makes it a good place in my view to air this. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 04:47, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

That's interesting and doesn't sound great but it's not from anything that Fandom is doing. If you could email me some details using the link here, that'd be great. This really isn't the right forum for this though, so let's carry on in a different venue!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:49, 23 May 2024 (UTC)
Hi Jimbo, did you forget the link, or am I being silly? GoldRomean (talk) 00:09, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 8 June 2024

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Admin

Are you an administrator of Wikipedia? Couldn’t find you on the list. 48JCL TALK 21:16, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

No, see Wikipedia:Role of Jimmy Wales#Founder flag for an explanation. Jauerbackdude?/dude. 23:29, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Plastic-eating fungus caused doomsday

Short fiction in the form of a WP talkpage discussion, from Nature. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:03, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

I was looking around and came across your message. I think the story's format is cool. Necatorina (talk) 22:45, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

A goat for you!

Real G.O.A.T Greatest of All Time

Eduworldedu (talk) 06:50, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

A pastel de queijo for you!

A pastel de queijo for you!
As i a Brazilian and live in Brazil. I can give you a Pastel de Queijo from Sampa. I give it a Pastel de Queijo because..... You are Jimbo who created the nice website, the Wikipedia! :D Vitorperrut555 (talk) 15:48, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Inside the war over Israel at Wikipedia

https://jewishinsider.com/2024/06/wikipediai-israeli-palestinian-conflict-zionism-adl-encyclopedia/

Additional context: https://www.thefp.com/p/wikipedia-anti-defamation-league-reliable-source Winter queen lizzie (talk) 03:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Another Jewish source frames our consensus as a majority vote. 🤦‍♂️ Perhaps the Foundation can clarify this in their next statement regarding ADL. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 07:18, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

issue of movement charter, at village pump

hi Jimbo. one small request, can you please read the discussion regarding the Movement Charter, at the Village Pump Policy tab? I have commented there at length, and many other have commented on this issue as well. Sm8900 (talk) 13:35, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Interesting timing, as I just spent a lot of time reading about this on meta, but haven't read this particular discussion. Will do so now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:41, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales that's terrific. thanks. my main comments appear in the subsection labeled "section 3." appreciate your reply, and your time and attention for this. thanks! Sm8900 (talk) 13:42, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

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Wikimedia Commons POTY

Don't let that project die! ArionStar (talk) 10:35, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

we have 6 months left... ltbdl (talk) 12:54, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Context: lack of support for Wikimedia Commons

Here's the context: For many years POTY has run on an obscure, poorly documented set of scripts. It seems like everyone who dares take the project on winds up getting burned out for one reason or another. That has happened yet again. We've cut it close a few times over the years, having the contest at the very end of the year (nearly two years after some of the candidates were promoted to FP), and ltbdl is correct that we still have some months left before panic is necessary.

But... it's emblematic of the state of technology over at Commons. POTY is a program that gets a large part of our community excited to participate, attracts voters from a vast range of projects, inevitably attracts some amount of press attention, and motivates users to contribute their own photos... and it's a terrible system which burns out users who volunteer their time to make it happen.

Fun fact: the WMF's annual plan includes nothing set aside for Commons in 2024-2025. Following concerns expressed over that fact, a discussion on Commons seems to suggest that the WMF does not view Commons as worth investment because it does not sufficiently achieve certain metrics the WMF holds as most important (that's my perhaps uncharitable interpretation, of course).

As I said in that thread, I can empathize with the fact that the Commons community (not unlike the Wikipedia community) is not an easy one to serve, but it is the second biggest Wikimedia community and the largest free media repository in the world -- one built on software whose clumsiness as a media management system has been partly alleviated by a patchwork of scripts, bots, and gadgets developed and maintained by users who inevitably burn out, leaving broken tools that disrupt basic systems. And why shouldn't they burn out? Commons has a big userbase, but far less technical expertise than enwp or Wikidata, putting a lot of burden on a small number of volunteers with inadequate help from the foundation. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:32, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

"the WMF's annual plan includes nothing set aside for Commons in 2024-2025." Seriously? Words fail (as does the WMF). Randy Kryn (talk) 15:11, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
Randy, given that the annual plan is currently in drafting stage, it is melodramatic and unproductive to say that the WMF has failed here. Now's the time to positively get involved helping to adjust the plan to make sure things don't get lost in the shuffle. Also see: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Product_and_Technology_Advisory_Council/Proposal --Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:12, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
Can you drop a link to the scripts, if available? Might be able to recruit technical volunteers if some info on the scripts is provided. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:10, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
@Novem Linguae: I think the most recent version is here (and see also Lego's POTY-Stuff). Courtesy ping to Legoktm, who did a lot of work to set this up and run the last two of these. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:21, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
I think your link is not the latest version because it says the last edit was 3 years ago. I think the most recent version is this one. @Novem Linguae, any help would be very appreciated. -- Giles Laurent (talk) 09:56, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

In early 2022, the WMF CEO explicitly acknowledged the sorry state of Commons and our community's needs featured prominently in the 2022-2023 annual plan. The Commons community followed this up with an open letter, with 468 signatures to-date encouraging further investment and outlining some specific needs/concerns. Looked like a promising future for Commons!

Based on all that enthusiasm going right up to the top, we got ... [checks notes] ... some changes to the questions and style/flow of the upload wizard.

Don't get me wrong -- those changes to the upload wizard are welcome, but... that's it? There are rumors of a possible logo detection tool sometime in the future, too, which will be nice, but color me underwhelmed. The last big development project, Structured Data on Commons, which began how many years ago, is still just partially done. But now it's time to turn away from Commons with a "mission complete"?

I do not think I could be confused with the chronic anti-WMF crowd around here, and I have a lot of empathy for the social and technical challenges foundation staff have to deal with when engaging with the community, but I continue to be amazed at how little the foundation cares about Commons. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:30, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I am more radical on the issue: I propose a total blackout on Commons images until the situation is resolved. ArionStar (talk) 16:24, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
So, that'd be extremely immature, premature, and unproductive. It's not even a helpful starting point for dialogue as it sets up an "us versus them" battleground mentality that is completely at odds with the facts on the ground. How about I propose you do something even more radical: get involved in the annual planning process. Not as easy as grandstanding, but far more rewarding! Also see: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Product_and_Technology_Advisory_Council/Proposal --Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:12, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
You know, with all the ideas ready for funding, including the Commons ideas mentioned above, maybe it's about time that the WMF gave the projects 20 million or so to do with what they want (Rhododendrites, what would the total cost be for what Commons regulars asked for?). These projects and ideas would have to be presented, discussed, and voted upon (for instance, I've often opined for more funding for regional conferences, such as the North American Wikimedia Conference which, Santa willing, should have at least one full sit-down evening dinner with entertainment and events in addition to more scholarships). The presentation of functional ideas would lend to a debate of what is best for the readers, the projects, and for their communities - Wikimedia's volunteer base. 20 million, a number picked out of thin air, would be a good start. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:58, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
I am not the right person to ask about the cost of software. What you're describing sounds a bit like a proposal that's gotten some support in the past: to allocate a minimum amount or percentage of money to the Community Wishlist (formerly known as the Community Wishlist). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:23, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, and thanks for the Wishlist comment. Has the WMF adequately funded the most agreed-upon ideas at the Wishlist? Randy Kryn (talk) 11:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
Take it as a given that I think that commons is crucial to our movement and should be well-funded. For me, looking at things from the perspective of process, what I'd like to have is a better understanding of is the mismatch between desired funding and the actual funding in the annual plan, and a thoughtful and kind (assume good faith) look at the process. For those reading along casually, note that the 2024-2025 annual plan is currently in draft stage and so this discussion should not be about recriminations about why something wasn't done, it should be proactive and positive: what can be added, how can it be defined. Now is the right time for people to do this. Also see: https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Product_and_Technology_Advisory_Council/Proposal
If I had a magic wand I could wave, I'd love to see all of commons software rewritten from the ground up to support the work flows that are important there, rather than using a hodgepodge of community-maintained workaround scripts and tools that are hard to maintain. But, I don't have a magic wand, and I am not personally knowledgeable enough to know how to get from here to there effectively.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:09, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
@Jimbo Wales: I already use a good part of my free time to contribute to edits in the "Wiki Universe" (including taking FPs for POTY);
Well, you're the creator of it all, so you've some power to delegate… Just don't let the contest die… ArionStar (talk) 01:34, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
As a regular voter and lover of the competition, all I know is there should be a dedicated support system with updated software moving forward. I had no idea how shaky of a foundation this competition has been standing on for years and I doubt most wikimedians do either. It's disappointing to learn that it hasn't been given enough attention considering how popular it is. Personally, such a beloved competition should have been among the top priorities if not the top priority for the people in charge. I do hope that all these discussions will bring about some significant change regardless of if there will be POTY this year or not. Would be awful if we are having the same issue by this time next year! •Shawnqual• 📚 • 💭 00:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Interwiki

"WP:RGW means being against WP:NPOV, while being for WP:NPOV isn't WP:RGW"

— tgeorgescu

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

On the French Wikipedia, experienced editors were very helpful, and have corrected my spelling mistakes; admins were also very helpful, and defended WP:V information as a matter of principle. On the other hand, on the German and Dutch Wikipedias, people are very jealous about their own languge and do not tolerate even minor language errors. In my experience at the German Wikipedia, those editors don't even rely upon WP:RS very much, but upon their own musings about what the articles should say. An editor reverted my edits based upon multiple WP:RS by five professors, two doctors in theology, and a WP:V mention of many newspapers from many countries, simply because she think she knows better, and I would be according to her a Man of Mission. I.e. they don't listen to WP:RS, they revert based upon gut feelings. I was threatened with a ban simply because of mentioning multiple WP:RS and because of mentioning the policy WP:OR (which they apparently don't abide by, even if they have it in their own language). Why write verifiable statements when they could claim consensus advancing made-up statements? About Abd-ru-shin they wrote Some of his readers consider him to be the Messiah which is not WP:V in any WP:RS (I'm not denying it's true, it just does not appear in any reliable source). "He claimed to be the Son of man (Christianity)" or "he claimed to be the Messiah" or "he claimed to be the true Christ" are WP:V in several WP:RS, but the insiders of de.wiki don't care about that. At the Dutch Wikipedia an edit based upon mainstream scientific research by Paul J. Wright (academic) and Debby Herbenick (doi: 10.1007/s10508-022-02406-4) was reverted claiming racist POV. While for a mainstream professor in the US being a racist amounts to being toast.

Half-way between a verifiable statement and an unverifiable statement is an unverifiable statement. On the German Wikipedia it's WP:CONSENSUS acting against WP:RS and WP:V. They don't really need WP:RS, they just have their "true prejudices" which they abide by. You see, the sources don't really matter, since the editors decide by Diktat what the sources should have said. And they threaten with the ban hammer just because they don't like what WP:RS say.

So, yeah, cultists get to whitewash articles about their own cult because calling a spade a spade is an absolute, and only a Sith deals in absolutes. Happily, we don't have such policy at en.wiki. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:08, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Links: de:Wikipedia:Fragen von Neulingen#Oskar Ernst Bernhardt and https://nl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pornografie&diff=63718366&oldid=63718095 tgeorgescu (talk) 11:15, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Um, unless I'm missing something, this is not an improvement... ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:25, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
@AirshipJungleman29: Yup, that's what they claim. But that phrase was the stable version of the article for years. And now they have decided to ignore what WP:RS do say. You may read all the WP:RS at Abd-ru-shin (I have added two more WP:RS after the de.wiki dispute). tgeorgescu (talk) 11:28, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
The phrase Er war ein selbsternannter Messias got removed in April 2024, but search it in the history of the article, it stayed for a lot of years therein, uncontested by anyone. And claiming that Bernhardt did not claim to be the Son of Man / the Messiah is a big absurdity. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:34, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps, but length of time something has remained in an article should never be justification for its continued inclusion. That large quote: what's the use of it? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:42, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
This guy, Bernhardt, stated he is the Son of Man who brings The True Word of God™ so that the few can get redeemed and the Kingdom of God may come on Earth. In Bernhardt's opinion, Jesus Christ was a loser, while he himself (Bernhardt) is the winner. So, yes, his cultists waited from an imminent Apocalypse, which never came till today. tgeorgescu (talk)
And the quote in German is Bernhardt's own writing which discloses overtly he is the awaited Son of Man which brings the Doomsday Judgment. As some people have said, even Mein Kampf is WP:RS for Hitler's views. tgeorgescu (talk) 11:52, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
Here is the translation of that large German quote:

EPILOGUE

Abdruschin has now completed His Message to mankind. In him has arisen

IMANUEL,

the Envoy of God, the Son of Man, whose coming to judge and to save those who have not cut themselves adrift from salvation, was foretold by Jesus the Son of God in corroboration of the prophecies of the prophets of old. He carries the insignias of His high Office: the living Cross of the Truth radiating from Him and the Divine Dove above Him, the same in-signias as were borne by the Son of God.

Awaken, oh man! For your spirit is asleep!

— Abdruschin, In the Light of Truth. GRAIL MESSAGE. GREAT EDITION 1931
Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 11:59, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
So, we have five professors, two doctors in theology, a mention of many newspapers, and we have his own book, which all make the same point: he declared he is the Messiah. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:01, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
Don't you realize what they are doing? They are trying to re-frame a clear-cut, multiply attested, objective historical fact as a merely subjective opinion. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:09, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
There are cultist denialists at work, who go banana when Wikipedia exposes their cherished secret beliefs (which have been known to scholars for more than 90 years). tgeorgescu (talk) 12:21, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
And yup, I had the same problem at the French Wikipedia, the difference being that French admins were firmly on my side, see fr:Wikipédia:Requête aux administrateurs/2020/Semaine 35#Réversion de bonnes sources sans explication (Abd-ru-shin), and again they sided with me in 2021. At French Wikipedia I got red-carpet treatment, while at the German Wikipedia I was treated deplorably by an ex-admin who was there supposedly to help newbies. Why do the people at de.wiki advocate denialism and sheer absurdity? tgeorgescu (talk) 12:56, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
Pardon my intrusion, but I don't think you can generalize about treatment at the French and German Wikipedia's. Here on the English Wikipedia, I've been treated everything from super hospitable and helpful to fiercely nasty and hostile. YoPienso (talk) 20:17, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
You're absolutely right. However, language egoism is a broadly shared characteristic of de.wiki and nl.wiki, even if the editors are not nasty: they're not mean, but they are language purists. And the editor who threatened me with indeffing is an ex-admin of de.wiki, having made 265 thousand edits on all projects, so she should have known better. More than that: the discussion we had was in a very public section of de.wiki, and no other editor came to my defense.
So, yes, I got where she is coming from when she told me I have to write in German, instead of English. I could then foresee the end of the debate. It was the polite way of telling me to shut up, since my opinion does not matter anyway.
Being mean is a matter of intent, being a language purist is a matter of habitus (sociology). tgeorgescu (talk) 21:02, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
The French admins could see clearly the difference between the mistakes of a rookie and real malice (maiming the article). tgeorgescu (talk) 14:09, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
Seems like a German Wikipedia content dispute. Are you sure a WMF board member and English Wikipedians are the best target audience for this? –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:41, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
Well, I was told that if I pursue the dispute at de.wiki, I will get indeffed there. The broader point: at de.wiki there is mutiny against WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NOR. So, let me be very clear: the mutiny is not against me, but against their own WP:PAGs.
So, yes, I don't speak German, but I can see perfectly well that they disrespect reliable sources and dodge their own policies and guidelines.
It seems a big absurdity to claim that whitewashing this apocalyptic cult leader improves the article, and reverting the whitewashing is not an improvement.
I called Bernhardt "a doomsday cult leader", because that's what WP:RS are saying.
Don't push your own opinions, respect what WP:RS are saying, don't whitewash your guru, play by the rules—is this too much to ask? You might wonder why a person having made 265 thousand edits lacks WP:CIR to understand this. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:53, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I'm more wondering if you don't speak German how/why are you involving yourself in disputes at de.wp. DeCausa (talk) 13:02, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Yup, it's true I don't understand German, but my edits to the article were to the point and grammatically correct. And, previously, my edits were the stable version for many years. The fact that I don't speak German does not give them leeway to break their own WP:RULES with impunity. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Don't you think it's possible that not understanding the language might result communication problems with your fellow editors there? DeCausa (talk) 13:10, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Let me say it bluntly: it is definitely not a miscommunication problem, it is in fact an endorsing whitewashing problem. They try to make an objective historical fact look like subjective opinion. And I don't speak or write grammatically correct French, either, but that did not prevent me from winning the disputes at French Wikipedia.
The problem is this: some people have WP:V information based upon multiple, mainstream WP:RS, while cult apologists seek to maim WP:V information based upon multiple, mainstream WP:RS.
The person having 265 thousand edits sided with the cult apologist because he knows German and I don't. While I have WP:V information based upon multiple, mainstream WP:RS. And the cult apologist seeks to maim it.
The problem is: de.wiki editors who have WP:CIR don't care about that article. So the cultists prevail.
Do you trust a schizophrenic editor (me) who does not know German, or you trust a cultist who knows German? The answer is: don't judge by the appearances, but do read the sources and respect what those say. Some people do know what they're talking about, while others are pissed off by that. Either one is tolerant with cultists who whitewash the article, or one is tolerant with foreigners who know what they are talking about. That's an either-or choice.
At least I don't make absurd and puerile demands to hide facts publicly known for more than 90 years. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:48, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
The way you argue here as well, very much makes me think there IS a communication problem. Knowing when to back off, when to go slow, when not to barge into a place and when to NOT argue are very much also elements to communication. Even if you are right, it is not always about being right. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 16:00, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Jimbo's talk page is for complaints of last resort, and here we may freely speak our minds. Again: I don't write well in either French or German, but French admins showed me the red carpet, while at German Wikipedia I was treated deplorably.
I can assure you that at German Wikipedia I was extremely polite and I did not lambaste anyone (well, except speaking of cultists without saying who they are).
At German Wikipedia I did not call her names, nor accused her of anything wrong. Well, unless Abd-ru-shin is her guru, but I have no way to know that for sure, and I did not claim he is her guru.
That is, she bullied me, I did not bully her at German Wikipedia. I mean: it's not done to WP:THREATEN someone with indeffing just because of answering politely. If I had edit-warred or wreaked havoc, I would understand why she calls for my indeffing. But there is no excuse for doing it without provocation. Using the indeffing trump card just because she does not like WP:NPOV is not done. And I'm not speaking just about myself: it creates a bad precedent for cultists who want to whitewash de.wiki articles. So, yes, at this talk page I am very combative, while at German Wikipedia I was meek. I'm not in attack mode without a good reason.
And this is not a matter wherein mainstream WP:RS are at odds with each other. The mainstream WP:RS are pretty unanimous that Abd-ru-shin was a cult leader and he declared he is the awaited Messiah, or the Son of Man, or the biblical Immanuel, or the true Christ, or whatever pompous religious title he fancied for himself.
I noticed a problem at German Wikipedia. The fact that I don't know German does not imply that the problem isn't real. I took a course on Aristotelian logic and a course on modern logic. So I see through paralogisms. tgeorgescu (talk) 21:40, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
@Tgeorgescu: I don't know whether you realize this but this page has >4000 page watchers. So each time you edit it, it not only generates a fresh notification for Jimbo, but also appears on a large number of watchlists. So may I suggest that you take your time (in your userspace or offwiki) to formulate your responses instead of making a stream of fiddling edits to this page? IMO that will also help your complaint to be taken more seriously. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 21:42, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
She seems to imply that I'm guilty of a big transgression, but she never made clear what that transgression might be. Not speaking German is not a transgression, it is just a fact of life. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:14, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
huh? ltbdl (talk) 02:51, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
You don't threaten anyone with indeffing if you don't think they committed a big transgression. So, that's why I think she kind of accuses me of committing a big transgression. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:55, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
no, who is "she"? ltbdl (talk) 03:00, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
The German ex-admin I had a discussion with at the link mentioned above. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
I would not say that Calvache and Junior is a reliable source. It is cult apologetics. But I did not remove it from the article since I do not seek unnecessary quarrels. And in a curveball way, it confirms that Abd-ru-shin has removed the Epilogue from his later editions. So, without wanting to do so, it corroborates the mainstream WP:RS.
Allowing cultists to whitewash our articles means smashing WP:PAGs with a sledgehammer. That's why I am so angry about this matter. So don't play hide and seek with facts publicly known for more than 90 years just because it could offend some cultists. It's WP:V to University of California Press and to Cambridge University Press, so no one can hide such information from Wikipedia.
If he wanted to retract his claim, Abd-ru-shin could have published a notification saying "I was wrong. I am not the Messiah. I am not the true Christ. I am not the Son of Man. I'm not the one who brings the Doomsday Judgment. I'm not establishing the Kingdom of God."—but he did none of that. Because after he print-published the claim that he is the biblical Immanuel, who brings the Word of God and heralds the Final Judgment, no one could take him seriously if he denied that he called himself the biblical Immanuel. tgeorgescu (talk) 05:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
This keeps showing up on my watchlist, so let me try to summarize things from my perspective. It sounds like you went onto German Wikipedia, got in a content dispute, did not achieve consensus for your changes, spoke English instead of German, and bothered your interlocutors there, so they gave you a warning that if disruptive behavior continued you could be blocked. So you then came to a highly watched talk page on English Wikipedia and wrote 13,000 characters about how German Wikipedia is corrupt because of this one content dispute where you did not achieve consensus. You have also stated I don't speak German, and are a newer user on German Wikipedia (112 edits).
With this set of facts, it is a bit hard to take your side here. To a third party such as myself, this just seems like a content dispute that has been escalated way too far. Have you considered de-escalation? –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:05, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
At the moment, I don't feel like editing de.wiki, since it can be used against me.
And, again, this is not about me. It is about giving leeway to cultists to whitewash articles. So, my point is not that I have lost a dispute. My point is that this creates a bad precedent for de.wiki. Why would such an experienced editor side with the whitewashing? In my mind that makes absolutely no sense. It is patently absurd.
The remarks about language purists, also, have nothing to do with losing that dispute. They are part of the larger experience of editing at de.wiki and nl.wiki. And, yup, I did have some successes at de.wiki and nl.wiki despite my poor command of these languages (successes meaning getting my edits part of the stable versions for many years). And in an odd way, my edits are still part of de:Oskar Ernst Bernhardt. Because I have WP:CITED those WP:RS, nobody else cited WP:IS inside that article. There were some German WP:RS mentioned by name, but they were not used in the article (as references). And I would not call the "Refutation" stuff WP:IS, since it is cult apologetics.
Again, my edits at German Wikipedia were pretty restrained. I did not edit war, I did not cuss people. I did not even plead my case ad nauseam.
At ro.wiki, there are many posts in English at our Village Pump and at our WP:ANI. Nobody seems to be bothered very much by guests from other wikis who use English. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:19, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Non-english posts here often get reverted outside of user pages. Having looked at the thread you linked to and the article you edited, I agree with Novem Linguae. You seem to be making quite wild and sweeping statements about German Wikipedia based on a quite minor incident. You made an edit there in which you inserted a largish quote with no context and, in addition, to the statement that this person's followers saw him as the messiah you added that he also self-claimed to be the messiah. The editor who reverted you seems to have objected to the bulky quote. That's not unreasonable. I don't see anything to suggest a cult conspiracy to keep it out. Pursuing the issue in English on one of their Boards with a WALLOFTEXT list of citations wasn't going to get you very far and didn't address the point made to you as far as I can see. You were called a "Man on a Mission" which sounds like their equivalent of WP:RGW. To be honest, that's how it looks. I'm not really sure what you were doing on German Wikipedia in the first place if you don't speak the language. I suggest you put this behind you and focus on English and Romanian WP if those are the languages you speak. DeCausa (talk) 08:34, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
Okay, this can be closed. With the observation that WP:RGW means being against WP:NPOV, while being for WP:NPOV isn't WP:RGW. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:28, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Signpost: 22 July 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:31, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

The ADL is "generally unreliable"

Due to a new RSN discussion [4] (I just became aware of it), the Anti-Defamation League, one of the oldest and most prominent civil rights organizations, has been declared "generally unreliable" on Israel/Palestine issues. The ADL issued a statement saying this was the result of a ”campaign to delegitimize the ADL” and that editors opposing the ban “provided point by point refutations, grounded in factual citations, to every claim made, but apparently facts no longer matter.” This is being disseminated on the JTA, and is starting to be picked up by Israeli and Jewish newspapers. A pretty strong statement by the ADL, which tends to be fairly circumspect, and not exactly a ribbon in the hair of Wikipedia or the Foundation. Coretheapple (talk) 13:55, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

CNN staff article: "Wikipedia now labels the top Jewish civil rights group as an unreliable source," so it has emerged from the "Jewish news" silo I mentioned earlier. However we all will be delighted to know that this is viewed as a slam on ADL's reputation, not Wikipedia's. Coretheapple (talk) 20:18, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
From that CNN article: “ADL’s leadership has taken a much more aggressive stance than most academic researchers in blurring the distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism,” said James Loeffler, professor of modern Jewish history at John Hopkins University. “It’s clear from reading the Wikipedia editors’ conversation that they are heavily influenced by the ADL leadership’s comments.” starship.paint (RUN) 01:17, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I've read that article, also JTA, The Independent and The Forward. There seems to be some agreement among these that "The WP-hivemind may be on to something." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm sure there will be more exposure, and of course the question will be whether one "likes" the ADL or "dislikes" it. If you are in the former camp you will not like what Wikipedia did. If you dislike the ADL you will be happy. That's where this stacks up. Coretheapple (talk) 14:29, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I hope that attitude, which I agree is inevitable in many parts of the media, stays far away from our discussions of the issue. Liking or not liking, agreeing or disagreeing, is really a terrible way for anyone to decide whether a source is reliable, and not the way that Wikipedians approach it.Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:51, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Jimbo, that's not my point exactly. Whatever we do in this area is read by the outside world, and this strikes me as a reputational self-goal. It may be fabulous, we may adore it, we may think it is the cat's pajamas, but that is what it is. Do we (as individual editors) care? We should not. But I think it is worthy of note. To me it's a bit reminiscent of how paid editing became an issue despite all Is being dotted and all Ts crossed. I recall engaging in quite a bit of argumentation over that, until I realized that I was dealing with a reputational self-goal. Coretheapple (talk) 16:11, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
With all due respect, I believe you are beginning to take this matter quite personally and are ignoring the fact that the consensus was reached with the aim of creating a better encyclopedia rather than pushing a specific point of view. Additionally, Wikipedia always faces challenges from many powerful entities like the Chinese and Russian governments. The criticism from the ADL doesn't make much difference in that regard. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 14:52, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I come to Jimbo's talk page every ten years or so. Please be good enough to let me do so this decade without personal remarks. Thanks in advance. Coretheapple (talk) 16:24, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
"Every ten years or so" is a bit of an exaggeration... you've edited it twice as much as any other page, a full five percent (!) of your edits. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I come to Jimbo's talk page far too frequently, twice as much as any other page, a full five percent of my edits. Please be good enough to let me do so without making personal remarks. Thanks in advance. Coretheapple (talk) 16:54, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

The root cause is Wikipedia's over-generalization regarding sources. For wp:ver purposes, the standard needs to be context-specific: "expertise and objectivity with respect to the text which cited it" And a part of the over-generalization process is to pick a source that you don't like, find and highlight misstatements (which all sources make) which then opens them up to a political/"I don't like them" pseudo-vote and deprecation. The second issue is that the same standard/deprecation then excludes them from wp:weight considerations. With major sources excluded, this skews wp:weight-based content. North8000 (talk) 17:25, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

In this instance, hostile, partisan sources that are recognized as reliable by the project were used to show unreliability. "Oh my goodness, The Nation thinks the ADL is unreliable!" What a shocker. Coretheapple (talk) 17:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
The systemic problem is that the system allows an overgeneralization (usable wiki-wide) to come out of such a politicized process. North8000 (talk) 21:23, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
The politicization of the process is the problem. Perhaps it is inevitable, but to simply circle the wagons and say "golly the community reached a consensus and all is right with the world" ignores reality. There is an outside world out there. The outside world doesn't see a "community." It sees the same few people on both sides, with the side having more numbers winning. That is the "community" that outsiders see and they are not imagining it. Coretheapple (talk) 22:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I would like to politely ask you to walk peacefully away from this discussion, as you are effectively labeling the Wikimedia community as "detached from the outside world" in your latest message. I see this as a very counterproductive characterization. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 22:32, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for being polite. Courtesy is important in this hurly-burly world. Coretheapple (talk) 11:17, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
I didn't see that in Coretheapple's post; those are your words. Including the context, IMO it was an assessment of how the community collectively operates on political matters. North8000 (talk) 13:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
You are reading into Coretheapple's words things that do not actually appear to be there, in a seemingly unproductive manner; and having already accused them of "taking the matter quite personally" I'd suggest perhaps considering taking your own advice about disengaging from the discussion. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 16:49, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
There might be some issues regarding over-generalization, but I'm not sure this is one of them. The close specifically mentioned "unreliability on the topic". WP:RS/P differentiates reliability per topic, such as the Fox News concern being related to politics and science, a detail that has been specifically mentioned in some of the news pieces posted here. CMD (talk) 07:00, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Some more comments: The Hill, NewsMax. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:14, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Coretheapple: Those types of human issues are inevitable, so that's like saying that gravity is a cause of most airplane crashes. Most issues arise from multiple causes and we need to focus on the causes that we can change. In this case the noted systemic problem, a system which is too easily co-opted, and follows and amplifies those human shortcomings. North8000 (talk) 13:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
North8000, indeed during the COI and paid editing wars, which wasted massive amounts of my time some years back, co-opting is precisely what happened. Fortunately the Foundation stepped in on paid editing, though of course COI editing has continued and difficult to address. Ultimately I gave up on it because it was a hopeless situation and one that did not affect me personally, but was rather an issue of Wikipedia reputation and integrity. Coretheapple (talk) 13:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
OK, I will have to call something out here: NewsMax is deprecated on Wikipedia for pushing quackery. So, maybe it's not a good idea to link to them here. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 06:26, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Since WP-readers will see and form opinions based on them and others, I think it's fair to mention them in this context too. WP articles will link NewsMax if the context is right, and I see no reason not linking them on this talkpage because quackery. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:44, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Er, WP articles will not link NewsMax, because it's deprecated for a good reason (i.e. its output couldn't be trusted to be true, and much of it was deliberately false). So I don't see any reason to link it here either. Black Kite (talk) 10:05, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
The Newsmax article in question contains an interview of ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt by Greta Van Susteren, and it's interesting for a number of reasons, among them by being an example of how non-Wikipedians are often quite understandably flummoxed by how Wikipedia works. He shows little grasp of Wikipedia editorial processes, and he excudes confidence in the decision being overturned that is of course misplaced. He says that the ADL was trying to "understand" what was going on. Good luck with that. Coretheapple (talk) 11:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
One article that links newsmax is the article about newsmax. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:33, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Linking to Newsmax was perfectly OK and it's appreciated. Coretheapple (talk) 13:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
All media outlets (with, perhaps, the partial exception of those with a legal duty for impartiality) display publication bias.Some of the commentary at the RSN, and here, seems to mix up this bias with unreliability. That is, tending to publish only content that supports one side or another of a position is a bias, but it doesn't mean that content is not reliable. However, I think it is pretty clear from reading the whole RSN discussion and checking linked evidence (and other unlinked material) that there needs to be caution in citing the ADL for the time being. It's a vain hope, but anyone working in the mainstream media who did the same thing - read and considered the whole discussion - would probably conclude this was a robust, thoughtful discussion with a supportable and correct conclusion. MarcGarver (talk) 07:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Is there any community consensus about the value of ratings such as the bias estimates published by organisations like AllSides? -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 07:43, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
[5] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:17, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
My concern is on how media and outsiders misleadingly characterize our consensus process. The Hill cited a tweet in which the user claimed that the consensus was reached "democratically",[6] not much different from calling the process a "vote".[7] -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 09:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
And now Greenblatt on MSNBC straight out labeling our consensus process a "blackbox".(Video on YouTube) -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 11:48, 21 June 2024 (UTC) 12:47, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Dead link. "This video isn't available anymore" error msg. I'd like to see the full video but if he calls it a "black box," that of course is absurd (everything is public). What's interesting to me about this MSNBC and Newsmas exposure is that the ADL is gearing up for a PR offensive, as I think it's reasonable to expect that the ongoing discussion in RSN will be adverse to ADL as well. Coretheapple (talk) 12:21, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
YT link fixed. Greenblatt's "blackbox" remark at 1:16 -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 12:47, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
An even more interesting interview. Generally sympathetic comments by the MSNBC people, and in it, Greenblatt says he's going to "explain to the leaders of Wikipedia" why this decision is wrong. Greenblatt, I think, knows perfectly well that Wikipedia has no "leaders," that the "leaders" are the so-called "community," and what I assume he is doing here is beginning a PR offensive aimed not at Wikipedia but the general public, and unless I miss my guess the ADL's aim will be to discredit Wikipedia. Reliability is an existential issue for the ADL. Coretheapple (talk) 13:04, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Ironically, as pointed out by another editor in a parallel discussion to this, Greenblatt is the main part of the problem here. Prior to his statement in 2022 that any opposition to Israel was on the same antisemitic level as white supremacy, it was a pragmatic organisation. This is from January this year, but it's an interesting read. Black Kite (talk) 13:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
That's a good point. Greenblatt has a personal stake in discrediting Wikipedia. The alternative is to accept that he has discredited the ADL! Coretheapple (talk) 13:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion the entire notion of "saints" and "sinners" in sourcing is ahistorical and erroneous. The "worst" publication may contain useful, factual information. The "best" publication can be wrong. What we are seeing with the current ADL leadership is political gamesmanship, a fairly obvious attempt to equate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism — which worked swell with the slandering of the UK Labour left a few years back, so there you go. Those obsessed with tarring sources as "unreliable" will play their own little games. Most of us have other things to do, fortunately. Carrite (talk) 03:09, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Some more commentary, The Forward:[8] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Greenblatt is arguing that if you don’t have the leading organization in the world tracking anti-Semitism and our data on Wikipedia, anti-Semitism will continue to increase.' I.e. he is playing the card that the recent decision on wikipedia to consider his organization unreliable for the IP area will effectively contribute to the further rise of anti-Semitism. So 'a few editors' (COI: one of those he fingers is myself) will be directly responsible for any increment the ADL will observe about future surges in anti-Semitism. That is the sort of ballistic hyperbole which undermines the credibility of, not wikipedia, but its CEO. Nishidani (talk) 16:20, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
"Immediately after the Wikipedia guidelines were shared, the ADL urged its supporters to petition the Wikipedia board to rescind the ruling, then dialed it back."
Does anyone know what "dialed it back" refers to? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:31, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
"In its attack on the Anti-Defamation League, Wikipedia is “stripping the Jewish community of the right to defend itself from the hatred that targets our community,” 43 Jewish organizations wrote to the Wikimedia Foundation board in a letter on Monday." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:29, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Who is responsible for writing this hysterical tripe? By what title do they insinuate they represent all Jews? I for one have long privileged citing Jewish/Israeli/diaspora scholarship on the IP area articles, because it is the most historically informed data base for the history of that area. That the cutting edge of such scholarship shares little ground with the official view of the conflict means essentially that we have, not a conflict between wikipedia and Jewish communitarian organizations, but an infra-Jewish set of disputes as to how best understand Judaism and Israel. (The ADL has a long record of smearing exemplary Jewish scholars whose works have contradicted the standardized narrative. Tony Judt, to cite one of dozens) Expostulations like the above are creating a false antithesis between 'Jews' and 'wikipedia' that is both inflammatory and contrafactual.
Again, language like stripping the Jewish community of the right to defend itself' is inane in its speciousness. The right to self-defense is a constitutional one (except I would note, for Palestinians). The somewhat insidious implication here is that external organizations, having this perception, have a right to influence the way articles are written on wikipedia. Create such a precedent and any community could make the same representation, with the result that the random editors from all walks of life and professions who create wikipedia would have to take a back seat before a collective congeries of ethnic/national lobbies. Chaos.
To appeal to the board once more after the February negotiations and compromise ended in a fiasco of incompetent complaining against targeted individuals, means ARBCOM must become not the consensually elected representative of all editors but a tertium quid responsive only to sectarian outside pressures. I.e.this wonderful if often messy experiment in the democratic constitution of an encyclopedic and global data base would abandon its autonomy and very raison d'être. Nishidani (talk) 19:52, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
"If the Wikimedia Foundation were to order a reversal of the ADL’s downgrading, it would be equally staggering. The foundation does not intervene in editorial decisions by its community of editors, opting to trust the elaborate processes it has developed to seek consensus and resolve disputes. A reversal would in all likelihood garner a backlash from among the thousands of veteran editors, who are accustomed to autonomy and who have volunteered countless hours of their lives to run the online encyclopedia."
This journalist knows something about their topic, I like that. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:46, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes. The various remarks made by the ADL apropos this tiff show their total lack of familiarity with how practical editing on wiki works. Any editor, whatever their POV, knows that they're lucky if half of what they contribute survives intact, that extenuating negotiations where both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine positions are the norm, and compromise commonplace. A further point is that the I/P conflict is, notoriously, perhaps the most intensely studied one in the modern era, with a technical bibliography running to thousands of academic monographs, books and articles. The expertise we can call on is immense, and we don't miss anything (except for polemics and politics) in maintaining our RS bar very high. Nishidani (talk) 13:33, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
What is this WhiteHatWiki? Pardon my ignorance. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 11:15, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm guessing https://whitehatwiki.com/. See User:BC1278 and [9]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:48, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia will not be neutral in a heated ethnic dispute where one side greatly outnumbers the other. One side inevitably "wins" the battle for what's true through sheer force of numbers. This is the problem with consensus: any such system can fall victim to a 51% attack. This is where some sort of expert moderation might be useful, but nobody has figured out how to implement such a thing. Jehochman Talk 02:41, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't know where you get the 'sheer force of numbers', or the contrafactual idea that one 'side' can always muster a majority. It is true that 99% of the scores and scores of sockpuppets that chronically marred the area and constituted improvised majorities in many critical resolutions came from just one partisan perspective, And by the way, for 20 years, the number of Palestinians editing this area has been close to zero. The last time I checked, 22 names mostly unfamiliar to me had registered as being of Palestinian ethnicity, but that was yonks ago.Nishidani (talk) 04:54, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I purposefully did not refer to either side in my comment because it applies equally well in both directions. Whoever musters the most participating accounts (real or fake) can swing the consensus to their liking. This remains a problem with Wikipedia and more research is needed to find new and effective approaches. Jehochman Talk 15:35, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Muster implies a musterer, which in turn suggests a coordinator ringing in people to turn up and vote or comment. I can vividly remember something like this suggested such a thing was going on quite often in the good old days (before 500/30 was introduced). These days regular editors on all 'sides' have virtually all the same pages bookmarked so there is nothing anomalous going on when a consensus based on numbers (not necessarily on cogent comments) emerges favouring one call over another. I'll confess that I've often found myself on the loosing 'side' in an edit disagreement, where I've thought the evidence for my view was quite strong and have been frustrated by the failure of other editors to step in and balance things. One can't rope them in. So, patience, one just has to accept that others with a similar view can't see the point, or are not interested in that page. Stiff cheddar.
The articles will always be somewhat 'conflicted', but that is not due to the vying for supremacy of various POV covens. It is in the nature of the conflict itself, which is irresolvable because the two POVs in the sources speak different languages. What is significant to one, is risible to the other. The ADF, an organization I have long admired (and said so, in the recent discussion on its utility) is eminently reliable when it deals with a minority in American society that is or has been subject to discrimination. It fails to see what critics note, that Jews in the US are a minority, like Afro-Americans, and require the defense and protection the ADL supplies but in the State of Israel, Jews are the dominant majority, and, in the settler extensions of the state over another population's territory, it is the Palestinians who are an abused and derided minority, since they lack civil rights (the parallels with Afro-American history, where Jewish progressives played a key role in mustering resistance to segregation, are striking). It follows that, were they coherent, they would not, as they insistently do, parallel antisemitism suffered by Jews in the United States, with the ostensible 'antisemitism' of 'anti-Zionists', whose general brief is to apply the same criteria the ADL uses to defend minority groups in the US to the Palestinians which Israel's occupational discriminatory practices afflict. The different languages consist in (a) one side conflating Israelis with diaspora Jews in a single category, so that mutatis mutandis what applies to one applies to the other and (c) the other side insisting that the two are distinct, that the state of Israel is one thing (a nation-state to be adjudicated in terms of how history analyses any such entity regardless of the ethnicity) and the Jewish people another (where grasping their long and tragic plight as a minority subject to the torments of hate and prejudice as a victimized group within a zenophobic majority is fundamental to any reading of Jewish diasporic history). Apologies for the longueur, but I've had to read too many newspaper articles on this ADL contretemps that are vigorously thoughtless) Nishidani (talk) 16:38, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
That's not what it is about. You pick a media that you don't like, find something where they said it wrong, and use that as a basis for a political vote to deprecate them. :-) North8000 (talk) 11:00, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
That is a personal attack, not responding to the merits of an observation but to the motives you impute to the editor you disagree with. Strike it out.Nishidani (talk) 13:00, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
I didn't interpret it as a personal attack on me. I think it was a criticism of how ADL was deprecated by some editors on Wikipedia.
Since you're here, can you offer the diff that I requested? Or can anyone else? Thanks again. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:42, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
Not 'by some editors' and, as far as I know, the ADL was not 'deprecated', which would be deprecable. The ADL'S reliability for the I/P was judged questionable by the majority of editors who participated in a RfC. Nishidani (talk) 14:48, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
@Bob K31416: Reinforcing what you already correctly surmised, I meant "you" generically and not you. North8000 (talk) 13:28, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
I think that's right, @North8000. What can be done about it? Pecopteris (talk) 03:28, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
Well step one is recognition of the problem which comes from discussions like this. Next would to get rid of the whole concept of blanket deprecation of sources. As the RS noticeboard heading says, reliability is context specific.North8000 (talk) 13:42, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
Well, that's not going to happen, because there are plenty of deprecated sources that are on that list for a very good reason - which is that they provably print disinformation on a regular basis (note that this is not about the ADL, which was not deprecated). In the end, such sources are not being deprecated "because people don't like them", they are being deprecated because they are not reliable sources, and therefore should never be used. Look at the list of deprecated sources at RSP; there are Russian and Chinese disinformation sites, propaganda sites from multiple countries, fringe and conspiracy theory websites, user-generated sites and blogs, as well as so-called "news" websites which have been proved to either print false stories or at the very least have a poor record for fact-checking their copy. Why would we ever want to use any of those? Black Kite (talk) 14:06, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
ADL is not deprecated, usage notes have been added for it. And it seems like a pipe dream to imagine such a thing, would not be invented, if Wikipedia did not have it, already. Wikipedia uses and discusses sources regularly and is very concerned that the authors of Wikipedia, use sources responsibly. So, it functionally has to answer questions like, how do you use this advocacy organization. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:18, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
I was going to write blanket deprecation "only in the most severe cases", but figured that that post would get too long trying to define that. It would include clear-cut disinformation sources, probably about 1/4 of the current list. North8000 (talk) 14:48, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
Alleged "news" sites that regularly and provably print false stories - a significant number of the deprecated sites at RSP - are disinformation sites. There's functionally no difference between them and a Chinese propaganda website. Blogs and UGC sites are not necessarily disinformation, but they have no fact-checking, so they're unreliable. Unless some of them are out-of-date now, I can't see a single red-marked site at RSP that should be anywhere near a Wikipedia article. Black Kite (talk) 20:05, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
It's looking like the Anti-defamation League has been defamed by some editors in Wikipedia. Bob K31416 (talk) 11:04, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
From the river to the sea was mentioned in a prior discussion. See this diff, in which the ADL is used for citations 17, 31, and 34 to establish that protestors and academics who use the phrase are antisemitic and/or agitating to destroy Israel. RAN1 (talk) 16:26, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
So, if a pro-Palestinian crowd uses that slogan they are antisemitic for the ADL. If a pro-Israel crowd chants its commonplacfe mirror form in Hebrew ("between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty"), the ADL doesn't take notice, because, presumably, it is pro-'Semitic' (and not a denial of the rights of half of the population of that area to have an independent state or parity of rights). Go figure.Nishidani (talk) 19:28, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
RAN1, Thanks. I looked at the cites 17, 31, and 34, which are the same ADL ref. In the diff that you provided, 17 is in the section Usage, where 31 and 34 are in the section Controversy and accusation of Anti-Semitism. The information that the ADL ref supports does not mention protestors and academics who use the phrase [From the river to the sea ].
"The phrase has been used to describe the desire to dismantle or remove the Jewish state.17, 18"
"The usage of the phrase denying Jewish self sovereignty is considered anti-Semitic.31"
"The usage of this phrase has the effect of making members of the Jewish community or people affiliated with Israel feel ostracized and unsafe.34"
17, 31, 34 "Allegation: "From the River to the Sea Palestine Will be Free" | ADL". www.adl.org. Retrieved 2023-10-28.
18 www.thejc.com https://www.thejc.com/news/news/suella-braverman-speaks-out-against-antisemitic-from-the-river-to-the-sea-chant-fNRhQWNHVCiUSXsK2gxrD. Retrieved 2023-10-28. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
Bob K31416 (talk) 20:26, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
The containing sections discussed usage in protests and academia:

The phrase today is widely in protest movements directed against Israel. Furthermore the phrase is used by organizations such as Hamas, PIJ and others in order to call for the supplementation of the Jewish State with a Palestinian State and the removal of the Jewish population. The phrase has often been chanted at pro-Palestinian demonstrations for many years, often followed or preceded by the phrase "Palestine will be free". The phrase has been used to describe the desire to dismantle or remove the Jewish state.


On International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People in 2018, American academic Marc Lamont Hill made a speech at the United Nations ending with the words: "...we have an opportunity, to not just offer solidarity in words, but to commit to political action, grassroots action, local action, and international action that will give us what justice requires. And that is a free Palestine, from the river to the sea." Critics of the slogan argued that it was calling for the land to be placed entirely under Arab rule at the cost of the State of Israel. The usage of the phrase denying Jewish self sovereignty is considered anti-Semitic. The Anti-Defamation League accused Hill of using the phrase "from the river to the sea" as code for the destruction of Israel. Hill was then fired from his position as a political commentator for CNN. The usage of this phrase has the effect of making members of the Jewish community or people affiliated with Israel feel ostracized and unsafe.

So the takeaway is like I said. Also, the ADL's view of the phrase changed between mid and late October, from a common pro-Palestinian demonstration chant that can be understood as a call for the dismantling of the Jewish state, to a hateful and antisemitic slogan that fundamentally denies Jewish self-determination. It looks misleading. RAN1 (talk) 00:45, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
To help anyone following this discussion, the first paragraph that RAN1 gave is the first paragraph of the section Usage without refs indicated. The second paragraph that RAN1 gave is a combination of the first two paragraphs of the section Controversy and accusation of Anti-Semitism without any refs indicated. And I think that's about all I have to say. Thanks. Bob K31416 (talk) 13:17, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
Which only goes to show that the ADL is unreliable on the I/P conflict and should listen to not only its own community but to younger generations broadly who are left profoundly troubled when reading daily remarks like the following:-

the number of dead and missing Palestinians now exceeds 38,000 and when the total number of casualties is well over 120,000 – the equivalent, in population terms, of 14 million Americans. Richard Rubenstein, Israel in Gaza: The Jewish Break with Zionism CounterPunch 2 July 2024

To make the assumption that, behind a simple Palestinian slogan, there is some Nazi death chant directed at all Jews is, frankly obscene, when it could equally be construed to mean that all the inhabitants of that tragic land, historically known as Palestine, will only be free when both its peoples are liberated from the terrible violence, on both sides, instinct in the region for over a century, in large part because the very language used to discuss it is deeply contaminated by thoughtless clichés concocted to replaced informed analysis by dumbdown stereotyping, memes bruited about without a moment's reflection (i.e. if the Jewish people have a right to self-determination, the proposition applies to all other peoples, including even their Palestinian neighbours). My apologies to Mr Wales for this intrusion, my last here.Nishidani (talk) 02:09, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
This topic area is so toxic. I wish we could ask all current participants to walk away and start afresh. Jehochman Talk 13:24, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
I agree. There is a fundamental problem with the way this topic area is handled. It's plain from the ADL mess that there is a systemic issue here. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 12:08, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

As Columbo would say, just one more thing. What do you think the chances are that editors with the same political bent could take over Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources and fashion it towards their own ends? Bob K31416 (talk) 11:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Perennial sources is a digest of RSN determinations. I think your question is whether RSN discussions can be taken over, yes? Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:30, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:General disclaimer makes no guarantee of the validity of the information in articles. Perhaps it should be extended to make no guarantee of the validity of judgements of whether a source is reliable or not. Bob K31416 (talk) 00:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

This whole process seems more like virtue signalling because the ADL does not report on the Israel/Palestine conflict and AFAIK has no reporters there. None of the participants provided any examples of such reporting.

It would be helpful to have better guidelines for RSN discussions.

TFD (talk) 01:30, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

The lead of the Wikipedia article on the Anti-defamation League has been transformed significantly since the Oct 7 attack. For example, the lead of the last version of the article before the Oct 7 attack began with,[10]

"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,[a] is an international Jewish non-governmental organization based in the United States that specializes in civil rights law and combats antisemitism and extremism.[4][5]"

Later in the lead it says that the ADL is a pro-Israel group.

Today the lead of the article begins with,[11]

"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,[a] is a New York–based international non-governmental organization and pro-Israel advocacy group[4][5][6][7] that was founded to combat antisemitism, bigotry and discrimination.[8]"

The implication is that the ADL is currently just a pro-Israel advocacy group and there is nothing in the rest of the lead to suggest otherwise. So we have a change in the characterization of the ADL from an organization that "specializes in civil rights law and combats antisemitism and extremism" and is also a pro-Israel group, to one that is just a "pro-Israel advocacy group." Along with the reduction of the reliable source standing, it's something to think about. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

"Pro-Israel" was added in this edit, citing USA Today. However, the USA Today article cited by that editor is an article about the Wikipedia RS action, and quotes Wikipedia calling the ADL pro-Israel. So my reading of the edit is that it has Wikipedia citing Wikipedia for the "pro-Israel" language, and Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:59, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Hi, this is a little confusing since I made a change in my message before I saw yours. A pro-Israel aspect about ADL was put in the article lead before the USA source was published. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:14, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
As far as I can see, it was introduced in the diff I cited, which specifically mentions the USA Today article. In addition there is a tertiary source, Britannica, which says the ADL "strongly supports Israel," but I don't think that Wikipedia and a tertiary source are sufficient to say in Wikipedia's voice that this is a "pro-Israel advocacy group." More to the point, the timing of this change, after the ADL began waging its campaign, is poor optics. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
@Bob K31416, Figureofnine: I removed that as WP:CIRCULAR and WP:UNDUE since you two didn't. RAN1 (talk) 17:42, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for correcting the problem I identified in the lead, viz. the implication that the ADL is currently just a pro-Israel advocacy group. The sentence now is,[12]
"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,[a] is a New York–based international non-governmental organization advocacy group[4][5][6] that was founded to combat antisemitism, bigotry and discrimination.[7]"
Bob K31416 (talk) 20:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
RAN1, I didn't bother because I knew I'd be instantly reverted (as you were) [13] so I felt it would be a waste of time. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 20:50, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I tried to fix the problem a couple times and was reverted. My impression is that any further effort over there by me would take a lot of time and wouldn't get anywhere. That's what happens when articles are taken over by editors with the same political bent.
My last attempt was changing from this,
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,[a] is a New York–based international non-governmental organization and pro-Israel advocacy group[4][5][6][7][8] that was founded to combat antisemitism, bigotry and discrimination.[9]
to this,
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith,[a] is a New York–based international non-governmental organization[4][5][6] that was founded to combat antisemitism, bigotry and discrimination,[7] and is also a pro-Israel advocacy group.[8][9]
Notice it kept the part about pro-Israel and moved it within the sentence. Bob K31416 (talk) 12:18, 8 July 2024 (UTC) 11:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
FWIW (and a pet peeve of mine that I've been trying to work to correct) is that there is no requirement to overload the first sentence of any article with all relevant points. In this case, I would split the sentence and even considering doing what the current lede does now, not mention the pro-Israel angle until later in the lede, as that is more about the perception that it is pro-Israel rather than a principle that it was founded for (advocacy against antisemitism).
(Also, there is zero reason to include the fact that WP has made it an unreliable source in the lede. We're not that important to be that self-acknowledging) Masem (t) 12:27, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
If you guys are interested in revising the lead, please move to talk:Anti-Defamation League. I am not sure why we are continuing this on Jimbo's talk page. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 12:30, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
This labeling effort, which is ongoing, has ratcheted up since the Wikipedia brouhaha. Rather than bending over backwards to be fair to an angry article subject, it's as if we're doubling down. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 22:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Re Wikimedia Foundation statement on volunteer processes on reliable sources by Wikimedia Foundation•26 June 2024 — At the end is the statement, "This entire process of content moderation by Wikipedia volunteers is open, transparent, and publicly available on an article’s history and talk pages." I don't think that's necessarily true. Wikipedia editors can discuss editing through private communication channels outside of Wikipedia. These discussions can include the possibility of forming alliances by editors and making plans to gain power over editors who act individually and only use the transparent communication channels in Wikipedia. For RfCs, there's the possibility that such an alliance can have some of their members act as volunteer closers. Bob K31416 (talk) 08:03, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Canvassing is difficult to detect, and in the past pro-Israel operatives have been caught engaging in it. Neither side has clean hands. However, the possibility of canvassing has been raised in some of the coverage and it should be taken seriously. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 13:30, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
  • Given that the presence of antisemitism on Wikipedia has been a factor in keeping me away from the project for a while, I suppose I should weigh in here.
    Antisemitic rhetoric based around criticism of the Israeli government is still antisemitic. Such criticism that crosses into antisemitism is a frequent occurrence. Deprecating the ADL in such circumstances would make it more difficult to document such instances, if it weren't already next-to-impossible due to the dominance of numerous antisemitic editors on Wikipedia.
    And yes, if an editor is very active in editing articles on Jewish history (from thousands of years ago to today), Judeocidal organizations, antisemitism, the I/P conflict, and Jews around the world and throughout history, and the common factor is pushing a POV that suspiciously matches to "Jews=bad/fake/demonic", then I think it's safe to assume that that editor is an antisemite. Such editors have essentially rewritten many such articles in recent years. At this point, if I want to read any article that relates to Jews without having a pile of antisemitic drivel show up, I have to go straight to the history and rewind to ~2018. The omnipresent hatred is obvious, and an extraordinarily unpleasant thing to see, even when just clicking through.
    Look, I'm in Toronto, where antisemitic hate crimes outnumber all hate crimes against all other groups combined, something which isn't particularly atypical in many places. We live in a world where antisemitism is rampant in practically every country everywhere, I get it. I don't expect Wikipedia to be 100% safe all the time. But to let antisemitism become the dominant force in a lot of areas? That's a real failure.
    The Wikipedia community can do better.
    (Arguing with antisemites is a deeply unpleasant experience all around, so I'm not going to attempt that. I hope things improve, but I'm not going to be able to involve myself in any such efforts.) --Yair rand (talk) 20:45, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
    I agree that editing these articles and engaging with editors on these talk pages, when it is clear that they sympathize with Hamas, can be a deeply unpleasant experience, such as to drive away editors who simply don't want to deal with that kind of thing. I've sought to determine the extent of permissible anti-Israel rhetoric on Talk pages. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 13:25, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
    ScottishFinnishRadish responded proactively and that's appreciated. Yair, to your general point, I think it's fair to say that a good many editors and simply readers come away from the I/P pages with the view that they are extremely biased, and upon examining the processes involved might even conclude that the Wikipedia is predisposed by armies of anti-Israel editors to produce such outcomes. For instance, articles proclaiming in Wikipedia's voice that Israel is a genocidal Nazi-like country that commits "massacres" willy-nilly, while Hamas only "allegedly" commits acts that are widely documented. Whether that is "antisemitic" or not is a question of labeling and not really necessary to reach that conclusion. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:38, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
  • Just to refocus this discussion back onto the ADL: its article now contains in the lead paragraph a sentence ("ADL is also known for its pro-Israel advocacy.") absent from the lead prior to the RS brouhaha. This is of questionable factual accuracy and it smacks of payback for the ADL's sometimes shrill opposition to the Wikipedia action. Certainly the optics of this added sentence are poor. Coretheapple (talk) 14:39, 23 July 2024 (UTC)
Comment. That is impeccably sourced, among many others, to two of the foremost American scholars of American foreign policy. I pointed this out, and you simply claimed it was 'anti-Israel'. I quoted from the introduction to disprove that assertion, and you come here. We don't appeal to authorities, we go about our daily wiki work looking at the evidence, and collectively deciding on its relevance or lack.Nishidani (talk) 16:13, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
As always, I appreciate your perspective! Coretheapple (talk) 17:25, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
  • Tablet has an article on the foregoing today. "Wikipedia’s Jewish Problem":"...what’s clear is that Wikipedia’s articles are now badly distorted, feeding billions of people—and large-language models that regularly train on the site, such as ChatGPT—with inaccurate research and dangerously skewed narratives about Jews, Jewish history, Israel, Zionism, and contemporary threats to Jewish lives." [14] Coretheapple (talk) 15:21, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
The Tablet article is rather typically, full of charged hyperbole, and I don't see why it would warrant Mr. Wales attention for the very sketchy, skewed, somewhat panicky and patchy overview of what wikipedia in several languages does. Typical is the following remark:the openly partisan far-left outlets like Haaretz, The Intercept, The Nation, and The Guardian. Al Jazeera and the NGO Amnesty International. Ridiculous caricature, bundling up all sorts of newspapers and NGOs, each with a distinguished history and largely moderate, into one 'radical anti-Israel POV' covey of bias. Of such nonsense are many of these polemics composed. If wikipedia does anything, it is to train editors to learn to carefully discriminate and evaluate sources, by collective discussion.Nishidani (talk) 16:13, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
The article raises some interesting parallels between this controversy and previous ones. I was not aware of the Croatian Wikipedia controversy for instance, and that it took the WMF 14 years to respond to it. Coretheapple (talk) 17:14, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
The hr.wiki scandal was indeed a major issue which was swept under the carpet for far too long. However, I'm unsure that we can trust the Tablet article too much either when this is the article that it quotes from [readacted] Larry Sanger ([redacted]), and here's a follow-up piece which contains the classic "Wikipedia: wrecking intellectual autonomy, to make the world safe for the socialist utopia." Black Kite (talk) 18:59, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
Larry Sanger has an article of his own (linked to the left). I'm not sure it's fair to refer to him in such an entirely negative sense, though I am not familiar with him. I will be sure to watchlist his article. Coretheapple (talk) 19:13, 25 July 2024 (UTC)
Just another day in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:46, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia was down for a few minutes

Hey, Jimmy I had some issues with Wikipedia for a few minutes. Something wrong was with the servers and I am wondering what happened. With warm regards, Felicia (talk) 18:16, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Sometimes happens. Source: [15] ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:18, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Happy Birthday, Jimbo!

The POTY contest is dissolving before our eyes

I'm begging for your attention and help! ArionStar (talk) 00:17, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if we could put it on that Community Wishlist thing. The WMF will probably want to rename it first though... ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:30, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
What's the issue with picture of the year? Feel like I've missed a news item... CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:15, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
Legoktm has stepped back, and nobody else seems to really understand the backend. CMD (talk) 07:23, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
Here's the backend in case anyone technical wants to poke around: https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/toolforge-repos/poty-stuff –Novem Linguae (talk) 14:05, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
Any admin to help us? ArionStar (talk) 14:16, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
I don't have the technical background to help with this, but it would be reasonable to post this request to AN and/or the VP to draw some more eyes to it. Regards, Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:21, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
There was a post in July here, although as xaosflux notes the main discussion is on Commons. CMD (talk) 14:39, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
Is there a need for an En-WP admin to get involved, or a Commons admin, or someone who is both? Newyorkbrad (talk) 14:47, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
  • The primary discussion for this topic is at: commons:Commons talk:Picture of the Year. — xaosflux Talk 14:28, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
    The lack of response there is worse than here. ArionStar (talk) 15:17, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
    This shouldn't just fade away, it's a regular yearly competition and has a valued history. Maybe Another Believer might have an idea or two, or the visual arts Wikiproject or photography Wikiproject? Randy Kryn (talk) 15:38, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
    An admin who knows about wiki scripts? ArionStar (talk) 02:17, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
    I've added a message to that page, which I would appreciate any comments on. —Ingenuity (t • c) 13:58, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
    Have also added comments to the page, including asking WMF to put some of their paid tech personnel in place to handle or fix the tech aspects of running this longtime and important contest. Too much talk about the contest being extinct, please lower that aspect and handwringing and concentrate on getting the "scripts" (whatever those are) running again and the 2024 rendition of the contest underway. As mentioned, if nobody can handle the tech aspects on Commons then WMF should take over that responsibility, at least until others pick up the baton. Things like this are what donors expect when donating to WMF, that their funding assures the maintenance of the major projects and essential moving parts such as POTY. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:50, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 14 August 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 22:48, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

The encyclopedia that anyone can edit….

regardless whether they support all of the five pillars all of the time? Why not ask them to promise they’ll do that? If not, then bye. Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:31, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a religion. It has no creed. It has no articles of faith. Asking people to make 'promises' unverifiable through any Earthly powers would achieve nothing, beyond quite possibly putting a great number of people off through being so utterly patronising. Judge people by what they do, not what they promise to believe in. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:42, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Making a promise has nothing to do with religion. It has to do with honesty. Honest people who promise to support the five pillars will make an effort to abide by them, and will leave Wikipedia if they feel unable to abide by them. I think there’s a non-negligible number of Wikipedians who are honest, don’t you think? As for the dishonest ones, sure, a promise would be worthless, and Wikipedia’s flawed and feeble mechanisms for stopping concerted gangs of propagandists will continue to fail no more than they already fail. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:04, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
You seem to have a somewhat naïve understanding of the human psyche in regard to such things as self-assessment of personal 'honesty'. If we were really like that, the world would be a much simpler place. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:08, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Promises can sometimes be worthwhile even when there’s no promise-enforcing mechanism. You vaguely suggest I’m naïve, so I’ll return the favor by suggesting you’re cynical. I think there are quite a few honest Wikipedians who don’t give a hoot about one pillar or another, and feel free to violate those pillars because (1) they never promised otherwise, and (2) they are able to get away with it. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:16, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
If there is credible evidence that cynicism is less efficacious than naivete in predicting human behaviour, I'd like to see it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:21, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
ok, who or what is this about? ltbdl☃ (talk) 01:21, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
The cynic in me (i.e. most of me, sadly) thinks it is mostly about wishful thinking. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:25, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Honesty Can Be Cultivated, Despite Cynicism. In any event, honesty does exist among both cynics and non-cynics; Wikipedia could do a much better job of harnessing it. To the extent it exists, asking people to make and keep a promise is far from futile. Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:39, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
Back in the 1960s I was what was then known as a Wolf Cub. I was required to regularly recite "I promise that I will do my best, to do my duty to God and to the Queen, to help other people, and to keep the Cub Scout Law". I am now an atheist, and (in the not-in-favour-of-monarchy sense) a republican. Does that make me dishonest? AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:46, 27 August 2024 (UTC)
I hope not, it’s up to you. You’re not a Wolf Cub anymore, and doubtless your promise in the 1960s no longer applies. Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:15, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 4 September 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 13:26, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Can You Trust Dr. Wikipedia?

For the interested. Nothing groundbreaking, but a good read. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:38, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Here you go.

Itisi5 (talk) has given you a plate of Kentucky fried chicken, seasoned with a recipe of 11 herbs and spices. Finger lickin' good!


A plate of KFC promotes WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better. You can spread the WikiLove by giving someone else some KFC, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. To spread the goodness of Kentucky fried chicken, you can add {{subst:KFC chicken}} to someone's talk page with a friendly message!

Thanks for all your hard work. Itisi5 (talk) 17:45, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 26 September 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 20:09, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

News from India

"The Delhi High Court on Thursday issued a contempt of court notice to Wikipedia after ANI claimed that the platform had failed to comply with orders to disclose information on subscribers who made allegedly defamatory edits on ANI's Wikipedia page."

For the interested. ANI here is Asian News International. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:45, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

A decent summary of the case can be found in an article by The Hindu here - [16]. Ravensfire (talk) 12:48, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
Scroll.in has a decent update:[17]. That WP is a public utility is an interesting idea. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:00, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
This continues to be an interesting case to see how the courts handle a case like this with the 2021 IT Rules, with some (small) parallels to what's happening with X in Brazil. What would stopping Wikimedia from doing business in India involve, beyond cutting off donations? I know the usual Wikimedia playbook around things like this, but will it work in this case with a judge that's already skeptical. Ravensfire (talk) 13:22, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
Fundraising was my thought as well. And they can of course go Turkey/Pakistan/China on us. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:24, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
That's the interesting question. There's a decent level of technical knowledge and resources available, can India craft a block that would be effective, with VPN's being the easy answer, and any work-arounds would be quickly shared. It would slow down editing from India, I think, more than it would affect reading. Ravensfire (talk) 13:33, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
The court wants an "authorised representative of Wikipedia". Do we have those? "Your honor, I'm pleased to tell you that the WP-communities have started an RFC on Meta intended to authorise a representative, and the result of the discussion will be communicated to you as soon as the discussion has concluded, closed by an independent closer a panel of independent closers, and possibly reopened after a complaint about the close." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:23, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
I snorted soda laughing at this. Fortunately, nothing beyond my pride was affected. Ravensfire (talk) 13:26, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
5 months later: "Your honor, the result of the discussion has been confirmed to be no consensus." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:52, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
"As this is a collaborative process, we invite you and the representatives from ANI to particpate to better clarify the responsilibities involved, the expected qualifications and setup a new process to determine how best to determine our representatives." Ravensfire (talk) 13:58, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
"You have now been blocked for making legal threats, which you are of course free to pursue off-wiki." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:02, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
@Ravensfire Apparently OpIndia is on the case, this will make everything better.[sarcasm] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
Oh thank goodness! All of that relatively even coverage was worrying me. Ravensfire (talk) 17:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
@Ravensfire, if you have 9 minutes, I thought this video was pretty good: Explained: What’s ANI vs Wikipedia legal battle all about? from Newslaundry. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:08, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
That was an interesting video and did a decent job of explaining the situation, the general editing process on Wikipedia and the history of the edits on that page, and a few places where ANI's complaint wasn't quite accurate. Thank you. Ravensfire (talk) 15:37, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
It would obviously be unwise of me to comment on any ongoing legal matter without first consulting with the WMF legal team, but rest assured that I'm keeping a close eye on this one.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:06, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
Under no circumstances should Wikipedia reveal the identities of its editors to a third-world Non-western world government, especially when Wikipedia has no presence in that country. Doing so would set a very dangerous precedent. In the future,we might also see countries like North Korea and China demanding the details of editors.
On Talk:2024 Kolkata rape and murder incident, we had an IP user belonging to Hindu Raksha Dal, a violent far right extremist organisation[1] threatening indian editors with legal actions for[2] using the widely reported name of the subject in the article. Ratnahastin (talk) 02:40, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
"Third-world"? Who are first world and second world? These terms are deprecated and are pejorative. Telugujoshi (talk) 05:22, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
Oh I was referring to the non-western world since freedom of speech is having a crisis over there. Rephrashed that. Returning to the topic, I would encourage you to drop this matter. It would be really unfortunate (at least for you) if you got your 15 year old account blocked over this Godi media outlet by making edits like these. Ratnahastin (talk) 13:36, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
That is no better. It is still bigotry. "Non-western world" and "freedom of speech is having a crisis over there"
I don't think there is place for racism and bigotry of any kind on Wikipedia. Correct me if I am wrong. Also, please do give me a link so that I can report you for bigotry.
A few counterexamples to your blanket "Non-western world" - Australia, New Zealand both supposedly have "freedom of speech".
If your "freedom of speech" is a dog whistle for freedom to proselytize, then governments which have the mandate of the citizens through fair and free elections, can enact the laws as per what the people want. Telugujoshi (talk) 00:04, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Belated answer, but, yes, freedom of speech does entail the freedom to proselytize. Even when the government of our country does not like it. If people have no freedom to proselytize, then they have no freedom of opinion and of conscience. Also, no freedom of religion. You'll find the argument for it in J.S. Mill's On Liberty, wherein he argued against forbidding a religion he does not like.
E.g. our government does not like Russian propaganda, but it does not arrest people who repeat Russian propaganda. tgeorgescu (talk) 18:52, 17 September 2024 (UTC)
@RatnahastinIs that threat that you are going to get my account blocked? Please do specify what rules I have broken. I am not even contesting the reverts you made. By the way, what is "Godi Media"? I don't understand. Your name, ratnahastin, is not English as far as I know. It looks like it is "from over there" where there is no freedom of speech. Telugujoshi (talk) 01:19, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
The terms aren't really accurate or used any more, User:Telugujoshi. But we are dealing with a regime so criminal and corrupt that it sent to and hired assassins to Canada and USA to murder dissidents. Obviously turning over any names to such a violent lawless regime could lead to physical harm. Surely that's the point here, not some relatively innocuous but dated terminology. Also, it seems a bit much to claim that Western world doesn't include Australia and New Zealand, when our own article says it includes Australia and New Zealand. But I think the more appropriate term these days is Advanced democracy - uh, how is that a redlink? Nfitz (talk) 03:23, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
You have proof of that? If not, stfu, Telugujoshi (talk) 05:51, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
I see no reason to be rude User:Telugujoshi, the role of the Indian government employees was well reported internationally, especially after the release of the US indictment last year in relation to four attempted assasinations (one successful) of dissidents in the USA and Canada. You are missing the point though - the point is the last thing Wikipedia should be doing is risking putting the lives of posters in danger of unlawful retaliation. Nfitz (talk) 14:57, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
So "western world" is white folks?! That's exactly why I gave those two examples. Now riddle me this limey. SoKo, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan. Are they western governments or are they little yellow people governments?! Enquiring minds want to know. Boxer revolution is not that far back that many people do remember. You are how old, hain? Don't get all hot under the collar old chap. Blighty is good. Enjoy while the going is good. Telugujoshi (talk) 06:00, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Who or what is stopping you from using the right terms? "a regime so criminal and corrupt"? That "regime" won elections fair and square as per the written constitution of that country. You, a subject of monarchy which has no written constitution, has no right to throw shit at others. Remember Charles I and Cromwell?! Now you are riled by Charles III. Your third rate power has no say. If we Americans as you to jump, you would say "how high massa?" Telugujoshi (talk) 06:18, 13 September 2024 (UTC)
Not that it is a direct substitute for what you were trying to say, but the preferred terms to replace terms like "third world" and "developing nations" are Global North and Global South. "Preferred" as in "more people prefer them to the older terms than prefer the older terms". Nothing will ever make everyone happy, and all such definitions are vast generalisations. MarcGarver (talk) 07:36, 13 September 2024 (UTC)


Wikipedia (including The Signpost)
WP:RSPWP 📌 Generally unreliable +22[bq]
2024

Wikipedia is not a reliable source because open wikis are self-published sources. This includes articles, non-article pages, The Signpost, non-English Wikipedias, Wikipedia Books, and Wikipedia mirrors; see WP:CIRCULAR for guidance.[27] Occasionally, inexperienced editors may unintentionally cite the Wikipedia article about a publication instead of the publication itself; in these cases, fix the citation instead of removing it. Although citing Wikipedia as a source is against policy, content can be copied between articles with proper attribution; see WP:COPYWITHIN for instructions. Telugujoshi (talk) 03:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia itself is unreliable. Your watching or unwatching is irrelevant. Heal thyself first, who ever you are. You are not that important in the larger scheme of things not withstanding your co-founding of unreliable (as per editors) Wikipedia. Your founding is also contested. You didn't complete your PhD from a second rate university. That speaks volumes. But then I am a nobody - not even a page on this unreliable Wikipedia.
It is very sad to say the least. Wikipedia STEM pages,especially Mathematics and Computer Science (my PhD - yes I did write a thesis that too from one of the top five departments in the US), are excellent.
Please don't let your slavishness to the perfidious albion stop you from what is right. Telugujoshi (talk) 03:58, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Telugujoshi has been indefinitely blocked for personal attacks and harassment. Cullen328 (talk) 17:19, 14 September 2024 (UTC)
  1. ^ https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/noida-news/ghaziabad-police-may-invoke-nsa-against-hindu-raksha-dal-leader-101723401345231.html
  2. ^ https://www.hindurakshadal.org/media/downloads/gmail---representation-to-national-task-force-for-doctor-safety--submitted-by-hindu-raksha-dal.pdf

WP ordered by an Indian court again, on a different issue:[18]. Some discussion on this at Talk:2024 Kolkata rape and murder incident. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:06, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Will Indian Courts Tame Wikipedia? Time will tell. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:28, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/India-related_articles#The_Kolkata_"case",_wider_implications? For the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:41, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Matthew Parish

The attempt by Matthew Parish bring a libel claim against the Wikimedia Foundation in England and Wales was dismissed by Judge Karen Steyn.[19] This seems to have been a WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT response by Parish, who did not like his Wikipedia article mentioning his three year prison sentence for fraud in Switzerland.[20] ♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 18:29, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Blimey. Makes us lowly editors feel like Wiki vigilantes. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:16, 12 September 2024 (UTC) (p.s. can he get me mate off a driving ban? He says his missus was driving)
Quote from An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing: "Wikipedia seeks neutrality. An article about you written by anyone must be editorially neutral. It will not take sides and will report both the good and the bad about you from verifiable and reliable sources. It will not promote you. It will not right great wrongs. It will not always favour the truth. It will just contain factual information about you from independent, reliable sources." The article and talk page history of Matthew Parish suggest that somebody did not understand this. It is also worth looking at Judge Karen Steyn's comments when dismissing the libel claim, saying that Parish had made "‘egregious breaches of the duty of full and frank disclosure’ including that he had lived and worked abroad for the past two decades and his ‘extensive connections’ with Switzerland which ‘resulted in the court being misled’."--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 19:44, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Who mentioned dodgy anon IPs?? We all need a little cosy hideaway sometimes! Martinevans123 (talk) 20:01, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
If you want a laugh, read this by Parish about me. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:34, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Wow. "Either they will correct themselves, or they must be exposed to its consequences"!! I hear Cheltenham is lovely at this time of the year. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:39, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I can work for 24 hours, so my time punch card is pretty all used, even if all my edits are from the same town. I have to add that I sleep for 12 hours afterwards, so I'm not lacking sleep. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:16, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for the 15 minutes I've just spent waying WTF?!? over and over. And this is purportedly an intelligent person. I can't decide if it's the entitlement or the blatantly wrong information (I mean, "seems to work virtually 24/7" when it's trivial to show otherwise?!?) that is more offensive. As you said, good for the laughs! Almost as bad as some of the Jeffrey Cutler nonsense ([21] - edit, replaced with more current list of demands, over 100 now). Ravensfire (talk) 14:42, 19 September 2024 (UTC)
in the Wikipedia system administrators have the capacity permanently to delete material about themselves on their own pages; and this is what has happened to the written exchange complaining to "Cordless Larry" about his insertion of defamatory information.
Except for the fact that it's avaliable to anyone at User talk:Cordless Larry/Archive 19#Recent amendments to Matthew Parish - reversed.
The rest is really more of the same. — Qwerfjkltalk 17:22, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

Clarification requested on past policy implications(hypothetical appeal process for users potentially previously banned by Jimbo)

Hello Jimbo (and everybody else watching). So, in April 2022, Jimbo voluntarily waived his reserve authority to unilaterally place site bans on editors. In the Village Pump discussion where this decision was made, it was noted that the latest ban he was known to place occurred in late 2011 toward TimidGuy, which was overturned early in 2012 by ArbCom. Previously, on the guide to appealing blocks, the section describing procedure on banned users had a bullet point stating “Users banned by Jimbo Wales must appeal either to him or the Arbitration Committee.” In light of his waiving of banning authority, I amended it over a year later to state “Users banned by Jimbo Wales prior to April 2022 must appeal to the Arbitration Committee,” as he therefore no longer had the power to personally place bans, and by extension, solely consider placed bans without requiring consultation from ArbCom.

This leads me to a question for the community. Considering that Jimbo’s latest issued ban was overturned on appeal, what is the latest known ban placed by Jimbo that remains in effect? Because theoretically, it would follow that there are bans that have been issued by Jimbo that can no longer be appealed directly to him solely as the issuer due to subsequent change in policy, only to ArbCom, whether that route has not yet been exhausted even once or has/can theoretically lodge another appeal years later following an unsuccessful one, barring global ban (even after all these years). While such a return to appeal would be highly unlikely and/or only applicable to few, the remote possibility would therefore justify retaining that guideline due to such examples still existing. Regardless, what would the latest example be? Figured this was worth asking if the guideline is still in place, if such users are still impacted by the terms of their bans and require access to updated appeal procedures in case of the remote possibility. Some food for thought so there’s no ambiguity. Figured it was a good idea to have that particular point formally discussed on that end. DrewieStewie (talk) 09:40, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

So, I doubt if a comprehensive list is even possible, as there is likely to be a fair amount of ambiguity. Making the usual distinction between a block and a ban, I'm sure that back in the day I did a fair number of blocks of a fairly routine nature as a part of ordinary work as an admin, and those wouldn't be considered in any way special. I very much doubt there were any 'bans' since 2011. I think a perfectly fine way forward would be to simply remove the line completely as I don't think it really applies to anyone, and it seems unlikely to cause any problems one way or the other. I don't see much of a reason to have guidelines to cover hypothetical but very unlikely situations!--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:22, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
You may well remember theold list of banned users that was deleted with your blessing. I looked in to its deleted history and found that the bans made by you were shunted off in to a subpage, Wikipedia:List of banned users/Banned by Jimbo Wales, whose deleted history has the answer to the question posed in the original post: Barstaw in April 2008, over 16 years ago. Graham87 (talk) 08:47, 4 October 2024 (UTC)
@Graham87: Thank you for finding an answer from deleted lists that previously were standard procedure! Looks like they were ultimately useful after all, even if only admins could investigate the question I posed.
Lol, anyways, looking at Barstaw, it is clear that they (and other prior examples not easily accessible to me as a non-admin) indeed still historically have this template that explicitly mentions that they’ve been banned by Jimbo. The chances of them appealing are unlikely, given the time that’s passed, though citing my own Wikipedia past where a ban/block evasion was forgiven by the community, I note that such chances are not impossible. (In my case, per my Wikipedia bio, though this was not carried out by Jimbo, I was blocked at 9 years old in 2010 for incompetence in page creation, youthful editing, and comprehension. My appeals were not competent, eventually my talk page access was revoked and my case was referred to the since-disbanded ban appeals sub-committee (thereby becoming a ban), I created this account as a teen to prove that I could edit competently, decided to come clean without prior suspicion in 2018, was blocked for evasion, apologized in a formal unblock request, and was forgiven/unblocked by community consensus.)
While these chances are not impossible, as demonstrated by my past, and though there are banned users such a line would apply to, Jimbo does make a reasonable assessment that this is unlikely to happen or be problematic. I personally would keep the guideline as an obscure formality, but I also am not opposed to bans placed by Jimbo from 2008 and earlier becoming within the jurisdiction of standard administrators, justifying removal of that line. That might be a good way to go around this, if Jimbo feels this is a good idea. DrewieStewie (talk) 08:20, 5 October 2024 (UTC)
That looks like pointless furniture rearrangement. Johnuniq (talk) 01:44, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation

For the interested, the Delhi High Court has an opinion on that particular WP-article: Delhi High Court slams Wikipedia for refusal to divulge identity of those who edited ANI's page

"The Court also took strong objection against Wikipedia allowing a page titled 'Asian News International vs. Wikimedia Foundation' to be published in relation to the present case. ... "You are disclosing something about a sub-judice matter," the Court remarked."

Make of that what you will. More coverage:[22] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:12, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Go ahead and use Wikipedia for research

The Boston Globe, for the interested. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

The Signpost: 19 October 2024

* Read this Signpost in full * Single-page * Unsubscribe * MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 11:14, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Internet archive security

The recent ddos attack has taken the whole website down does the wikimedia foundation have a policy to help a third party? who we depend on majorly. And holds pretty much all of the internet content in its archives help with its combatment with the ddos attacks which are seemingly neverending and is exacerbating internet archives recent legal struggles •Cyberwolf•talk? 18:51, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Does WMF have a strategy for how to mirror IA's web archive if they were to go down forever? They have a couple pending lawsuits fighting with the print companies and the record companies, the results of which could prove existential for them. We are seeing this week how big a loss to WP the loss of IA would be. Carrite (talk) 20:32, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Bolder statement: WMF needs to start talking to Internet Archive NOW about taking over their Wayback Machine project. IA is headed the way of Napster and that database needs to be preserved and expanded. Wikipedia will be dramatically impacted if IA is disappeared. Carrite (talk) 03:37, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

The biggest problem for Wikipedia is that all of the archived Wayback Machine external links are down at the moment, and will not return until the ongoing security problems are fixed. It isn't ideal for Wikipedia to rely on a third party for this service, because it has no control over it. As for taking over the whole of the Internet Archive, this is probably outside the scope of the Wikimedia Foundation. It would also be controversial, because copyright holders dislike the Internet Archive and think that there is far too much copyrighted material on it.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 07:07, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
Wayback Machine is the main target, not the books project and music project, which have copyvio issues writ large. Carrite (talk) 19:39, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
The Wayback Machine is tremendously helpful to the project by preserving old links to reliable sources that are no longer available. Thus I would suggest that helping it would fall well within the WMF's tax-exempt purpose. Agree that it has no relationship to the book-archiving branch and has never been accused of copyright infringement. Coretheapple (talk) 16:31, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Jimbo. You know what I miss?

Wear the cap and bells! SerialNumber54129 21:33, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

You -- or somebody -- having effective reserve powers.Because, really, there ought to be an ombudsman. A lot of functional organizations have one. Inspector General in governments, that sort of thing.

Editing Wikipedia is really important to me. It's more than just a hobby, it's therapy. It's more than just therapy, it's... well, never mind. And I'm not the only one, that I know.

Sure that's my problem and mine alone (I guess), but I mean after all we are running an "attractive nuisance" here for that sort of thing. Didn't mean to, but people do a lot of things that have effects they didn't mean, and one can't necessarily wash their hands of them always.

And I mean the uh personnel reassignment people here can be ruthless. (I get it, we're a big publishing operation not a tea party.) Anyways, if I'm ever shown the door here -- you never know -- I figured I could maybe email you and beg for mercy. But I guess not.

I'm not asking for any solution to this. There isn't one I don't think. I mean, the Foundation can't help, politically that just wouldn't work. So, I'm just saying.

But! Don't want to be a downer here, so to end on a good note, there was an editor a little while back, self-admittedly a fair bit along on the autism spectrum, got himself into (legit) trouble with obsessing over a particular subject... you know how people can get. Legit he was out of chances. He'd been topic banned but he just couldn't stay away from the topic. He was a goner. But, he pretty much grovelled for mercy on the grounds that editing the Wikipedia was basically keeping him going. And it worked. It worked. We worked out to let him stay, keep in touch with him, got the admins on board with that, finally got thru to him that he needed to obsess about something else, and he's still here. Man, I was proud of the Wikipedia that day. But it doesn't necessarily work out like that. Hence a catcher in the rye would be nice. Just saying. Herostratus (talk) 06:58, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd say you have well-staked out your position as Wikipedia's classic Gadfly, so I hope that you aren't shown the door just yet. Andre🚐 22:58, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
Making fly-by-night antisemitic insinuations about fellow-editors is not what Socratic minds do.Nishidani (talk) 07:37, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia has numerous functionaries of various sorts. See:
  1. WP:Ombudsman
  2. WP:Ombudsmen
  3. WP:Ombudsmen Committee
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:34, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Functionaries. God save us from functionaries.

And don't mind Nishidani there. He's just my imaginary friend, he likes to follow me around apparently. It's good! Maybe we all should all have someone like that, mnmh. Kind of like that king who had a guy follow him around to remind him he wasn't so great. There are a couple of admins here I can think of who could benefit from that service maybe. I'm available Tuesdays and Friday evenings. Nah, just kidding. Hey cavemen complained about the people modding their fires I'm sure. The mods are mostly pretty fine, the problems are structural but hey the thing works, people (like me) just have to grumble. Don't mind us.

No, I just materialized Nishidani so I could make another point, which... is too long, maybe I'll write an article or something, so skip it, I'll leave it at just my previous point, sorry for taking your time and space. Herostratus (talk) 03:58, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

WMF AI contests, money for all!

WMF community can be the judge of the best AI. The WMF should have a daily contest with cash rewards to the top ten winners each day. The contestants may be wise to 'team up' and share the daily money. The daily prize package should be $1,000 x top ten prizes = $10,000/day or under 4 million a year. This should pass Nobel, Pulitzer, spelling bee, prize awards soon. The daily contest is simple: The best wording for a question put to AI to produce the most accurate answer. AI investors would put up prize money for the right to be on the voting panel. AI is so far doing okay with the questions I ask, but the best results would be a team effort to get the 'almost perfect' questions. I hope to create a user page for input. Mr. Wales, please respond as soon as possible as you have all these AI companies on your speed dial and they will wonder why you responded too slow.Music Air BB (talk) 23:13, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

WMF projects aren't a platform for the promotion of whatever algorithm software marketing is currently promoting as 'artificial intelligence'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:22, 28 October 2024 (UTC)
Nobody has a trophy yet for the best AI. Nobel has prizes for a few fields, the Olympics have for many. WMF could be the first and most coveted prize. Who better to judge AI than a community that has the best combined intelligence now? Let the corporations that step on the skulls of the oppressed masses pay through teeth for the right beat the largest drum. The best AI triple simile/metaphor could be the most challenging event. Music Air BB (talk) 00:55, 29 October 2024 (UTC)
OP has been blocked as a sock, FYI Jip Orlando (talk) 13:44, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Some Dosa for you!

Dosa_at_Sri_Ganesha_Restauran,_Bangkok_(44570742744) Dosa
Enjoy it! 
Who am I? / Talk to me! / What have I done? 15:36, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
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